Bikram yoga

On Wednesday night I once again took on the challenge of surviving Bikram/hot yoga with the main goal to not get to dehydrated. I needed a do over after Sunday (see last post). The major difference is I planned out a hydration plan and stuck to it.

During the day I drank Clif shot electrolyte instead of plain water. An hour before I drank a bottle of gatorade endurance. 30 min before I took 2 Thermolyte Sodium-Electrolyte Caps, 2 SportLegs and drank another 10 oz of gatorade endurance. During class I continually drank gatorade endurance (even though they look down at this) - got though a full 24oz bottle. Afterwards I drank another bottle of watered down gatorade endurance and took a very cold shower. On my way home I drank a recovery drink and had dinner and more fluids when I got home.

Luckily all that planning worked. I felt better during the class and did not get a headache afterwards. Not a huge surprise that if I drink more and get in way more electrolytes my body will be much happier - defiantly something to remember in the rest of my training. After all that I don't think I will be making Bikram yoga a regular thing. It just takes to much planning and I am pretty much at capacity with all the swim, bike, run stuff and not to mention my day job. As for the main reason I went back to Birkam yoga - to stretch out - I have been spending some extra time on the foam roller and some very simple yoga stretches pretty much every other day.

dehydration or electrolyte imbalance...

Yesterday I went with a friend to Birkam/hot yoga for the first time in probably a year. I used to go a lot more frequently in my pre-triathlon years esp in the winter. Anyway I went yesterday in an effort to work on flexibility, start some heat training and hang out with my friend Cynthia. We went to a studio in Bellevue that focuses on Birkam yoga mostly because the studio we used to go to closed... I prepared for the heat by taking a Thermolyte Sodium-Electrolyte Cap, 3 SportLegs and tried my best to be as hydrated as possible beforehand and had a bottle of ice cold cytomax with me for class.
As soon as the class got started I started sweating a lot - way more than I ever remember sweating years ago. Makes me wonder if it is possible to increase sweat rate over time ect... In general the class was good - I could defiantly tell I am stronger these days but still need major help with flexibility. I really enjoyed the breathing exercises and good chance to work on focusing on the present. My biggest issue is that I'm so used to eating and drinking while training that I had a really hard time with only having 2 chances to drink. I could tell by the end that I was very low on every thing - I felt a little dizzy and shaky. I made it though class but as soon as I was done I drank the rest of my cytomax, a coconut water drink and then went to lunch and drank and ate more trying my best to rehydrate.
I was good for an hour or two and continued to drink and eat. But by the early afternoon I started feeling a slight headache that just continued to get worse and I was burning up. It was the same kind of headache I get after races and long workouts. I drank and ate more but it got worse even after taking 2 tylenol. Finally around 10pm I resorted to taking a midol and within 30 min it mostly faded away.

This is nothing new - I have a tendency to get these headache on Sunday nights especially and almost always after races. I'm hoping I just need to find the right combination of calories, fluid and electrolytes. Maybe I need to take more salts caps and drink more during class/workouts.
The last week or so I have tried drinking nuun though out the day but it winds up giving me a headache. so I'm still looking.. This week I'm going to try cytomax during the day and increasing how much I drink dramatically before, during and after workouts (pretty much all day).
I know it is crazy but I agreed to go again on Tuesday morning so we will see if I can figure something out that works and I would guess would benefit the rest of my nutrition/fluid plan for races and training esp in the heat.

sort of back

This morning in an effort to both get back into the habit of training again and to stretch out I went to Bikram/hot yoga. The instructor was not the best but it still was hot and I got some really good stretching in. I felt pretty good during but about 2 hours afterwards I completely hit a wall. Kyle and I went to breakfast and on our way home I just got so tired as soon as we were back home I layed down just for a minute. So 2 hours later Kyle came in and asked if I was going to ever get up since it was 3pm. It really only felt like 30 min or something but I guess I was asleep for 2 hours. So I'm guess I'm not fully recovered - not that I was expecting to be.

Update on race report - I plan to have it doen by end of day tomorrow.

a couple of days

I did my work outs the last couple of days but nothing really exciting or out of the ordinary. Evening workouts are still very much like pulling teeth to do - I have to really force myself to do them. I seem to hit a wall around 5:30 on my drive home where all I want to do is eat dinner, go to bed or just take care of things at home rather than do any work out. To bad I have to (and really like) work it seems to make things twice as complicated - ie getting up at 5 am, having to be at work before 9am and getting home in the dark.. Welcome to the real world of balancing a life and training :(
Ran on Tuesday night on the treadmill - which sucks but it was dark and cold outside. Yesterday I did 60 min of a yoga for athletes dvd (power yoga) - which felt pretty good.
This morning I swam again - today it was way less crowded which is always a good thing. I felt kind of tired - I always feel like I need more sleep lately.
Warm up 300
drills 200
1 X 300
2 X 200
3 X 100
4 X 50
5 X 25
cool down 200
I did every other hard or moderate hard - then recovered on the next one. I felt like the entire time I was swimming against a current - though my times were on par with where I have been for a while now. Average 2 min 100s and when going hard around 1:55ish. I would love to be swim faster but I guess I'm not sure what to do. I worked on my flip turns during the warm and cool down - I get a little disoriented so I'm not ready to do them during the main sets - though hopefully when I do get them down it will help me speed up my sets a bit. I was surprised by my 22yrd times of around 25 seconds - I thought it would be slower since my average 50yrds is 60 seconds or so..

small taste of spring

Today I tried to take full advantage of the wonderfully warm and dry weather. This morning I ran an easy 4 miles or so - 36 min. The weather was so nice it was hard not to feel good - my calves were a bit tight but nothing bad at all. I just enjoyed being out running in wonderful weather.
I got back had a recovery drink and then did about 80 minutes of yoga - I picked up a dvdcalled yoga for athletes so I wanted to try it out and see if doing it after running would help my legs fell better. It was pretty good - I'm fairly familiar with all the postures from other classes I have taken but it felt good. The cats thought I was nuts though. lol
Next the plan was to meet Col, Bman and maybe Kyle for a ride around lake Samm. I needed a new tire put on my rear wheel and Kyle said he would do it before the ride (after his morning ride with other friends) but he never came back and I have never changed a tire (yes I know this is retarded and a shameful admission but totally true). I got overwhelmed and sort of mentally broke down - I'm not totally sure why or anything but I did. Kyle told me to meet him at Idlewood park and he would change the tire quickly and I could still ride.. Finally I did - of course I had already given up on riding so I was not dressed for it - after kyle fixed my tire I drove to Marymoore and changed and road out on east lake samm to meet the group for the last part. My legs felt surprisingly ok and of course I caught up to them after the big/only real hill so I got to do it twice - go figure. We rode the rest of the way back and stopped at Chipotle before getting all the way back to the cars. Bman was shocked that I ate all three of my tacos.
Afterwards I had my bike fitting appointment at SVC - I was plenty warmed up and my legs were tired after all that I had done already. The fit was cool - they measured me and took all sorts of things into consideration like flexablity. I also tried out some different saddles (my current one is a bit to cushy and not very comfortable on longer rides). The end result was that the cervelo R3 51cm would fit me really well with a few adjustments and should work with both the road and tri configuration. My current bike is the right size (though the next size down would have been better). Even so we put a deposit down on the R3 and once I get the new bike I will sell my current bike - it would be way to nice of a bike to only be used as a rain bike (if any one knows of a good home for a 51 cm Trek WDS 5000 2006 let me know lol).

crazy crazy week

I have not worked out since last Sunday. I feel horrible about it (well actually I did not even have enough time to feel bad about it really). I started a new job as a web designer at starbucks, I had to finish a freelance gig for Kyle and some random other design stuff. I worked almost every waking hour and only got a few hours of sleep each night. Today things are starting to get back to normal - well sort of anyway. After work I went and did hot yoga to help stretch out. It felt wonderful. Now if only I did not have to coach this weekend so I could go play in the sun.

too much at once

This weekend has been to crazy. It started on Friday when I noticed one of our cats - pixel was not able to go to the bathroom and was trying which led us to the vet hospital and we were there till midnight. She had to stay to have a catheter put in to drain her bladder. We did not sleep much that night - the vet called around 2 am saying that she was doing ok and that they found that she had some sizable stones in her bladder and a lot of solid build up as well. Pour thing..

Anyway so Saturday Kyle went and coached skiing while I got another hour of sleep before I went and did a spinning class for 60 min. I had planned on riding outside but I just could not get myself to go while it was pouring rain. My legs felt great even though I was a bit tired. I just tried to keep my cadence up around 100 and I did 2 "climbs" where I increased the resistance for 5 minutes each.
Later in the day we went and visited pixel at the vet, then to a toys for tots party, then to Bmans birthday dinner.
Sunday has not been much calmer - I went to hot yoga with Steph. I was kind of all over the place - I had a hard time with my left leg tightening up a bit - my shoulder/bicep muscles hurt. Ah well some days it is easy others it is not.
Kyle had to work most of the day and had to catch a plane at 5:45. Pixel pulled out her catheter and the vet said they would be able to move up her surgery to today vs Thursday.. So I'm waiting to hear how it went and that she is ok. Hopefully tomorrow I can pick her up and bring her home finally.

110 degrees of fun

Ahh I had a wonderful time at hot yoga tonight. I felt really good - it always amazes me how much you sweat though. lol I was surprised at how good I did feel - I felt like I could really get pretty deep into a lot of the postures while really stretching out and flushing my system. I only modified two poses to be cautious with my foot, which worked fine. The best part was it was a great low impact total body workout that really helped stretch my back out which will help get rid of the tension head aches I have been dealing with lately. I'm making sure I completely rehydrate and had one of those recovery drinks as well.