In College I developed a theory about tapering. “No matter how little you’re doing, you can always do less.” This was particularly helpful for the three summers during my collegiate career when I swam only once a day and worked 45 hours a week (timing traffic signals in Seattle, which I apparently did so poorly that yesterday’s ballot had an initiative which offered my former department a rather sizeable raise. I voted no, along with 60% of Washington voters). Due to the job (and possibly also my insatiable social appetite), I was only swimming 12 hours a week at a maximum, but since it was summer break, I rarely made it a week without skipping a workout to sleep off a night of fun with friends. Still, when it came time to taper, I was always the first person to hit the brakes.

We would be in practice 12 days out from a race, and when the coach would give us a 3km set I would start whining. If I didn’t get out of it I would put in a half-hearted effort, and the next day the coach would just tell me to leave after the warm-up set. It worked out pretty well.

My first summer I didn’t rest enough for Nationals (2002 in Fort Lauderdale, where Phelps set his first World Record in the 400IM, and Coughlin became the first woman under a minute in the 100m backstroke. ). I raced tired and swam unremarkable times that weren’t even close to making finals. The next year I followed my plan for doing less than everyone else once taper started, and I did much better. Then in 2004 I did an even better job of cutting back more than everyone else and I ended up winning the consolation heat in the 200IM, which gave me a ninth place finish at Nationals. If I had swam a little faster in the morning it would have been more like 5th. So it goes.

The theory is based in the idea that tapering should bring you down a proportion of your total training hours. If you only train 12 hours, then a 10 hour week isn’t going to give your body much of a boost, but if you’re used to training 30 hours a week then 10 hours is going to make you feel like a dog in pie heaven. Or a cat in a bed of catnip. Or a 4 year old taking NoDoze.

Still, if it takes a 4 hour week for the 12 hour athlete to recover, then shouldn’t the 30 hour athlete do even better on a 4 hour week than a 10 hour week? That’s what I want to find out.

Now I just need to decide if I’m going to shave my entire body…

All last week my parents were gone on vacation to the homeland (Missouri), which was great because I ended up with a great deal of alone time, which is something that has become increasingly rare for me.

Here are some things that made me laugh out loud to myself.

1. On University Avenue last week there was a man passed out, half on the curb, half in the street. At first I was startled because I thought he was in trouble, so I went up and joined a couple other people in making sure he was breathing and in no need of emergency assistance. Then while they waited for the firemen to come, I went into Chipotle to buy a burrito. (This was the same day that a man poured gasoline over himself and burned himself to death in the center of the University of Washington campus, so people all walking around a little shell-shocked.) When I came back with my burrito a few minutes later the fire truck still hadn’t arrived, the man was still passed out (he didn’t look like a homeless man, or even a Seattle grunge-era heroin user), but now there was a crowd of silent onlookers forming a semi-circle around the man while he continued to sleep on the curb. What made me laugh out loud, was the four topless Chip & Dale’s dancers that were trying to hand out flyers to all the women in the crowd. I really wish I had my camera at this point – try to picture this scene – gloomy depressed looking people trying to see if this man is drugged, hurt, or just sleeping, hoping that it’s not another public suicide, and meanwhile four topless men with bowties are tapping their shoulders with coupons to a ladies night club. I laughed so hard I got weird looks.
2. 

   I have a new favorite sports blog. It’s Steve Stenzel’s blogspot page. If you have any doubts, look at him cheering at a Halloween 5k:

3. There’s a guy that swims in the fast lane at the IMA. He wear fins and paddles and is still the slowest person in the lane. One day this girl Stephanie that sometimes joins in on workouts with me was kicking faster than he was swimming with all his equipment, at which point I declared that anyone who cannot swim as fast as a person kicked while wearing every piece of cheater gear possible, should not be in the fast lane. As we share a lane with this guy more often it has become apparent that he dislikes me more than I dislike him. So last week when I asked “When you’re kicking, would you please stay a little farther to the right?” He responded with “This is an open lane, stop F-ing harrassing me!” Then went to complain to the pool management. Now, the pool management doesn’t exactly think highly of me, but they still responded by telling the guy he was out of line and needed to be more polite or move to a different lane. Now he gives me dirty looks and gets out much sooner than he used to. This whole situation makes me laugh out loud, which doesn’t help the dirty looks.
4. Last week I stopped at Taco Del Mar and bought three burritos. The lady thought I was insane because as I was describing how I wanted each burrito to be slightly different I was still sweating profusely from the hard run I had finished just moments earlier. Again, I found it hilarious, but she probably was not so amused.
5.   I voted, and though it was such a great experience to drop my ballot in the drop box that should document it with a cool picture. But timing it so that I was in mid-air took a lot of time, and there were a crowd of people waiting to drop off their ballots. At first I thought they were just watching me be silly, but then I realized they were not amused. Yet again, I was the only one laughing. Here are some pictures. One that looks good, and a couple failed attempts.

Check out my K-Swiss Konas. I feel so patriotic.

A Typical Day in the Life of Ben Collins: Through the Eyes of Aaron Scheidies 

You all have read Ben Collin’s stories and accounts of his life. Well, I have been hanging around and training with him for the past weeks and I think I can give a pretty good account of what a typical day in the life of Ben Collins is really like.

Ben normally gets up around 6:30am and has a bowl of cereal, grabs about ten clif bars and a handful of quarters from his parents change bag before walking to catch the bus. As he is nearing t he bus stop he will undoubtedly see a bus coming and thinks it’s his 372 bus to University of Washington. He starts running and yelling for it to wait but to his dismay it’s the 312 to Downtown, and he has just held up a bus load of people. This mistake happens every morning. Once on the bus, Ben gets out his newest prized possession, his iPhone and starts listening to music to get motivated for his morning swim. One would think he would be listening to the likes of classics from Green Day, Metalica or Bon Jovi but this is not the case. Ben has his own genre [KEXP is a great radio station. -bc]. If I knew any of the songs on his play list I would tell you but none of them ring a bell, it’s like the b-side tracks from bands that never made it out of the garage. At 7:30am Ben arrives at the UW IMA. He normally takes 2-3 trips to the John in the morning before even beginning his swim. This is probably due to the amount of green leafy vegetables he takes in but I am not sure. He walks into the pool area and I am sure the lifeguards are eyeing him just wondering if he is going to get into a tussle with any of the other swimmers or potentially with the Pool Man. The story of the Pool Man has already been discussed on previous BC blogs but is definitely a must-read for humor. His most recent encounter was with a rather hairy man that probably shouldn’t be swimming in the fast lane but does so every morning. [In short, I asked the man to please stay a little farther to the right and he responded with some four letter words and a complaint to the pool management - bc]

Ben typically swims 5,000yds every day and pretty much laps everyone in the pool every 200yds or less no matter their speed. Ben loves his butterfly so on his recovery days he typically does more than half his workout butterfly. The others in the pool also love it when he swims butterfly because then they get to work on their ocean swimming simulation. He creates some pretty good chop with his dolphin kick. Following swimming Ben will have a Cliff Bar  in the shower and then go into the locker room to get changed. Ben has two lockers rather than one like everyone else because he claims to have too much stuff! [fins, paddles, running shoes and bike shoes do not fit in one little cubby locker! - bc] He puts on a K Swiss get-up and then heads up to the IMA Rec Office where Carrie, his boss, works. He cooks his oats in the small kitchenette using a random plastic bowl that is borrowed by many. The kitchenette has no table so Ben just sits on the floor. Others in the office walk by and look in as they pass and wonder who the random kid on the floor is and how he got into the kitchen.

After eating a full bowl of oats Ben gets sleepy and sometimes he asks to open his boss’s office so he can take a nap under her desk before she gets in. If he does this he normally sleeps until she comes into work (1hr) and then wakes up because she needs someplace to put her feet. Disgruntled from the rude awakening, Ben then gets ready to ride his bike. He teaches spin class at 12 but normally likes to ride for 2 hours so he starts spinning at 11am. For the first hour he listens to that same unknown genre that definitely does not pump me up, but I guess whatever gets you going you should roll with. The first spin class he tried to play his own music, and the class hated it, so now he plays mainly top 40 from the past decade and throws in just a few fillers from his own library. One day he had to change his play list a bit on the fly because some of his songs had inappropriate lyrics for a university class that he somehow didn’t catch:  “F- this and Kiss my ***”.  After 1hr Ben takes another Clif Bar. He likes the Maple Nut ones the best. Then his class comes in and he becomes very social and talkative. This is somewhat like a new Ben but it only lasts for the 12-1pm hour and then he goes back to the more reserved and witty BC.

At 1pm Ben changes from his biking clothes and then gets ready to run. At this point he has already worked out for 3 1/2hrs. I think he has yet another Clif Bar at this point but I am not totally sure because I kind of lose count at this point. When asked what his run will be today BC replies with, “Victor says I gotta run 8 miles today.” With his blue and yellow K-Swiss Keahou’s on to match the rest of his completely K-Swizzled outfit, Ben then goes out for his run. He also always wears his Garmin and HR monitor. I’m not sure what Ben would do on a run without his beloved  Garmin. Victor says he has to stay in his heart rate range, so throughout the run he keeps checking his watch to see his HR. When I run with Ben, he shouts out the mile times that his watch automatically records. He doesn’t seem to care how fast they are, just whether I’m pushing him over his maximum allowable HR. One day we were running up a long hill near campus, Ben yells “that was an 8 minute mile, but my HR is a few beats too high, can we slow down”. No Ben, we can’t go slower or it wouldn’t even be called jogging.

Upon his return to the IMA, Ben normally goes up to Carrie’s office once again but this time not for a nap. Instead, he shares with her what is on his mind for that day and explains any pool dilemmas he has gotten himself into earlier in the day. He does this until Carrie says she has too much work to do to listen to him anymore. At this point he gets his stuff from his locker and has a Clif Builder Bar. It’s about 2:30pm and Ben has to run to make it on time to a physical therapy appt for his knee (which is recovering very well). He typically goes into his PT appointment sweaty, which I am sure, his PT loves. At his PT clinic he is not known as Ben Collins but rather “K Swiss”. While doing his exercises you hear, “K Swiss make sure you are engaging those glute muscles.”

From his PT appt he typically buys a burrito from Qdoba and boards the bus back home. At about 5:30pm he eats an early dinner before going to a Biochemistry class at North Seattle that he is not even enrolled in. Evidently, they  messed up on his enrollment and it’s too late to enroll so he is not officially in the class [I’m waiting on a petition]. Ben still goes to class though and does at least some of the readings and homework. He always comes back with stories of one particular student in the class who thinks she knows it all and feels she needs to share it with the rest of the class. It will be interesting when the first test comes around and the teacher attempts to enter Ben’s score into the computer.

Ben returns home from his class around 8pm just in time for his second dinner that is ready to be eaten thanks to his dad, Robert. Ben tries to eat as many greens such as mustard greens, arugala  or chard as he can. He even puts greens in his Lasagna. As he eats, his dog Teisha (who is 14yrs old) is sprawled out on the floor. Most of the time Teisha knows when there is food being eaten but since her vision and hearing aren’t great and her mobility is limited she often is just passed out in the middle of the floor. Also, while eating, Ruth Anne (Ben’s mom) comes out from her office wearing at least 2-3 pieces of Ben’s K Swiss clothing. She asks how his day went to which Ben will say something like, “That’s where that sweatshirt is. I have been looking for that for like a week.” Ruth Ann typically responds with, “Ben you need to have K Swiss send some size 9 shoes for me.” While this is all going on and while eating Ben is playing around in some way shape or form with his iPhone.

[Here’s Aaron & Carrie eating my mustard green infested lasagna. Aaron doesn’t like the greens nearly as much as me -bc]

At about 9pm, Ben goes up to his room and talk on the phone for… Long enough -  I can’t give an accurate guess on this one, but he does it with those stupid white iPhone headphones on, so nobody that walks in knows if he’s listening to music or talking to somebody on the phone [why does everyone feel the need to walk into my room anyway? – bc]. While doing this he checks his email to see the workouts Victor has sent him for the next day. He also writes some of his “usually sarcastic” blogs that you have all read or you wouldn’t be reading this one. He logs his training hours that have been approaching 30hrs the last few weeks. He then gets ready to go to bed so  he can repeat it all again the next day. Normally Ben goes to bed about 10:00pm, but I am pretty sure I’ve heard him still talking on the phone close to midnight [a wise man once told me, “girls are trouble”. But I didn’t listen. - bc].

Thanks for the recap Aaron. You forgot to mention my yoga class, where I fall asleep and start snoring because it’s at the end of the day and I’m too tired to focus for another hour.  Or how we do such classic exercises as “the sideways zombie walk” and the “flamingo with poor balance” in the weight room after swimming in our matching K-Swiss apparel, while all the die-hard iron lifters look at us like we’re totally nuts. That’s my favorite part of the day.

I’m finally cutting back on my training to prepare for my last race of the season, the San Francisco Pan-American Cup Triathlon At Treasure Island. (Why is it that races are getting longer and longer names? I mean, if this race were to receive a title sponsor, and if the tri-cal series had another title, this could conceivable become the K-Swiss ITU San Francisco Pan-America Cup Triathlon At Treasure Island Presented by Clif Bar.)

This week has been CRAZY. Two weeks ago I broke 50 miles of running in a week for the first time in my life, then I followed it up with two more weeks at even higher volume. For the first time in my life, I can actually say, I love running. Now I get to recover, before I go play in San Francisco in a week.

To help me play faster I have a new pair of kicks from K-Swiss. They’re the all new K-Swiss Kona racing flats, and I’m going to do a personal debut at the race on next week (Chris Lieto and Matt Lieto and Leanda Cave and a bunch of others already did their debut of the Konas at Kona three weeks ago.)

Above is a picture of how awesome they are (they also come with UK Flag, or silver and white.)

I really liked running in the L-Swiss Ultra-Naturals because they were super quiet. They’re a bit like running on clouds, but I’m excited to go back to a traditional racing flat. Here’s what I discovered with my size 10’s:

This is a picture of my new K-Swiss Kona racing flat on the left, and my old Brooks Racer ST on the right. At 270g, the Kona is 5g lighter than the Racer ST, but unlike the Brooks, the Kona has a medial posting for added stability. The Racer ST also comes in a posted stability version, but the one shown is the neutral. I’m not sure what the weight difference is between regular laces and the quickie laces I put on the Brookes, but I’m assuming it’s negligible.

Right now I’m just wearing the Kona Racing Flats around the house to get used to them, but they fit really well, and I can’t feel any seems on the inside that worry me with regards to blistering.

With the Racer ST’s, I had ritual before races that I would go through. It involved putting liquid Band-Aid on every part of my foot that would hit a seem in my racing flats, waiting for that to dry, then wrapping my foot and each individual toe in paper tape. If I was lucky, half the paper tape would still be on when I made it to the run. I may have weird feet, I don’t really know. The Racer ST’s are great shoes, but with only my in-house wear testing of the K-Swiss Kona’s I’m fairly certain that these will be better from a blister standpoint.

I have a bunch more to blog about from the past week, so I’m going to start typing now and just set everything to publish one day apart for the next week. Stay tuned for some classic bencollins.org awesomeness.