Portland... Beyond the Triathlon

Before this trip is just a distant memory, how about a glimpse into Portland, the non-triathlon part of the trip.

We arrived in Portland early Friday so we had lots of time to explore. No way was I going to sit in the hotel room and just think about the race. Nope. I heard great things about Portland, so I was ready for the mini vacation in addition to the race :)

Our hotel was about a 15-20 min drive to downtown Portland. The city itself was rad -- if Rev3 does have it in downtown next year, I'd highly recommend doing it -- it has that urban city feel, but with an element of nature and outdoorsy-ness, complete with people riding bikes everywhere (lots of fixies lol), colorful flowers at every street corner, as well as skyscrapers, lots of really cool bridges over the river, funky architecture, etc. Fyi, I never claimed to be a good photographer ;)

There's also a lot of good places to eat. I could spend a month just exploring the dining scene. For our first meal was a surprise treat. We stumbled on Isabel's Cantina; there's also one of these in Pacific Beach and it's a place I LOVE but haven't been to for years. "Double Happiness" anyone?

Probably the best we had was Friday night's dinner at VQ, or Veritable Quandry. This place is A MUST if you're in town. Try to get a seat on their outdoor patio. I would have been happy with any one of the menu items, which made it hard to choose. A peak at our yummy food...

Appetizer: green salad (forgot to take pic) and Bacon-wrapped giant prawns with creme fraiche and grilled chayote squash, which is amazing btw

My main dish, Wild Oregon Salmon on bed of some type of grain (forget) with a yogurt sauce, pistachios, radishes, cucumber, etc. I'm a salmon snob, so local Oregon salmon? Yes please!

John's dish, pork tenderloin with polenta, an eggplant mixture and other tasty stuff

And dessert, of course, chocolate cake with ice cream and berry sauce. I'm a sucker for chocolate even pre-race. Even tried a tawny port, but I don't like that stuff so was over it. :)

OK, I kind of got out of order here. Back up to earlier Friday. Portland is the "Rose City" so flowers are in abundance. Not only that, but there's a place called the Rose Test Gardens, basically fields of different roses. We hit it up. OK, I know what you're thinking.... "lame!" But really, it wasn't. Besides, I was tapering so any activity had to be mellow, like grandma/grandpa-style mellow ;) Best part is, we somehow turned something that could be boring into a really good time... lots of laughs. Don't ask.And you know how those rose lovers like to get naughty....

Near the rose garden there's also the Shakespeare Garden, which is a mellow little area where you can lay on the grass and just get lost in thought. So random.

Last but not least in the area was the Japanese Botanical Gardens, which I was actually excited to see until we learned it was $10 (maybe more) per person to enter. No thanks.

Another big to-do on our list was Dechutes Brewery. John likes his beer (quality stuff, not like PBR) so hitting up this place was a must! I was totally OK with a small beer tasting as long as it wasn't the day before the race. I'm starting to appreciate good beers more.

We walked off the beers and explored downtown more. Even made a stop by Voo Doo Doughnuts, but didn't buy one. Don't worry, I was NOT afraid of indulging on this trip, as is pretty apparent, but a donut at that time didn't sound appetizing at all. Still, it was cool to see the infamous VD Donuts. Note the vulgar shape in there...

On the opposite end of the spectrum from VooDoo, there was one place we went to NUMEROUS times per my request/race needs. Yup, Whole Foods!

Annnnd that was just Friday. A lot!

Saturday was a lot more mellow. Went to the expo and packet pickup, did a quick bike and t-run. Met up with Ben Greenfield for the bike, which was nice chatting with him in person rather than our weekly Skype convos for the podcast. After the pre-race prep was done we went into nearby Greshem to explore and find lunch. Found a farmer's market and a healthy Whole Foods-like local market. I got a fresh-made turkey and avocado sandwich made on GF bread, it was killer! So was our view at lunch:

I was still not satisfied with all I'd seen in downtown Portland, so we went back. To keep it more mellow, though, we browsed through Powell's Books, which is a huge funky bookstore that takes up a whole block and is several stories. Has every book imaginable. Cool place to hang, better than the typical Border's. I found something I couldn't resist buying. I highly recommend for a good laugh.

Eventually it was time for pre-race dinner. Settled on an Italian place I mentioned in the RR. It was perfect and just what I wanted.

Fast forward.... and.... the race happened...

Then time to regroup for one last night on the town. Besides my amazing post-race feast (pics on the RR, click above), I also got a special present because I'm a chocolate fiend....
Speaking of that, I may or may not have tried a vegan chocolate cupcake. Vegan, so allowed, right?

Why Vitamix? And More on Strength Training

Pretty funny that I only got one comment on that last blog. Not that I ever generate tons of comments as it is, but one is possibly an all-time low. Did I leave you guys speechless by telling too much about my personal life? Hahaha. Probably best to stick to the triathlon theme, eh? Well, you'll still get bits and pieces of the personal stuff too, turns out my new sherpa is coming to Portland with me next week! Speaking of Portland, I also found out that JetBlue is waving bike fees for the month of July in celebration of the Tour de France. I made flight res with them without knowing this would be the case, so needless to say I'm pretty stoked that I'll be saving a few bucks.

Yesterday I was an easy day with only a swim. Taper mode is in full effect, and, yup, I'm feeling all those nasty taper feelings. I was comforted by shortening my work day to enjoy some sunny beach weather... sitting on my porch, listening to Jack Johnson-esque music and sipping on a beer that screamed Oregon, of course (see my ocean view?)....Not that best ocean view haha, but I can walk across the street for this view. It's gearing up to be a busy and beautiful holiday weekend here at the beach.

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Anyways, enough fluff, onto the main point of this blog! I want to answer a couple questions I got recently on the Vitamix and Strength Training...

1. Why is the Vitamix so great? ~Austin and SixTwoThree

I'm not going to go too infomercial/testimonial on this one because Vitamix ain't giving me anything for free, but I will tell you my top 5 reasons why I think this blender is the bomb.

1. It can blend anything to your desired consistency in mere seconds. I think it could even blend rocks if you wanted. Nut butters, raw beets, tough raw veggies, etc. You wouldn't believe how the toughest things turn into smooth liquids instantly. No chunky, grainy, un-blended crap in your drinks. I was using a temp blender at my new place before the V-mix, and my carrot cake smoothies were grainy and chunky, yuck. Plus, I had to leave that blender running for so long just to get something to happen. The V-mix is usually 30ish seconds, always less than a minute, for any smoothie I make.

2. You don't lose anything. This is a good argument for a V-mix over juicers... Juicers spew out the veggie/fruit leftovers, but V-mix leaves you the whole fruit/veggie to consume. With strawberries and apples, for example, you can even leave the greens on and the core/seeds all in there. No prob. Nothing gets left out. And you never get weird seedy chunks in the drink.

3. Diversity of what you can make. Of course smoothies and juices are the most frequent, but there's also ice cream/fro-yo, soups (leave it on long enough and it literally makes the soup piping hot), nut butters, baking batters (pancakes, cookies, cakes, pies, brownies), adult drinks (haven't tried that yet to be honest haha), etc., etc. I use it to make my mashed cauliflower (healthy version of mashed potatoes), and it does it 10x better than even the food processor. Great for my black-bean brownies too.

4. Easy to clean. There are only two parts -- the base/motor and the blender. You never have to unscrew anything or try to clean hard-to-reach crevices or parts. It easily rinses out. My old blender had like eight parts, some small and annoying, and you'd have to individually clean each piece after every use or risk mold, it was such a hassle. The V-mix just needs a quick and easy rinse. Heck there are times I don't even use soap/sponge, just a good rinse.

5. Longevity. I use the V-mix one to two times a day for the most part, and apparently these things are supposed to live long and strong. They're often used in commercial/business settings for that reason. So instead of having to replace a so-so blender every couple years, invest in a good one that lasts forever. I have the same philosophy when it comes to buying my tri gear.

So there you have it... my love for the V-mix in a nutshell. Now let's just hope Vitamix reads this and does something for me in return ;)

Second question....
2. When during the week do you add it? I really need to build more muscle but I'm not sure about the best time to add it in the schedule so that it doesn't negatively affect swim/bike/run training. Thanks!! ~Jennifer

For starters, I wrote a post a while back on strength training related to your question.

Strength training will not negatively affect your SBR. Yea, there might be times when you don't swim as well because your arms are fired from X workout, but simply adding in one or two strength training sessions a week will only make you a stronger triathlete in the end. That said, you're probably in-season right now so starting a strength routine is going to leave you more sore than if you'd been doing it for months. So, start slowly... go with one session a week (separated from your SBR if possible) and build up. Plus, I recommend talking to a professional who can guide your program, tell him/her that you're training a lot for triathlon. Strength training is really fun once you get into a routine, I personally love that it breaks up the monotony of SBR.

When it comes to me, I hate to say it, but I don't have much rhyme or reason on how I operate on the day to day with my workouts, SBR or strength. Maybe it's because I spend so much time planning my athletes' schedules, so planning my own workouts comes second to that. Instead, I go into each week with specific goals for each sport, strength training, overall volume and intensity (i.e. base vs. recovery vs. build week), but that's about it. No set-in-stone daily workout plan. I just get 'er done based on my knowledge of what I should be doing that week, and hitting numbers I need to hit (whether that's power on the bike, mileage in the run or hours overall).

So how does strength fit in? Personally, I try to get in 1-2 strength training sessions a week when I'm in season (like now), and 3-4x all the other times of the year (offseason, transition phases, early base building, etc). Inevitably I probably strength train a little bit more than that simply because I work at a gym and am constantly pushing weights around, demonstrating exercises, etc. But when I do my own focused sessions, they're usually in the mornings before my swim, bike or run workout. Otherwise, I'll do the swim, bike or run, and then not strength train until hours later. If I'm doubling up, I always have a hearty protein/carb shake after strength even if I'm not that hungry... do not want to lose any muscle mass or weight. With my athletes, some come to me for strength training, and I usually try to separate those appointments from their scheduled swim, bikes and runs, or at least have them strength prior to SBR or many hours after SBR.

Sometimes I incorporate strength into a swim, bike or run. Swim -- get out and do pushups/situps/squats/lunges, swim with a T-shirt, etc. Bike -- during trainer sessions, get off and do a round of something, even rowing, several times throughout the workout (those are some of my fav workouts, btw!). Run -- is in the gym, work in lighter-weight deadlifts, squats, TRX stuff, upper-body, anything!


Bottom line is every triathlete should be doing a little strength training year round. The idea is that you want to always be stimulating your body in new ways to prevent stagnation and a plateau, while building a resilient injury-resistant body that will hammer SBR for a long, full season. Of course, SBR over and over will make you better at SBR, but throw in strength training and you'll get even better and be more likely to avoid injury. Planning-wise: Don't do as much when you're in season (1-2x a week of maintenance work). It's in the offseason or early in the base phases when you want to hit strength training hard.

Last but not least, here's a simple but good workout that combines strength and running, especially good if you're looking to utterly FRY your hamstrings. I did this last week, and it left me the most sore I've ever been in the hammys (the most sore I've ever been overall was after Bikram yoga, when I was getting so hot and lose that I stretched way beyond my means and was toast for days).

Strength/Running Routine:
3 rounds...
50 abmat situps
50 Romanian Deadlifts with Oly bar (45 lbs)
800m sprint

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Hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend. I know I'll be sticking in Laguna Beach... there are literally signs around town advising people to avoid driving. Looks like I'm stuck... rough ;)