Stress / Time Management

What stresses you?

A perfect meal, a perfect relationship, a perfect swim cap or perfectly shaved legs, successful triathletes take in the lessons of their sport, learn how to streamline their lives and eliminate things that slow them down. Yet I have not made the decision fast enough. I need to get rid of the things in my life that slow me down; this may sound harsh, but if my habits hold me back, I must break them. Elite amateur athletes have had to eliminate most of the unnecessary limiting factors and layers of their lives.

Some of my work and school friends become a negative source of stress because when I hang out with them, I choose to partake in actions, (sedentary lifestyle, drink alcohol, stay up late), which do not lead me to achieve my goals. I end up deviating from my training plans because my actions are inconsistent with my goals. I do not share my goals with my friends from work or school because they do not value the importance of them. I am forced to make a decision about two incompatible opportunities, one will happen if I do nothing, the other will require me to “live a life less ordinary to achieve something extraordinary.”

I perpetuate personal pressure on myself when training with others to always seem stronger, faster and more focussed. I pressure myself to speed up, intensify and shift my behaviour to meet a higher standard of performance even during warm-ups when it is not to my advantage. I cut myself short of breaks during speed swim sets in order to try to keep pace with some of my training partners with years more experience and perfect hydrodynamics. My teammates are sometimes sources of eustress by challenging me to set a new personal best, I feed off of their encouragement when they see me only metres behind them. However, sometimes in order to keep pace I am not allowing my body to recover long enough from anaerobic sets thus creating distress and by the end of the workout my energy levels have dropped and my set times have increased.

The support I receive from my coaches and teammates helps me motivate myself in every aspect of my life even though sometimes I view their support as pressure on myself to speed up. When swimming I need to swim my own race and not be distracted by other faster swimmers and chase; by changing my views of the situation I can short-circuit the stressor. I gain social support from my teammates that I train with and by having a pre-determined commitment to exercise; it helps motivate me to finish my homework or chores, which perpetuates consistent goals and behaviour.

What are your goals?

Striving towards your goals is essential for a healthy life, wheither it is an Olympic goal or a goal of Olympic proportion, everyone’s goals should be the driving forces in their lives. Goals are a source of energy and hope in times of dispair and a reason to celebrate when achieved. The driving force in my life are my goals, I gain strength from them and they are building blocks for every day in my life.


At the finish line UBC Triathlon (Matthew Harriman)/ Duathlon (Charlene Parrott)

When I drink alcohol I feel buzzed and energized.
Is it possible that I could use this energy when I exercise?

Man in Van.

I will tell you right off the bat Man, (hah, Batman!) that you should never drink alcohol before or during (or on that note, even after!) exercise as it leaves your blood and brain cells with extremely lower levels of water. This happens because alcohol is a diuretic and causes the kidneys to take water from your blood and put it with your urine, which would be excreted at some point between the first and tenth time you go to the bathroom every time you consume more than moderate amounts of alcohol. With these low levels of water, an assumption would be that the brain cells, which indirectly activate your muscles during exercise, would not be able to activate them as efficiently, which would lead to decrease performance. One thing for sure is that the decreased blood volume would not allow adequate delivery of essential nutrients and water for energy production within the muscle, or adequate departure of wastes and carbon dioxide that are given off as a result of energy production. Recovery from exercise would be prolonged in two ways. First, the metabolism of amino acids in the liver would be altered, and these are the amino acids which you use to rebuild your muscle after exercise. Secondly, delivery of amino acids would be decreased due to decreased blood-water volume. As for the buzz, I think that this surge of energy you feel when you drink is in part due to the distorted brain perception of your strength as a result of alcohol consumption. This is the same distorted perception that makes you think you actually look cool while you are dancing on the stage at a club. Another part of it is due to the caloric content of alcohol. The following is a breakdown of common alcoholic beverages and their caloric content:

1. Beer (12 oz.) = 150 cal.

2. Light Beer (12 oz.) = 100 cal.

3. Wine (4 oz.) = 100 cal.

4. Spirits (1 oz.) = 80 cal.

The energy you experience is your body absorbing the beverage and digesting its seven calories per gram of alcohol, which is more that your body gets from a gram of carbohydrate or protein(4 cals per gram). The flip-side is that there is no nutritional value in alcohol, and the calories you consume with it could be obtained with a potato, which would have more vitamins and minerals. So, in conclusion, do not drink alcohol for exercise, water is the best medicine, and if any, the most important time to drink alcohol and not water is ARTS COUNTY FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Courtesy of Dr. Scoreboard.

UBC TRIATHLON Personal Best

Place	Div/Tot	Div	Name	Swim	Bike	Run	Time
2	2/9	M2024	Matthew Harriman	29:18	1:05:55	40:53	2:16:23.3

The days are getting longer, temperatures a bit warmer. Not only are those signs that winter is coming to an end, it also serve notice that your first races of the season are just around the corner. UBC Triathlon is Saturday March 12th, the first heat is at 8am. Come kick off the 2005 race season! I will be out in force trying to set a personal best in the University Mens 20-24 catagory, Heat 3b at 8:20am, starting at the UBC Aquatic Centre. Check out the web page for more details: UBC TRIATHLON

The Belgian Eddy Merckx

The sixties. A period of unequalled economic growth, of great innovations, and of great feats. Man landed on the moon in 1969 to realize one of his primordial dreams. Everything seemed possible, achievable at that time. Limits seemed to exist to be smashed and cycling was no exception. The Belgian Eddy Merckx dominated those years with a mastery which fears no rivals even today. Eddy was the best in the northern classics, in the great tours and in the world championships. The young Belgian rewrote the history of cycling with an impressive list of triumphs: 565 victories including 3 world championships, 5 Tours of Italy, 5 Tours of France and 7 grand classics.

Thanks for reminding us Todd!

Lance is approximately ¼ of the way there. It's not likely anyone will ever fill Eddy’s shoes!

A travel story from a wondering mind.
Last August, two hundred and two countries came together to celebrate sporting achievement, promoting peace and fair play. Not only was it a celebration of nationalism for all the countries present but a celebration of internationalism. It was the Olympic Games in Athens Greece, where thousands of the best athletes in the world came to play. Like millions of other people, I too watched the world during its greatest achievement of humanity, setting around my television set.

I had a dream to watch the Olympics live from the Olympic Stadium where hundreds of thousands of people would flock to every day to watch athletes in their greatest form compete in front of the world. I had a burning desire to get to Athens someway, some how. Fortunately I was already on the continent so that financially helped. After watching the opening ceremonies live on Germany television I went onto Germanywings.com, Easyjet.com and Ryanair.com searching for a cheap flight. Two train rides later from Wuerzburg to Frankfurt and then onward to Colonge/Bonn Airport in the middle of the night, within twenty-four hours, I was boarding a plan to Athens, Greece. Not to mention 200 Euros charger to my Visa later. This is what I live for, having a gut feeling an going for it. This is the excitement of traveling with no itinerary.

There was one last detail I had not completely overlooked however had so far had no luck with was where to stay? Traveling on a student budget I decided to put a post on Expatriates.com, as follows.

Title: Accommodation needed for Olympics Athens 2004
Category: Housing Wanted - Rooms Wanted
Region: Athens
Description:
I am a male Canadian student staying in Germany for the summer and am
traveling to the Olympics and cannot find accommodation because it is so
expensive. I hope that someone has a spare room or couch in there
home/apartment that they are willing to sublet to me for the few nights that
I am in Athens(Aug 18th-22). I am a responsible and clean 21 year old
and well traveled. Hope someone has a room to offer me. Thank you.
Matthew Harriman

I had an overwhelming number of people inviting me to stay in their home with in hours, some at a more moderate price then others. I decided on staying with a Canadian couple from Greek origin in their home in the heart of Athens city, for a fraction of the cost of staying in a hostel. Only forty euros a night for Olympic standards is an excellent deal. I shared a room with a man from Romania, a lady from the Netherlands and a male flight attendant from the UK.

After telling the flight attendant I was traveling alone he told me a pearl of wisdom that gave him comfort no matter where he was resting his head in the world that night. Remember, whether you are in a foreign country or continent, even if you are twelve time zones away, you are still connected to the entire world because "home is only a flight the length of two movies and a nap away." I guess this rings true if you are already at the airport. After thinking of the world from this prospective, it seemed a little smaller to a lone traveler making their way through the world. After experiencing the spirit of internationalism of the Olympic Games, it made me feel the world was a little more comforting because every country represented at the games shares a common goal of peace.

Solo Backpacking

Just Smile and Nod.
When your journal is full and you’re sick of wearing the same two shirts, you’ll have stories, names, and places to speak of for years to come. The paradox you need to be prepared for is both a feeling of great achievement and loneliness. Read up on reverse culture shock. You’ll discover that no one will really understand just how cool it was, because they can’t. The backpacking experiences are yours alone. It’s only when you return to all things familiar that you’ll notice how much they’ve changed you.