Film and fitness

My sister and I have been on the road filming a documentary called "What the Health". It is a film about health, the current food and medical system and natural healing and diet. We are traveling across the US from California interviewing some amazing people and experts on these subjects.



At the same time I brought my bike, swim and run gear to keep up with my training and preparing for Xterra Nationals in September. We are incorporating this into the film as well as my sisters family, the main reason she was compelled to produce this film.



Some of the material may be controversial but I believe we are doing the right thing by sharing this information. Truth will be it's own proof and that is why I encourage all of those working on exposing it.

What the Health?

Recently my sister and I set out to film a health documentary. We are traveling the country and so far it is nothing what I had imagined. Check out our pics and follow our progress on our films blog.

XTERRA Del Valle

I had such a great time last year, there was no way I would miss it this year.  I would even race in a purple speedo if I had to. Glad Todd Jackson found  such a great venue to hold this XTERRA. Unfortunately the race course arrows were vandalized by random people the day before.  They moved arrows and they were pointing all over the place so the results were also...all over the place. Never the less, I had a great time.  My friend Nick Diaz also raced and also followed a faulty arrow. It was a bummer but we had a great day of hard racing regardless.

Wildflower Triathlon Olympic Dist.

Did the Olypic distance on Sunday and finished 3rd. Forgot how big this event is. Its like Sea Otter for tri. In the overall I was 16th place out of a ridiculous 2300+.



I went down with friend Nick Diaz and overall the trip was good except for the food. Nick and I eat pretty natural and organic and in that region, King City/Paso Robles, there isnt much in the way of healthy eating. Hardly even a starbucks or some sort of decent coffee. But they sure love their chain restaurants. Even had a bad experience at a local restaurant.

Anyways, before I start ranting about nutrition, I ended up using my road bike with some compact aero clip-ons Keith Williams gave me. I worked out pretty well even though a TT bike would have been the way to go. It is pretty windy. Still felt great and looking forward to a great season.

Racing XTERRA West Championship

Finished 14th but hey, I'll take the pionts Thank You.
Four days earlier...
Headed to Las Vegas for the start of the XTERRA Circuit with my friend Nick Diaz. We flew from Stockton on Wednesday.



Thursday we jumped into lake Las Vegas and ran a bit.


Friday decided to ride a lap of the bike and I crashed. Not too bad, but enough to get some scrapes and bruises. Saturday we rode again and ran a little.

In beetween we talked to other athletes visited local friends and relaxed. On race day everything prerace went smoothly but during the race I did not push the limits and felt I may have been a bit timid.  Wasnt aggressive this time around.  Maybe because of the crash?  Maybe. Nick did a personal best and finished 8th in his age group.



I will definately make up for this race in Texas at the next stop of the circuit. Conrad Stoltz marginally (so I heard) won the mens race. While Shonny kicked in to high gear to take the womens pro division.



Another notable mention, Stephanie Miller also from the Williams Team won her division in the XTERRA Sport race.

Race Videos- Ice Breaker Triathlon 2010

Race Videos- Sea Otter Classic Circuit Race

Sea Otter Classic 2010 Men's Circuit Race



Sea Otter Classic 2010 Women's Circuit Race and Winner Alison Powers



Paul Mach, Bissell Pro Cycling
Sea Otter Classic 2010 Men's Circuit Race Winner

Sea Otter and Ice Breaker Tri Race Videos Coming Soon

Sea Otter and Ice Breaker Tri Race Videos Coming Soon.
Heres a little distraction in the meantime:



Hanging out with Stephanie in between races



Got to catch up with Conrad as he was hanging out at Avia booth and I was in Crank Brothers booth which happened to be next to each other.



 Put Carolyn in the hot seat after her finish at TBF racings Ice Breaker Triathlon.

Racing- XTERRA REAL 2010 Video

This event has a great course for beginners and roadies who are curious about off-road triathlon.  For those who are more advanced, the course is super fast, fun and has a ton of twisty single track.  It's a great race to kick off the XTERRA season.

After being sick most of Jan. and Feb, I was finally recovering just in time for this event.  This winter ended my 2 year streak of not getting sick.  Shortly after, I got food poisoning the week of this race from some sushi place. Talk about bad luck.  Overall I felt good and my fitness is starting to come around.  I felt great during the race...better than I had felt in months.   Also this is my first year with a coach and it's making a huge improvement in my overall performance as an athlete.



Matt Lieto and Shayna Powless were the overall winners.  For complete results and photos check out the TBF Racing website. http://www.tbfracing.com/results/results/2010/realmtb/overall.html

Training in Mexico City

I took a trip to Mexico and caught up with Mexico's top triathlete and Olympian, Francisco Serrano.  The national triathlon team happened to be holding their training camp in Mexico City that week so Francisco (Paco) invited me to train with them. Had a great time and really good workouts.  They were staying in la ciudad deportiva (sports city) district. Theres an auto race track, a couple of velodromes, pools and many public sports complexes.



I covered alot of ground on foot, taxis and the underground metro. Some districts had cool restaurants and night life.  Hope to go back for XTERRA Mexico in Valle Del Bravo. http://www.xterramexico.com.mx/

Racing- Avenue of the Vines Preview

Check out this half marathon & 5k in Lodi's wine country, Avenue of The Vines.  This is a great event organized by Fleet Feet Sports of Stockton.  It's been a while since I've done a half marathon but I will be there trying my best. I'll see you guys there.

Training- WOW! Garmin 310xt is cool!

So I am really liking this device.  I programmed a custom workout with 14 different intervals at different lengths and intensities (HR) based on my coaches workout.  Not only did I successfully program the workout into the device, but while doing the workout, the beeps, alerts and text were very comprehensible, espesially since I am training in the dark.  The display light control is easy to.  I found it by accident but its really simple.  If you activate the light, it turns on every time theres an alert so you can see the alert.  Duh, I know but I have been training into the night alot lately so it's just nice and thought I'd mention it.  The thing that impresses me the most is that I havent even read the manual yet.

Training- Garmin 310xt

Just started using the Garmin 310XT as a training tool.  What a cool device.  Was wondering if anyone out there uses this model.  Never really have used devices consistently in the past and its my first time having a coach, Jamie Whitmore, XTERRA legend and former world champion. Check out her site for her contact info: http://gutzytricoaching.com/

I think I'm getting the hang of it. Jamie's work out for today was a 1.5 hr run: 20min warm up, 15min in zone2, 20min in zone3, 15min in zone4 and cool down for the remainder of the run. I set time, distance and HR zone fields on my display so I can look at what zone I was in every once in a while.  I also set a time alert every 5:00 min to keep track of my time in each zone(three beeps in zone 2, 4 beeps in zone 3 etc).   Auto lap was on at every mile. Finally I set min HR zone 2 and max HR zone 5. The Garmin alerted me if I went below zone 2 and above zone 4. This was helpful.  So I successfully completed the workout but it seems like I could have programmed the Garmin differently to make it easier. I had 3 different ring tones alerting me. Crazy. I have used the interval feature and maybe that would have worked better. Here's the workout file on: http://connect.garmin.com
What do you think, any tips?

Nutrition-Fluffy Organic Pancakes

NOTICE: RECIPE EDIT 3/21/2010

NOTICE: RECIPE EDIT 3/21/2010 (I do not usually measure my recipies so I measured out MY typical pancake breakfast)

Makes 1-2 servings

This is my favorite breakfast. Here is my recipe with a gluten free option. I use bee honey or agave nectar or both as pancake syrup. Do not use conventional pancake syrup. It is made with HFCS. Maple syrup is a good substitute. I do not add sugar in the recipe as we pour syrup on top of them.

Beat 2 eggs in a bowl...

with a pinch of salt and dash of milk or almond milk if you do not do lactose. You will use some of this egg wash for the pancake mix and pan cook the remainder. 

Organic strawberries....

Slice 4-6 strawberries.  Strawberries are one of the few fruits that are highly recommended to consume organically. They have the highest levels of pesticides and I eat them almost everyday, so organic is the way to go.

I do not measure ingredients when I bake so I had to try and measure out my recipe.

1/4 cup organic brown rice flour (gluten free)

1/4 cup organic whole wheat, white, Gluten Free all purpose, or oat flour

1 tbs of oats (optional)

1 tbs organic flax meal 

1 heaping tsp of aluminum free baking powder

pinch of salt

*mix dry ingredients in bowl, then add:

 2 tbs of egg wash

1 tbs of mild flavor olive oil

1/4 cup of organic milk or almond mik 

1/2 cup of water

mix in bowl. Batter should be thick but pour smoothly into your pan. Add a touch of flour or water to achieve the right consistency.

Heat and grease pan with organic coconut oil (no butter) to cook pancakes.

Coconut oil has many beneficial properties including raising good cholesterol and reducing bad. (yes i will post the sci study docs)

Fry remaining egg wash in coconut oil and enjoy!

Videos-Cherry Pie Criterium

More videos posted on http://www.deltavelo.com

Racing-Cherry Pie Criterium 2010

Went to Cherry Pie today. Didn't race but I filmed a couple of the races. I will post the video on deltavelo.com by Wednesday. 

 

It was cool to hangout with our sponsor Keith Williams of Williams Cycling.  Watched teammates race but Yahoo Cycling team got themselves in a good break and won the race.

 

The womens race was won by Brooke Miller with help from her Tibco team. Not their usual aggressive tactics but victorious none the less.

Racing-TBF's Chanoko Mtb. Duathlon Series (race 1 of 3)

Woke up and it was pouring rain. Not good. I'm Sick. Not good. It's early. Etc. Etc. Looked at the doppler radar and it looked like it would clear by race start so I got my butt out of bed and did my first race of the season. It was short (2mi run-13mi mtn bike-2mi run) but man it  was hard. I was still a little sick but decided to do it because it wasn't too cold or wet out. I finished 4th overall but it feels good to get that first race under the belt.  Kyle Stock, who is a former Delta Velo member, won and was very fast today.  He has been doing some XTERRA events the last couple of years and said he will be doing alot more this year.

Its always fun to see everyone. Glad to see fellow Stocktonian Paul and friends racing in their first multisport event.

Training-LT Testing

Went to UC Davis Sports medicine for two lactate acid profile tests, (no not that kind of lactate..geez people) one on the bike and one on the treadmill. They offer other tests as well like general fitness evaluations, consultation, bike fitting, physical therapy and much more.

They determined my heart rate and power threshold which my coach will use to design my workouts. Two separate tests are better than one because your max heart rate differs from running then from riding. They gradually increase the resistance/intensity and took a lactate reading from your blood. This requires a prick in your ear. (get your minds out of the gutter people...or not. what do I care.)

My coach Jamie Whitmore is also expanding her coaching company and will be launching a new website. If you are interested in any of UC Davis' sports programs visit their website for more info and to schedule an appointment: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/sportsmedicine/

Health- Plastic Containers are Shady

I have heard that drinking or eating out of plastic containers may be harmful and maybe even deadly to our health. We are hearing more about chemicals like Bisphenol A (BPA) contained in common store bought water and juice bottles and the growth stimulation it has on cancer cells among other health risks.  Once I dug deeper I found that this was only one of many harmful chemicals that can leach into your food or drinks from these types of plastic containers.





So I found some cool resources to help you decide if your health is worth changing a few habits.  I called a friend who is a chemist and bio major and she agreed with and confirmed these resources.  Check out the links if you would like to read more about the different grades of plastic, which ones to avoid and which ones are safe. I myself quickly check the grade of plastic for a 2, 4 or 5 on the bottom before consuming or using a plastic bottle or bowl.
www.lifewithoutplastic.com

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Shima Tract Run

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Shima Tract Run