Foot Fetish, Fast Feet, and Mellow Johnny Arms

A few things that have caught my attention, and that of my feet and arms. (My apologies for the excessive flair displayed in this post.)


The Team TOA kits turned out great this year. Here I am making final bike preparations before Beach 2 Battleship. Note the custom Swiftwick socks in a 4".



This photo is during the post race awards cruise at Beach 2 Battleship. I am wearing my "other" custom Swiftwick sock, the 1" cuff. Susan is wearing the 12" black compression socks.



This is the shoes I raced in at Beach 2 Battleship. They are the K-Swiss K-ona. This shoe is great for a triathlon because it has adequate cushioning, along with a reasonable amount of motion control structure. They fit like a glove.

On the same note, I think most triathletes need to be careful not to wear too-light of a shoe for triathlon. The feathery racing shoe that feels great for a short run will suddenly leave your legs to get pummeled by the run in a triathlon. Most of the time I have found a little extra cushion is a good thing. This shoe will strike a good balance for some, and will be too light for others.


This is the Spira Stinger. It is the shoe Hunter Kemper wears for World Cup Olympic distance racing. It is the lightest damn shoe I have ever worn, and doggonit if it doesn't have great cushioning. But this is a light one...open 5K's to olympic distance tri only. And you will only get about 100 miles out of a pair of these, so use them judiciously.



Your feet aren't the only body part that likes some bling. We designed our team kits to come with matching arm warmers. Here (Tim) Lance displays the Team TOA arm warmers. I am particularly proud to have fit the "Rock Star Triathlon" logo and the argyles on this item.

You never know who is going to show up with the "TOA Argyles." Recently the Most Interesting Man in the World stopped by. He has been training for Music City Triathlon in 2010. He is training outside right now and with the cold, he has been wearing a TOA coat OVER his tuxedo while doing long rides.



While he may not be the most Interesting Man in the World, Lance (Armstrong) is pretty interesting. Although I must say, the first draft of the Team Radio Shack jersey looked like caca.

At least Lance (Armstrong) has good taste when he is picking the design:


And in this picture, Lance (Armstrong) displays his Mellow Johnny team kit arm warmers.

I added this picture to draw your attention to the logo on the right fore-arm...SWIFTWICK!!! They also have Swiftwick Socks...like those on Terry's foot below:

Cycling-Related Judge Judy

At first I didn't like the cyclist, but then the defendants opened their mouths.

Gary's Got the Emo

Here is a good example of what happens when you "get the emo." Pictured below is Gary M. in is the Augusta 70.3 triathlon...a half iron distance of 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. This is the longest triathlon Gary has ever done.


During the race he spends quite a bit of time doing routine tasks with no more than a passing amount of emo. For instance, in the above pictures he is reaching for an energy gel, then consuming the contents. Clearly this gel offers no more excitement than the notion of "this energy gel will help keep me from bonking." Not that exciting. Hence, minimal emo.



Here he is again, with a paucity of emo. You can see just a few glimmers of "Dear lord my legs hurt," or "how much longer to the finish line" slightly revealed on his face. But for the most part there is nothing dramatic going on in any emo-related capacity.


But then he starts to show a glimmer of that big emo as he approaches within sprinting distance to the finish line. Or rather, "flying distance" to the finish line. As his "emo sunshine" starts to break through the dark clouds of "fatigued-and-emoless-man-running-a-half-iron-triathlon."


Now the power of emo takes over at this point and Gary literally flies across the finish line.


Note how his un-suppressable smile is so intense it is actually whipping his head to the side. At the same time he is just starting to launch into orbit of the earth.



Here the emo has caused him to completely take flight.


And in this picture he is mostly back to the ground, except the facial emo is still being expressed. By this time the emo fist pump has been added to the situation.

And just to prove he--literally--flew across the finish line:


Here is a picture of Gary visibly several feet off the ground, and levitating across the finish line.

This is not the act of a normal human mortal. I know Gary as I have coached him for some time. What you see in these pictures is the superhuman effects of emo.

Get the Emo

Really, the inspiration is what it is all about; the EMOTION (aka, "emo.") If you don't have your emotions aligned with what you are trying to do, then it will be much harder to achieve your goal. Emotions can fuel your fire to work towards a goal....or they can create barriers to what you really should be doing in training.

Perhaps it is time to make seasonal changes to your training (e.g., reduce intensity, increase volume, or change priorities.) Are your emotions getting in the way? I will admit I have co-opted the term "emo" in this case. What is an emo?



I am not sure but I think it looks something like the person in this picture. Emos (emi?) tend to be young people, which makes sense when you think about it because generally speaking your people are more emotional than grown ups.

Emos tend to be seen riding bikes like this one:



There are a whole bunch of emos riding bikes like this one in the new 30 Seconds to Mars video (which may or may not be an emo band, I'm not sure)....on this short video/written essay I trace the arc from emo peoples and emo bikes through Jared Leto back to Steve Prefontaine. He certainly ran by fueling his emotions. Perhaps Pre was an emo?



Pictured above, Torbjorn Sindballe is displaying emo, the good kind. Although he looks a little scary, he is actually happy because he just finished 3rd place at the Hawaii Ironman when this picture was taken.

In my coaching I put a lot of emotions into what I do. I jump up and down when a client has a success breakthrough. I'm also perplexed solving an injury or motivation problem. And at the end of the day, I want to help you experience the very best emo...new achievements, better health, and fun times. After all, that is what life is all about, right? , fun times. That is what life is all about, right?

Punk'd by the WS100 Lottery

Wow what a day! After a great Big Spin class and a couple of individual training clients, I logged on to see if I was accepted in the Western States 100 lottery. If you have ever seen the show Punk'd you know it involves pranks that are played on celebrities. The humor of the show is seeing them get distressed as they are put in highly uncomfortable situations.



Now I am neither a celebrity nor did I get distressed enough to want to punch Ashton Kucher....but this was pretty funny what happened:

I logged on to the results page in high anticipation to see the results. Remember it was only a 20% acceptance rate so my fingers were crossed. At the top of the lottery results page...



...I was so nervous I could barely scroll down. Finally I mustered the courage to slide the mouse down the page looking for my name, and this is what I saw:



Note the name "stephen taylor" on the results page....I immediately jumped up and started running around yelling "woo woo I'm doing the Western States 100 oh yeah!!!," or something like that. Upon turning my gaze back to the page I was to realize that I had just been Punk'd.....



The "stephen taylor" who was drawn from the lottery is from "New bedford, Massachusettes," whereas I am from Nashville, TN. The only consolation that I have is that he does not know how to capitalize our name. Oh yeah, and there are lots of other fun activities and races to do. Now I just have to decide what I want to do. And you can bet I will be in the WS100 Lotto next year.

30 Seconds to Fixies to Pre

Okay I have been taking a few tangents lately. This is supposed to be a coaching blog. If you want to read post after post about nerdy training stuff that is fine. But me, I like to catch an inspirational video now and then to pump me up and go train hard.

This is a video by the band 30 Seconds to Mars. Patience....it takes a minute to get rocking but it is worth it. (If the HD version here is to slow, try it here....I hate slow streaming.)


Thirty Seconds To Mars - Kings + Queens - HD

30 Seconds to Mars | MySpace Music Videos


My my, this fixed gear urban bicycle thing sure has taken off lately. Bike Snob NYC is starting to take over slowtwitch.com as my favorite time waster. Anyway, the lead singer in this band is Jared Leto. An interesting tangent is that he played Steve Prefontaine in the movie Without limits. Here is another one of his songs with a montage from the movie.





Personally I liked the first video better. The song is better and I found it more entertaining to watch the fixed gear bikes. I know it is heresy to doubt Pre. I mean, he sure is on a lot of Nike posters and faux vintage track suits. He was well known for his aggressive, take-no-prisoners racing style. Unfortunately, whenever I think of Pre all I can think of is the 1972 Olympics where he got 4th place when he failed to execute a 4th quarter smackdown.




It may be sad that he got 4th place. But do you think perhaps he wouldn't have lost it in the last 10 meters if he hadn't led the whole way? When you are racing, race smart not just hard. Don't take off and "let the demons control your pace." If you care about the finish result use a smart strategy.

Actually it isn't sad that he got 4th place. The sad thing is that he never got a chance to learn from his mistakes, and win an Olympic gold. RIP, Pre.

Guacamole and The Red Pony

"You have to eat fat for your body to burn fat."

That is the words of wisdom that one of my early cycling mentors told me. And its true...the body requires a certain amount of fat to survive and thrive. And not the kind of fat that my friend who is on the Atkins diet eats. No, do not eat piles of bacon, boxes of chicken mcnuggets, and plates of bunless cheeseburgers.

Rather, the kind of fat you want to eat is plant and fish-based fat. This is of the mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated varieties. These sources of fat provide your body the necessary nutrients without the negative health downsides of saturated fat. They also help keep your ratio of omega-3 and Omega-6 in appropriate balance, which provides a natural anti-inflammatory effect for the body.

Appropriate sources of fat include: avacados, olives and olive oil, nuts, flax, and fish (preferrably wild-caught cold water fish.)

And so from the context of the health benefits of avacados, let me recommend for you to seek out this product, Jason's Guac Starter.



"Jason's Starter Guac" is by Jason McConnell, owner of SOL and Red Pony in downtown Franklin, TN. You can also get this delicious guacamole at SOL. Whether you eat the store-bought version or directly from the kitchen at Sol, however, I recommend that you eat it in moderate amounts. Not like I did the last time I went to Sol after a long ride, when I ate a whole order myself.

Just across the street is The Red Pony. Whereas Sol is a great southwest-themed restaurant that you can go to for post-ride beers and grub, The Red Pony is where I took Susan last Valentine's Day. It is a sophisticated and classy restaurant, so I got dressed up and put on my smooth moves. The Red Pony sponsors Team TOA-Gibbs, and Jason's wife Fran is an accomplished triathlete.