Monterey Super 2017

As before I'll talk about the race in several stages.  I'll start with location, race and then obstacles at the end.  This was my first Spartan Super and I went in assuming that it was going to be easier then the Montana Beast that I had run only a month earlier.  I will admit that I was very wrong in this thinking.  I now know that every race will be different and will pose different challenges that I would never had even considered a challenge.

Location:  I'm going to start by talking about parking.  In Montana I used the media pass that Spartan was so kind to give me that I was able to park at the venue itself so I didn't have to be bused in from the general parking.  I felt that I should at least try this shuttle once so that I can talk about it.  The parking for this race was at an off sight actual race car track.  It meant that parking was already signed, organized and really easy to navigate.  There were staff in place to guide you into your spot and the area was well driven and had signed like 11W so that you could locate your car after the race.

Toro park was a great place to hold a race.  It was as you can see from the map above located in an area that is ramp with large hills and gullies that were quite challenging to run up and down.  I will admit that most of the running seemed to be along trails that are generally hiking or biking trails that were already pretty well traveled.  It meant that there was very little overgrowth and little to no bushes that were whacking your ankles like in Montana.  There were some nice views from the top of the mountains that made for some nice pictures.



Race:  Well as I said in my intro I went into this race thinking that it couldn't be any harder or worse then the Montana Beast I had run only a month earlier.  I will now say that I couldn't have been more wrong in this train of thought.

The data from my GPS watch showed that the distance was 4+ miles shorter and 738 feet less ascent then Montana.  What my watch didn't show was that the Montana race was well shaded and had a high of 59 degrees.  I didn't think that would make that much of a difference, but what a difference did it make.  This Monterey race was rarely shaded and the high temp of 68 degrees.  Now that ten  degrees made this race a lot harder then I ever imagined.  The heat sapped the strength from you and if I didn't drink copious amounts of the PowerAde infused water that I was holding in my water pack I don't know if I would have been able to finish.

The hills seemed that they weren't nearly as steep as the Montana hills, but the seemed to go on forever.  The length of the climbs must have been much more gradual with only a few large inclines.  That is the only explanation for the seeming endless hills.  The trails themselves seemed very well traveled as there was very little over growth onto the trail.  There were even several descents that had stairs that made for much easier descents.

Being in California I was not surprised that there was very little mud and water at this race.  I half expected this as I ran a race in Sacramento last year and it was very similar.  A few little mud patches here and there and only one area that had large water pits.  I will say that there were other challenges with the dirt and sand that I ran through at this location.  The dirt and sand were very very fine and almost powder like which caused unforeseen problems with the obstacles.

Obstacles: There were twenty seven obstacles in this race and most I had done before.  I had only not finished the rope climb in the past and I was determined to conquer that one most of all.  That being said I will say that I wasn't able to train for this race like I had wanted as my wife had taken a bad fall.  She broke a bone close to her knee and she is non-weight baring for 6 weeks and that left me to take care of our children (mainly 1 year old that can't go up and down stairs alone yet).  So my training was spotty for the two weeks before and I could feel it during the race.

The race started off with a walls before heading into the over a wall, under a wall and through a wall.  Please excuse the look on my face.

The race was mainly walls in the beginning and had another wall before stairway to Sparta that is a wall that you jump up and then have to climb a sort of ladder of 2x4 up and over before climbing back down again.

Then came the real challenge and my first failed obstacle.  Mount Olympus is an obstacle I had completed before in Montana, but this time it was different.  I believe it was the very fine baby powder like dirt that covered the wall and caused it to be a lot more slick then the mud covered wall in Montana.  In the video below you can hear my shoes squeaking trying to hold on, but I lunged for the bell and missed.

Next came the Bucket Brigade and it was much longer then Montana at nearly a half mile, but I expected it as this was a NBC televised race.

Then came the spear throw and rope climb.  I am happy to say I hit the spear throw again and for the first time ever I was able to complete the rope climb.  It seemed easy as could be this time, but there wasn't a large gauntlet of grip strength obstacles right before like in Montana.

After rope climb I started to forget to document the obstacles as I was sweating my brain cells out.  I believe that the next obstacle was the 8' wall.  Now this wall felt taller as I have an 8' wall in my back yard.  I will say my old strategy still works as I can jump up and grab the top of the wall.  Then I walk my feet up to the side and get a leg over.  Once that leg is over I am able to haul the rest of my body up over the wall.

Next was the A-Frame cargo net and the hurdles.  The A-Frame is easy enough and the hurdles are difficult as they are like saw horses and have no wall or anything below them.  I helped several people over them as there were three that you had to jump over and they were place while going up a hill so that the final one was a much larger jump then the first.

Next was a barb wire crawl before a long double sandbag carry.  I will say training with a large pancake sandbag makes the large ruck bags that Spartan use seem much easier even though they are both 60lbs.

Next was a series of hanging upside down to climb over walls.  The Bender and Inverted walls take strength and skill in order to get in a good position to get over.  Just as will the tallest wall as long as I can get a leg over the top I can easily maneuver my body over.

Next was a Plate drag.  The ground was much smoother then the first time I did the obstacle and was easily able to pull the rope to the weighted plate toward me and then drag the plate back out.  Now I don't fully remember nor did I document the next couple of obstacles.  I'll blame the heat as I was still had sweat dripping off me in bucket loads.

The next obstacles that I do remember and documented was the Monkey bars and Atlas carry.  The monkey bars were covered in this black dust that covered my hands and caused the bars to be very slick.  In Montana I was able to skip bars and move across quickly.  The black stuff caused me to have to place both hands on every bar as I made my way across.  The Atlas carry was again a large stone ball instead of the large block of tree that they had in Montana.  The stone was much easier to lift then the first time I ever did the obstacle.

Next was the Z wall and Rolling mud.  The Z wall I had finished in Montana, but once again failed.  I was past the harder outer corner as well as the inner turn and well on my way towards the bell.  I was looking towards my next hand hold when suddenly my front foot slipped off the small block of 2x4 that I was standing on and with only 2 points of contact I fell (60 burpees so far).  The Rolling mud was just simply two water pits that felt like breath of fresh air compared to the sun burning heat that we had been running in.  Even the dunk wall felt Amazing (as you can see from my face).

Directly after the water was the slip wall and I think they placed it so that it might be slick, but with the weather the way it was things were mostly dry before getting to it.  The Herc Hoist seems to be getting easier and easier with every race.  I must be getting stronger and stronger as I no longer have to use my body to lift the weight anymore.

The Tire Flip was next and I had read others talk about it, but I had no idea just how awkward and heavy these tires were.  There was no place to put your hands under the tire to get a good grip.  I had tried several different locations around a tire and different tires, but with no avail.  Thankfully I am in the open heat and was able to receive and give aid as these 400lbs tires were a pain to flip.

With the final obstacles in sight it was a great feeling to have a nice easy climb up and over a large wall called the Bridge.  It is just all 2x6 beams that you climb up step across and then climb back down.  You can see it above the Spartan Race insignia below.

It also gave a nice photo-op at the top.


The final two obstacles were two of the hardest.  I had complete both in the past, but this was a televised race and I knew they would be harder.  First was the Twister with its small handles that you have to rotate down and slowly rotate it as you cross.  In Montana there was only two lengths to cross, but here in TV land there were three lengths to cross and I made it three quarters down the third one.  If I had been able to kick the bell still I would have completed the obstacle, but unfortunately I slipped off and had to do burpees again.

The Multi-rig's difficulty really depends on the order of the items in the obstacle.  The obstacle is made up of several rings, lengths of rope with a knot at the end and a long pipe to shimmy across.  Now I have failed this obstacle in the past because the order was rings, pipe and rope.  The pipe would stop all momentum and increase the difficulty greatly.  Thankfully the order was ring, rope, ring, rope and then ending with the pipe.  This allowed me to keep my momentum up through most of the obstacle and I was able to even skip nearly half the bar with my momentum and moderate reach.  It made the obstacle very easy to end the race on a high note.

I mean who really can pose during an obstacle like the Multi-rig... or even smile.  Plus I had just done 30 burpees.

Last Impression:  I must admit that this race was harder then the Montana Beast.  The sun and heat made a huge difference in the race even though it was shorter and not as many hills.  I struggled with this race much more then I had expected, but was still able to finish.  I can still see area's that I can improve and area's I just need to get stronger in.  I mean if it was easy then everyone could and would do it and it being hard is why I like it so much.

This nice thing about this being a televised even I got to see many of the Spartan Pro's.  Now I don't go up and ask for pictures or anything like that.  I also have media credentials and could get to them if I wanted to, but I really would rather give them their space.  That doesn't mean that I don't snap pictures from a distance.


Ryan Atkins.

Robert Killian.

Hunter McIntyre

Lindsay Webster


and Me with my new Blue Medal.

Average Joe OCR Workout

Well I have talked about my workouts in the past, but I realized that I never really laid it all out for people.  So I'll talk about why I do certain things and how I think it will help my OCR goals.

Lets distill down what is involve in an OCR.  In the end it is a race and that involves running, but there are the obstacles as well which involve strength.  So there is no one thing that you can truly focus on to be good or even great at OCR.

When I started running I knew that I had to ease into it.  I had an ankle injury many years ago while playing football.   So I started small and short distance with breaks in between.  I knew that if I did to much to fast I would cause me pain and potential injury.  So I designed a way to run with breaks in between.  In order to train like a race I would need to throw some strength training into my running so that my body knows how to adapt to the sudden change.  I feel that this is what caused me to be so successful in my most recent race.

So as a start I would go only a half mile out and back for a total of a mile.  This was a good start as around my house has a lot of hills and this route had a large downhill, but also I would have to go back up it to get home.  Running hills is basically a must for OCR training.  I started to gradually add miles to my runs like many of the half marathon training schedules show.  Adding a mile every week so that your runs gradually got longer and longer.  What I did differently was add in what I called rotations in between my miles.  So that I would run a mile stop and do strength exercises before running a second mile.  This rotation continued until I was up to five miles and at that point I started to add miles between stopping.  The reason was because the longer OCR events had sometimes a mile or two between obstacle stops.  So my rotations stayed right around three strength rotations, but instead I would do two miles before stopping.

As my runs got longer I would continue to do more miles between stops.  In the end for my 13.3 mile training run I stopped and did a strength rotation every three miles.  So I ended up doing three rotations in between the running.

In the end I would run no more then three days a week.  Even that was only when I was trying to make sure I was in enough running shape to tackle a half marathon distance OCR.


So now that I have talked about the running part lets talk about the strength training part of the race.  Yes it is a race and running is important, but on most OCR companies failing an obstacle is punished in some way shape and form.  That punishment can be worse then the rest of the race combined.

So what kind of things should you train to do OCR?  Everything is really needed.  The best way to start is at least body weight exercises. 

Push ups with knees up or down will start building your push strength. 

Crunches help your core strength which will help support your back when carrying heavy objects.  

Burpees are a great full body workout that is required if you do Spartan OCR (its the punishment).

High Knees works your calves and hip flexors in order to aid in jumping.

Squats works your quads and gluts to also aid in jumping and the ability to move heavy things.

Lunges to work your stabilizing muscles in order to keep your legs healthy with all the running.

These are just a few of the exercises that can aid in an OCR race.  No if you noticed I didn't have any of the traditional lifting exercises above.  That is because these were the exercises that I would do in the middle of my runs.

Also during my runs every other week I would add either a bucket carry or a sandbag carry to my runs.  These were also planned to aid in my general strength and cardio conditioning to be prepared for the races.


Then I strongly believe that weighted exercises are very important to improve strength beyond body weight and also to improve grip strength.  Weighted exercises need to target muscle groups that you specially don't work with your body weight exercises.  Area's like biceps, triceps, back muscles and forearm muscles.

Bicep Arm Curls work the biceps which aid in pull strength.

Triceps behind the head raises that helps with your push strength like pushing yourself over a wall once you grabbed it.

Pull ups or Lat Pulls to work the back to aid in pulling yourself up to a bar or wall.

Dead Hangs to help grip strength so that you can hang from objects for long periods of time.

These are just a few of the exercises that I do in my workouts.  I do strength exercises at least twice a week.

In the end during the "off" season of my OCR training I did a rotation where I would run three days a week and lift two days a week.  Then the next week I would switch it around and lift three days and run only two.  I felt like this was great as it would keep my body guessing and caused it to have to adapt to changes faster.  I saw a great improvement from my last 2016 race two my first 2017 race. 

Of course I have recently seen a Stadium Race that I have signed up for in November and the obstacles look very different.  I am going to come up with a different training plan for this other type of race.


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Mud Gear Giveaway Winners!!

Well here we go I will draw the winners of the Mud Gear Compression sock give away.  Only a few people posted for extra entries into the give away and it seems that small is not a very common size.  There are a total of 3 applicants for the Small size, 12 applicants for the Medium and 17 applicants for the Large.

Just to reshow this is the socks that everyone will be getting;



I have a fancy random number generator (ok not fancy, but free).

How this will work I will plug in the number of people and let the random number generator go.  We will see who wins and who doesn't.  I am posting these on my Instagram story as I draw them.

Large Winners are : Nick M and David R
Medium Winners are:  Eric A and Amy
Small Winners are:  Tanya W and Vivian H

Congratulations to all 6 winners and I'm sorry to the people who didn't get free stuff.  I feel like this was moderately successful and might do another drawing again in the future.

The winners will be receiving an email tonight asking for information to send the socks.

Post Spartan Beast: What I learned.

Now that I am a week out from my Spartan Beast I am going to look back and see what I learned from the race.

The first thing I will say if you want to know my opinion of the race check out my Review. 

With this race I learned that I tend to lead with my right leg.  As my right Hip Flexor was burning at anything after mile 8 or 9 I feel like I need to do more yoga and hills.  I might need to increase my strength workouts with my Abdominal and Quads in order to prevent that from happening again with my Super.



My grip strength seemed to be good as I progressed substantially over my last race.  Last years races in August and November I failed the same obstacles both of those races.  What I failed was the Z-Wall, Multi-Rig and Rope Climb in August and then in November I failed Z-Wall, Multi-Rig, Olympus, Spear Throw and Rope Climb.  The majority of my failed obstacles were grip strength oriented.  As my review I only failed on the Rope Climb for the Beast, but I think I was impatient and or needed to work on my grip endurance as I felt like I might have been failing.  Working on my dead hangs should improve my grip endurance as it seemed like my only weakness so far.



In the end I feel that my training was spot on.  My running plan had my cardio in great position.  The hills that I run had my calves in great shape to deal with all the up hill running.  The weight training that I am doing seemed to have me strong enough to do the heavy lifts and carries with very little effort.  Even the bouldering I am doing once or twice a week seemed to make the hanging obstacles seem easy.

In the end just a little adjustment here and there and I should be solid to go burpee free for the next few races.

Montana Beast 2017

Well my first ever Spartan Beast is on the books.  I went into the race with one main goal and one extra credit goal.  The first goal was completed as it was only to finish the race.  I failed the extra credit goal of completing the race with out having to do any penalty burpees.  The main reason being I was impatient and the combination of obstacles made for a weakened grip.  We will get more into that later in this post when I talk about the obstacles.  I finished with my sister and nephew at 5:23:11.

Location:  Big Fork Montana is a beautiful location and Glacier National Park made for some nice views.  The area has very dense vegetation all over and is basically a valley that is surrounded on all sides with hills and mountains.  The race itself was like going hiking, but instead of following the trail you go off the train and plow your own way.  I must thank my affiliate Mud Gear.  I wore my Mud Gear compression socks and hardly felt any of the branches, bushes or small plants that were constantly hitting my legs.  I'm sure some people that weren't wearing socks would have gotten a lot of small cuts through out the course.

As you can see below the location is quite beautiful. 


Altitude at the location was 4200 feet above sea level.  Now I train at approx. 500 feet above sea level.  I worried that the altitude would cause me problems, but other then having to breath hard from time to time it didn't seem to cause me any grief. 


Race:  The race was labeled 10 miles on the picture above, but during the race I saw a Spartan Beast Mile 11 on the course.  Of course for people that haven't run a Spartan Race before the obstacles don't count in the distance of the race itself.  That means that if you have a .5 mile bucket carry as an obstacle that .5 miles doesn't count in the overall distance.

The course itself was a wonderful mix of up hill and down hill running.  There were hills that had running water going down them and it also had many area's that there was no trail to speak of and you just had to trust the tape that lined the course.  Two of the ascents and descents were steep enough that even trail running shoes with deep tread would slip on.  One descent even had ropes and a danger sign before it, but in my opinion that descent was not as slick as others that didn't have any warning signs. 

This race I would classify it as a calf killer.  Thankfully I train on hills everyday and even though several times my calves would start to burn it was usually at the top of the hill.  My calves were able to recover by the time the next ascent came around and I can only thank my training.  Even with that training I wasn't unstoppable.  By the end of the race my right hip flexor felt like it had a miniature sun buried in it.  I can only assume that it was because that I tend to lead with my right leg during the many climbs. 

There was a bit of mud on the course and it seemed to be very strategically located right before a climbing obstacle of some sort.  It wasn't nearly as muddy as the Portland Sprint in 2016, but the mud still caused some challenges when trying to jump over the several walls.

The most shocking thing that I found during the race was just how many people were very unprepared for the race.  People that sprinted past us in the beginning we caught several miles later they were cramping terribly.  I also noticed that many of the people that were having cramping problems weren't carrying packs with food or water in them.  I understand if you were an elite and going to finish in under three hours you could run without extra electrolyte, but anyone other then that should really have something with them. 

I believe that my success for my first ever Beast was the fact that I was carrying electrolyte in my back pack.  I drank water at most stations because I was sweeting a lot, but the PowerAde that I had filled my pack with made it so I wasn't cramping at any point in the race. 

Obstacles:  So there were 34 obstacles listed on the map.  The only problem is that some obstacles listed didn't seem like obstacles and we also felt that there were some obstacles that weren't actually listed on the map.  The first one listed High feet we didn't even do anything that resembled high feet.  The first obstacles that we encountered where a wall that was probably 6-8 feet and a hurdle.  The Z wall was the next obstacle and one that I had never been able to complete.  That was until this race.  I believe it was my bouldering that allowed me to make it through the Z wall as the turn around the outside corner was difficult.  It required both feet to be on the same small block at once in order to go around. The inverted wall was just like most walls in that if you can get a leg up you can get over them. 

The next hurdle or gut check was just like before and only took getting a leg over to get past it.  The next obstacle was a small sand bag carry that had a light sand bag and a short route.  This was just a warm up carry that was only the beginning of the carry pains.  The Atlas Log Carry I found much less difficult then the Atlas Ball as the logs had area's that you could grip.  It made picking them up much less difficult.

The Tyro Traverse was interesting as my socks were wet and just slid along the rope.  I was able to speed across the rope over half way before needed to walk my feet at all.  The next obstacle was shallow water that you had to wade across.  The water was quite cold and didn't require much skill unless you were short and had to nearly swim.  I imagine that it is supposed to freeze up your legs, but I found it quite refreshing as it was fairly hot out.  There was another wall that I believe was 8-10 feet, but as it was classified I am unsure of the height. 

The Monkey bars were next.  I find the varying heights of the bars interesting, but I have little trouble and could actually skip several bars in order to save my grip strength.  The vertical cargo was where the first time check was and we cleared that with flying colors.  I thought about trying what the elites do and flip over, but my fear of heights prevented me in the end I climbed down.  The rings were I believe the next obstacle and I find this much much less difficult then the multi-rig.  It mainly takes momentum and timing to cross, given that you have the grip strength.  The horse tie off was you duck under a bar and then climb up and over a series of wooden steps that started at chest height.  It was like a less difficult Mount Sparta. 

I knew I was out of the Beast section of the course as I approached the next series of obstacles, because they were tightly packed together that I only saw during the Sprint courses.  First was Olympus another obstacles I had never completed.  I completed it easily using the chains for holds, but I think this might have been a mistake as it started the process of my eventual only failed obstacle.  Then second in the series was the Herc Hoist.  The weight wasn't anything all that taxing, but being directly after Olympus I found that after finishing my hands hurt with the effort.  The final in the trio was the rope climb.  I had a climbing rope in my back yard for months and was use to climbing.  I was able to scale the rope quickly and through I was in reach, but in retrospect I should have stopped to ensure that I was in reach.  I swung at the bell and completely missed, I believe to the inside of the bell.  I did rush and had what I felt was failing grip strength, but with my feet locked in I could have probably hung for longer and made sure I would have completed the obstacle. 

Unfortunately at this point my fatigue had started to idle my brain and I stopped taking notes of the obstacles completed.  I know that around this point was a log carry and I found a long skinny one that rested nicely on my shoulder.  I felt bad for people running without a shirt as I'm sure the logs dug into the skin badly.  There was another wall that wasn't nearly as tall as the prior.  Then there was the double sandbag from hell.  It started with a giant mud pit that I'm sure ate shoes for every meal of the day.  It sapped energy quickly right before a long climb up and back down.  Then you had to cross the same muddy hell to finish the carry. 

A-Frame cargo was also in there, but as far as that obstacle goes I believe it is mainly to induce fear of heights then being difficult.  There was also a farmers carry that you had to carry two logs that had chain handles down and around a marker and back.  I felt that the logs weren't all that heavy and could have gone farther, as my hands had a good rest and my strength was back. 

The Bucket Brigade was the obstacle that caused me the most grief as by the half way point before traveling back down the hill I had to stop and set down the bucket.  My lower back was on fire and screaming out at that point.  I didn't feel that the bucket was all that heavy, but the climb up must have put me at an odd angle and my back was unhappy.  After a short rest I was able to finish the obstacle.  The Spear Throw was around here I believe.  I am thankful that I did track and field in high school as I nailed the spear throw so hard I heard a loud THUNK with my throw.  The volunteer at the obstacle yelled out "NICE" after which was a confidence boost. 

The Bender was around this point.  The horizontal bars that were several feet off the ground and tilted like the inverted wall where slick with mud, but overall not very difficult.  There were several barbwire crawls at this point.  I feel that they weren't separated as different obstacles, but all lumped together even though other obstacles separated them. Like the hurdles and the slip wall.  The slip wall was mixed up as there were only short one or two foot ropes at the very top.  I was able to run up the wall and grab the rope fairly easy, but I then turned and while holding the rope dropped my hand down to help my sister up.  It was a difficult maneuver as it stretched my cross body pull strength to the limit, but we were able to do it.  I stayed and helped several others before moving on. 

After another barbwire crawl the final obstacle was the Twister.  I had seen video's of this obstacle, but never attempted.  I knew the general idea and thankfully my grip strength was back in form.  The twisting of the handles took some getting used to, but once a rhythm was made it was easy pickings.  I had seen others complain about the Twister tearing up hands, but I was confident in my hand and callus care that I wouldn't have the problem.  After finishing the obstacle I looked at my hands and were shocked at first to see they were completely BLACK?  I have no idea why they were black as the handles didn't feel like they were coated in anything, but I also noticed that I had a large tear on my left hand.

It wasn't the worse tear I had ever had, but the first since the November Sacramento Sprint and I started truly taking care of my hands.  I was shocked, but it didn't stop me from jumping over the fire jump and finishing the race. 

Last Impression: In the end my sister, nephew and I all felt that the Beast wasn't as difficult as we had all thought it was going to be.  The running and the hills made it difficult, but with good hill training and keeping up with your nutrition that problem is fairly negated.  The other thing we felt was that with the large running gaps between obstacles you had plenty of time to rest the muscle groups that you used.  I actually almost find the Sprint races more difficult as they are jam packed with obstacles and very little running in between that you don't have nearly as much time to rest in between.  I feel that for the Super distance I should go burpee free, but the Sprint course I am much less confident as I am not sure I'll have the grip and muscular endurance to go burpee free.

In the end I had a great time and felt like this length is a good length of a race.  I am excited to try the Super course and see I feel the same about that length or if it feels short or what.  The Sprint races are probably the most popular, but after doing a Beast I feel that they are almost the most difficult as well.  I had a blast and will totally be doing another next year.

Motivation 05/01/2017

Motivation 04/29/2017

Average Joe Give Away: Free Mud Gear Compression Socks

I picked up an extra pair of Mud Gear compression socks for myself to use with my experiment for recovery.  Since I was buying myself a new pair I decided to pick up a few extra pair in order to give them away ($37 value) in a Give Away.  There are 2 pairs of each size and I'll give both pairs away if I have enough entries.  The Give Away will be from today to May 15 2017.  I'll try and record the drawing so people can see that I'm legit.

So how do you sign up for this give away?  Simple.  All you have to do is comment on this blog post with just like a name or nick name, a way to contact you (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, email etc.)(if you win) and what size you are putting in for. 

If you don't know what sizes there are then take a look at this picture or go to the Mud Gear website



Also the color that you are in the lottery for is the orange color that you can see here.


Now this isn't going to be a one comment is all you get, but if you want to increase your chances to win by sharing this post on Google+, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag of #averagejoefit.  If you look I have other posts in all four tags.  If you share on each of the four websites then you have 5 chances to win the socks.

Nutrition Advice: Dieting and Vitamins

When people diet they tend to eliminate certain foods that they either think is unhealthy or don't want to "waste" the calories on.  Unfortunately when we eliminate certain food groups from our bodies we tend to get deficient in certain vitamins.  Now actually a lot of people walk around with some sort of low level of vitamins, but dieting can send some from just being low to being deficient.  What people don't realize is that being vitamin deficient can actually hamper weight loss and or muscle gain.  Lets take a look at a few of the most common vitamin deficiencies and how they can effect weight loss. 

Zinc:  Helps the bodies immune system, enzyme support and can effect the thyroid.  The thyroid can affect your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and being deficit in zinc might cause a plateau or slow weight loss down.

How to get Zinc?:  Red meat, beans, nuts, dairy and whole grains.  Even fortified cereal has it.

Iron:  Now this is most common in females, but dieting could cause a deficiency in anyone.  Iron helps transport oxygen in the body.  Working out and have trouble catching your breath?  Maybe Iron deficient.  It can also cause muscle weakness, low energy levels and many other problems.

How to get Iron?:  Red meat, beans, dried fruit, dark green leafy vegetables and cereals again.

D:  Vitamin D we get from the Sun.  Now you would think this wouldn't be something people lack, but they do.  Vitamin D also helps the thyroid and just like Zinc the thyroid does regulation RMR.  It also impacts bone health and immune system health. 

How to get Vitamin D?:  The sun is the easiest, but also milk, egg yolks, liver and fish.

Now the list above is by no means all inclusive or even all that could cause weight loss problems.  It is important to eat a balanced diet that includes a little of everything.

You can find a lot of information on vitamins online by just googling it, but I found this and I kind of like the look of it.  This isn't my list either.

Motivation 04/28/2017

Motivation 04/26/2017

Motivation 04/25/2017

Motivation 04/24/17

Beyond General Fitness: Running: Recovery Experiment Final

So about a month ago I had read several articles about how compression gear could aid in muscle recovery.  The only thing was that the articles seemed anecdotal at best and didn't have me convinced that it was accurate.  So I decided to test it out on myself.  My first post about it was 03/22/2017, then I did a follow up post after testing compression gear 04/08/2017.

To recap my schedule from my earlier posts:

The test will be as follows.
Run 1:  7 mile road run on pavement or concrete.  No assisted recovery
Run 2:  8 mile trail run on packed dirt and mud.  No assisted recovery
Run 3:  9 mile road run on pavement or concrete.  Compression socks applied post run only.
Run 4:  10 mile trail run on packed dirt and mud.  Compression socks applied post run only.
Run 5:  11 mile road run on pavement or concrete.  Epsom Salt bath post run.
Run 6:  12 mile road run on packed dirt and mud.  Epsom Salt bath post run.

So I have finished the final run.  Now the final run was supposed to be a 12 mile run, but I ended up doing 13.3 miles as I thought about how Spartan Beasts were a minimum of 13 miles.  So I decided to do more.

The only thing that might have thrown off the results of my experiment is that I did do a Leg strength day on Tuesday before.  I figured I would have been recovered by Friday, but as the run was hard from mile 6 on so I clearly wasn't recovered.

To recap from my prior runs I was sore for several days post no assisted recovery runs.  With the Compression socks post runs I had little to no soreness in the calf and feet the day after the run.  Although I did have knee and hip soreness post 10 mile run.

Now for the longest two runs to date.  After both runs I felt pretty sore by the end of the day.  The soreness was from the waist down.  I will say that after the Epsom Salt bath on the 11 mile run I wasn't all that sore the next day.  A little sore, but nothing to bad.  Although after the 13.3 mile run even with the Epsom Salt bath I was very sore come Saturday morning.  The soreness was better after moving for a bit, but any time sitting for a while caused the soreness to return.  Now the second day post run I will admit that the soreness has gotten quite a bit better.  The soreness after sitting for a bit seems to have abated and mainly the soreness I feel is muscular in the quads, hams and calves.  Very little joint soreness is felt.  It seems that my prediction on the post from 04/08/2017 was mainly accurate.  It seems that any recovery assistance is better the none at all.

In conclusion what I have learned and what I will do from this point forward on all long training runs is a combination of things.  It seemed that Compression gear seemed to enhance recovery at the location of the compression only.  Epsom Salt bath seemed to enhance recovery as well, but as the entire lower half of the body is covered in a bath it seemed to also be location dependent.  Doing both might provide additional recovery, but the most important thing I learned was to not do a leg strength workout the same week that I am going to run 12+ miles.

Motivation 04/22/2017

Beyond General Fitness: Running: Heart Rate Training Test Final

Over the last few months I have been doing a heart rate training.  So I'll restate the theory around what heart rate training is and what we should expect.  I will also talk about why my test probably wasn't the best and why.

Now how does one go about figuring out their training zones? 

Well there are a lot of ways, but the most simple way is to take 220 and subtract your age.  This method does have some inherent error in it, but it is a good starting method.  I am going to use myself as example.  As I am nearly 36 I'll use that, so 220 - 36 is 184.  Now 184 bpm should be my maximum heart rate and we can now figure out the zones from that number.  The zones are historically 90-100%, 80-90%, 70-80%, 60-70% and 50-60%.  Now if you take 90% of 184 you get 165.6 so lets round up to 166 bpm so there is the highest zone or zone 5 166 bpm to 184 bpm.  The next zone is 147.2 to 128.8 so lets round to 147 and 129. 


I could figure the rest of the zones for myself, but TomTom has already done it for me, but now you know how it works.  You can see that the numbers aren't 100% exact, but pretty darn close.

Now for the training method.  For long distance runners it is touted to be best to train in zone 3.  This is the aerobic training zone that you burn more calories and elevate your endurance and cardiovascular fitness. 

In order to stay in zone 3 many runners will actually have to slow down.  I find this to be very difficult as I feel like I am going to slow to be doing any good.  Now this could be the fact that I was use to training in zone 4 instead of zone 3 up until this point.  It could also be that the 220 - my age isn't all that accurate for me.  (Italic area copied from Beyond General Fitness: Running:  My Adventure In Heart Rate Training.  Speed Test 1 on 03/19/2017)

Now since then I have read several articles about the accuracy of wrist heart rate monitors.  They can be off by as much as 20%.  Next there is the fact that the 220 minus your age has up to 20% error as it depends on your fitness level and other factors.  So I could be trying to do a heart rate training with an error that could be as much as 40% error.

Then there could be the fact that I have also been testing a run walk combo while doing heart rate training and something occurred to me while running today.  I might be trying to test too many things all at the same time.

Well on my blog post on 04/17/17 I posted that I was disappointed with the results of my heart rate training.  I had done the math and figured what my pace was slower then prior.  Although it seems that I was wrong now that I have placed the numbers on a spreadsheet.

Now that I have the numbers all together I can now see that I am progressing.  After two months of heart rate training I have dropped nearly 39 seconds from my original test and 12 second off my second test. 

The numbers speak for themselves and as you can see from the dates that I ended up taking a break from speed work and I even took an entire break from working out in November - December.  You can see that I was running at these speeds in the past, but my heart rate average was very different.  As you can see that I am doing the same speed and work at lower heart rates.

I also placed weather or not I did a strength rotation in the middle of the run.  So I would run a half of a mile out and then back and then do strength rotation.  Then running out at back again and if I was still getting that break in the middle of the run my numbers might be even faster.

I still am considering a VO2 test and a running gate test at some point and time to ensure that I am doing the correct heart rate and ensuring I am getting the most out of my training.  I also want to get my gate tested to ensure I am running correctly and won't injure myself.  I tend to worry about my knees.

I am going to continue the heart rate training now that I see the numbers together.  It seems to be working.

As per the usual please visit my affiliates:
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Motivation 04/21/17

Motivation 04/20/17

Motivation 04/19/2017

Motivation 04/18/2017

Don't Give UP!!!

Motivation 04/17/2017

Be Steadfast.

Motivation 04/16/2017

Daily Motivation for diet, exercise and getting in shape.