Spinervals 32-day Challenge Facebook community 12/31/11

It is Day 31. Some of us are already hitting the hardest, 26.0 - The Hardcore 100! As this is a very long workout, we are starting to act like we are on Tweet and posting progress as it happens. We are checking in and cheering on each other’s progress. What a community support! This incredible community support by my new friends for the challenge is what I never expected from this challenge. But I have a criminal history in online community experience.

When I first got a full-time job teaching job at University of New Mexico in 1995, my assignment was through New Mexico US-Japan Center, where I had scientists from Sandia and Los Alamos National labs. They are the ones who were already proficient using Internet and taught me a lot of web site links that are helpful for studying about Japan and Japanese. One day, I asked the tech guy to see if I can make a web page out of my Bookmarks on Netscape. From there, Keiko Schneider’s Bookmarks started. After my full-time position ran out with funding, I became and independent educational consultant and web designer. I became involved with TAPPED IN when it was MOO-based online community for educators. With people who frequent at my Boomarks and I met at conferences, I started mailing list for Japanese teachers and educators called senseiOnline and ran a series of online conferences at TAPPED IN. In 2000, I completed Online Teaching certificate from UCLA Extension, all online. Fast forward to 2008 teaching Japanese at SMU, when first-year came to restaurant unit and wanted a student to organize a class trip to a Japanese restaurant where they can wait using Japanese, I started to get involved with Facebook to learn what is going on inside students’ brain. Now my spouse claims I spend too much time on Facebook.

So that is what I know about online community. What do I know about teaching and what do I think about Coach Troy? My highest degree is MAT, which stands for MA in Teaching, not Japanese (which is I am in trouble). I don’t know sports training, but I hope I know teaching! I went on about my favorite spinning instructor Stan on 8/9/2010 entry. Here is Coach Troy version relating to this challenge.

If we can see any hint of nerdiness in Coach Troy, I suspect that is because he has studied so much about his professional subject. If you haven’t seen Coach Troy’s very first workout video he made at the age of 25, I would ask Nancy Hill to share her video. At that age, Coach is already showing talents so strong. And of course, some of us experienced his first Spinervals video 1.0 - No Slackers Allowed!! (mine says 1997, but Coach always says he has been doing this since 1992) and commented what a great workout it was already. I am not certain from his Facebook profile what he got his degree with, but I am picturing his bookshelf filled training books, well read and written remarks everywhere. And he must have done his program so many times. Some of us noted that we felt like Coach Troy was just staring at our bike computer and he knows when we lose focus or workout gets tough. And we know his own accomplishments from DVD feature “Training with Coach Troy” segment. It is evident he knows what he is doing and he knows it is effective.

If that is not impressive enough to keep him in the top of his business, I am picturing another bookshelf-full of books about coaching. Maybe not TEACHING like I had gone through, but coaching. Maybe he had good coaches himself, too, but that alone doesn’t do the justice. Maybe his family brought him up with such inspiring quotes, but he is simply too good and I have to believe that he has done extra job himself. In graduate school, we are taught that teachers are students’ facilitator in learning. To First-year students, I often say that my job is not to transfer what my brain contains to their brains.

So I am coming to the point that Coach Troy is even a step-up from an excellent athlete good at yelling at us. In summer of 2009, I got to teach an online 4th year class during more intensive summer semester and got to apply what I learned in Online Teaching certificate. Luckily this class was mostly from previous semester’s 3rd year class, so I didn’t have to do whole lot of community building. I feel Coach Troy is even smart in being a good facilitator in Facebook community.

Seeing how successful this Spinervals 32-day Challenge Facebook community has become, I got curious and opened a book I used to learn about building online community in distance learning classes for the first time after so many years. I am sure there are online classes with various degree of success, but here is a classic textbook about teaching distance class successfully, “Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom” by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt (This link is for review). In the last chapter (p.p. 160-163), authors offer sixe elements that are critical to the success of distance learning. I mirrored all of them to this Spinervals 32-day Challenge Facebook community.

1)Honesty
Some of us submit device provided data, but even with that, honesty needs to be accounted everywhere. From the workout we actually completed or didn’t complete and how we did.
2)Responsiveness
I wish there were app for Troy Coach training, but since it is a popular Facebook, it encourages us to respond to each other quickly. Coach is responsive when it is needed. This book doesn’t say so, but in my opinion, only when it is necessary. I think Coach is good at community letting taking care of itself. Concerning online mode of instruction in early days, a lot of teachers burn up because they felt like they had to be available to all students at all times, answering email all day all night.
3)Relevance
Our task is our actual training and it is shared. We all feel expert in what we are going through and feel that it is worth sharing.
4)Respect
This is probably the nicest bunch of people I met online. Nobody is making us do this challenge and we are not even paying for it! We show great respect to Coach and each other. It is so comforting to know there is such a community and I feel lucky to be a part of it.
5)Openness
Related to honesty, we are all trying to better our athletic performance, accepting the challenge and change. I feel it is safe to trust to be open to this community.
6)Empowerment
Because we are in control about our training, we are really expert in ourselves progress and earn confidence in ourselves and interacting with other participants.

As the challenge nears the end, I feel like I have made very good friends in such a short period of time and in a way, I don’t know how I am going to structure my life when the challenge ends! Luckily there is Super 6 and Facebook to keep in touch even if they are not participating. I thank Coach Troy and fellow participants for this great experience in 2011. ONE MORE DAY!

(P.S. And somebody with business administration background will have to write how good of a business person Coach Troy is.)

I can almost smell the finish line! 12/30/11

I am almost an official finisher of the challenge! I realize the Coach calls this “Challenge” and there are reasons for it. To be honest, for Coach Troy to put this plan up for people to follow, in my humble opinion, is a little crazy, especially last three days. I cracked open my Have Mercy II for the first time for tomorrow, that was part of Endurance Builder 5-Pack. After doing original 9.0 - Have Mercy I was taking my sweet time putting it off to try.

If you look at Have Mercy series, all three have difficulty level of 10, 10 out of 10! (Tomorrow’s official workout, brand new 40.0 - Have Mercy!, Part III) If you think the last day grand daddy workout, 26.0 - The Hardcore 100 is scary (it is and I will go on about it later), that one has difficulty level of 9.8. If you thought 13.0 - Tough Love was bad enough, being an hour longer does not do justice to Have Mercy. Tough Love has difficulty level of 9.9. Folks, Coach is officially saying TOMORROW’s workout is going to be the toughest. And add that to StrEndurance? Coach, don’t look that innocent! I have a feeling in all three variations of Have Mercy, the announcement lady at the end says, “Make sure tomorrow is an easy day.” (Please verify who are doing I and III, tomorrow.) Are you kidding? Tomorrow is the grand finale!

This challenge is a challenge, even more so than training camps Coach Troy puts out. I have not had the pleasure of doing so, but I am guessing so from the following reasons.

Participating in this challenge is like sort of attending an online conference. A lot of us, I guess, have participated in conferences and workshops for some kind and you usually take a trip to the location to participate. You separate yourself from work obligations (maybe try to keep up online, but at least not physically showing up at work), family and friends.

The month of December worked quite well for me. The last day of instruction came on Day 5 and final grades were turned in on Day 15. Last two years about this time, I was in Japan to spend New Year’s holiday with Mom, but this year, my new green card with new name had not come. It is PROBABLY OK to travel with old card and stamped paperwork, but I could not take a chance for unmatching name in my passport. That was a decisive reason that I could go with this challenge. But look at the rest of you, mostly multisport overachiever athletes, who collect paychecks because you are fit. You are doing prescribed challenge workout and other workouts on top of it! :-0 And all that family and holiday obligations you have! My life is fairly simple. Husband goes somewhere on Monday, but comes home on Friday somehow. He basically takes care of himself. The dog whines a lot, but doesn’t demand. The family connection from US side is there, but nothing is demanding and stressful.

As it happens often in athletes, especially endurance athletes, we are stubborn and probably won’t admit that we are working very hard. We have been working very hard and things have accumulated no matter we admit or not. We all had our share of physical problems, knees, back, fatigue to mention a few, mechanical problems with bikes, trainers, computers already. My motto is there is always something to tell about a ride. The next two days are not going to be exception even if they are inside.

And if you end up doing the last day ride outside, please over-prepare and take super extra caution. If you have done such a long ride, you know, but 100 miles is going to be an all day matter. The title is implying that the disc will give you 100 miles when complete, but that is if you keep 18 miles per hour pace. I am not looking anywhere close. Last time when I did the disc, my distance read about 80 miles (distance inside is not that relevant anyway). If I do 100 mile outside ride, with rest and everything, it usually ends up 8 hour long. 8 hour is a long time, period. Things could and WILL happen, both physical and mechanical.

Let’s all finish strong!

Confession of a baby athlete (if she is one) and her goals for 2012 12/29/11

Yes, that was me with my ESL class on my birthday in 2003. I was Schneider back then and weighed about 200 pounds. My family was not really into any sports and I grew up thinking I had to be smart more than athletic. I spent childhood in school bands (elementary through university), played with citizen band in New Zealand when I studied abroad and American Legion band while in graduate school. All I did was a little running and crunches. I was always a chubby kid. I don’t have a whole lot of memories of childhood, but I remember this distinctly. One day in 5th grade, the teacher handed a paperwork to me and another girl (I remember her name, too), only two of us in class. The paperwork was an invitation to this special event that teaches overweight kids to learn some exercises. Physical Education was the only subject I get 3 (Japanese school grades come in 1-5). I remember something like this when I do weight training. That is why I drag myself to it. Grrrr. (See StrEndurance entry.)

When I realized that I am going to be single again, being all by myself in this foreign country, I decided that I have to think seriously about take care of myself. That is when I decided to get physically active, signed up with Defined Fitness and started this blog (very first entry on 6/19/2004. ) If you are desperately looking for something to do to fill normally Troy time on this rest day, you can go through the whole blog and find out the following: Being non-athletic all my life, a little bit of swimming and yoga got me down 20 pounds or so in no time. But I hit plateau. But I kept up with yoga and working out and learned to use weights in the gym. (My Amazon review about “Teach Yourself Visually Weight Training”). When I moved to Dallas in 2005, I signed up with Lifetime. I didn’t feel like I can afford toting around personal trainers all the time (like Rick Sobona :-0), but one day, they had free session with a trainer. I got Anthony in North Dallas gym to come up with weights programs periodically and met with him once in a while. He was the one taught me about Periodization. I came down another 20 pounds or so. About that time, I met now-husband Tony, body builder and football player in high school, who took up cycling in college and has been physically active all his life. I learned about CardioPoint, Calorie Point assessment and asked Jeff at Plano gym to come up with weight loss plan in 2009. I learned to count calories and what and where to eat out. In fall 2009, I went down almost ideal weight for Japanese women! (testing digital camcorder for Japanese program)

During the course of this extreme weight loss time, I had to find a good way for cardio exercise. I love to dance with music, but I can’t participate in any choreographed moves as in steps, any kind of dance, even kick boxing. I looked cycling class from outside one time and honestly wondered what is fun about it. So I just worked on cardio machines. UNTIL Tony decided to take me to vacation in Northern California in June 2009. Tony decided to try out renting a bike and cruise around Golden Gate Park. He gave up on cycling after having problems with his back and hadn’t ridden for a long time. But he decided to try thinking when worst comes worst, we will catch a cab with the rental bikes. So I started to look into spinning classes. I started to pick instructors I like. On the day, we rented a bike, we made a wrong turn and instead of going to Golden Gate Park, we ended up crossing Golden Gate Bridge and went as far as Sausalito and came back with ferry. Bad news for Tony was he had a flat while descending the hill towards Sausalito. Good news was that his back didn’t bother him. He still needed to fix up his shoulders, but encouraged me to start training for cycling and eased into cycling himself with his ancient Bertin bike. (Pic at White Rock Lake on 10/16/2010). The rest is history. I have taken up cycling as a main athletic activity and 2011 season was the first complete one that Tony and I rode through together.

So what is 2012 in it for me and what are my goals? How does Super 6 fit in? My goals for 2011 were 1) century ride early in the season and 2) try out Time Trial event. I remember posting this to Troy’s FB sometime, but neither was accomplished. Well, I did a few indoor 100 miles and Lake 100 miles, but never as a public ride. Time Trial sounds fun, but then Tony will try to get me a new Tri bike! I don’t know about that… So year 2012, I am going to put my goals are:

1) Injury-free
2) Ride with hubby Tony
3) 80 mile hilly ride at Moritz Ride for Heroes in Aledo in April
4) 100 mile ride at Skittles Waco Wild West Century in Waco in September
5) Keep up with fast group in Sunday CK ride/B in group rides
6) One public ride a month starting with Palm Springs in February until November with routes in 50 miles or longer

Now that I gave up My Coach program I will have to decide on what to do. I think Super 6 is the perfect way to get ready for Palm Springs ride and start the 2012 season. Let’s see what happens with the rest of the year.

Why I decided to take up Spinervals 32 Day Challenge 12/28/11

After seeing the ad in spinning room, I did NewLeaf testing on the bike on the first time in May 2010. I had done resting and treadmill testing when I went on the extreme diet in 2009 (another entry in the future). At that point, I got hooked up with Greg and I decided to sign up with My Coach program. Greg gives me custom cardio and weight workout, and we meet once a month, regularly schedule the testing, post it on the Internet, and I download to Garmin and make it beep if not following the program and upload for Greg to view (sample by fit4life). The image above is the trend of Cardio point.

I am highlighting 1/17/11 data because all year long, Greg was shaking heads why I cannot duplicate the results the rest of the year. He thought I was overtraining, hence big rest week, more base building, or maybe longer warm up, more intense and shorter exercises, more cross training on treadmill. We tried everything. Now it all makes sense. What did I do during the winter break? Lots of indoor cycling including Spinervals. I kept buying more Spinervals DVD’s and I had to stop myself when the weather became better for riding outside. When I came out of off-season and joined a friendly 20-mile group ride on 2/10, the group lead mentioned that I was very strong. I remember sending Coach Troy a message thanking for his program.

So when I heard about Spinervals 32 Day Challenge, I thought it was very interesting, but I didn’t know if I should make enough investment to qualify as an official finisher. Besides I discussed with Bruce, the new trainer who took over, that for off-season, he is not going to let me ride hard. Basically what I needed was rest. But I thought, well, maybe I will just ignore his program one day to start the challenge. If I don’t start, I do not have an option to go on, right? I happen to have an appointment with him on Day 2 and confessed that I am thinking about getting into this challenge. Of course, Bruce was not pleased. His argument was that he is local and Coach Troy is not. He gave me an hour weigh training, mainly working on upper body and we parted.

Although that is true, what I did with My Coach and Spinervals 32 Day Challenge are not that different. Bruce and I met physically, maybe once a month for testing. He has so many clients, he barely reads my email, and forgets what we discussed about the upcoming program. I never thought he is checking out my uploaded data let alone reading all the comments I leave for him (for that matter, Greg, too). Mind you, Coach Troy doesn’t always, always respond to my messages and react on what I send. But you know, at important points, he does and one thing my local trainers didn’t do over the Internet and what Coach Troy is good at is encouragement. Just one click on “like” on posted workout assures me that Coach is actually taking the time to acknowledge my completed workout. Funny thing is that after that meeting, Bruce programmed another month ahead of cardio program, hard workout and even changed the already posted workout into harder workouts. I kept uploading Challenge workout data, ignoring what he programmed until Day 10 and then stopped uploading altogether. He has not contacted me at all. I am not sure he noticed or not.

Maybe I should not blame Bruce. His knowledge about cycling is close to none. He seems to be knowledgeable about lifting weights, weight loss, supplements and eating clean a lot, but he doesn’t know endurance sports. Therefore the weight program he gave me was for an hour. I told him that once school starts, I am not going to be able to take that much time in weights. Exactly the point Susan Thomas brought up about my yesterday’s entry about StrEndurance.
Coach Troy “recognizes that we are doing other training as well and so weight training should be kept short and sweet, no wasted time.”

So altogether, I decided to redirect my fitness budget. With this kind of technology time, we do not have to settle with mediocre training just because it is locally available. That is when I decided investing in more Spinervals DVD’s. After all, Coach Troy only charges once and it is not a monthly recurring fee!

Coach predicted that social aspect of this challenge to be a big factor in his first announcement of the challenge. “We are held accountable to your team members. We will get some positive feedback and motivation from me and other Challenge participants, too.” About half way through the challenge, I accumulated such good friends from the challenge and started to feel that I actually miss them when the challenge is over. When Alex Barnett posted yesterday “Today I didn't want to workout I put it off all day. Then I logged on seen that all you got your workouts done. I almost felt like I would be letting you guys down.” I thought it was really HIM making himself accountable, but at the same time I realized, boy, how powerful this group has become.

Super 6 is applied to my TP account and I am getting myself organized. However it is going to have to be more flexible 6 weeks than this challenge for several reasons. I will write about it along with my goals for 2012 very soon.

StrEndurance and weight training 12/27/11

Day 27. Oh, boy that StrEndurance Workout B was tough after Tempe ride. But I am sticking to this program! Christine Chinni’s testimonial from the other day was so powerful. (Thank you, Christine!) She used StrEndurance last season and made an impressive performance. What I liked even more was that she mentioned that it was her first injury-free season since college. It would be cool if I can go faster, but exercising injury-free is probably more important to me at this age. I recall Coach was mentioning that this kind of strength training program is important aging athletes. Well, I am not too sure if I am qualified to be called athlete, but I sure am aging! (More on this at a later entry.)

I have been buying books and downloading programs off Internet and paid a personal trainer to design weight program for me, yet I think StrEndurance is the best option at this point. First of all, it is designed for endurance athlete to fit off-season and during season workouts in mind. No more celebrity workouts! And I can do all this at home with what we have at home. Tony is sort of mild version of Rick Sobona as he was into body-building when he was younger (before he took up cycling). On top of what Tony stashed, I picked up a lot of toys to add to the collection over the years. The other day, my trainer asked me to make a list of fitness equipment available and here it is:

Stability ball
Exercise mat
Yoga mat
BOSU
Total gym 1500
Medicine ball 6, 8 lb
Yoga blocks
Stretch flat rubber strips 3 colors
Scooter
Kettle bells 10, 15 lbs
SPRI Resistance Band: yellow green red blue purple
Pairs of Dumbbells 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30 pounds
Barbell with various heavy-looking plates
Foam roller
T roller
Jump rope
Fluid and mag trainer, roller
Ab Roller
Step Aerobic Trainer

But folks, all we need in StrEndurance is stability ball, exercise mat and a few DB’s!!! Set up and taking down takes no time at all. The disc has techniques section to go over each exercise, but the exercises are fundamental using body weights. I don’t know why I am keeping gym membership anymore! (No, Lifetime Fitness, I know. That will be another entry.)

Weight training is my weak point. As you noticed at the beginning, I didn’t complain 2-hour ride of the workout. 25 minute StrEndurance is what I said was hard! I went on and on about how I don’t need external motivation to get work out done in yesterday’ entry. I do leave no room for an excuse to skip workout even by having a secondary gym membership at 24-hour fitness! However, weight training is the first one to receive potential excuses. So StrEndurance being longest 40 minutes is music to my ears. But, boy, I look at the count down, oh, so desperately.

Today Coach revealed the details of Super 6 program. I am glad StrEndurance is part of it. Nancy Hill told me that she is featured in it, too. So I have that to look forward to. Now today’s question is if I should/can commit to Super 6. Time to entertain what my goals are for 2012 seriously (an entry about that soon). I am having too much fun with this challenge while interacting and training with fellow participants. That could be a deciding factor.

Days with Spinervals Challenge 12/26/11

It has been an amazing month with Spinervals 32 Day Challenge. I am living in it and I really don’t know what to do with myself after this hell-week is done and over with! I am a usually loner when it comes to working out (you can find out with Bally’s FB application if you care).

No matter who tells the benefits of having a workout partner, my response has been, “Nah, I don’t need motivation. I have too much drive anyway. Besides trying to sync up workout with somebody else is just another scheduling logistics to juggle. An excuse to miss a workout. No, I just do it myself. Workout is workout, not an opportunity to socialize!” People think they are saving money for personal training by signing up with group options, but what they are getting is less attention from the trainer, program that is not tailored to you and being restricted on schedule. A friend told me she needs to be assigned a time to be at the gym, but I rather shoot for maximum flexibility in my existing schedule so that I leave no excuse to skip.

Maybe this interaction over Facebook with other participants part is the fun part. According to my husband, I spend way too much on Facebook where I started my account as university prof. thing to do as Facebook was originally the tool for university students. Unlike some of my university teacher friends, I do accept current students as friends. In fact, I sometimes de-friend once they get done with Minor requirements, quit taking Japanese class or graduate. Other than that, I normally do not accept friends’ requests for those who I do not know in real life. Then I started making exceptions for athletic friends.

I start my mornings early anyway. Nothing spectacular about it. I just become useless earlier than others. Main reason is to communicate with my mother. Texas is currently 15 hours behind Japan and it is best for me to have going back and forth over email when she is relaxing in the evening. Japanese evening news comes on at 5 and 6 on cable, so try to catch that to be up to date. I am not a big fan of Dallas traffic, so during school time, I try to be on the highway no later than 6:30am. I am a big believer in getting at least first part of workout done in the morning. Things to do always accumulate as the day goes on. You can’t cancel the workout you already did.

So my days have been going like this. I wake up 4am, weigh myself, send a message to my mother and start getting ready to Coach Troy! When the workout is longer than 2 hours, I actually pretend that this is 40-50 mile ride and eat solid carbohydrates and walk around hoping for a good bathroom visit. During this time, I log on to Spinervals FB page and usually find Coach Troy putting some motivational quote for the day! Scroll down to find anybody from Down under or Europe already did the workout and left comments. Watch videos if posted. At this point, Hubby and Dog are still deeply into sleep. I get done with the workout, walk the dog, take a shower, feed myself, download and upload data and so forth and the rest of the day, I can go on with other things in my life.

Because I am off school, I keep frequently checking my newly found challenger friends’ posts on FB. I get encouragements and I make some comments on others. Several people have been helping me a lot and more are making me think and laugh. When I look at people’s profile photos, most of them have most athletic photos I have ever seen. I sometime feel honored to be stuck in the corner of such an elite group. I am just a gal who took up cycling a couple of years ago, who was never athletic and was always overweight until recently (more of that will be a future blog entry). And when I get a chance, I take time to write this blog. I have not been writing recently and now I am catching up with materials that I should have written about in the last 2-3 years.

I can’t thank Coach Troy enough for making such wonderful DVD programs available. I already knew the effectiveness of this training before this challenge (another blog entry). And for him to provide this challenge for free! I hope this challenge has been an advantage for the coach for business side. Overall I am totally sold to Coach Troy and his program (will elaborate at a later opportunity). The hell-week just started. The Coach says we can’t quit! Let’s make it through to the finish!