Whipper Snapper and Snapper Whipper

In the past week or so I've been off the boil with my training. My knee finally fought off the infection and dried up, so I've been able to get back on my bike for the past couple of days. My shoulder is still grumpy with me, despite a massage yesterday from Joy the seriously serious Chinese accupressure specialist with pointy elbows; my right hip bruise is still all bruisey, and my right knee still more crunchy than a bag of rice bubbles. Awesome. I was ordered to avoid the water until my knee dried up and dropped off - so hopefully I'll be back into it this week.

I'm working about seven days straight this coming week, as several of the other trainers has a boxing course to go to next Sunday which I can't go to for fiscal reasons. Yes, Sunday is normally a work day for me, but I'd been rostered off this one time due to working through Easter. To be honest, I need the dosh (incoming quarterly power bill, need to change my Yeppoon flights and have a pair of K-Swiss shoes on hold) so I'm happy to hit it seven days straight once in a while! 

The only early start is Friday morning (as per normal, opening the gym at 6am) so I'm probably going to get the share car on Thursday night after my shift, drive it home, and be back for my shift bright and squirly on Friday morning. I can probably get about 1hr of extra sleep that way and I need it! Plus, I can cart all the stuff I need to take for training in without lugging it for at least part of the journey. Thank god for small mercies.

I've now been car-less for almost a year and to be honest, most of the time I don't miss it. Living 800m from the tri club means I don't have to drive to races. I don't have huge insurance or rego bills, no petrol price worries, no breakdown worries and no blowing up on the side of the road on Xmas eve worries! I can get pretty much everywhere on a train, tram or bus (or combination of these), and if I'm really desperate there's the share car - or a taxi.

The whipper snapper has been on my case about training for the past few days and is starting to bug me about my weight loss. I've been set a challenge to lose 5kg by the end of May - I don't want to drop it too fast because it makes Hannibal the gallstone angry. If I can get to  that 5kg goal by the end of May I'll be stoked, but I'm not going to go crazy trying to do that. It would be nice - I'm pretty sure Dad won't recognise me in June with so many kilograms of fat gone already - but it will happen when it happens. 

It's a bit rich having some whipper snapper 20 year old who's never had any bodyfat or a past history of emotional eating or GF or knee recons or fallen off a treadmill at high speed or a bloody gallstone tell you all kinds of stuff you're not trying to hear. I know what I'm doing - I know what makes Hannibal angry and to be honest, if I get to Yeppoon and Hannibal decides he needs to see the outside world on or around race day because I lost too much weight too fast, I'm going to be REALLY PEEVED!

And, as the resident snapper whipper, I need to tell you that I cannot face fish at all since that episode of crazy spinning room and power spewing a few weeks back. Can't, shant, won't - I'm not interested. The idea of eating fish makes me want to spew, and looking at it in the snaplock bags in my freezer also makes me want to have a long conversation with the big white telephone. I might try a piece of NZ snapper in NZ when I'm back at the end of June - we'll see. By then hopefully I can face it again. It was weeks after the chicken episode last year before I went near anything that clucked, so stay tuned.

Gotta go, very tired and sore from mag trainer session and need a shake and some zzz's!

It's a sin

I've been in Sydney since 9.40pm last night. I have to say, some of the shine has worn off after living in Melbourne. Sydney is fragmented, disorganised, chaotic and crazy. Melbourne is so well laid out with it's grid system, trams and defragged CBD. I think I made the right decision in terms of my first Australian city to live in - Melbourne will probably be my last too! Taxis here are white, which confuses me. But my favourite Thai place still makes awesome Satay and that makes me happy.

My knee is still sore and banged up - not that I expected miracles in 48 hours, but my shoulder at least is a hundred times better than yesterday. The bruise on my thigh is epic - it has lines through it from my compression tights that I wore to bed on Friday night, to try and keep the swelling down (or because they are a bit of a security blankie, not really sure which).  My shoulder hurts like hell and it's keeping me awake. I can't lift anything and I'm worried.

I can walk better today, which is fortunate because I have a tonne of walking to do. It's fitness expo day and there's a tonne of new products, new machines, new protein powders and new training gear to check out. There will be showbags and giveaways and samples to try, new things to play on; and guys with giant muscly bodies and tiny little heads to laugh at. Sorted! However, my knee is hot and swollen and all yucky.

When I got to the expo this morning, I found a stack of people with "personal trainer" on their name badges, all wandering around eating hash browns from Maccas for breakfast. I was like, hang on a sec - WTF? I just can't fathom why half these people are walking around eating crap in public. Seriously, at least do it behind closed doors or when you're not wearing a name badge!

If I see one more person (trainer or exhibitor) at the fitness and health expo eating Maccas, I'm going to incite physical violence. FFS, you're supposed to be setting an example, you tools! It's criminal behaviour! We all eat clean at work, it's a condition of our contract that we have to demonstrate a healthy lifestyle and be examples of that to our clients. 

So, what did I have for breakfast today? A skinny latte with one sugar, a glass of unsweetened freshly squeezed orange juice, a slice of mixed grain toast with vegemite, one weetbix with milk and no sugar, a cup of fruit salad and three tablespoons of natural unsweetened low fat yogurt. I think this beats the pants off a deep fried shredded processed pre-frozen "potato" that is swimming in fat, washed down with a huge frappucino covered in whipped cream. 

For lunch I had two grilled chicken satay sticks with sauce on the side (which I hardly touched), and approx one cup of rice. I then went and had two bottles of water and a small bag of salad mix from the supermarket. For an afternoon snack I've had a pear and a banana, and a glass of low fat chocolate milk. 

Some people may like being a hypocrite, but I don't - I believe that people in fitness jobs should practise what they preach, and that those who don't have no right to come bailing me up about my semi-sweetened yogurt if they drank two bottles of red wine last night. You're doing way more damage to your body with all the alcohol and sugar than I am with a half teaspoon of stevia!

And while I'm up on my high horse, I've lost 2% bodyfat this week, and another swag of weight at another 800g down. I've now lost 12.6kg since resuming the battle with my weight in August, with just 10.9 to go until I'm at my goal weight. Yippee! I'm past halfway and it's all downhill and downscales from here on in. Never mind what a certain television personality personal trainer may say about losing the last 5kg - apparently it's really hard and it can't be done without her book. Well, I say balls to that. If you go in thinking that losing the last 5kg will be hard, guess what - it will, because your brain says so!

Breaking news - my knee wound appears to be infected and my shoulder is still killing me, so I guess I'm off to the quack tomorrow if the betadine and silver elastoplasts don't sort it in the meantime :-(

Off to pack my swag from the expo into my suitcase, with any luck I can get it in the bag and not have to sacrifice too much of it!

I'm a real PT now

I've been hazed at work - not on purpose, mind you. I'm now a real personal trainer, given the accident I had at work yesterday. I've often said that you don't really work in a gym until you've fallen off a moving treadmill. Well, yesterday I fell on and fell off.

My hazing took place as I was moving around gym members, cleaning the treadmills. I cleaned about four, then went to clean a fifth one. I walked around to get on, carefully avoiding the member who was running at 10km/h next to me. I stepped up onto the deck as per normal, and the next thing I know, I was airborne - followed by a sickening bang and a whole lotta pain.

I hadn't noticed that the treadmill was still running because someone did a funky sidestep off it and left it at 8.5km/h. Ugh! I stepped up onto the belt, and my left knee hit the deck first. I instinctively put my hands out to stop myself but ended up flying off towards the concrete wall behind the treadmills. At some point I bashed up my right thigh, and I've pulled some stuff in my right shoulder and upper arm region (mostly my pec and delts, with a side of tri and traps), I felt a snap and a pop/bang in my shoulder. It wasn't pretty. 

My left knee looks like someone doing a horror movie makeup course has taken to it with gusto. Basically, I have skinned and bruised the living daylights out of it. Nasty! It's really painful and swollen and gross. I've iodined it like there's no tomorrow, hence why it looks all yellow and brown and stuff. Ick.

Thanks to my hazing, I'm not able to train for a few days. I thought I could still swim yesterday, but with waking up to find my buggered shoulder making life difficult, that's off the menu too. I'll have to settle for spa pooling it in Sydney if the knee clears up, and the odd bit of walking as I can tolerate it. Hannibal the gallstone has been a whiney little troll but at the moment with all the pain in the knee, leg and shoulder he's pretty quiet. I guess my pain response has been overtaken by the injuries. Ha, take that Hannibal!

In other news, I'm off to Sydney tomorrow night and to be honest, a little less excited about it now that I'm all banged up. I had aspirations for running around the harbour and swimming in a nice pool but sadly it looks like staring at the harbour from CQ and taking a nice leisurely spa instead.

Ah well...I can always come back when I don't look like I've done six rounds of Muay Thai against a brick wall...

Foxy!

I was meant to meet the whipper snapper for a ride this morning at 9am. We'd jacked it up yesterday, so I dutifully set three alarms for a god-awful hour, got up, made my porridge, filled my bidons, packed my fuel into my bento box, put on my knicks and tights over the top, found my bike sunnies, put my phone in a plastic bag and put my merino skullcap on under my helmet.

I was sitting on the couch putting on my shoes when I got a text from the whipper snapper telling me he was going to be a bit later because he'd just finished his swim. I sat on the couch and watched the weather channel (yep, I'm a nerd) and then I set off to meet the whipper snapper just after 9am. At 9.06am I had a missed call from him, so I called him back. Shep entries had just opened, according to a mate, and he was going to try and get enter then would ride over to meet me.

I told him I'd do laps of the Esplanade until he arrived, and after three laps I was over it and decided to go exploring. There's a shared path through Apex park over to Laverton or Point Cook, so I figured I'd just ride the paths and see where I ended up. After getting to the creek over by the softball centre, Whipper Snapper rang to cancel. I could tell he felt really bad about it, but I told him that Shep was important and he needed to stay and get an entry.

We had a good chat about training - my head is in a much better place after my realisations yesterday that I'm my biggest problem! The Ironman mind games had well and truly set in this past week, and fortunately I've been able to recognise them for what they are - and drop kick them out of the park before they get control of me.

I'm my biggest fan, my most loyal supporter, and my own worst enemy all at once. Self-doubt was setting in, my motivation was waning and my attitude was shit. Apologies for the naughty word, but it's the truth! My attitude was absolute shit. There's some mental things to overcome relating to cleats (being smashed off my bike in race 7, 2010 for example) and relating to injuries. I lose the plot when I'm injured, and it takes ages for the plot to gingerly knock first on the reinforced steel bomb shelter door of my mind, and then stick it's head around the door and ask if it can enter.

I received a card in the mail from my friend Annie, who is a life coach. It has a quote from Bruce Barton on it, which truly resonated at the moment:

“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstances”

Back to basics

Today's update comes to you from the gym, as I have just survived my first express mat Pilates class in Aussie. I've decided to go at least twice a week, to get some more action in the core department. 

Why the core focus? Well, I need my core for swimming, riding and running. Riding especially, as my core will have to hold me in the aero position for several hours while I'm off half-ironman-ing or Ironman-ing. While running it will keep me upright which will help with my breathing, and while swimming well, if you don't know the reason perhaps you're reading the wrong blog!

I haven't done a lot of training for the past week because I've been sick with crippling stomach cramps. Hannibal the gallstone has been a pain in the guts and was so annoying yesterday that I decided to take some panadeine, and train my core today. Stuff you Hannibal, I'll make sure everything else around you hurts so I can't feel it when you start attacking. I'm also back on a mostly liquid diet for a couple of days to try and settle him back down. He doesn't like solid food. I'll give him what he wants for a couple of days and then BAM! It will be back to solids. Ha! 

This week I'm repeating last week's recovery/light week, on account of still feeling like crap. I haven't heard from my coach for a week and to be honest I'm not very pleased. I'm fairly sure I'm not paying six weeks in advance for deafening silence. If I hadn't called him last Monday, I'm pretty sure he would have been totally silent. Another pain in the guts. I think it's time to call head coach.

I'm going to Sydney this coming weekend for the Aussie Fitness and Health Expo, and to meet my one year old niece for the first time - and see my now four year old niece again. Very excited - I'm wondering how I'll feel about Sydney now that I've been living in Melbourne for nearly a year. I'm flying up Sat night after work and back Monday afternoon. Miss Sydney is being checked up on, let in/out and fed/watered by a friend, so no cat hotel stay is required. 

I've got a few things to organise (shuttle, transfers, train trip out to Blue Mountains to see the family), but I'll get to that tomorrow. I can use the gym in Sydney thanks to my reciprocal rights so Sunday will see me running, and Monday swimming as normal but in the morning. Saturday means a ride which I can do at the gym on a spin bike, as I'm basically going straight from work to the airport in the afternoon. I may have to leave some stuff at work but it's all good. 

On that note, it's time to swim - catch you all later.

Ask and you shall receive

I've been a bit stressed lately with too much going on. This past week saw very little in the training department - to the point where I am starting again this week with the recovery week scheduled for last week. I had to knock out my PT prac exam, book flights to NZ to meet up with my brother and sister in law at the end of June, kiss going to Port Mac for Ironman goodbye, and had two very early starts at work. Phew!

Because my stress level has been sky high for the past two weeks, I believe Hannibal the gallstone has been influenced by this and has been particularly annoying in the past week - attacking me with gusto. This coming week will see me doing some yoga classes and more training to try and combat all this cortisol that's pumping around my body.

I don't like it, I don't need it and like Hannibal, it can just get lost!

Annaliese the NZ Ironmaiden, Personal Trainer

Yes, you read correctly. I am now officially a qualified Personal Trainer in Australia. Oh YEAH!!!

So, what are my plans now?  Here's a few things I'll be working on over the next few months:

On the "Career" side of the see-saw:

• Building my client base at work. I love the gym I work in, our members are awesome and I will stay there to gain as much experience and knowledge as I can.
• Triathlon Coaching Level 1 - need to do the next course, hoping it won't be on at the same time as my Yeppoon race!
• Building a client base outside of work. I'm sure there's plenty of people around who need a PT and don't want to pay through the nose. My preference is training women, but I'll work with anyone who is ready to put in the hard yards to achieve their goals..
• I can increase my work hours to pick up PT, which will help with experience and funding my triathlon habit (LOL).

On the "Annaliese" side of the see-saw:

• Obviously my Ironman training, which is fast becoming bigger than Ben Hur - my next big goal is the Yeppoon Half Ironman on August 14
• Shepparton Half or Taupo Half  - will have to be one or the other, I can't do both as they are only four weeks apart, so it will probably be Shep and not Taupo but we'll see how it goes.
• Ironman NZ 2012!
• Cranking out the training with a side of harden up princess. 
• Now that I don't have to study, I can train more.
• Going to Auckland in late June to catch up with my brother and sister in law - three days is more than enough in THAT place. Ugh..*shudders*

Anyway, have just done a short run so now it's time for a pool session. 

See you all later!

The long and short of it

Today was d-day. Well, it was meant to be d-day. I rocked up at Uni expecting to get my PT prac exam all finished today, but instead only half was finished today. I get to go through more torture tomorrow. Oh joy! 

Well, tomorrow isn't really torture. It's presenting the program I still have to write for my client, and demonstrating / PT-ing four exercises. I think this should be the least nerve wracking part! Anyway, at 10am tomorrow I'm finishing my Cert IV. The great news is that I've passed the final 28-page theory assessment so no repeating required there. Phew! Hopefully by this time tomorrow I will have completed my Cert IV, done my big swim, had some lunch and have two hours of work underway.

Thursday I'm working from 6-2. Yes, Thursday is normally one of my two days off, however between Easter (lose two days of work) and my trip to Sydney (lose another two days of work), I need to make up some hours and bank some money. I've also got a staff meeting at 4pm, then I get to come home in rush hour and do a MT bike session - providing I can stay awake. Friday I get to start at 6am again, so I guess I'll be tired for a couple of days! I think a couple of naps will be in order - and I may thrown in a couple of spin bike sessions just in case.

Today I did my walk/run session - on the way to and from the laundrette, with 6kg of washing in tow. I stopped in at Coles on the way home for a 3L bottle of milk and a bag of spuds (2kg), so I guess by the time I got home the load was about 11kg. I can't believe that having lost 11.4kg, I used to lug around that washing, sack of spuds and bottle of milk everywhere I went, everyday. Unbelievable! No wonder I was tired and grumpy - okay, yes, I am still tired and grumpy - but it's no longer from a lack of energy and fatness and laziness. Now it's from up to 14 hours of Ironman training a week, which I feel is a far more worthwhile cause!

I'm off to write this program and the justification for it so that I don't lose the plot tomorrow, so have a nice evening everyone :-)

Questions from the floor

I just came across this post on another blog that I read. Of course, I had to answer it!

Hey, I'm a college senior that runs a pretty good 10k and knows how to cycle well, but doesn't really have any formal swimming training/knowledge. I plan on doing triathalons next year, and I need either some good advice to begin with, or better yet a link to the best sites that have the correct info on long distance swimming.

Thanks in advance!

Here's my response:

Hi, 

I’d suggest that rather than watching internet videos, go find a pool that does adult swim lessons. Tell the teacher/coach that you will be doing triathlons and get them to teach you proper technique – i.e. good stroke technique, swimming efficiently, bilateral breathing, etc. They can help you work on your stroke, your fitness and your endurance. I went from swimming 25m to swimming 300m nonstop after about 8 lessons. 

I’d then combine this with swimming a couple of times a week on your own. Get the swim teacher to give you some drills to work on when you swim by yourself, you can even use them as a warm up. 

The best advice I can give you is what my coach told me – swimming poorly wastes a lot of energy, which you’ll need for the bike and the run. Don’t smash yourself in the water through poor technique – learn how to swim properly and then work on the distance! If your technique is poor, you won’t swim efficiently, you’ll waste energy, and you may injure yourself. 

Once you’ve got the technique side down pat, then you can work on long distance swimming. 

Have a few lessons and then look at finding a triathlon or masters swim squad to swim with – again, the coaching feedback is invaluable and can help correct any naughty habits you pick up while swimming by yourself. I’m a hand slapper from way back, and if you know what you do that’s not quite right, you can keep an eye on it when you swim by yourself. 

All the best – have fun!

Out of the foodwork

So, my head coach was right. I've been bailed up a few times in recent days - this time about my diet - by people who aren't qualified nutritionists. I've lost over 11kg since Christmas, and I eat pretty clean so why do people feel that they have the right to ram their opinions down my throat? I don't do it to them, so why should they do it to me? Diet is a personal choice, if I want their help or advice I will ask.

Some people think I eat too many carbs. Well, I'd hate to think how I'd get 580g of carbs from veges alone (of course potatoes don't count) - fifty thousand buckets of spinach at 1.4g of carbs per cup anyone? Last time I checked I was training 14 hours a week for a half ironman which is in just over four months. So, to keep you happy, I'll just make sure I have fifty buckets of spinach on my bike while I'm riding 90km, ten buckets of salad while I'm swimming 1.9km and a whole swag of carrot sticks while I'm running a half marathon.

Shyeah, right.

Someone had a crack at me about a yogurt. It's already high protein, low fat, low sugar...but apparently the yogurt is full of sweeteners and that's bad for me because it's 500 times sweeter than sugar. Okay, maybe it is - but it's one yogurt in a pottle that I grabbed at the supermarket because I wasn't organised enough that morning to spoon the non-sweetened yogurt out into a container (which I've run out of) to take to work. Sorry about that. But it's ONE yogurt!

I could be eating ice cream on my porridge (don't laugh, I know someone who does this - and they are over 120kg and miserable), or spooning mountains of brown sugar on it, or covering it in golden syrup, or eating coco pops/fruit loops/whatever. But no, let's not consider the fact that I am eating porridge - let's focus on the yogurt. Because there's nothing like making someone feel like shite about choosing one "bad" yogurt (out of an entire lifetime of food).

Jees, I don't need lectures from people who have no qualifications in nutrition. My diet is my diet, and it is NOT open for discussion.

Just back off and leave me alone.

My new response will be that I'm already paying a qualified nutritionist and dietician $65 every month for visits to analyse every bite of food and everything mouthful of liquid that goes in my mouth, and I don't need any further "guidance" on my diet, so thanks but no thanks! I know what I can and can't eat - I already have enough dietary issues to deal with (life-threatening allergies, intolerances and a gallstone to boot) - and it's going to get to the point where I'm just not going to talk to anyone about anything, or eat in public.

My diet is my diet, and my business, NOT YOURS!

Stress cadet

I've just handed in my final theory assignment, but had to sacrifice some training today to get it done. I figured one swim going MIA isn't going to hurt, but not finishing my PT certification will sting like hell! I am about to go for a one hour run, and I'm making sure I run around as much as possible at work tomorrow to make up for it. 

That theory assignment has been stressing me all week. It was NASTY! I had four case study clients to write programs for and then justify in great detail - 28 pages later, it has now been submitted for marking. I suspect it won't be marked today, and I'll get it back sometime Monday, hopefully with a "competent" grade. I really need to avoid a "not yet competent"- because my prac exam is on Tuesday and I don't need any more stress on Monday - particularly as I need to get back in the pool and work starts at 4pm! It's bad enough that I've got to re-watch a tonne of prac videos to prepare for Tuesday, let alone spend the whole day worrying about the grade on assessment ten.

I'm keeping this short and sweet, so that I can get this run done. It's a lovely day and perfect weather for running by the beach - not too much wind, not too hot, not too cold - and it's a northerly wind right now so the wind won't be blowing right off the water. Awesome.

Gotta go - more later this weekend.