The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

I’m very descrete. I won’t divulge the details of my lovers.













But piss me off and I’ll loosen the bolt on your trans pan.

 

Most of the stuff within relatively easy access is in the 5-8k above sea level range. My usual day in the mountains is in the neighborhood of 15-20 miles and 6k ft of elevation gain. Obviously that gets tougher with/in the snow. This time of the year it's more of a time game than physical fitness/endurance. Starting with a headlamp buys you some time of course but it gets dark in the mountains at 3:30. Going out with a headlamp makes me nervous. Most accidents happen at the end of the day when you're tired and shit has gotten slippery.

I was training for a 13 mile OWS when Covid shut shit down so it's been bike, hike, yoga, and walks mostly. Just keepin' it real yo. I have a Strava account and post my shit on there. Take care and stay safe.

 

That sounds nice. I do wish I had more access to mountains. I do have some steep AF hills but not the same.

So tell me about this 13 mile OWS. How does one do this without drowning? A swim like that has to take what, multiple hours?
How do you fuel?

 

Lots of training. And probably 8 hours or so. You can store food at small parks along the waterline but getting in and out makes you cold and requires energy. We had a boat captain lined up so you'd feed/fuel from the boat. My swim partner is an English Channel swimmer so I had some experience by my side. The swim is around Mercer Island in WA State if you are curious. I live just north of Seattle. I was up to 10k swims in the pool before shutdown. That's the distance used in the Olympics for their swim marathons.

 

A 1km swim would be enough for me.

Swimming in and of itself is pretty challenging. I always think it would be nice to do an Ironman one day but then I remember I hate cycling, hate swimming, the registration fees are like over $1,000. Then you gotta drop coin on a bike, then you gotta do flights/hotel out there and then like $10k later and 2 years of training I'm like nah.

Swims like that are pretty impressive so I take my hat off to you sir

It puts me running a 50 miler to shame.

 

Don’t need 2 years. This guy literally never ran or swam or biked. One day decided he was going to compete in an Ironman. 6 months later. Done.

you can do it.

 

Can and should are two different things. I would want to train properly and not risk serious injury. I’d also want to do sprint tris to prepare. I’m not some super rich dude. I’m not spending $10k to do Kona and then get pulled off the course because I’m not meeting cut off times. Plus there are lotteries and qualifiers you have to worry about. Some of these guys get spots because other people sre pulling strings and getting people pay for it due to publicity. It can take a couple years to get pulled for Kona for the typical person.

I’m also not the personality type to do that. You are talking people who don’t care if they blow out their ACL just to say they did an Ironman.

 

Ugh I hate the days where everything feels heavy.

 

I’ve seen what you lift. It is heavy.

 

Nahh not today lol

 

Agreed. While stuff like that is impressive and I tend to be on the side of "mind over matter" the chances of that blowing up on you mid-race are astronomical. Most likely in the swim which is first. It would be interesting to hear his story. Maybe his base line fitness was already really high.

If you want to be impressed check out Rich Roll's Epic 5. He and another guy did 5 Ironman distances over 6 days I think. They trained like crazy for it. And....the other guy has only one arm. Can't even imagine.

https://hawaii247.com/2010/05/12/epic-lester-roll-finish-5-ironmans-on-5-islands/

 

Not a chance....that's an incredible accomplishment. Seriously.

 

Typical Ironman is done in what 14-17 hours? That's a lot of time for something to go wrong. What if halfway through the bike you can't stop vomiting and can't take in much water or food for the remainder of the event? What if something breaks on your bike?
You also need a support crew, one thing to commit to training, it's another to convince 4 of your closest friends to crew you for those 14-17 hours and train with you so you know how to work with each other.

There would be too much at stake for me to just sign up and not do my due diligence to prepare.

Would be one hell of a walk of shame to tell those 4 close friends you convinced to crew you that you are walking off halfway through the bike. But it is a personality thing too @weldertaco You gotta be the type that will just go balls to the wall no matter what, I'm not that type. If I don't feel 110% prepared when I'm at the start line, a lot in my mind starts to work against me. So I have to show up over prepared, there can be no improv lol

I have read Rich Rolls book. That guy is pretty awesome. I loved his book mostly because I used to be a paralegal in private law and his stories about how fucking miserable it is to work for asshole lawyers resonated with me. His life story is pretty awesome.

 

The weekend after my 30th birthday this year has an ultra. 50k and 50M. I need a redemption race after my epic fail on my first ultra attempt this year. Thinking of going for the 50M. Go big or go home.

 

Nice! I've done 50k on the trail. I hate races so it was just me in the mountains. 50 miles sounds killer. I volunteered at the Bigfoot 200 last year. Final aid station 13 miles from the finish. First place guy looked like a Navy Seal out for a neighborhood 10k training run. Towards the end people were hallucinating. I was looking at the 40 miler this year but they canceled the race.

Rich Roll does seem like a cool guy and I've read his book as well. I came to him via the sober athlete world. I don't preach it and I manage a restaurant/bar but I'm a sober guy that found endurance fitness after some ugly shit in my life and getting sober. His podcast is pretty good as well.

Have a great holiday everyone and take care.

 

I love going on youtube and listening to ultra runners hallucination stories

Kinda am excited for the day that happens to me.


My state only has one 100M but I’d like to do some volunteering at those big races before I go for one.

I’m not a huge crowded race fan myself. I very much like my solitude but by mile 25 in my race when my legs were shaking so bad I had to walk backwards down hills to not fall (trekking poles are a necessity) , and I had not passed another racer for like 4 miles, it got rough for me emotionally to be alone. I actually called my husband and had him on the phone just because I didn’t want to be by myself.
It was really freaky and not like me but thats the point, have these experiences that challenge you to the point where you start seeing different parts of yourself.

I’m excited for the misery and challenge a 50M will bring.

Rich Rolls story into sobriety is pretty inspirational. I mean not inspiring enough for me to ever give up my beer but hes a pretty inspirational guy. Gave up alcohol, went plan based, started ultra sports, and eventually quit his shitty law career to pursue fitness.
Many people won’t do just one of those things let alone all of them.

Happy Holidays!

 

Alright. It’s me again. I call upon the lifters for suggestions.

Does anyone do a intra carb style shake to Keep energy up mid workout when doing heavier lifts? Just typical whey? Or any special supplement you use? Does it fuck with your gut any?
I’ve noticed on heavy carry days that I feel depleted physically even after eating all day.

@Travish325 @strengthordie @mindstar @Supra TT @rngr.

 

Doing strongman you should be having carbs pre and intra. Stop taking jack3d or caffeine or any stimulant for your training. Get karbolyn and have 50-60g carbs from it on normal training days. Start drinking about 15 minutes before working out and the whole workout as well. On deadlift or event training days make it 100g carbs.

It will change your life.

For real though... Stop the caffeine. In the am is fine but don't have caffeine within 4 hours of training. Stimulants and strongman do not mix.

 

My buddy said karbolyn as well. I’ll have to pick some up. I’ll get off stimulants if you say it really does make a difference.

I try to eat 1-2 hours before training with something that has carbs in it. Just haven’t experimented with carbs mid workout in fear of it feeling “heavy” in the gut.

 

Yeah caffeine has a lot of side effects that can cause issues in strongman, especially if you are competing for hours you need to rely on food/carbs, not stimulants.

Eat fast digesting carbs no closer than 2 hours before training. I do 6oz chicken and 250g brown rice on my pre-workout meal. Eating any closer than that and you'll be digesting food while training. You don't want your blood flow going to your gut during lifting, and it will if you're full of food.

Karbolyn is not dextrose or sugar based, so it doesn't give the sick stomach feeling. I love it. I'll drink a gallon of water up to and before lifting, only have karbolyn intra, then have whey and eat after and start water again. If I don't have intra carbs my training suffers a lot, especially on heavy days or event training days.