Yesterday I went out in 50 degree cloudy weather to go do some climbing laps on Kings Mountain and Old La Honda. I did not anticipate the temperature drop on top of the mountain, which combined with the wind chill factor did me in.

Clearly I did not dress correctly. My exposed finger gloves and half covers for my shoes weren’t enough to prevent near frostbite on them as I zoomed down Kings after my first climb. I think the wind chill was in the high 30s and my body was starting to really shut down. I considered going to Old La Honda and doing that once but it was too much. I went for the fastest way home as I felt like my body just couldn’t give anymore and didn’t want a total shutdown out on the road.

I made it home and stood in a hot shower for many minutes to get warm.

Suck.

I hate training in cold. I’m already of low body fat such that low temps are just uncomfortable. Keeping warm during cold day workouts just saps me of extra energy keeping warm. It also increases the risk of getting sick too. I remember forcing myself to go out for 6 hour rides back in late 2004 to prep for my first Ironman NZ. I got sick a few times but also during those cold rides I never felt like I never could really push hard because so much energy was used to keep warm.

Time to watch the weather better and just wimp out more and enjoy longer focused interval rides on my Computrainer.

I just went to my physical therapist and he turned me on to some tools made out of plastic, which were very much like metal Graston tools but much thinner. I doubted that they could hold up to the abuse of scraping my muscles, but after a treatment session, they seemed to hold up fine. They also exhibit another vibratory quality than thick stainless steel; you can feel and hear the vibrations of the adhesions and bumps within muscles much better (so thick stainless steel better than a spoon, but plastic better than either).
These are the tools of Gua Sha, whose roots are in China now in the US. In China, these tools are often made of jade, or bone, or animal horn. When I first mentioned Graston to my mother years ago, she told me that the Chinese had been doing this kind of treatment for a long time, probably longer than Graston has been around.
Gua Sha stands for “scraping sand” and that’s what you do with the tools, which is to scrape your muscles. The principles are the same as Graston although the explanations are often in Eastern concepts, using qi and energy meridians and flow. My PT person told me that he went to a seminar and the teacher who is a Westerner had also incorporated a lot of other concepts, like the concept of Anatomy Trains where muscles are linked together around the body and often treating the entire muscle chain is much better than treating just the local affected area.
Gua Sha scraping can be light up to super deep, resulting in a bruised appearance lasting many days. My PT person and I talked about this and we both feel that extensive bruising resulting from super deep scraping is bad for people in-season. I’ve often felt the results of deep Graston the next day when my muscles are too traumatized to perform well, even as they are healing.
For a more in-depth discussion on Gua Sha and its usage, pick up this excellent book from the Gua Sha Tools website. It’s packed with lots of detailed information, and crosses from Eastern and Western philosophies.
I did want to mention that I found a Graston tool substitute that was better than my spoon. A few weeks back I searched the internet looking for, perhaps, a set of used Graston tools on ebay or elsewhere. Amazingly, I could not find one instance of a used set anywhere! But after much searching, I found the STARR Tool. The website is a bit ghetto as far as design goes, and with anxiety I pressed the Buy link to purchase the STARR tool. Thankfully, it arrived a few days later!
The stainless steel STARR tool is excellent. The steel transmits the vibrations much better than a metal spoon I was using and it has multiple edges to be used on various parts of the body. Its heft really allows me to get into muscles deeper too. It also comes with a CD that goes over the basics of scraping technique.
While I admire Graston very much, I also like the fact that people are getting alternatives out there, especially for an adventurous soul such as myself who dares treat my own ailments. I can’t get into my PT person’s office all that often, and between visits, I bust out my trusty STARR tool and help my body along in its healing and recovery process.
I did buy a set of Gua Sha plastic and jade tools, so once I get them I’ll do a post on how they feel relative to my STARR tool and Graston as well.

When I used to weight lift a lot, one of the things that I learned which was really important was when to back off during training, or just not train completely. You basically had to be able to distinguish between when you were just a little tired but you still could work out, and when you really shouldn’t work out like when you’re injured or sick or burnt out, etc. You also have to figure out when your brain is just being lazy and you can workout, even if you don’t feel like it.
Backing off during training can be a hard thing. We’re all hard charging athletes and we always want to give it our all for every workout. We follow what our coaches give us and if we don’t follow their plan exactly, then we get an anxiety attack and feel like we’ll never finish our goal race. If we miss workouts, we feel like we’re not gonna make it.
The reality is that you can have what I call “backing off” at the macro and micro level and still be fine for the race. Macro level is when you get sick or injured, and you have to take off multiple days (maybe weeks) to get better before you can go back to training. Micro level is when you either have to skip one workout due to some factor that will resolve itself within a day, like not being recovered enough from the day before, or extra soreness, or low energy levels. Whether you can have a great race depends on so many factors and not just if you miss a workout or two, or even for a week or more. Generally, backing off at the micro level, ie. taking a day off, skipping a workout, reducing pace/watts, etc, doesn’t have much effect if it happens temporarily. Backing off at the macro level for too long, ie. being sick for a month, taking weeks to heal a pulled muscle, being lazy on workouts for many weeks, etc., will definitely affect performance.
So don’t worry about it so much! Back off because you should and don’t stress about it. But do pay attention when you back off for a long period of time.
How do you tell when to back off? It took me a while to figure out how to tell when I should back off and how much. Here are some things I learned:
1. If I’m sick, then of course I should not train.
1a. But figuring out when I can start training again after being sick can be tough. When I finally feel physically a bit more energetic, I usually start with recovery workouts to get the body readjusted to training again, before leaping into full bore training. I try to keep workouts short, like 15-30 minutes, and not overstress my system until I’m 100% back.
2. I have tried to fine tune my sensitivity to my physical condition. This is intuition, and knowing how your body responds to stress and how fast it recovers, and a sensitivity to the condition of your muscles and overall system. Only experience can tell you what your body needs on that day. So keep alert and a log if it helps, and get to know your body as much as possible.
3. I find that the five key things to keep track of are your heart, lungs, muscles, energy level, and brain. Warning signs are when my heart rate is a bit high, or my lungs feel stretched still from an intense workout the day before (I usually feel what can be described as a “cool” sensation in the middle of my chest), or my muscles are sore or tight. Or sometimes my brain just doesn’t seem to have the same willpower as it may have on another day. Or my energy level is low and I feel tired. These all tell me that I need to be more mindful and potentially may need to adjust my workout to fit.
4. The easiest days are when I approach my workout and feel mentally fresh and my body feels energetic. The other easiest days are when my body is overly sore and I feel mentally and physically tired: an obvious sign that I should take a day off. The toughest are days when I am right about to workout and am on the edge of feeling not all that energetic and maybe I’m not fully mentally psyched for working out. But through experience, I know that often when I start the workout, my energy comes back to me when I start.
On days like this, I usually don’t worry about being lazy – it’s not really in my nature nowadays and I always look forward to working out. But I don’t know exactly what I can accomplish during the workout, and am not sure whether I can push the limits or just do a recovery workout, or somewhere in between. So I usually am prepared to adjust my workout midstream to what I can handle at that moment.
I find that it is during the warmup that I can figure out most of the time what awaits me in the rest of the workout. As I warm up, I approach my goal workout speeds (swim or run) and/or wattages (for bike workouts) and see how my body responds. If I am feeling like my exertion level is too high and unsustainable, then I know I’ll have to lower paces or wattages during the main set or else I will flame out before the workout ends. If I feel good, then I will be OK for the goal paces/watts.
Another potential factor: sometimes if I approach a workout feeling a bit tired, I can bring my workout up to goal paces/watts simply by having a longer warmup. By getting my blood flowing slowly with more time, I am able to get my system moving and potentially still hit my goal paces/watts.
5. If I make it past the warmup, then I may adjust again during the workout if something is not right. This can be a perceived exertion that is rising too fast for me to make it through the workout. It can also be a sapping of willpower that could evaporate if I am powering through some really fast paces or watts and trying to hold them for long intervals.
6. One macro level adjustment I have made was my recovery in general. By doing so many intense weekend rides doing Old La Honda and Kings Mountain climbs, along with a 2-3 hour run, I have found that I actually need another 2-3 days of recovery. Just taking one day off is not enough; I will do recovery workouts for 2 days after and then I’m fine on the 3rd day for a normal pace/watts workout. I know this because I have tried to sustain paces/watts after one day and my exertion and heart rate leap in the first few intervals.
Instead of fighting this, I just merely added it into my workout regime and it has not affected my race times at all; I’m still getting PR times race after race. It’s almost unintuitive that you could rest more but still yet race faster! I chalk it up to my age, my fitness level, and what I need to do to race faster.
The important thing to note is that we’re all different as humans. We all come from different fitness backgrounds and levels, and that coupled with our age and genetics means we can train a certain way. We need to develop a sensitivity for what our individual bodies need, and not stress about how others are training. I am a big believer in individualized training and I think this is where a lot of generic plans and group training can harm people. Developing an awareness of how our bodies work, and coupling that with a good coach (who won’t train you like you’re in the army and/or shame you into doing senseless workouts), will work wonders for your race performance.
So take a day off if you really need it or back off on the paces and watts – don’t stress about it and you’ll still race fine come race day.

A friend and I were IMing one night about her muscles cramping up. I thought that it would be interesting to write a post about it, since in my early triathlon career, I suffered from cramping in the most inopportune times during races.
I read an article in one of the popular triathlon magazines that talked about the causes of cramps and what can help prevent them. It actually showed some evidence that electrolyte supplementation didn’t help prevent cramps. Then there are all the medical research into what happens within muscles to create these painful situation. Of course, each coach and athlete has their own formula for preventing and managing muscle cramps.
In this post, I’m gonna skip all the scientific stuff and talk about my own discoveries. Note that everyone is different, and I think that applying a systematic way of figuring out why you cramp and what can prevent it can be your formula for success.
What causes cramps?
What I’ve found causes cramps are:
1. Electrolyte depletion. I sweat buckets in general and that just causes electrolytes to flow out of my body. This increases during warmer days, and seems to be less of an issue during cooler days. During races, I always build up this layer of grit on my skin, which is just the salt buildup from sweating so much and for such a long time. Thus if you don’t replace electrolytes, you’re more likely to cramp. So those who get dehydrated during races are really susceptible to cramping.
2. Over-contraction of muscles, especially muscles that are already tired and/or tight. My classic example of this is trying to stretch tight quads during a race. You reach down to grab your ankle and pull your leg back towards your butt. But since your hamstrings are also tired, they seize up in a cramp while trying to stretch your quads! Needless to say I NEVER stretch my quads now during a race. Another example is when I swam last week, and for some reason my plantar fascia was very tight. Then I shoved that foot into a fin and swam a long set with fins. The plastic boot on the fin was snug, but it also squeezed down on my foot so much while I was kicking that it caused my whole foot to cramp up. Not fun.
3. The muscles just get overtaxed and overworked, and thus cramp in protest, despite your mind willing the body to do more. This has happened to me early in my triathlon career at half and full Iron distance races. I have found two instances why this happens. The first is due to simple pushing of my body, typically my legs, and then towards the end of my race I cramp up because they are tired and I’m trying to either go faster, or go up a hill, etc. The second has to do with imbalances in my body. I have found that I naturally exert more of my right leg because it’s stronger than my left. This tires out my right leg more so than my left, and thus it can cramp up whereas my left is still OK.
What can prevent muscle cramps?
1. Electrolyte supplementation. Depending on how your body is, it could be that all you need is to drink Gatorade instead of water, or you may need take electrolyte tablets several times an hour plus electrolytes in sports drink and gels (like me). It varies widely between individuals and also in race conditions. I’ve been able to back off on electrolyte tablets during races with cool conditions successfully.
2. Get stronger. I would say that along with 1, this is the other really important measure for preventing muscle cramps. By really focusing on getting stronger during training, I have found that this has been the other major factor in preventing my muscles from getting to a potentially cramped state. So lots of hill repeats, and practicing accelerating up hills, for both running and biking. This also applies to interval work, especially on the bike, to extend the duration of maintaining watts while pedaling.
3. Kinesio tape. The curative/supportive properties of this tape are amazing. By taping from insertion to origin, you provide a slight tug to muscles in the “resting direction”, which helps muscles to relax and reduce the possibility of cramping.
4. Sportlegs pills. This amazing supplement helps minimize the production of lactate and exercise by-products in the muscles. When there is no “burn” in my muscles, it helps them stay relaxed even when tired and/or when I push hard. By not having exercise by-products in my muscles, they stay less tight and less susceptible to cramping.
5. Heat acclimatization. Adapting your body to function at high effort in hot weather helps your body figure out how to function under those conditions and not cramp, or just plain collapse. It learns how to sweat and to deliver energy and oxygen to muscles during hot weather, which is critical if you’re going to race during super hot days.
To discover what worked for me, I started experimenting. I didn’t do any kind of special blood testing. Suffice to say, it took a while to figure out what would work and what wouldn’t.
I started by upping my electrolyte intake during races and found that I got up to 3 Saltstick caps per hour, plus 2 scoops of Endurolyte powder in every tall water bottle, plus a scoop of First Endurance EFS. I also take a Powergel every 45 minutes, with its own set of extra electrolytes. I also take 3 Sportlegs capsules every 3 hours, and it’s amazing how I can push hard and barely feel any burn, but only just a general tiredness in those muscles. This works for me and keeps me going during races.
But I didn’t feel good about taking all that extra stuff, even during training. So then I made sure I got my body more adapted to the high stress of racing. I made sure I did negative split training on every long run, or would descend during loops up to 3+ hours. I did up to 4 laps up Kings Mountain and Old La Honda, which just toughened my legs to biking at continuous hard effort for long periods of time.
Then I also started running mid-afternoon, when temps were highest. I ran 3+ hours in 90+ degrees for many weeks. It was tough at first, but quickly got easier until I was able to run and do negative splits and descends.
It worked wonders for getting me through races both faster and cramp free.
A bit unscientific, and a collaboration of many different things I’ve read about or been told about. But I can’t argue with the results either.