A lazy week. CL was sick, but nonetheless I'd planned on doing intervals Wednesday with TC. And then, I wussed out. Boo me. On Thursday I left for vacation. Saturday I went to run a "long" run in sunny (and hot) Moorpark, California. But I only made it 8.2 miles or so. The first few was with vacation buddies DP and SS, but then I was on my own. I did this run in two laps--I was feeling a bit run down after 4 miles or so, so I went back to my home base, loaded up on Gatorade, and hit up another 4.

CL was sick and I had a miscommunication with TC, so I was alone this morning. Managed to get in a lazy 3 miles to the Longfellow and back home.

Started winding down the swimming in preparation for the big day next wkend. Actually it was a bit inadvertent. Ended up not swimming as much today or as quickly today, because it was a very busy day at the pool. Lap swim and free swim were combined today on this nice Sun afternoon, so there were a lot of people who frolicked in and out of my lane. The last straw was when I accidentally hit some lady's snorkel, which made my hand hurt a ton.

Will likely do one last long swim mid-week before the race and will probably do a tiny ocean swim on Sat to test out the course.

After last weekend's big run, it was time for an easier long run today. 11.5 miles with TC, and we pushed the pace a bit (for a long run) to average what I'll guess was 8:40 or 8:45 miles. This was my route -- I'm starting to get sick of the river.

I think TC added in an extra loop to bring his total close to 18.

Out all the way to River St. this morning. First 5.0 or so with CL and TC, but only TC finished the full 8.0 with me. Felt really good.

Swam 76 laps today in under 1:13 without doing any sprinting. Extrapolating that to 85 laps (2.4 miles), my projected time is now ~1:22. If I can get this time down by just a couple more minutes in the pool, then I think I have a fair shot of making my 1:30 goal in the ocean on race day.

The new swimming technique is working quite nicely. It makes me wonder how much more I can optimize my stroke for speed? Anyone want to be my coach?

Another 5.0 miler, with CL and TC, just like yesterday. Felt a little achey today but not as lethargic and sore as yesterday. CL says "43:11 - 5 mi, 8:38 miles". Compare that to yesterday, where, for the same route, he "had us at 45:19 for 5 mi".

Recovery is good.

Fun swim today. Today was the first day I felt I just might be able to beat my goal of 1:30:00. I tried two new things in my swim: 1) breathing more and 2) stroking differently.

As I mentioned in my last post, I realized that I did a lot better when I breathed more frequently, so this time, I swam the first 15 laps as usual but then made an conscious effort to breathe after only two strokes for the next 5 laps. Thereafter, I breathed after every three strokes, but whenever I felt short of breathe, I relaxed to breathing after every two. This turned out to work very well. I never felt short of energy.

The second thing that worked well was changing my stroke. Turns out there are some merits to watching the Olympics. The other day, my father and I saw a news clip, analyzing Michael Phelps' stroke. Turns out, Michael Phelps minimizes the number of strokes he takes by stretching his long arms in front of him with a stroke-stroke-glide motion. He propels himself mostly with the gliding, allowing his arms to rest and optimizing his stroke. My father pointed out that Michael also does not form tight "cups" with his hands--in fact, he just lets them relax. This is a bit contrary to what they teach you when you learn to swim. So I tried copying this stroke for the first time today, and it works really well! I felt like I could swim forever.

By combining this new stroke with the change in my breathing pattern, I marched down the pool at an easy 1 min per lap for 65 laps, with no hussle and plenty of energy for the sprint at the end (which I never got to, because the pool closed). With my old technique, I would start slipping from this pace around lap #20, so this is definitely a huge improvement.

I want to take these two things and optimize them this week. I have exactly 2 weeks before the race.

Standard 5.0 mile loop with CL and TC this morning. This was a hard one! I wasn't as sore as I thought after Saturday's 18.4 miler, and had a full day rest on Sunday, so I was optimistic that this morning's jog would be routine, but I felt slower and sorer than usual today, from the get-go.

biked 8.3 miles to church today. (turns out the 0.7 miles i clocked on my test run yesterday was just me getting lost...) didn't notice the sore butt until afterwards because i was late and trying to book it. i already have one of those gel seat covers, which helps a little but there's still a fair amount of pressure on my tailbone. maybe i just have a tender tush, but enough about that... another point of adjustment that i still haven't figured out: handlebars. jen, i noticed that the bars block my view of the front wheel axle when i'm in drop position (not top)--is that bad? i don't really like holding on to the top of the bars because you don't get as good of leverage on the brakes. i adjusted the angle of the bar to be nice and comfy in drop position (angled downward to reduce the strain on my wrists because i was having a hard time grabbing the brakes when it was level). now that it's angled downward though, it's extremely awkward to hold on to the top position. people i've talked to say that you should position the handlebars so that you can bike in either position (hands on top or in drop), but if i only ever plan to be in drop position, does it matter how capable i am of riding with my hands on top? are we talking about just comfort here or serious ergonomics?

btw, where are the drowning hippo posts?

This just in: moisterizers cause cancer. So say many recent news articles about a Rutgers dermatological study.

The popular press is getting a few things right about this study. Most seem to emphasize that the study was in mice, not people, and that as such the results must be viewed as preliminary. For example, Business Week quotes the principal researcher who did the study as saying "We don't know what the implications are for humans." The LA Times' includes quotes from dermatologists unaffiliated with the study:

"The components in moisturizers are tested. There's no evidence for this being a problem in humans."

The Times also explicitly raised the possibility that the current wave of moisturizer-cancer articles might be a "another needless public health scare." So far, so good.

But of course, there's more. The studies author Allan Conney is quoted as saying

"I think it raises a red flag indicating that there's a need to determine whether or not these products could cause this problem in people."

I went looking for "red flags" in the original study. Here's one: The researchers treated mice with 100 mg of moisturizer per day. It doesn't sound like much, but mice weigh about 20 grams, meaning that the treatment was about 0.5% of body weight. Extrapolated to a 70 kg human, this would be 350 g of moisturizer every day. That's a whole bottle of moisturizer! I doubt I will ever be a daily user of that much moisturizer.

Doing the calculation on a surface area basis puts the extrapolated human dosage to a somewhat more reasonable ~23 g per 70 kg human per day. But it's not clear to me why surface area normalization is better than body mass normalization. Especially since the the original study says "mouse skin is much thinner and more permeable than human skin." Oops!

Another detail: "During the course of our studies, we developed a Custom Blend cream that was not tumorigenic..." Oh great! The researchers already solved the problem -- and patented it! -- but no one happened to mention that in the popular reports.

Here's another interesting tidbit: "[O]ur [previous] studies suggested the possible utility of caffeine and caffeine sodium benzoate as topical agents for inhibiting sunlight-induced skin cancer in humans..." Why were no journalists around to write articles about these older results when they came ou: "Caffeine cures skin cancer!" or "A link between caffeine and a cure for cancer". Maybe journalistic overreaching to find popular import for research findings is acceptable only when it leads to scary thoughts instead of hopeful ones.

All in all, the current study showed that some moisturizers cause an increased rate of skin cancer in mouse models. I guess the popular press mostly got that part right. Here's what they missed out on:
1. The dosage of moisturizer was very high, far higher than people are ever likely to use regularly.
2. The researchers apparently understood the tumorigenic effect of the moisturizers enough to design a moisturizer which did not cause an increased rate of tumors.
3. New, caffeine-based prophylactics for skin cancer are being developed. Caffeine!

No calculation is required to arrive at points 2 and 3. They are stated explicitly in the plain text of the original study. That no articles mention these points suggests either (i) journalists don't habitually read the study they're writing about, or (ii) if they do, they ignore anything that doesn't fit into a "it's a new public health crisis" template for their article.

UPDATE: I edited the post slightly to remove a few extraneous sentences and make my central point clearer.

went biking today for 18 miles. i wanted to check out some alternative bike roads from MV to PA without having to bike down el camino. there are some decent side streets, but they add a couple of miles to my route.

my butt is really sore. there was no good way to segue to that topic of conversation, so i just decided to be blunt about it. yeah, i even went to the bike store to look at padded shorts, but they all just made me feel like i was waddling around in diapers. don't know how my ride tomorrow will be--it's 9 miles to church, and it still hurts a little to sit down.

other things i discovered: i have a terrible sense of direction. and if you're biking and go the wrong way, it takes considerable more effort to get on the right path. also while biking, i bumped into SJ and AJ. SJ was the one who found my bike for me on craig's list, and AJ works at BCM, where I volunteer. i imagine the number of bay area cyclists are relatively small, but it was still cool to see people i know biking around.

Swam for only 40 min today. Out of breathe, hungry, exhausted, dehydrated. Morning swims are way rougher, because I don't wake up early enough to eat enough, drink enough (hiccup), or digest enough. :(

On the plus side, I realized today that I do better later in the game if I breathe every two strokes instead of every 3. It takes more time to breathe, but the extra oxygen I get really helps a lot.

Charles River: pwned.

You may think this is courtney posting, but actually this is ms. hippo, wallowing in her mudhole.

Went for a 30 mile bike ride today for work (in addition to commuting by bike).  We biked from the top of a mountain down to the beach.   Although it was mostly downhill, there were some inclines and lots of flat parts that required some oomph.  Not sure if x-training helps, but it was a great ride.  The downhill parts were super fun!

Two posts from me.  Yesterday, I worked in a 40 min swim but didn't clock myself nor did I count laps.  It was just good to get in the pool.  Went full-on speed for the last 5 min of the 40min.  

~2.5 miles of warmup with CL and TC this morning. Then, a balls-to-the-wall mile. I ran it in 6:34 or so, but was still the slowest of the bunch. Cooled down with a half mile jog home.

Maybe next week we'll try some more speed work.

hey everyone! here i am to round out the posts with cycling entries to make it look like we're entering a triathlon or something. i'm a bit of a delinquent poster, but here goes: as of last friday, i am now the proud owner of a 2001 lemond buenos aires. it was found on craig's list, all thanks to my bike loving friends. i don't really know anything about bikes, but it looks pretty :D i'm still trying to figure out the proper adjustment of seat post/handlebars. i've never really ridden a road bike before, and the aggressive position is a little difficult to get used to. on sunday i rode to church and back, which was a total trip of 15 miles. it didn't help that i haven't gotten a rack installed yet, and i had to lug the 10 pound (or so) lock in my backpack the whole way. i've been meaning to bike to work this week, but haven't been able to yet. my commute would be an 11 mile ride one way, and my goal is to bike every day. considering i haven't done anything yet, i'm off to a slow start. it also doesn't help that i'm living with the slacker swimmer, and somehow every time she doesn't swim, it makes me feel a little better about not biking...

CL and I extended our usual loop by one bridge morning. CL says "6.82 miles, 58:21, 8:33 pace". Felt good.

Running can ward off death, says a news study focused on the effect of exercise in the elderly. Yay running!

[Of course, as a professional researcher I must note that I doubt the study showed any such thing. Instead, it probably found a correlation between time spent running and decreased morbidity. Maybe the people predisposed to spend time running when they get older are also predisposed to enjoy good health longer than average -- even if for some reason they don't actually run.]

[The popular press frequently conflates correlation and causation when reporting on medical studies. I suppose it's a misguided attempt to make the "conclusions" of the article seem easier to understand.]

[I couldn't find study itself, after a brief search. If anyone knows where it is, please give a pointer in the comments -- then we'll be able to test my claims above.]

Everyone, I'm pleased to report that we recently welcomed a third contributor to our ranks -- her name is "courtney" and she (supposedly) rides her bike.

We're still waiting for her first report of a bike ride. In the comments section, let's tell "courtney" how much we need to hear about her riding her bike.

Standard 5 mi loop this morning with CL. Good to work out the tiredness from Saturday's run and yesterday's beach trip from the legs.

Long swim today but not nearly long enough. 70 complete laps in 1:14:10. Projecting this out, I'm looking at a time of basically a 1:30:00 time on race day. However, given the waves, hoards of people, lack of walls, I'm looking at a time much higher than 1:30:00.

I'm not sure what my swimming strategy should be. In the pool, I think I can march down each full lap consistently in a minute, but I'm not sure whether I should be trying to really push it in the beginning and then fall off in the middle to store energy for the final push.

Today, I sprinted in the beginning, ran out of breath by 0.5 miles and then fell off until I hit about 1.5miles, at which point I regained my normal pace of one full lap per minute. I felt totally winded at the outset, but maybe this is not a good approach. Thoughts?

15.4 miles along the Charles river in about 2.5 hours or so. Felt really good! I didn't start to fade much until the last two miles or so, and even that wasn't too bad.

The unfortunate part was that I misread the mileage chart before I left: until a few minutes after I'd finished, I was convinced I'd ran 17 miles +. I guess that distance will be for another weekend.

I've set up feeds on the blog now. If you think these heroic tales + comments are just that exciting, you can now have them sent to a news aggregator tool such as Google Reader.

5 miles this morning with TC and CL. I held up surprisingly well considering all the partying I did yesterday.

Ok , I'm slacking. I swam for about 30 minutes yesterday. Boy, I feel more sluggish, since I basically hadn't done any swimming since last Fri. Now I'm wondering how I'll even finish this race? Need to do some serious swimming tomorrow or this weekend.

The five mile usual loop, again! Yay me for getting out there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. Today was just TC and me. Felt very nice.

The usual 5 mile loop, with an army! I was joined by CL as well as TC, and, new to me, CD as well. It was a merry jaunt. Maybe next time we'll sing songs.

~3.1 miles at a (hopefully) faster speed than usual. Was alone, but it felt good to get this run in before doing my standard 5 miler tomorrow with CL and TC.

Decided to work on speed yesterday. Swam for as fast as I could and took lots of breaks. Felt a little lightheaded, but hopefully I can keep up the speed for about an hour at least.

~13.5 miles in two laps from the Science Museum to the BU Bridge, plus a jaunt through North Point Park. 2nd lap was with CL and my new running buddy TC. They helped me keep a good pace in the last few miles. Overall this run felt great! If only I could get up at 6am every day.
My route.