Taking Stock: June

It's the last day of the month and it's official: I'm tired. I was surprised by it this morning when I woke up and looked at the clock and it was 6.30am, and I realised I'd slept right through the night. But I'm now less surprised by it having done my diligent summary of my training volume this month:

35 hours riding

16.5 hours running

13.5 hour swimming

June was the first month where I can say I trained hard in all three disciplines consistently; and the total volumes show it. I'm pleased with my progress in both running and swimming; both feel good and I can feel myself gaining strength and speed.

The bike, however, is another matter. I think it's safe to say that my concerns in this area are building to a quiet crisis in confidence. It started when I began to do speed and strength drills with Arnold and Sabine six weeks ago. Realizing that I hadn't been pushing myself enough in this way, I've been incorporating these drills into my training at least once - but often twice - a week. And I feel like I've made zero progress. My endurance on the bike remains good, but heaven help me if I have to ride into a headwind or climb a hill; I seem to lack the power that others have. I feel like the group Sunday rides are charity sessions: since the rule is that nobody is dropped from the group, the stronger riders hang back and push riders who are struggling to keep up. This means that I regularly spend a good portion of the back half of a long ride with a hand on my back. While this makes me feel feel warm and fuzzy inside, it leaves me teeming with frustration that I require help to keep up.

I'm determined to find a solution to my lack of strength on the bike, and that starts with finding out why. This week is going to be all about reading everything I can find online on the topic, quizzing those who have the Ironman training experience that I lack, a reexamination of my training program and of course, a reexamination of my diet. It would be foolish to not query whether there is something missing in my nutrition that is holding me back from making gains in this area. I'm not resting until I find an answer, and I'll be reporting back on what I decide needs to be done.

And now moving onto the area of my diet, and recipe of the month. A few weeks ago, I had a particularity animated and exciting moment in the organic foods store when I found nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast, for those who aren't familiar with it, is an inactive yeast that is bright yellow in color and has a nutty cheesy flavor. It contains eighteen amino acids, making it a complete protein, and while being rich in a plethora of vitamins and minerals, it is an especially good source of the much coveted b12 vitamin for vegans. It comes in both flakes and a powdered form, and it melts just like cheese when added to hot foods.

I used nutritional yeast regularly in Vancouver before becoming vegan because of it's health benefits and was sad that I couldn't find it anywhere in Europe. But the south of France has pulled through for me again and I did a small dance in the aisle of the Biofoods Coop when I saw it, bold and yellow and en masse in a bulk foods bin. I filled a large bag and rushed home to make something I've been missing terribly (those who frequent the Naam restaurant in Vancouver will know what I'm talking about here):

Miso Gravy

3 tablespoons of red or yellow miso
1 and 1/2 cups of water
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons of unbleached flour
2 teaspoons of minced fresh basil or 1/4 teaspoon of dried basil

Directions:

1. In a medium-sized pan, bring olive oil to medium heat, then add onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes, or until onion is tender and translucent.

2. Reduce heat to low setting and add flour and nutritional yeast. Stir steadily for 1-2 minutes.

3. Add water in a slow drizzle while stirring briskly. Bring heat up to medium setting and continue to stir regularly for about 10 minutes, or until gravy begins to thicken.

4. Once the gravy has just started to thicken, reduce heat to medium-low setting and add miso and basil. Keep the pan uncovered and stir occasionally. It typically takes about 15 minutes for the gravy to fully thicken and become smooth.

Pour over baked or mashed potatoes (great comfort food when feeling blue after a punishing outing on the bike) or (lower-calorie but equally tasty option) a plate of steamed vegetables.

Sleepless in Narbonne

There's one particular phenomenon that's been going on in my body since becoming vegan which I haven't said much about, mostly because I don't have a good scientific explanation for it, which I hate. So I'm throwing it out to the floor: can anyone find a decent explanation, backed by empirical data, for why I need less sleep as a vegan? It's been getting more extreme with each passing month; my body refuses to stay unconscious for more than three hours at a time, and for no longer than six hours in a twelve hour period. I've resorted to napping in the afternoon for thirty minutes becasue I'm deathly afraid of not recovering well from the training volume that is ramping up week after week, but actually I'm not tired with or without the nap (though I have to say that a siesta after a morning of heavy training and a hearty lunch really does feel good; not to mention how very southern-European I feel)

Possible explanations I have read all revolve around the animal kingdom: herbivores sleep much less than omnivores, and omnivores sleep less than carnivores, who typically sleep for more than half the day. Theories behind the explanations revolve around how the energy-intensive process of digesting meat requires more shut-eye time. But these are parallels, anecdotes, observations. I am looking for something more solid to put my mind at rest when it's awake and racing at 4am. I need to know that I'm not going to keel over into a comma induced by overtraining and confounded by sleep deprivation anytime soon.

The Celebs Get on My Bandwagon

I wouldn't exactly call it news anymore, but it's going to make the news more and more now:

http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/community_content/_low_carbon_news/

I'm a little concerned that Richard Branson is going to send a cow up in a hot air balloon to prove a point.

My Swim Mascot

Continuing my photographic theme, I took my camera with me to the pool yesterday - and then promptly forgot about it in my locker. I did, however, manage to take a picture of one of my favourite art pieces around Narbonne en route to the pool. This little lady sits in a park a few blocks away, and I pass her on my walk to and fro:


There is no inscription on the statue and I haven't quite figured out who she is, but I have nevertheless adopted her as my mental and emotional mascot for swim training. I'm hoping to look and feel just like her when I emerge from the water in Barcelona. Speaking of which, my swim training is going well: I'm swimming around five times per week and my long swim is up to 4km. Today is Wednesday, and Wednesday nights are an optional open water training session for the club. We head down to the beach at sunset and do a 2-3km swim in one of the more sheltered bays (the waves still turn my stomach a little, but I'm getting used to it). Swim training is followed by dinner at a beachfront restaurant, and dinner includes obligatory wine. I've started to write off Thursday mornings for serious training and have adjusted my schedule to make them active recovery days, in more than one sense.

I continue to have no idea what we are doing in swim training, so I just swim when everyone else swims and stop when everyone else stops. I'm not sure how it happened, but I seem to be one of the faster swimmers in the club. I've never trained with a group before, so in effect, this is the first time I've been able to benchmark my swimming abilities in relation to others. I swim in the lead pack during open water training, which means that yes, I have to swim with the boys. I just keep my swim mascot in mind when I'm jostling for position with them.

A Little Piece of Paradise, Protected

I'm getting back into trail running again. I wasn't planning on making it a focus this year, what with Ironman and such, but I've discovered trail networks around Narbonne that cannot be ignored. Plus, I continue to have a surplus of energy beyond the requirements of my training program which are currently being channeled into things like obsessively pruning my (now harshly over-pruned) potted plants and herbs on the terrace. So I got up early this morning to beat the heat and headed out for a 3-hour run. My camera came along, too.

The canal leading out of Narbonne towards the salt flats:


Climbing up into the hills that look down across the flats towards the sea:


Looking back towards Narbonne:

First glimpses of the Med in the distance:

And finally arriving at the waterfront:

I'm not sure how it's managed to escape my attention until now, but I recently found out that I live in the middle of a protected (protégé) region of France. You would think the ubiquitous signs like the above would have been my first clue; or perhaps the large green hatched area marked on regional road maps might have given it away. It goes a long way to explaining a number of things I haven't been able to figure out, like where there is no waterfront development along the coastline here, why there is no industry other than wine-making, or why Narbonne has no multistory buildings and no sprawling residential suburbs. All of which leads to my new favourite French expression, straight from the lips of a local:

'Un petit paradis protégé'

A little piece of protected paradise.

Crocs, Kisses and Tan Lines: How the French Do Triathlon

There are some things in the culture of triathlon that are the same the world over, like men with waxed legs, crocs as acceptable footwear for all occasions (yes, even in France), and an unrelenting obsession with gear. The latter has always been something I've refrained from: transitioning from the au natural world of ultrarunning, I've always considered myself to be an athlete with more old-fashioned values, such as listening to one's body to determine intensity level. I've even been known to train and race without a watch (one of my best ultra performances, when I placed second at Stormy Trail 64K, came when I stopped my watch and ran for fun in the last twenty kilometers). I've also run all but one of my five marathons with a negative split by using good ol' fashioned judgment of my exertion levels. But I do hold a BSc in Sport Science and I do know the value of turning to lab data from time to time, so I've caved in and have started to wear a heart rate monitor during training. I'm finding it useful since my cardio response to training in the heat is a little foreign to me. I've had various other measuring devices donated to me by (male) members of the club whose jaws dropped when they saw I had no beeping gadgets on my bike or body during training. I'm not even going to attempt to convey my philosophies on this in French, so I am making out like a grateful gift recipient with a lot of enthusistic 'merci merci!'s.

And then there are some are some other little idiosyncrasies in the triathlon culture that differ between countries. For example, here in the south of France, the two-cheek kiss (always commencing with the right side) is the standard greeting between friends and acquaintances. The French are very particular about their manners (I love how kids respectfully call me Madam when they interact with me; makes me feel so grown up), and this means that the two-cheek kiss is delivered no matter what inconveniences are in the way: you get out of your chair, you lean across tables, you crane out of a car window, you do whatever it takes to deliver those kisses. This leads to the most interesting scene at 8am on Sunday mornings in the pool's parking lot, when the tri club meets for the weekly long ride. The fact that everyone is arriving on their bikes is no reason to push manners aside, so an entanglement of athletes and bikes ensues as everyone ensures they have not missed anyone. I'm doing my best to assimilate but can't help but be extremely anxious about getting my spokes in somebody's wheel.

Another little idiosyncrasy from the world of French triathlon: topless swim training. I'm not kidding. The first time I was swimming in Narbonne's outdoor Olympic pool and noticed I was sharing a lane with a half-clad woman, I thought it was an exception. It's not. In the outdoor pool, the women take off the top half of their sport bikinis after they get in the water and proceed to train comme ça. There are no showy ostentatious displays of walking around topless at the poolside; there is just the very practical prevailing philosophy that upper-body tan lines can be avoided if due care is taken, so tops come off in the water. So at the end of each swim lane, you will see the usual collection of water bottles, fins, paddles, kick boards - and some scattered bikini tops. It should be noted that during our coached swim sessions, tops do not come off; it seems to be acceptable behavior during personal swim times only. I asked Arnold why this is and he says he pays no attention to these matters; when he's swim training, he's swim training. I asked if that was similar to the philosophy of not looking at the views in the vineyards from the bike, and he said no, it's a French thing and I wouldn't understand.

Personally, I have to confess I've been toying with the idea, just slightly. My back is a mess of criss-crossing tan lines from different swim suits and sports tops; but I don't think I've quite assimilated into French culture to that degree. Plus, I'm not sure what to do in the instance of meeting an acquaintance in the pool and how to handle the two-cheek kiss greeting when in that state. Yes, I still have some assimilating to do; I'll continue to watch and learn.

A Job Done for Me

Right on the heels of my kvetching that I don't know how to convey my new life in France through my blogging endeavors, the job was done for me. My company back home in Vancouver, Metasoft Systems, sent a filmmaker to make a short about me living here while continuing to work for them. It's part of a greater HR initiative to convey the culture of the company through employee testimonials:

Scroll down till you see my shining face and hit play:

http://foundationsearch.com/about/employee_testimonials.asp

They woudn't let me talk about being vegan - something about it not being relevant - but they did let me talk about training for Ironman.

I estimate that this saves me at least five posts.

Recovering Exotically

I took a serious schooling in the vineyard hills yesterday. After the second set of 30-second overgeared intervals, I did indeed stop looking at the view of the sun sparkling on the Mediterranean at the top of each crest. Either my legs are still recovering from Sunday's 180km (although it doesn't feel like they are when I run up the stairs) or I just haven't been doing enough power work on the bike. I'm quite certain it's the latter; I've been working on two speeds for most of the winter: slow and moderately slow. This means that I can chirpily ride flat at a steady pace for 180km in 5hr45min, but don't ask me to pick it up and certainly don't ask me to tackle any hills.

After leaving me in the dust on the hill intervals yesterday, Sabine and Arnold said lots of nice things, like if I did the same intervals that they do every week, I will be keeping up in under a month. I think this might be the sort of thing that new friends say, but I'm determined to be where they are as soon as possible so I'm going to up the ante on the pace of my mid-week rides, recover well and see if I can't get there by the end of this month. Running, at least, remains my weapon and I was pleased to see that I could still run fast off the bike, even after a session that left me seeing stars under the high midday sun in the vineyards.

I'm getting to be very particular about what I eat immediately after a workout in the heat to ensure that I recover well. Coconut milk has become a favourite ingredient in my recovery shakes; I first discovered it when reading that it has the perfect electrolyte profile for post-exercise recovery in The Thrive Diet. I did some research and it's true: 10 oz has 650 mg of potassium (15x more than a banana), 25mg of magnesium, and 35 mg of sodium. It's a bit like nature's gatorade; and like my peanut butter obsession, I wouldn't dream of consuming it in in anything but an unaltered, unsweetened and organic form. I'm currently mixing it with a scoop of my rationed Vega protein protein, half a banana, ice, soy milk and a drop of vanilla essence. Frozen mango works well too; any exotic fruits pair with coconut flavour in my book, and exotic fits the mood of 30C+ heat.

I also found out that coconut milk is so similar to blood plasma that it was given to soldiers in WWII intravenously when plasma supplies were low. Some doctors give it to children with digestive problems, similar to Pedialyte, since the stomach accepts it so well. Low blood plasma and stomach shutdown are two things that might be on the agenda for me tomorrow: I've been cajoled into doing a two hour trail run in the desert-like brush area above the salt water flats, again, under high sun. I wish the French would get up earlier.

Things are Getting Hot Down Here

I'm back in the south of France, having been whisked here in one short morning by the TGV. I love watching the French countryside go by from the TGV window; the landscape changes at hyperspeed and if you look away for ten minutes, you could miss a lot. So I spent the three hours from Geneva to Montpellier with my forehead pressed against the glass of the upstairs window in first class (there were no seats left in second, quel domage) and watched as the lush greenery of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence changed to the rocky and shrubby plains of southern Provence, patchworked with lavender fields and criss-crossed by rows of poplar trees. As the route heads directly south through the Rhone valley, you can almost feel the air getting hotter and dryer with every passing mile. When I disembarked at Montpellier to catch my connection to Narbonne, it had to be at least ten degrees hotter than when I boarded in Geneva a short three hours prior.

This is the first time I've lived in a hot climate, and certainly the first time I've trained in one. I can see that there are going to be some things to learn, and there's going to be a lot of laundry to do if I continue to change my clothes at my current rate. Thankfully my apartment stays cool becasue it's in an old stone building, but when I walked out my front door this morning, it only took ten minutes to break a sweat. And I was only walking to the market. And this was at 9am. My poor little herb garden isn't coping well either; it was a sight of mass carnage after my three-day absence. I am suddenly planning on making a lot of dishes with fresh herbs to make use of the specimens that are wilted-beyond-consolation (for dinner tonight: Amaranth Tabouli, to use up some of the sad-looking parsley and mint), while trying to revive the others with water and encouraging words.

I'm now off to do a brick training session with two tri-club friends, Arnold and Sabine. Arnold is the club's president and chief advice-giver for those training for Ironman; last time I rode with him he barked instructions on my gear choice with every change in camber, and then afterward he told me I could be quite a good athlete if I stopped looking at the views and talking about the poppies and the butterflies all the time. I told him that was easy for him to say since he's lived here all his life, and he conceded the point. Sabine is not racing this season but continues to train with the club as a means of staying in shape; she's a mother of two and has a body you could bounce rocks off of. Today, the three of us are going to do interval training in the nearest wine appellation called La Clape, a protected region of endless vineyards and rolling hills, and some steep climbs that crest over to views of the Mediterranean in the distance. After two hours of that, we are going to run intervals along the banks of the canal back here in town. This all sounds like an incredibly bad idea to me since it's 10am and it has to be at least 30 degrees already, but Arnold and Sabine insist that it's good for me to acclimatize to training in the heat as soon as possible. While I'm waiting for that to happen, I'm going to keep looking at the views.

Taking Stock: May

How do I even begin to take stock of a month where I turned my life upside down by moving across Europe and creating an entirely new existence which has little in common with anything I have known before and which excites and delights me on a daily basis. It's hard to know how best to make sense of what has transpired this month, let alone write about it as it's unfolded. And it's perhaps for this reason that I've avoided blogging; I've been in a stunned writers' silence that has left me sitting in front of my computer with a blank posting page open, stammering at my keyboard.

Nevertheless, I'll attempt to take stock of the last four weeks with my usual summary of how much training I did. It will come as no surprise that these tallies are low:

Riding 26 hrs

Running 7 hrs

Swimming 5 hrs

But I did finish up the month with a test of sorts. Yesterday, May 31st, saw me return to Switzerland to take part in an event that I had had my sights on as a fun event to do with friends, as well as a good benchmark of my riding fitness: The Cyclotour du Lac Leman. The road that loops around Lake Geneva (Lac Leman, en français), is a flat and scenic route that passes through both Switzerland and France, and also happens to be exactly 180km: the distance of the bike portion of an Ironman. Myself and two ex-pat friends, along with two thousand other eager riders, set off at 7am from Lausanne as the sun rose over the Rhone Valley peaks to the east. I arrived back where I started from in a respectable 5hr 45mins (subtracting time for three aid station stops, which with two thousand riders, were events in themselves). I rode at a moderate and steady pace and got off the bike feeling good, and dare I say it, feeling like it wouldn't be unfeasible to change my shoes and set off for a marathon. This morning, twenty-four hours later, I have no aches or pains and no fatigue whatsoever in my legs.

So I'm pleased with this, and most importantly it has bolstered my confidence that my training isn't going that badly. I'm now busy making plans for training in June, which includes deciding to what degree I can pick up my Ironman training schedule without a ramp-up stage. After yesterday's benchmark, my current thinking is pretend that nothing has happened, pick up where I left off, and hope that my body doesn't notice.

On to my diet: as I mentioned in one of my rare posts of May, I increasingly feel that isn't much to say about my vegan foray. After five months of eating what initially felt like an awkward and difficult diet, being vegan feels completely normal and I give it little thought anymore. My energy levels, general fitness and recovery times have gone from strength to strength, I've had confirmed medical evidence that my iron levels are in fact increasing with this diet, and I have had no signs that my body is struggling to handle the demands of Ironman training. Shopping as a vegan and eating out as a vegan have become second nature, and while the latter sometimes leaves me feeling restricted (although less so in the South of France), neither seem remarkable anymore. I continue to find new things to cook and I have to say, I'm getting rather good in the kitchen. This month's recipe of the month was a bit of an accident; I was planning to make a quinoa salad and ended up blending it into a tapenade that I served on crackers as an appetizer. My new French friends loved it.

Toasting the quinoa before cooking it gives it a nutty flavour and combining it with the flavours of peanut and coconut makes for a faintly Asian-themed crunchy tapenade:

Coconut Quinoa Tapenade

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup sugar-free organic peanut butter

¼ cup green onions

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

¼ cup coconut milk

¼ cup finely diced red bell pepper (for garnish)

some cilantro sprigs (for garnish)

Rinse quinoa well in a fine strainer to remove the bitterness. Drain well. Spread quinoa on a plate lined with several layers of paper towels; let dry 10 to 15 minutes. Then spread in a large nonstick skillet, set over medium heat and toast until golden brown and fragrant, about 6 minutes. Add water and salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to a simmer; cover tightly and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 12 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and fluff with a fork. Cool completely.

Once cooled, blend quinoa in food processor with peanut butter, cilantro, green onions and coconut milk. Stir well, cover and refrigerate. Serve as a tapenade (I used organic sprouted wheat crackers) and decorate with finely chopped red bell pepper and cilantro leaves. Eat with the knowledge that you are getting a healthy dose of plant-based proteins and good fats before you even start the main course.