Tough Mudder Death Waiver

I'm curious if their death waiver has ever been tested in court? One law blog says they're not aware of any lawsuits and the waiver appears to be "legally sound or no one has tried to challenge it." 

This picture was on their Facebook wall. It's amusing to me because several months ago TM had job postings for 3 attorney positions on their website. I checked again after they posted this picture and it appears they now have at least 3 attorneys. 

I am aware of one death (a friend of a friend) where the family (and doctor I would assume) speculated that the death was the result of a Tough Mudder race. He finished a Tough Mudder race and died a few weeks later. The cause of death was due to the inhalation of certain mold spores commonly found on soil with a lot of moisture...basically places where Tough Mudder races are held. The takeaway was, if you have weird respiratory issues after a TM race, make sure you tell your doctor  you did one of these races so they can treat you for those types of molds. 

Given the popularity of these races and the number of people that might want to think twice before trying one but didn't, it's likely only a matter of time before it's tested in court. 

Flip Turns

Recently, I decided I was sick of using open turns in the pool since it's too easy to take an extra breath or two during the turn. There aren't any walls in open water you can turn around on. OK, I really decided to learn them because I want to look cooler in the water.

It's interesting reading about all the justifications triathletes use for not learning how to flip turn. I already mentioned one, there aren't any ways to get an extra breath or an extra second rest every turn. Open turns also screw up your momentum since you have to come out of the water a bit, turn around and gather speed again. Flip turns are more fluid and it doesn't feel like I'm interrupting my swim a couple times a minute. Having to deal with the increased time under water seems like it can only help one swim faster in the long run. Think about it this way, you can either get an extra breath every 25 yds or meters and then not get an extra breath in open water or you can flip turn and learn to "lose" a breath or two and then it'll be like getting an extra breath every 25 yards in open water. I bet if you watched the top triathlete swimmers in the pool, you'd see them doing flip turns. Plus, can you honestly say you don't push off the wall with your legs during an open turn?

I started off by watching a few videos on how to do a flip turn and how to work up to one. I tried a few months ago but gave up after getting extremely dizzy and water up my nose. I can't find the video that I watched but Competitor has a similar video.

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2012/08/training/video-how-to-do-a-flip-turn_17781

Somersaults in the middle of the pool were a great starting point. I definitely needed to get used to trying to flip in the water without flailing my arms like everyone does as a kid when they try to do somersaults underwater. Those got old fast and I felt stupid just standing in the lane trying to flip over. So, I started about 1/3 of the way from the wall and just swam in and tried to flip. The first 10 times were horrible. I was discouraged, dizzy and inhaled a bunch of water but knew the only way I'd figure it out was to keep doing it. Rather than torture myself for an hour, I decided to work on the at the end of my workouts...just don't do it on long run days unless you're properly hydrated. My calves cramped up during the push offs.

After spending 10-15 minutes at the end of 5 or 6 workouts I finally felt confident in my flip turn. It might not look pretty but, I was getting the job done for now. I got over the dizzy feeling however, I still had the problem of wanting to breath in as soon as I got upside down. Once I figured that out, I eventually made it 100 yards with 3 flip turns. The last 2 workouts I manged to make it 200 yards. The only problem is my lung capacity isn't large enough and I'm gasping for air after 3 or 4 turns. It sounds like, based on everything I've read, that not having enough air will fix itself with time as my lung capacity increases.

It's not as hard as you'd think, you just can't give up. It's like when I tried to learn how to snowboard in college after being a skier for 11 or 12 years. I would rent a snowboard with my friends but still have my skis with me. When I got sick of falling, I'd just put my skis on. Then I decided to buy (when I say "buy" I mean make my parents pay for it since I was in college) a snowboard and go without my skis so I'd be forced to learn. It didn't take long before my skis started collecting dust.

This guy does a good job of defending flip turns for triathletes.

http://badig.com/2011/06/the-importance-of-flip-turns/

Ramping Up Training

The clocks have been changed and you know what that means? Everyone is going to be training more often. I always get a little annoyed around this time of year. I get used to having the sidewalks and trails virtually to myself over the winter, since 90 percent of the Midwest has been in hibernation. Hell, most days I didn't see anyone outside when I was walking my dog. I guess I'll have to get used to sharing all over again this year. I can't be the only person who feels this way, can I?

Last year around this time I noticed a lot of the bloggers I read were injured. This seems to be a common theme every year. People don't train much during the winter and then jump right into high mileage training as soon as it's warm out again. It'll be interesting to see if this happens again. Hopefully it doesn't because being injured sucks.

New Crossfit Workout

Last night the dog (11 month old "puppy") helped me think up an amazing new type of Crossfit WOD. Its very situational and you need a relentless puppy.

WOD:

XX minutes of

90 lb "Puppy" Carries


So, this only works if you have a large dog that sometimes wakes you up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then jumps on the bed when he comes in. You must carry the puppy from the bed to the couch in the living room and walk back to bed. This should be completed until the puppy stops trying to get back into the bed or you get sick of trying to get him to stay on the couch. Feel free to add the time of the workout to the time you plan on waking up that morning.


In my case it took 14 trips over around 45 minutes before I gave up and went back to bed. Hopefully no one has to perform this workout but, if you do...Good Luck.

2013 Race Schedule

Even though it's February and I've already raced I bit, I never posted my planned races for this year. It's going to be a dozy. Hopefully my body can make it.

So far this year I've done...

1/12: Frostbite Series Race #3 - 20K

1/26: Frostbite Series #4 - 13.1

2/2: US XC Championship - 4K

2/9: Frostbite Series #5 - 15K

2/10: Run for Chocolate 5K

That's a lot of racing in 1 month. I did NOT want to do the last race in the Frostbite series. I was getting sick of long races on mostly the same course every other weekend. However, I'd rather suck it up than have a DNS or DNF on my record due to being a pansy.

On the docket for the rest of the year we have (I'm only signed up for the Bold races)...

3/3: YMCA Indoor Tri

5/4: Vino Fondo - Midi (89 miles) or Mondo (132 miles) not sure which.

5/17-5/19: American Triple T - Super Sprint, Oly x 2 and a 70.3 in the same weekend. 

6/29: 5i50 St Louis

7/27: Route 66 Half Iron

9/8: Ironman Wisconsin

12/7: St. Jude Marathon (If I make it through IMOO, why not)

I should be signing up for most of the other races in the next couple weeks. I'm sure there will be a few more in there somewhere.

We'll see how it goes.

What's Going On?

Lately I haven't had the motivation to write any posts...actually, I wrote some but erred on the side of caution and didn't publish them. As I've figured out, if I need to ask the nurse about a comment I'd like to leave on Facebook, I probably shouldn't comment. I carried this "revelation" to blogging. If I feel a post might sound highly critical or arrogant, I'm going to write it, give it a day and then read it over before I publish it. So, without further a due, here is what has been going on recently:

I was Co-Director of the St. Louis Triathlon Club's Frozen Buns Run 5k & 10k on Jan 19th. I was taken on since the club is going to start rotating RDs. Overall, everything went well. I can't think of any serious problems we had other than trying to get our logo on the fuel belt race number belts that we gave out instead of t-shirts. (You'd be surprised at how many people wanted a t-shirt instead. Personally, I only want t-shirts for bigger/longer races. I have too many race shirts as it is.) Race day went very well, except for the wind almost blowing away the finish line structure. There was one complaint but, it was based on a false rumor.

I also ran more races in the Frostbite Series. A 10 miler, 20k and half mary. They all went relatively well given my current state of training. I missed my PR for the 10 miler by about 30 seconds but my PR course barely had any inclines. The half-mary went okay. My long runs have been almost non-existent so the days of busting out 13.1 miles on a whim are gone for now.

Last weekend was the US Cross Country Championships in St. Louis. Since I was signed up for all 5 of the Frostbite Series, I also got to run the Community 4k as a bonus. I've never run a XC race before but, I wish I had ran the course at least once over the past month. It's amazing how much harder it is to run on grass than pavement. I've heard about the difference but never bothered to experience it. The race went well, it was a 2k course that had a decent variation of terrain. I figured the course was going to be crowded the whole way since they claimed there were 1,000 people running. (Looking around at the start line and the results proved this number to be highly inflated.) It was exactly the opposite, lots of room to run about 3.6k of the race. I'm not sure if I should be pleased with my time or not but I ran it in 22:40. I was thinking I would run sub 8s but then I ran a practice lap and realized that wasn't going to be possible. Either way I still had fun.

Later that day I headed back with the nurse and the pup to watch the Men's and Women's Open races. I don't know if I've seen an Olympic athlete in my life but, I did that weekend. Shalane Flanagan, Deena Kastor and Dathan Ritzenhein were all running.

Women's Start

Shalane Winning the Women's Race

Sara Hall

Ryan Hall chatting it up after Sara finished

Men's Start

 Chris Derrick Winning the Men's Race

 Dathan Ritzenhein Finishing Second

This would have been much funnier on Sunday night but, if you're still upset about the 49ers loss...there are some people (other than Raven's fans) who are happy about it.

ESPN about Lance talking with Oprah

I realize this is a huge story but it's a shame this is the only way cycling and triathlon make it into the mainstream media. It's interesting listening to people talk about Lance doping that know little about the situation and would never be talking about cycling unless this happened.

Mike & Mike did a great job and made the point that unless you really follow cycling, the whole situation is hard to understand. They also had people from Bicycling and Velo on their show to talk about it...people who actually follow cycling. Unlike Colin Cowherd who tried to compare LA to Kobe Bryant and didn't seem to understand that triathlon (140.6 distance) is one of the few sports a 40+ year old can stand a chance at a comeback.

It was clear that the people writing in comments had no idea how much control LA had over the cycling world at the time. They had no clue that he not only doped, but destroyed people's lives to keep his secret and keep people from beating him. The argument that everyone was doing it or he was just trying to level the playing field doesn't fly. If one does the littlest of research about doping, one would quickly see that doping doesn't effect everyone in the same way. Some people gain a greater advantage than others so it doesn't really level the playing field in that way most people would think.

I don't even know why Colin Cowherd even bothered to talk about it since the only time he ever mentioned cycling was to joke about the Tour de France. He just made fun of average people who ride bikes and watch the TdF. Granted I am a football fan but, I cycle more often than I play football... How many football fans can throw a football more than 20 yards or do a few 100 yard sprints without passing out or heaving on the ground afterward? I'm sure the percentage of cycling fans in the US that watch the TdF and can ride a decent distance is much higher.