John Stone, The Tri-athlete!!

[gravityhomer]

You are well matched for a Triathalon John! Being a former swimmer, with tons of cycling experience and great cardio stamina and the ability for explosive speed via HIIT. You would make a fearsome competitor. Road running while your shoulder heals would be a good start.

I don't think I could ever get past the swimming section. Never been strong. But I plan to start entering myself in races, when I get my running legs back. Haven't been this light in awhile, should help shave the minutes.

[tankhead]

Hey John,
I started becoming fit again in my early twenties(1993-1999). I was mostly into body building. I lost quite a bit of fat and trained simply for asthetics. I saw some great improvements and then became interested in mountain biking and road riding along with my competitive 5 mile running races. It then became a very important part of my life competing in duathalons which i did for two seasons. I then moved on to mountain bike races and spent many hours training for racing season. I did two seasons and some 24 hour team races and by 1999 I was training seriously with many hours of easy over distance training along with high intensity group riding. By 2003, I had erased many pounds of muscle and replaced with fat. Overeating complex carbs because I was training from 2 hours to 5 hours on the bike. I then became so interested in removing fat (the wrong way) that I would ride without breakfast for an hour before I would eat anything and then eat a power bar and continue riding. I would come home and gorge myself with complex carbs to refuel and I gained more fat. My point is just be careful if you intend to get into competitive training. For those of us who are stubborn and don't mind pain, like you and I, it can be your worst choice. Sometimes you lose focus on what got you interested in fitness and begin worrying more about performance, and sometimes when this happens, you lose your way. Good luck in all your endeavors but beware the nasty breakdown of the prescious muscle that you have worked soooooo hard to create, it can destroy your original plan. Let us know your 1 mile time trial time. Again good luck.

[Two Step]

Originally Posted by tankhead

Hey John,
I started becoming fit again in my early twenties(1993-1999). I was mostly into body building. I lost quite a bit of fat and trained simply for asthetics. I saw some great improvements and then became interested in mountain biking and road riding along with my competitive 5 mile running races. It then became a very important part of my life competing in duathalons which i did for two seasons. I then moved on to mountain bike races and spent many hours training for racing season. I did two seasons and some 24 hour team races and by 1999 I was training seriously with many hours of easy over distance training along with high intensity group riding. By 2003, I had erased many pounds of muscle and replaced with fat. Overeating complex carbs because I was training from 2 hours to 5 hours on the bike. I then became so interested in removing fat (the wrong way) that I would ride without breakfast for an hour before I would eat anything and then eat a power bar and continue riding. I would come home and gorge myself with complex carbs to refuel and I gained more fat. My point is just be careful if you intend to get into competitive training. For those of us who are stubborn and don't mind pain, like you and I, it can be your worst choice. Sometimes you lose focus on what got you interested in fitness and begin worrying more about performance, and sometimes when this happens, you lose your way. Good luck in all your endeavors but beware the nasty breakdown of the prescious muscle that you have worked soooooo hard to create, it can destroy your original plan. Let us know your 1 mile time trial time. Again good luck.

I think what is important to realize is that there are different requirements for different activities/goals. If you are a person who competes in endurance events then there is no reason to have excess amounts of (in most cases) upper body musculature. Especially if you compete in events with a significant amount of upward travel (climbing). Here the most important factor is power to weight ratio. In this senario muscles that aren't being actively used are simply dead weight. Look at the vast majority of successful endurance athletes - they don't have "super beach bodies", but they don't care because they are good at what they do. I would note that triathletes tend to have the most muscle mass due to the swimming requirement - tons of upper body strength needed there.
Because the goals of the endurance athlete is different, so are their nutritional needs. A low carb diet is about the dumbest thing you can follow if you need to go run or ride a bike for any lengh of time. However, it is still important to follow sound nutritional practices, watch your cals etc - or you will get fat, skinny, whatever. But keep in mind that endurance athletes tend to have a higher BF% because they tend to have lowered amounts of excess lean mass. But in many cases they can still have the same of less amount of actual fat on the body.

In short different ends call for different means and there is nothing wrong with that.

[John Stone]

...or I could just have fun and do the best that I can while eating and training as I normally do.

[gravityhomer]

Originally Posted by John Stone

...or I could just have fun and do the best that I can while eating and training as I normally do.

Oh right, fun. yeah, sure, that's a way to go. Got to remember to have some of that.

[tankhead]

Yeah totally,
What was I thinking?
That is what I have been doing with my riding now. I never ride over one hour. Fast pace but never over an hour. Fitness over performance forever.