cycling Archives - The Daily Octane

March 3, 2020March 3, 2020

Using Zwift to Maintain Endurance

Trainers and Treadmills are hell

When I went through my initial weight-loss journey in 2010, I lost a large majority of the pounds on a stationary bike. For distraction purposes, I parked my recumbent in front of a television. That allowed me to combat what was sometimes three hours of torture. That summer I purchased my first bicycle and began riding on the road. I couldn’t believe how superior being outside was to that stationary bike.

Read about my weight loss journey here

Running joined cycling that summer as well. I ran almost daily on a fine gravel path near my home. The scenery, with its natural beauty, was the perfect background for me to find peace while I went through the personal hell of run training.

As is the way of the world, all good things must come to an end. That winter, when the weather finally became too cold, I could no longer ride outside. At least I was able to run. I continued that right into the most frigid of months. One day, over a beer, a fellow cyclist made aware of bike trainers.

Lesser of all the evils

Bike trainers are a device a cyclist can use indoors to continue their training throughout the year. There was a limited number of options in 2011. You could go with a fluid trainer, which had its internal components encased in a viscous liquid that provided resistance. A magnetic trainer was another option. It used opposing magnets to provide the resistance while you pedaled.

Bike trainer options — There are many bike trainer options on the marker. Wahoo is my trainer of choice.

Rollers were a niche trainer option for only the most hardened and insane of cyclists. They were just what the name implies. You rode your bike, unconnected to anything, on a series of tubes with bearings that made you feel as if you were actually riding. The reality is that one wrong move would send you flying off the rollers to certain death. In reality, you probably wouldn’t die. However, I bet you would break something and it would most likely be a lamp or table.

Cycling on a trainer is the worst

I went with a MAG trainer, which was coincidentally magnetic. The first time I attached my bike to the device, I was full of hopeful expectations. I imagined it would feel just like riding my bike on the road. It wasn’t. Not one bit. I am fairly certain I only lasted about ten minutes that first time. Why? Oh, there are so many reasons:

When you ride your bike outdoors, there is a sway to your body that you can use to apply power to pedals. That isn’t possible since the bike is locked into a very heavy device.
When you ride your bike outdoors, you can view ever-changing scenery because you are generally going 15-20 mph. The absolute opposite is true on a trainer. I can only stare at that lonely house plant for so long.
When you ride your bike outdoors, you can take pedaling breaks because of downhills. Sometimes you get to pedal harder because you are climbing up a hill. Basically, things are constantly changing. Not on a trainer. On the trainer, you pedal. You pedal only what that horrible trainer gives you. That is all.
When you ride your bike outdoors, you get to feel the wind. As your body is heating up from exertion, the wind from your speed is there to keep you cool. That is not the case on a trainer unless you put a fan in front of you. That is highly suggested, by the way. However, even with a fan, it never feels the same. I believe it is the singular direction and speed of a fan that leaves it feeling artificial.
When you ride your bike outdoors, you can join and race other cyclists. On a trainer, you generally lose that. Sure, you can set up multiple trainers in your home. Let’s be honest here, how many of us have 500 square foot living rooms to fit a whole peloton of bikes?

Due to this amassed number of complaints I have about trainers, I seldom used mine. Each and every winter would come with me deciding to bite the bullet and ride my trainer. Every winter would also see me get about two weeks into that decision and then completely change my mind. Trainers suck. PERIOD.

The Dreadmill

Treadmills do not even require too much explanation. While I am certain that a relatively small percentage of the population will even ride a bike on a trainer, I am positive that a vast majority have run on a treadmill at least once. While there are plenty of benefits to running on a treadmill, the physics of it are just different enough from running on the road that I struggle mightily with it.

A fun treadmill FAIL compilation

For some reason, I am always slower on a treadmill. I am convinced it is because my gait is different on the treadmill, likely due to the sense of limited space to stride. The continuous thud of my steps mixed with the mechanical hum of the motor and belt is also a distraction that takes me out of my zen like space I try to find when I run outdoors. I have avoided treadmills almost completely during my years of running because treadmills suck. PERIOD.

Enter the great new hope

When I explained trainers earlier, I did not include one category of trainer: Computerized Trainers. There were computerized trainers on the market at that time. TacX, for example, sold a system with a slew of devices that offered a nearly realistic simulation of riding outdoors. You had the option of changing elevation and could see where you riding in the world. It came with a load of bells and whistles. It also came with an outrageous price tag. I didn’t include that category because professional cyclists and human performance organizations were the only consumers of them.

That began to change in 2013 when several companies introduced Smart Trainers to the marketplace. With this new, more affordable option, you could connect a pc, a tablet, or your smart phone to the device via ANT+ or Bluetooth technology. Now, you could use software to control the resistance of the trainer. Even more importantly, software companies could combine mapping technology and networking to introduce a whole new riding experience.

Pay to play or in this case, ride

Zwift started offering subscriptions in October of 2015. What that subscription gave you was access to a virtual world, akin to a video game. In this digitally rendered, three dimensional world, you could ride your bike along a network of roads until you heart was content. They had flats, hills, and even mountains in their fictional land of Watopia.

Zwift communicated through your Smart Trainer software to control the resistance of your trainer. As you climbed a hill in the virtual world, it became harder to pedal. As you descended the hill later, it became easier to pedal. Absolute genius. Another amazing aspect of the Zwift platform, is that all around you were other cyclists. Each and every person on a bike in that world was the avatar of a real cyclists in their home or gym using similar technology.

Time to join the cool kids

I waited one year from its release before purchasing my setup. I went with a Wahoo Kickr Snap. You had two options with Wahoo. With the main Kickr product, you removed your rear wheel and temporarily attached your frame and chain to the device. With the Kickr Snap option, your back wheel stayed on and you locked the rear wheel of your bike against a flywheel. The primary difference is that the first option allowed for that gentle sway I referred to earlier in this article. Basically, it felt slightly more “road-like.”

This setup was a godsend for me. That winter and the following one, I used the Wahoo Kickr Snap with Zwift and road indoors plenty. Due completely to that, my strength, speed, and endurance in cycling began to improve year after year.

Doth my eyes deceive me?

One day, during my third season using Zwift, I suddenly saw something on my monitor while I was riding that confused me. My brain was reeling. I actually stopped pedaling and turned my bike around in the virtual world. I had to ride back and confirm my thoughts…Sure enough, I had actually seen someone running on the side of the road in Watopia. Suddenly, Zwift was no longer just for cyclists.

Running in Zwift — Zwift started offering running at an option in 2018

I did some research. How was I going to be able to run in the virtual world too? Surely, this is a technology that belonged in a technoholic’s home. Unfortunately, I was quickly met with defeat. I began searching Zwift’s website for the setup information. It was only in a beta at that time, meaning you needed to be invited in. For the next year, the ability to run inside Zwift’s platform was limited to only very high end treadmills. That was a problem for two reasons. High end treadmills are unbelievably expensive and I still hated treadmills. Regardless of these truths, I still coveted the idea and felt a small pang of jealousy ever time I saw a runner in Zwift.

More ways to play

Instead of going out and spending five thousand dollars on a treadmill to join the fun, I made the choice to purchase something else Wahoo had brought to the marketplace. During the previous year, they released the Kickr Climb. With this device, you removed your front wheel and attached your front forks to the Climb. It connected to your trainer via bluetooth. While you were riding in the virtual world, the Climb would assess the gradient of the road you were riding. When you began to ride up a hill, the Climb would elevate the front of your bike, simulating the slope of the road. When you descended, the opposite would occur.

This new option on the platform created an even more immersive experience. I rode more last year with the Climb than I did in previous off-seasons. When this past fall arrived, I once again took a gander at the options for running in Zwift. While I was encouraged by seeing more treadmills availble, they all still lived in the $3-4 thousand dollar range. I was not that interested in suffering on a treadmill with that price. Again, Wahoo came to my rescue with a another new device.

Full Wahoo Setup — Wahoo Kickr with Climb and Headwind

This blew me away

The Headwind actually popped up at the end of the previous winter, but I wasn’t going to spend the money on something new at the end of the indoor riding season. The headwind was a “smart” fan you placed in front of your cycling setup. Like the Climb, it connected via bluetooth to your Kickr. The Headwind read your speed in the virtual world and matched it with the speed of the fan. Now, you effectively felt the wind while you were riding. Suddenly, the line between indoor and outdoor riding was truly starting to blur.

Over the last couple of years, Zwift has also greatly increased their riding options. There are multiple virtual worlds you can choose from. Some are totally invented like Watopia. Others are based solidly on the real world, like London, Richmond, and Innsbruck. New York City’s Central Park is also in the software but it features a very interesting format. In this futuristic version of the park, you can ride the park loops that have made the place famous, or you can ride up technologically advanced ramps that lead to a course in the sky. It allows for the scenic New York City skyline as a backdrop while you ride up and down some pretty challenging elevation changes.

Impulse buys are the worst

A couple of days after Christmas in 2019, my girlfriend and I were walking into Dick’s Sporting Goods in Destiny USA, which is the local mall here in Syracuse. As you first walk in, there is sometimes a row of treadmills for sale. She looked over to me with hope. Unlike me, she is a treadmill runner. At that time, she had been regularly driving to the gym at night to run on their treadmills. She wanted me to buy her one. Ugh. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the treadmills were heavily discounted after the holiday.

That very night I drove home with a Bowflex BXT216 treadmill hanging out of the back of my Toyota Prius. It took me a couple of days to hook it up and several more before I gave it a real try at running on it. I still hated the treadmill and didn’t see myself using it a lot, but my girlfriend was in her glory. She spent nearly every evening on it for the next month, but I returned mostly to my bike.

About two weeks ago, one of my clients was talking to me about her Zwift riding experiences. We were discussing the additional attachments I had purchased over the years and she asked me if I had gotten a treadmill yet, specifically to run inside using Zwift. I replied that I had just bought a treadmill but it wasn’t one of the ones listed on their website. She proceeded to tell me that the website info isn’t totally accurate. A Zwift rep told her that as long as the treadmill has bluetooth technology, it should work.

What?!?!

Is the treadmill a thing now?

I ran home after my last client and made my way to the gym in my house. My beautiful Trek Domane was sitting there, attached to my Wahoo Kickr Snap and Climb. Sitting in front of that was the Headwind. Above that was the monitor I use while riding. Next to that insane cycling setup is my new treadmill. I turned on the software, clicked on the RUN tab on the load screen. There were three options for syncing it. You can connect to a heart rate monitor, cadence counter, and the treadmill. With bated breath, I turned on my treadmill and touched the icon on the screen.

Immediately it connected. Oh my god. I stepped onto the treadmill and tried it out. Sure enough, my avatar was walking on the screen. I increased the speed and the “me” on the screen ran at the same pace. I put on my heart rate chest belt and connected that as well. Success. But I was missing the cadence. I was able to grab a Run Pod made by Zwift on Amazon. That arrived yesterday and I tried it out last night. Immediate Success.

After all these years, I now have a complete setup in my basement to allow for multi-sport training. It is perfect timing too, because I have my first multi-sport event this coming May. I will be competing in a Bike-Kayak-Run event in Schenectady. I have never participated in one of these, but being well trained will help ease my anxiety.

If you have considered the Zwift system, which works with several different trainers and treadmills, I can highly recommend it. It has been a vital part of my training regiment for many years and will continue to be for many more years to come.

Christopher Hess, LMT

February 28, 2020February 28, 2020

FIVE STEPS TO GO FROM FAT TO FITNESS

I am proof this can be done

In last week’s Fitness Friday post I recalled my history with weight gain and how I began my fitness journey. I will not recount the whole thing here for the sake of time, but I encourage you to click the link and check it out. The short version is that I reached my max weight in December of 2009. I tipped the scales at 279 pounds. The breaking point for me was a double whammy. It started one day that fall when my oldest son walked up to my ex-wife and pushed out his belly and said to my ex-wife that he wanted to be fat like his Dad. The straw that broke the camel’s back was walking into the bathroom one morning around my birthday and seeing actual stretch marks on my stomach.

In January of 2010 I made the decision to restrict my calorie intake while working out as much as I could. I bought a recumbent stationary bike and got to work. By the end of that spring, I was riding the bike three hours a day. That summer I started running and ran my first 5k in August. In less than one year I lost 100 lbs.

Running with my son — This is me jogging warm-up with my oldest son before my first 5k in 2010.

Over the years, I gained a lot of it back and then lost it again, and then gained it back again, and then lost it again. This is not an uncommon cycle.

I believe I have finally found a semblance of balance. While I am not at what I would consider an ideal weight, my other fitness markers allow me to feel content. I currently weight around 200 lbs depending on the day, but I have struggled with some diet choices in the last year. I will talk about that in further detail in Step 2.

Our weight and its effects are a uniquely human anomaly. We often gain weight at an alarming rate all whilst denying the obvious and explaining it away as a temporary change. For example we will proclaim that we always gain weight in the winter. It’s just winter weight, after all. Or we will put on ten pounds during the holidays and tell people that we do this every year and it will come off on its own. Worst yet, we will dismiss the weight gain as a unfortunate reality of getting older.

Losing weight has the opposite effect on our psyche but it is actually more devastating. As we lose the weight, we fail to sense the progress. Our need to be thin clouds the positive changes. Once we accomplish our weight loss, we will look at ourselves in the mirror or in pictures and still see a fat person. The absolute worst thing generally comes from our loved ones. When they see us with a dramatically different appearance, they will often tell us we look too thin. We look sick. This has a tragic effect on the mind. We often allow that mind-trick to derail our willpower and we slip back into old habits. And the weight begins to come back.

Have faith you can do this. Here are the five steps to go from fat to fitness.

Step 1: See your physician

It is important to note that I am not a doctor. I am also not a certified trainer, a nutritionist, or a dietitian. All I am is a person who has a long history with weight issues and I have had success transforming my body. With that said, before you attempt any weight loss journey, consult your physician. The first step is to get a full physical and have your labs checked for any possible health concerns.

Your physician is vital part of your fitness journey — Seeing your physician is paramount before beginning any fitness journey

Once you and your doctor have a clear understanding of your health, you can discuss what the best first steps are. If you are a life long smoker and have developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, you may not be able to run. For those of you that have extensive osteoarthritis, you may not be able to run. If you have diabetes, there may be dietary restrictions you have to follow. The benefit of having a clear understanding of you health is that you can compare your numbers once you have accomplished your goals.

When you get the green light from your doctor to begin your journey, you may want to find professionals to help guide you along the way. The first two that come to mind would be a personal trainer and a nutritionist. There is something important to keep in mind when choosing your health and wellness professionals. Personal trainers and nutritionists do not require any former schooling. There is also very little regulation of their industries. Be sure to consult family and friends to find a reputable professional that will be a good fit for you.

Step 2: Decide on a diet and stick to it

Before you ever step into a gym or start walking for exercise, you need to begin eating right. There is an expansive number of dietary options out there and they all have their benefits and detriments. As I stated above, when I went through my initial weight loss journey, I subscribed to the idea of Calories In / Calories Out. That is the idea that if you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. This is common sense, in theory.

The reality is that the metabolism of the human body is unbelievably complex. It depends on a certain balance to maintain health and while you may lose weight quickly through starvation, the body will make evolutionary hormonal changes to ensure it returns to its set point. What that means to you is that if you starve yourself to lose weight, you are practically guaranteed to gain it all back.

During a period of effective weight loss a couple of years ago, I found lasting success with the Ketogenic Diet. The Keto diet, as it is often called, requires you to avoid carbohydrates at all costs. With most plans, you must remain under 35 grams of carbs a day. With Keto, even protein should be reduced with fat becoming the primary source of energy. I will save the science of Keto for another post, but I have had success with it. As a matter of fact, I am currently living a Keto lifestyle.

Other eating lifestyles that many people have healthy success with are Whole Food and Plant Based diets. These are both self explanatory. Separate from food intake, another type of lifestyle choice I advocate for is Intermittent Fasting which is otherwise known as IF. This requires you to go for extended periods of time without eating. We all fast for a period of time every day. We do not eat while we are sleeping, thus the first meal of the day is called breakfast. In other words, we are breaking our fast. There are several methods, or IF protocols you can follow, but try them until you find one that is best for you. The longer the fast period, the better the benefits. I participate in The Warrior Diet protocol. This entails a 20 hour fast period followed by a four hour eat window.

Step 3: Begin an exercise routine

When I lost the weight in 2010, I was incredibly out of shape. I was still strong from my years in the Marine Corps, but I had nearly zero cardiovascular endurance. When I first bought my stationary bike, I would be exhausted after less than thirty minutes. By that summer, I was easily pedaling away for three hours at a time. In the summer, I started running. At first, I could not effectively jog for more than a half of a mile at a time. By the end of the summer, I ran a rather fast 5k.

Fast forward ten years to today and my fitness is at its peak. In 2019, I participated in 26 events. They were a mix of running and cycling. I ran 10 Half Marathons (13.1 miles) and 2 full marathons (26.2 miles). I rode my bike in five charity events that were 100 miles a piece. Three times in the last four years, I have participated in The Dopey Challenge at Walt Disney World. This is four races over four consecutive days. The runs consist of a 5k (3.1 miles), 10k (6.2 miles), half marathon (13.1 miles), and a full marathon (26.2 miles). That is a total of 48.6 miles in four days.

The 6 medals I received for the 2019 Dopey Challenge. Four races and two challenges. A total of 48.6 miles.

You can get there, but it won’t happen overnight. You have to walk before you can run. I hear people say all the time that they don’t like to run. I agree it is an acquired taste, but trust me when I tell you that if you keep doing it, you will fall in love with it. They call it the runner’s high and it is a real thing. It is an endorphin surge that occurs in the brain in response to long periods of high cardiovascular activity. If you get there, you are effectively hooked on running.

The reality is that not everyone can run. You may have limitations from a previous injury or arthritis that restricts your ability to bear the weight and impact of running. If that is the case, get on a bike. You can get an amazing workout on a bike without the strain on your joints, whether you ride on a trail or on the road. If cycling is also not your thing, swimming is a wonderful full body workout that takes all the gravitational effects off your body. This may be especially helpfully if you begin this journey morbidly obese.

Step 4: Set realistic goals

Once you decide to get started with exercise, set a realistic goal and work toward it. Depending on your current weight and health, setting a one mile walking goal may be it. If you have been healthy in the past but declined in recent years, perhaps a 5k is a good goal. If you are more ambitious, set a half marathon as your goal. Regardless of your goal, keep your eye on the prize.

Your exercise journey is not complete if you reach your goal. That is the time to set a new goal. Health and fitness is a lifestyle. Once you start to live it, keep living it. I did not run my first full marathon until I was 40. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how heavy you are, set a realistic goal and get to work.

Setting a weight goal is difficult. We all have an ideal weight, based on national health standards or past weights where we felt our best. But I will caution that weight isn’t the most important marker. Health and fitness and your measurements are the primary benchmarks of success. Instead of focusing on pounds, aim for a clothing size. How you look and feel is infinitely more important than what the scale says.

With that said, weigh and measure yourself often. Track your progress in the app of your choice. I have used a number of them over the years. I am currently using Samsung Health to track my health markers and I use Strava to track fitness.

Strava is my app of choice for tracking fitness

In a future post, I will break down some of the apps I have used over the years.

Step 5: Join a group or several

In today’s fitness world, there are all kinds of groups you can belong to. There are peer social groups like Meetup that will organize runs, bike rides, or hikes. There are local run groups all over the country that schedule group runs and sponsor event training. Nearly every city has a cycling club that offer weekly rides of varying difficulty. There are even online groups that you can join that are effectively all over the world. I am a member of several of these groups. Regardless of the race I attend, there is someone from one of those groups there.

I am currently an active member of Shenanigans Run Team, Rvm Rvnners, RWB, Onondaga Cycling Club, and Autism Speaks. There are so many out there, it would be impossible to even form a comprehensive list.

RWB is just one of several running groups I participate in.

The best thing to do when you are getting started is to find friends that are into fitness and tag along with them. Eventually, they will introduce you to groups and you can find the best ones for you. The primary benefits to these groups is that they provide a sense of community and they also help to hold you accountable. That is invaluable to achieving success.

I have done all of this and you can too

They often say that it is about the journey and not the destination. This is especially true when it comes to your health and fitness journey. The last ten years of my life have provided the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I have had pitfalls along the way, but I have always returned to the correct path.

It will be hard at times but it will also be hugely rewarding. You just need to stick with it.

As you are preparing to begin your fitness journey, please know that the first step you take will be the hardest. Everything gets easier as you do it.

Have faith you can do this.

Christopher Hess, LMT

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February 21, 2020February 22, 2020

Fitness Friday

Note: Over the next week, I will be introducing readers (however few there are) to the new format of The Daily Octane. Each day will be the topic reveal for that calendar day going forward. Additionally, I will provide context for why I feel I have ANY business even writing about the subject.

I was never really thin as a child. I wasn’t exactly fat either. Rather, I existed somewhere in the middle of the road. Taking a gander back at yearbook pics and such has led me to understand that I was fairly nondescript. In High School, that can actually be a good thing. Best to not stand out either way. I played some sports in school. In the 7th and 8th grade, I tried to play basketball. That was at the peak of Michael Jordan’s career and everyone wanted to “Be Like Mike.” I was no exception. I was also not tall, athletic, or talented. In the 9th and 10th grades, I wrestled. I was actually decent at the sport, even pinning a kid from a rival school in just nine seconds in a match. That’s a true story and also the highlight of my wrestling career. I likely could have done more, but I spent the majority of the time academically ineligible. Why? Well, I had a love/hate relationship with homework. I golfed in high school as well. My Grandfather was an avid golfer. He was good, too. I spent a number of years idolizing that man and golf was a way of getting his attention. It didn’t work. He never once even asked me to golf with him…

Scholastic sports aside, something profound happened to me in the Spring of 1991. I was in the second half of my Sophomore year of High School and had a love affair with movies. As most kids my age at the time, I was a huge fan of The Two Coreys. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were in nearly all the influential movies of my youth. While their stories are tragic when viewed through the lens of hindsight, at the time they were my heroes. Enter Prayer of the Rollerboys!

Something about this movie struck a chord with me. I am not sure if it was the post 80s dystopian aesthetic, or the young Patricia Arquette’s natural sexiness (I was definitely deep into puberty) or the rebellious actions of the protagonists, but something excited me to no end. As is human nature, I wanted to emulate something I loved. I wanted to get Rollerblades.

Over the next couple of years, I formed a passionate love affair with the sport of in-line skating. I skated for fitness, I skated for sport, and I skated for fun. I watched the X-Games on ESPN and tried to mimic their moves (often with tragic consequences). To be wholly truthful, I got really good at it.

Shortly after High School, I joined the United States Marine Corps, where I began to travel the World. And everywhere I went, I brought my skates. I skated in North Caroline, Florida, Okinawa, Thailand, and California. I skated everywhere I could right up until the popularity of inline skating dwindled. I started to notice that when I was skating around, I was the only person skating around. That led to awkwardness, which ultimately led to a painful decision to stop altogether.

When my second wife (these are stories for another time) got pregnant for our oldest son in 2002, I started gaining some weight with her. When she lost the pregnancy weight after he was born, I didn’t. When she got pregnant with our second son in 2005, I gained even more weight with her. When she again lost the weight after he was born, coincidentally I did not. In 2009, in response to her constant harassment, I chose to quit smoking. On June 15th of 2009, I smoked my last cigarette, totally cold turkey. What I didn’t quit was the oral fetish associated with smoking and over the next several months my weight ballooned to an all time high of 279 lbs. That was my weight on my birthday in 2009 at the age of 34. Worse yet, when I lumbered into the bathroom to shower on the morning of my birthday, I saw in the mirror something that shocked me to the core: I had stretch marks on my stomach.

It is not easy sharing this picture. This is not even my heaviest. This is three weeks into the process when I finally found the courage to step in front of a camera.

The first thing that happened next was nothing…

Depression set in. Despair set in. The reality for most people that become obese is that really don’t see it happening. It actually comes as a surprise one day. They tend to trick their own mind into ignoring the signs as they are gaining the weight. I was no different. Lucky for me, New Year’s Day was right around the corner. And that is the time for resolutions.

I bought myself a recumbent stationary bike and began to exercise. I also took some advise from some gym-rat friends of mine and began to eat lean protein, rice, and vegetables. I began to track all of my calories in software on my computer (smartphones were still a few years off).

Before you applaud the next part of this story, it is important to note that I did this COMPLETELY the wrong way. I followed the flawed method of Calories in / Calories Out. I starved myself by taking in less than 1200 calories a day and I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the stationary bike. At the peak of my exercise routine, I was riding three hours a day. Right or wrong, it worked.

By the end of 2010, I was down to 180 lbs. I had also decided that summer to get a real bike. I had been watching the Tour de France for years and I wanted to be Lance Armstrong (he had not been disgraced yet), so I went on craigslist and found what I thought was the perfect bike. It was a 2000 Trek XO-1. It was an amazing bike, but not at all what I really wanted, in hindsight. I really knew nothing of cycling at the time. As it turned out, that was a cyclocross bike, which it designed very specifically for a certain sub-genre of cycling competitions. Regardless of my mistake, I rode the ever-loving shit out of that bike. FYI, it is still in my garage to this day. Another thing I did, as Spring began in 2010, was that I decided to shift my exercise routines to running. It was agonizing at first. Running is a vastly different cardiovascular activity to cycling. It is laborious and painful to the initiate and I suffered all the growing pains. However, after enduring it for months, I decided in the summer of 2010 to run my first 5k.

Warming up with the assistance of my oldest. This was my first 5k in August of 2010.

The Inner Harbor 5k in Syracuse, NY is still run every year, but that was my first official 5k. I was terrified. I was confused by how it all work. Luckily, I had my family with me to cheer me on. My oldest even ran alongside me while I jogged my warm-up. About a quarter mile into the run, my right foot found a pothole that my eyes never saw. CRACK. The pain was horrific. I limped for a couple of strides. A million thoughts streaked though my brain. Did I have to quit? Was I able to run? What did I do to my ankle? Did it matter?

The answer to the last question was an emphatic NO! Adrenaline was luckily still pumping through my body from the starting gun of the race. The sudden realization of a possible substantial injury only encouraged my adrenal glands further. I felt almost no pain as I ran the remainder of the race. I also ran it fast, finishing in under 24 min. Well, fast for me anyway. I also realized immediately after I finished, that I had done substantial damage to my ankle. As it turned out, it was a severe sprain but luckily not broken. Regardless, it hurt all the same.

That race ignited a love affair with running that carries on to this day. I have also continued to be an avid cyclist. A few years back, I added kayaking to my list of adventurous activities. There are a few more, and I will certainly address them over the coming blog posts. My accomplishments make me proud. I have run a lot of races, including full 26.2 mile marathons. I have biked in races and charity events, riding in several century rides. This spring, I am going to add a kayak race to the fold. In future posts, I will also be recounting some of my more memorable events. I will talk about my diets, both successful and otherwise. I will talk about my one attempt at a sprint triathlon and why it never even started. I will talk about my professional career and how it has served my fitness journey and how I am now able to guide others in their’s.

I hope you enjoyed this read and come back for more…

Christopher Hess, LMT

Be sure to return tomorrow to see what Saturdays’ topic will be.