Motion Based

It was a beautiful day in Seattle today so I took advantage of it by pumping my bike with air and going out for a recreational ride around Lake Sammamish. I had not done this ride since the week of my last triathlon. Today I decided to take my new Garmin Forerunner 305 out for a spin. I had configured it the night before with my personal data like weight, sex and max heart rate.

After my ride, I uploaded the data to MotionBased - it's an online activity tracker owned by Garmin available for you to upload all your training data to. The above is a summary page of my ride today, other information such as elevation gain, loss, ascent and descent grade are also tracked. So today, I learned that 1 loop around Lake Sammamish is 22.17 miles, 67% flat, 15% uphill and 18% downhill. Pretty neat huh?

Plantar Faciitis

This morning I went to see the one of the run doctor to get a diagnosis for my foot pain. After examining my feet for locations of pain and my leg anatomy, I was diagnosed with plantar faciitis. He looked at my current pair of orthodics and felt that they did not support me enough. It was too soft so my foot would break it down while running. Also, the heel was too narrow so it was unstable. He also did an analysis of my walking on a treadmill with video analysis. We watched the replay and he told me that my left foot arch is alright, but my right foot completely flattens out. Also my legs are a little more curved than most people - thus I have to compensate a little. So I was casted for a new set of orthodics and I got a foot splint to wear while sleeping. No running, swimming and biking are OK though.

I had brought 3 pairs of running shoes as well to be examined. My Brooke Ariel, Brooke Adrenalin and my New Balance 457s. I also had Mizunos at home that I didn't bring. He told me that once I get my orthodic, I should use a more neutral shoe. I don't weigh enough to wear the Brooke Ariels - also they were too controling and heavy. The New Balance and Mizunos were good.

Yeah Garmin!

OK, so I caved and ended up purchasing the Garmin 305 GPS with heart rate monitor. It was on sale at Costco for $159, retails for $299. It'll be nice to be able to download all your data and view your run, bike and swim courses.

I guess I will just return my Timex, although I've been pretty happy with it.

Back to my happy weight

After my parents had left, I noticed that I had gained 3 pounds since completing my last triathlon. This of course left me feeling icky so I decided to be more aware of what I was putting into my mouth. I had worked so hard the past year I was not going to get out of shape. Anyways, I jumped onto the scale this weekend (I always weigh myself in the morning) and I was back to my happy weight of 115 pounds or less. I would love to get to 110 pounds or less before xmas holidays since I know that eating healthy and working out will be harder. At 5 2", five pounds makes a noticeable difference on me.

Anyways, this weekend my friend Kat was up from So Cal. But I did get a chance to go on a couple of runs. This week, I have 3 swims and weight training in my plans. I love schedules as they keep me on track.

No Garmin for me

I had been doing quite a bit of research and trying out a bunch of heart rate monitors lately. I had the Polar F4, but returned it and got a Timex Ironman Triathlon, then I started eyeing the Garmin 405. Our team is actually sponsored by Garmin, so I could get this thing on sale. But then it turns out that Lori was trying to sell hers, she thinks it's too big. I was so close to getting it, when I found out that it was NOT waterproof! Bummer, what a deal breaker.

On another swimming note, Michael Covey said that I have been making phenominal progress this year with my swim. I couldn't swim to save my life in March and now I am averaging about 1:45 100s, which is really good progress for me. This morning, I actually felt like I was moving through the water instead of ploughing through it. Anyways, according to my Timex HRM I burned 485 calories during the swim. But I ate a pizza and a piece of cake today so that pretty much negates my workout. I am thinking about doing Masters tonight because my punch card is about to expire.

Low Fat Chocolate Chip Muffins

The rainy weather outside has forced me indoors more than I would like, so I have been spending quite a bit of time fiddling with baking recipes to make them healthier. Here is my favorite chocolate chip muffin recipe and my modifications:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar - I use 2/3 cup of Splenda
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk - I use soy milk
1/2 cup butter (melted & cooled) - I use 1/4 cup of butter + 1/3 cup of apple sauce
2 eggs - beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips - I use half a package

Preheat oven to 400 F. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla until blended. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add milk mixture and stir just to combine. Stir in chocolate chips. Bake 15-20 minutes.

One cup of sugar is 770 calories, so I substituted equal amounts of Splenda instead. I was able to cut the amount of butter in half by using some apple sauce. 1/2 cup of butter is 400 calories. Also, the recipe asks for 1 package of chocolate chips, I actually find that half a bag is more than enough. The picture you see is what came out of my oven. It was so yummy!

Nutrition Info: about 335 calories per muffin with very little fat (I made 6 large muffins). Starbucks low fat muffins are 400-500 calories. Woohoo, I'm better than Starbucks!
2 cups of flour - 880 calories
2/3 cups of Splenda - 0 calories
2/3 cups of Soy Milk - 87
2 eggs - 150 calories
1/4 cup butter - 200 calories
1/3 cup of apple sauce - 100 calories
1/2 package of chocolate chips - 800 calories

Happy Halloween

So I've decided to return my HRM because it didn't allow me to enter in my own max heart rate - thus felt that I was not getting accurate data. I ended up picking up the latest Timex Ironman Triathlon watch instead. For $100 (minus a 15% coupon) I have many more features than with the Polar F4. Not to mention, it looks a heck of a lot cooler as well. I took it out for a 25 minute run today and it said that I burned 274 calories - this data appears to be much more accurate to me. I can't wait to take it swimming tomorrow.


Last weekend was Halloween and I ended up at a house party in Kirkland. It was great meeting new people. I met this lady who was a good swimming in college and we talked about doing water polo. I don't know the first thing about water polo, but anything to do with swimming is cool. I love swimming so much that it is one of the first things I think about when I wake up in the morning :)

Do we burn a lot less than we think

I just recently purchased a real heart rate monitor, when I say I mean one with a chest strap instead of one with electrodes that measure with you finger tips. I took the HRM out for a spin in Master swim class on Thursday night and after 60 minutes of swimming about 2000 yards, my watch told me that I had only burned 403 calories! What the heck? Seemed really low to me, it even seemed low to the swim instructor.

Today, I had a weight session, 20 minutes on level 10 on the stair mill and 10 minutes on the rowing machine. My HRM said that I burned 250 calories. And get this, the stair mill also keeps track of your HRM and calories and it said that I burned twice as much as my watch.

I'm trying to figure out what could be the issue. For the stair mill, I did not program in my weight, thus it using the default weight which is probably 150 pounds. Another issue is, I did not program in my max heart rate into my watch, so the watch is also using default settings. It had asked me to enter in my age and my weight and then set target heart rates for me - I'm guessing that it has my resting heart rate at 75 BPM. However, my resting heart rate is closer to 55 BMP. So what I have done is set my age to 20 to see if that makes any difference.

All this calorie counting has made me think twice about how much exercise I need to do to maintain my fitness. Today, I found myself counting calories which is not a thing I enjoy doing.