Sports and Paperasse

Something fun about Paris is the insane amount of useless paperwork that comes with life in the Hexagon. I'm pretty much used to needing a "justification" or "attestation" for everything imaginable, even breathing, and it's no suprise that running races and doing triathlons requires its own level of paperasse or annoying paperwork, the famous "certificat médical."



You cannot compete without one. This is not a country where you can sign a liability waiver and do any harebrained thing you want, like in the US. I remember signing like 12 documents about how if I died or injured myself, I wouldn't sue this skydiving company (whose office was what seemed to be an abandoned airplane hangar in a cornfield, not particularly confidence-inspiring) for taking me on a tandem jump, nor would anyone in my family ever sue them, because it was my own crazy idea.

On the one hand, I am all for you being forced to reveal your tri or running goals to your doctor and have a chat about health in general, your training and what kind of shape you're in. It could be a good way to start a dialogue, get some idea of your baseline fitness and better safe than sorry, why not have a little physical checkup at only minor personal inconvenience, like going there and paying 23 euros, 75 percent of which is reimbursed by the French government? People always tell you about the Perfectly Healthy Runner Who Dropped Dead Of A Freak Heart Attack During the Race, don't they? I've heard that one several times. Why not get a quick physical? Ounce of prevention and all that.

On the other hand, it's also kind of a pointless farcical waste of time. The certificate is carefully worded to say that the doctor "didn't find anything today that could prevent you from competing in a race or a triathlon." In French, it's called a "certificat de non-contre indication." It mainly says, in lots of clever French negatives, you don't seem not to be ok-- and if I'm wrong, the doctor might as well add, because this is France and not the US, I probably don't need to worry about being sued... The medical certificate is valid for a year.

I went from being horrified by the French cultural experience of going to the doctor to actually enjoyng it. My doctor is easily 400 years old and sometimes if you call for an appointment, her feeble, elderly voice will come on the answering machine saying that she's away for a few days in the countryside resting. She examines patients more or less in her living room, on a folded up sofa bed futon with medical exam paper on it. She also likes to scold me, but nicely, I just think this is how older French women interact with younger women. I was affectionately scolded last week for not having a current doliprane prescription on hand at all times and she promptly wrote me one stat to avert the possible crisis of being doliprane-less. Doliprane is the favorite French drug for everything from the flu to headaches and it's a pill popping culture.  For the common cold, elderly doctor has prescribed up to 5 different meds for me to take all at once. I personally hate taking pills, even tylenol (or doliprane) for headaches, and will go to elaborate lengths to avoid it. I've been going to elderly doctor for a few years now, we get on well. Every year I mean to send her a Christmas card but never do. I no longer live in the same area as her office, but I really like her, so trek across the city a few times a year to see her.

Some doctors just sign your medical certificate. Not mine, she is pretty thorough and we chat about my training. She examines me and she listens to my heart and takes my blood pressure (she uses her ancient little alarm clock and waits for the second hand to sweep along the clock to see when a minute's up). Then we have a little ritual where I have to do 30 squats and she takes my blood pressure again immediately afterwards to monitor recovery time and she listens to my heart again. This time, I was complimented on my fitness, she said she could tell I exercised a lot and that I was in good shape.

Everything was ok and she kindly signed not only a running medical certificate but also a triathlon one (you can probably use the tri one for running, too, but I didn't want to take any chances). It was nice to see elderly doctor, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not these certificats médicaux are responsible sports medicine and important for athletes or just kind of pointless and another French bureaucratic hoop to jump through. And to jump through a hoop either in training or in competition in France, you would, of course, need a medical certificate!

Speed, Cadence and Chain Rings...

Cycling, whether on a velib or a fancy road bike, seems pretty straightforward, right? Get on bike, pedal and don't fall off.

Let me tell you, this is naive.

Last week, thanks to fab tri team coaching, us beginner cyclists figured out pelotons. Our speed was about 25km/hr-- slow to real triathletes, but pretty fast for me! I optimistically thought that drafting and the group dynamic was the hard part and that I was well on the way to conquering the world of cycling (despite the fact that last week's training session was my first time ever riding a racing bike! Despite living in France for so long, I've retained my American optimism!) Watch out, Tour de France, I thought. Or Tour de Longchamp, at least!

I was, of course, wrong.

We still rocked the peloton, but we also worked on sprints yesterday and suddenly by upping the pace just a couple km to 30km/hr, cycling became very technical requiring lots of gear changes! Yikes, that sport suddenly became a lot more complicated in just 1 week! I think a lot of it is just trial and error, so I'll need to set aside the time to practice and figure it out, either on Longchamp by myself or on the home trainer (I'll have to get one first) but for the moment, have no idea what gears I should be using! I've heard that cycling is the second-most technical of the 3 triathlon sports (swimming is the most technical-- it doesn't matter how fit you are, you need the right technique to do it effectively) and I believed it after yesterday.

After our first sprint, we were all in the wrong gear, judging by the position of our bicyle chains, which raised some very fundamental questions about gears and how exactly to train for the cycling part of a triathlon, anyway.

Our coach was great and very patient and gave us a Bike Gears 101 lesson (it was actually Bike Gears 102 for me, since last week I needed my own little training on how physically to change them and which hand controlled what...) On a bike there are 2 chain rings, one big and closer to the pedals (right hand side of photo) and one little on the back wheel (left hand side of photo) where you can see a ton of different chains, or gears. We should be on the little one, which means changing that one up or down when you need more or less resistance.

The big chain ring is only the gears you use when you're going like 60km/hr, a speed which I will never have to worry about attaining! Some of the experienced 'beginner' cyclists said they were used to riding on the big chain instead of the little one and they'd have to readjust their cadence and change their entire cycling universe completely. Cadence means how many revolutions, or how many times you pedal.  I have no cycling habits whatsoever (good or bad!), since I'm so new at it-- my cycling universe consists of 2 training sessions so far and summer velib-riding last year!

What surprised the other cyclists, who know way more about biking than I do, is that for a triathlon, you train for cadence and not speed (what they'd been doing with the big chain ring). Why? Here's the coach's explanation:

The key to successful cycling (and the subsequent run for a triathlon-- in a tri, you always swim, bike, run, in that order) is sustained effort.  We have to pick a target to set the pace, not let your heart do it for you. There are two targets to pick, speed or cadence.  If you pick speed,  you can ride in the big gears, keep your heart rate very low, and rely on leg strength alone.  But you run the risk of burning your legs out for the end of the ride. If you pick cadence, you will use lower gears, have a higher heart rate, and distribute your leg strength/endurance over the the route.  You will be surprised with this focus, the speed follows, it just doesn't dictate your style.  

 

This used to be a big debate in cycling (big gears versus high cadence), which has been largely put to bed with the advent of power meters - which demonstrate the cadence approach is best. 

 

Interesting to know, some different training theories. How you learn to do anything is really a product of the theories about teaching it at the time you learn. A swim coach once said that she could look at how someone swam and identify the approximate year that person had taken swim lessons. As a language teacher, from the way people of different nationalities speak English, I can infer a lot about how foreign languages are taught in that particular country.

Anyway, cadence-based training makes sense to me, especially since my goal is just to finish a triathlon in one piece and there's still the run to do after the bike segment!

Some other points I discovered yesterday-- I have pedals that require clip-in shoes, which I borrowed from a friend, but wasn't brave enough to try yesterday for the first time, I wanted to practice clipping in and out since I assume I'll fall over the first few times I brake with them! I really should have just tried the bike shoes anyway, my running shoes slipped off the pedals sometimes-- usually in the middle of hunting for the perfect gear!-- and everyone told me to get clippy bike shoes and promised that it would make riding so much easier.

Bike shoes or running shoes aside, the arctic blast weather was still in full force and we couldn't feel our toes after the ride! I was also already pretty tired after my 20 mile run the previous day, and despite a lot of watermelon flavored GU chomps, I was ready to go get my café allongé! Although bike gears are trickier than I thought and I couldn't keep up with the rest of the group and it was freezing cold, it was good to cycle for 2 hours, since I need the practice.

The other cyclists from different tri teams out in the cold with us were surprisingly nice and when I was falling behind my group, one who I didn't even know pulled up next to me, put his arm around my waist and gave me a push that sent me flying back into my group!  He actually did that twice-- a little alarming at first, but ultimately very nice. I resolved to do the same someday for a newbie cyclist, if I ever figure out my gears and how to go 30km/hr, that is! (Although I might explain that I was going to give them a push first, avoiding that awkward moment when I wondered if the other cyclist were trying to reach into my pocket and steal my GU chomps!)

With the exception of friendly tri teams who gave me the extra push (literally!), the one advantage of the terrible weather was that Longchamp was much quieter than usual. Like last time, we ended up in a café to relax and thaw out fingers and toes afterwards and chat about gears and cadence before the long cycle ride home (working on neither speed nor cadence!) to well-deserved hot showers and afternoon naps! 

Brr! The Problem With Training for Spring Marathons

The problem with training for spring marathons is that you have to do your training in the winter! And winter is cold right now. Paris has suddenly had an arctic blast cold front and everyone is freezing cold all the time and even fashionable French businessmen wear ninja ski masks, it's that cold. The high today was -1 degree Celsius (or about 30F) and the low was -5 (around 20F). Maybe that doesn't sound that cold, but there was a chilly, chilly wind so it felt even colder.

This is what winter training looked like today: 3 layers, thermal running tights, warm jacket, scarf (people in Paris just love scarves-- I must admit that I do, too-- and wear them pretty much all the time, even when they exercise), fleecy headband, gloves and in a Flashdance-inspired touch, legwarmers!

It started snowing on my run, giant flurries and it was really windy on the way back (I did 2 out and backs, coming back was tough each time, since I was running into the wind!) I couldn't feel my face anymore by the time I got home (must ask the businessmen where they got their ninja ski masks...) But the toughest part of my 20-miler this afternoon? The toughest part of any run: the first step out the door!

Despite the casual mention of a 20-miler (or 32 km if you train in km like all Europeans), this was the first time I'd ever run that far! It was slow-- slow like if your granny put on her red legwarmers and went out for a run in the snow, but it was 20 miles! I know the marathon itself will be a huge mental and physical challenge, but since it's in April, when the going gets tough, I can always console myself that at least it's not snowing...

I Can't, I'm Doing a Tempo Run Tonight

Is marathon training time-consuming?

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

This was more or less an actual conversation between a fellow runner also training for a spring marathon and me:

Me: So how about we meet up Monday evening?
Marathon Runner Friend: Oh, Monday I have track intervals, but want to come and we can have coffee afterwards?
Me: I can't, I do track on Wednesdays and couldn't handle twice in one week.
MRF: Maybe Tuesday, after my tempo run?
Me: I have Yoga for Triathletes on Tuesdays which goes kind of late and I do my tempo run on Thursdays.
MRF: I have yoga on Thursdays and my long run on Fridays.
Me: No worries, I swim and do yoga on Fridays, so that's out. Maybe Saturday evening? I do my long run Saturday morning.

Despite both being clearly insane, we did manage to find a time to meet up!

There's a saying I like which goes, "no one ever said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it."

Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance

I started a 7-week cycling training last week and embarassingly rode my racing bike for the first time last Sunday-- training day 1.

This is what absolutely not to do, as I showed up for practice with no air in my back tire and needed a  tutorial in how to change racing bike gears, since there are a lot of them and you have to figure out which gear shift to use (mainly, should I try going up or down with my right hand or left hand?)

I did, at least, cycle to Longchamp, the paved road which is a big loop around a racetrack where every single cyclist in Paris trains on weekends. So got used to the new bike on the way over, although no gear changes were required... 

Longchamp was simultanously a lovely and an irritating place, which is kind of how I feel about Paris itself. No traffic lights and the road is closed to motorists and it's in the woods, which was nice. But it was also extremely crowded. It was manageable from 9-11 am but after 11, it got a little dicey-- as in the insane traffic chaos that you regularly see at Place de l'étoile around the Arc de Triomphe because everyone and their mother and their Tour de France-winning tri team goes there. This is why our training sessions will always end at 11!

While I'm ok with changing gears now and even riding in semi pre-11 am chaos, bike maintenance is still a bit of a mystery to me, to be honest. A mystery that involves an awful lot of mini screwdriver things and other miniature lightweight gadgets. But bike riding is FUN. And it's fast, too!

We worked on riding safely in a group, in a specific formation called a 'peloton.' This really just means either in a single file line or pairs and you get pretty close to the other cyclists, so the goal was to practice and become confortable with 'getting on a wheel' (that just means getting close to the back tire of the cyclist in front of you). The person or people up front work harder (30 percent more, apparently) because they have more wind resistance. The rest of us have it easier because we're just mooching in their airstream and so everyone takes turns being the leader. Riding in someone else's airstream is called drafting, so check a big triathlon term off the list of 'what does this mean and will I ever learn to do it?' In some triathlons drafting is legal, but in some it isn't, so you have to check the rules each time. It did feel windier up front when I took my turn leading the group.

I tried to think of other examples of drafting before our ride to try to figure out what to expect: cars can ride in the airstream of big trucks on the highway, for example-- I've had friends who tried this to give their old clunkers a break, not that it probably prolonged the life of their old cars in any way. Canadian geese also do this by flying in a 'v' shape (to be honest, my main point of reference for airstreams, pelotons and drafting in general was Canadian geese, since I find the Tour de France too boring to watch on TV-- I really thought we'd be in a giant 'v' formation like how geese fly!)

Here's a video of a few seconds of our training in a peloton (and it is very much unlike Canadian geese migratory patterns, I might add!) Thanks to some expert coaching (big thank you to the tri team for organising these beginner sessions!), this is what a peloton should look like :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6l-LMrpdGY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

After the Cinderella hour of 11 am, the end of our session practicing the art of peloton riding, we gave our bikes and our legs a rest to practice the equally important art of relaxing at a café!

Athleticism Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Despite training for a marathon and a triathlon, I don't feel that much like an athlete. I'm just goal-oriented. However, my fruit bowl certainly looks like the bowl of champions!

Napkin Haikus: My Marathon Training Secret

I think you know I'm a beginner cyclist and swimmer-- and that I think swimming is possibly the hardest sport in the entire world. Probably the only 2 ways to be good at it are to have your parents teach you the front crawl before you become confused by other things like learning to walk or to be Brenton Ford. Check out his franchise of being charming, Australian and giving swim tips here.

So while running is definitely easier than the other 2 sports, I am not a natural born gazelle-like runner, either. Kenyan children could probably overtake me in a matter of seconds.  In fact, I really have no natural talent or advantages, other than I suppose not being overweight and maybe having long-ish legs. I work very hard to remain an average runner.

But here's the surprise, even average runners can train themselves to run marathon distance.

I ran farther than I ever have before in my life last weekend, a record 27K (or 17 miles). When we passed the half marathon mark (previously the longest distance I'd ever done), my lovely and amazing pace group let out a big cheer for me (thanks again)!

The epic weekend run was by turns exhilerating and miserable, but I finished it in one piece. And here's my proud (if messy hair, too many layers to battle post-run cold) photo. The waiter at the café who took it was a runner himself who also congratulated my lovely fellow runners and me when we told him it was my longest run to date!





Look for one of these every week as the distances get longer.  Yes, this is vain and a waste of paper napkins, but hey, whatever it takes to motivate myself right? And this is possibly just as legit as new parents who put pieces of paper next to their babies giving their age in months and post those on Facebook, right? And like the new parents must think, this will be fun to look back on someday when I become an ultramarthoner. Ha! (Ok, maybe the parents leave out that last part!)

Shifting Marathon Training Gears-- LSD and Yassos Explained

I have to get serious about what they call the LSD run. This does not refer to dropping acid and marveling at chord changes in Pink Floyd albums (that would probably be an easier way to spend 4 hours and might actually entail less risk of injury or long term damage than running a marathon...) but is in fact the staple of marathon training. It refers to your once-a-week Long Slow Distance run. For this one, you don't worry about pace, but the goal is to build endurance; this is how you train your body to go the distance. You can add speed later.

One of my favorite endurance songs:
Cake Going the Distance

Going the distance needs work, as my spectacularly beautiful but also spectacularly hilly half marathon along the French Riveria last weekend showed me. And this was only HALF the distance I need to run in April. So all about the acid, I mean LSD runs now and have 27K (17 miles) on the books for this weekend, which will be the farthest I've ever run before.

The French Riveria (Côte d'Azur) is out of control beautiful, by the way, and during the entire race, I kept thinking, I can't believe I'm running a half marathon here, of all the places in the world! I'm just a little nobody (as opposed to being Brigitte Bardot!) and I get to do this! Grateful to have the opportunity to run with my best friend in a beautful and legendary place.




So to stop gushing about my incredible fortune (or crazy destination run planning is more like it!) and to get back to training, I lied a little, we are trying to add some speed now rather than later, because we are a tri team and some of the althletic Super Friends want to do it in crazy fast times like 3 hours, but I know the distance runs are the most important training right now. Track intervals are, however, also on the training plan and a fun change from plodding along at a steady pace waiting for the old Garmin to go from 12 to 13 miles. Did track intervals with the tri team last night and it was brilliant, although the old slender but shapely legs (ha!) are way tired today because of it.



At our track sessions, we're working on Yassos-- this is another strange term pronounced 'Yah-ssous,' and it's a marathon training exericse named for Bart Yasso, head, founder, guru-in-chief (not sure of exact title) of Runners' World Magazine. You can either use it to predict your marathon time or train for a target time, we're doing the latter. You essentially have to run around a track twice (so 800 meters) and how fast you do it depends on your target marathon time. Je vous explique (French people are always announcing that they'll explain things to you, or even worse, asking the rhetorical question 'why?' and then proceding to answer it). I want to do my marathon in 4 hours (it's my first one, ok? I mainly just don't want to destroy any joints or lose any toenails-- I'm horrified by what distance runners tell me about their toenails; it's like they just consider doing a marathon and half their toenails fall off!), so I have to run my 800 meters in 4 minutes (the rule is convert hours to minutes, like if you want at 3:30 marathon, you should be able to do your 800s in 3 and a half minutes). After you do your target fast time for your fast 800, then you jog to recover for the same amount of time (so 4 min for me), then you do your fast 800 again, wash, rinse, repeat. We did 7 repeats last night, which I was super pleased with. You should be able to do 12 and when you're capable of that and consistently hitting 4 min for every single fast 800, you should hit your marathon target time of 4 hours (if you're me, anyway).  For this exercise, you need a track, a stopwatch and probably a bunch of friends to help motivate you to run fast.

So to recap, what have we learned today? (I'm a teacher, if you can't tell.) That LSD runs are important and have nothing to do with recreational drugs (unless you count endorphins!) and that I have to start being religious about doing them and they'll need to be very long indeed (longest on program so far is 35K or 22 miles). And that track is fun and Yassos, or running 800-meter repeats, are supposed to be the secret to hitting your target marathon time. Other things to mention as I figure them out: will share marathon/triathlon training plan once athletic Super Friends ok it and I also have to figure out what to eat during long runs and the marathon itself. The world of sports gels beckons.