I’ve always thought that Antarctica will be the most physically difficult expedition of all our 7 10DL expeditions. Until now I never had a structured way of thinking about how to measure “difficulty”. From a energy expenditure perspective, Antarctica will be the hardest. Here’s how I performed my calculations. 

1. The first step is to breakdown the activities of 10DL. The 10 Degrees Latitude is an expedition series that consists of 5 sports. Those being:

• Cycling 
• Open water swimming
• Kite assisted skiing cross country
• Hiking cross country
• Kayaking

2. The second step is to assume that calorie count is a proxy for “effort”. It’s possible to make a caloric estimate for each expedition assuming the athlete is 190 pounds and that each activity consumes a predictable amount of calories per hour at high exertion. Using this method we can figure out which of the 10DL expeditions is “hardest”, by virtue of the caloric expenditure required to complete it. The source for the calorie count information is here.

3. The third and last step is to type all this into Excel. The results show that the caloric expenditure ranges from the lowest of 57,500 calories in 10DL Australia to 138,000 calories in 10DL Antarctica. It’s not surprising that Antarctica is one of the hardest, and that calorie estimate doesn’t even take into the account the cold temperature, which will consume even more calories as our bodies try to keep warm. Below is the model I used.

The mental side of the “difficulty” equation is much more difficult to measure. I don’t have a measure for that.

Oh, how quickly I leave the protection of the city. Just a few miles off shore and I am totally cutoff. I see the sky scrapers and houses, but could not scream to them if I capsize. No one can help me out here, I am self-reliant. This feeling of self-reliance is really healthy, I think, to put life into perspective. So much of life has safety nets, it’s nice to feel the pressure of pure objective danger. And it’s nice when I dock the boat and that danger vanishes. If only life were as simple as rowing.

The video is from my friends in Jackson Hole at Mountain Athlete. Thanks to Pere for sending this video our way. Keep it up guys!

Last night I swam in black glass. We jumped into the San Francisco Bay ocean water after dark. It was so darn peaceful as the light of the Ghirardelli Chocholate Factory shone across the black glassy water. These are the nights that can make any workday worth living. It was a wonderful cold water training swim. My buddy Dave joined us for the apres-swim sauna then we all went back to a French place and talked about adventures past and adventures future. These are the days worth remembering.

Adam has been training these days too in Denver, where the temperatures have dropped down at night to the 40s, so I suspect most of his training has been on the Wilier cycles (shameless plug, sorry, but we love these guys).

Hope everyone’s training is going awesome. Take care.

Gu Nutrition, makers of Roctane Ultra Endurance Energy Gel, did a funny little write-up on us today. They sent Adam and I a list of provocative questions and asked us to respond. I hope you have as much fun reading it as we had writing it.

Here’s an excerpt.

- – -

What’s the most creative way you’ve ever carried your GU?
Neal: In my Speedo.
Adam: In my Speedo.

Funny racing/training story?
Adam: While training for Ironman Florida, I was on a long run in the backwoods of Virginia, miles from home, and miles from civilization. When nature called, I found the nearest tree. Long-story short…poison-ivy everywhere (yes everywhere). Two weeks before race day!

- – -

The below picture is a view near our sandy starting point in Dover. The videos are taken from the hilltop shoreline of Dover, looking out across the channel toward Calais, France.

In this blog post we wanted to give a SHOUT-OUT to all the folks out there who are reading us:

• Katie/Holly/Greg/Matt/Marie & all our sponsors who make our adventures possible
• AlexF/Mark/AmyF/Amber/DavidH/Karah & all our athlete friends
• Jim/Betty/Karen/Jessie/Isaac/Tom/Chris and the rest of my wonderful family
• Mark/Tina, Chad/Kylie, Tim/Megan & so many of Adam’s/Amy’s close friends and family
• Lindy/Ben/Jac/Dan/Anthony/Carla/Jonathan & all our bullish Wharton Friends
• Paul/Chad/Steve/Bruce/Barney/Richard and the highly valued Powerset gang (now MSFT)
• Joe/Mike/Maggie/Wendy/Tracy & everyone else in Edina, Minnesota
• Camile, Isaac/Nicole and so many other of my friends from Chaska, Minnesota
• Brandon/LateralLine
• And of course Zoe (with the two dots) who is busily greening our world so 10 Degrees Latitude can continue for centuries more.

Thanks for your support and warm vibes. Stay tuned.

• 2 hours
• 10 dudes in drysuits diving for shipwrecks in the harbor

Well, we did yet another training swim. Got the call from our pilot (Dave Whyte) last night that we weren’t going to be relaying the channel, so we decided to acclimatize swim again. Since we couldn’t go we did 2 hours today. Adam in one shot and me split between morning/evening (just for kicks).

In other news, Adam’s son Joshua almost walked for the first time today, which would have been amazing. How cool would it be if he took his first steps on the same day that we swam the channel!

Hopefully day after tomorrow is our day. Tomorrow I will post my exploration video of Dover’s anti-French fortifications — cool stuff.

Before, during and after the swim we met lots of fellow channel swimmers. We finally put a name to a face with Mark Robson.  We also met some new folks from New Jersey and California — folks I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of during our upcoming North America swims. Some of the folks we met have blogs:

• Mark Robson (congrats on your 6 hr swim today mate!)
  
• Karah Nazor (always nice to see a fellow San Franciscan, good luck tomorrow!)
  

We are close to GO-TIME here in Dover. Tomorrow there is a chance we’ll swim. Our pilot (Dave Whyte) will call us tonight at 7PM to let us know. So, keep us in your thoughts tonight, hopefully we’ll swim the channel tomorrow.

Here are some pictures that we grafted from other folk’s blogs. Enjoy. Hope you’re all well.

• 1.5 hours
• Serious chop, especially on the east side of the harbor
• 200 gulls, zero fishies

Hello from Dover! Another nice swim today. Might head out for a night swim close to sun-down. Due to the relatively high latitude of Dover (and England itself) the sun rises earlier and sets later than much of the USA. Sun rises here at 5AM and sets at 915PM. Nice long days for swim workouts.

On the home front, the last days have involved a lot of time cooking around the house and some hanging out by the beach and swimming. Here are some pics and a vid of both.

Warning: Seriously boredom inducing video to follow. If you watch 2 seconds of it you’ll get a taste for the conditions.

• 2 hour swim
• Rainy blustering weather
• 6 seagulls
• 3 wet members of our support team standing on the rocky beach

We did our second acclimitization swim today. The swim went well for both of us. We felt the difference now that the sun was hidden behind clouds, but it nevertheless went well. After our swim we gathered at the nearby public bar and met with Chris Osmond to talk about the weather and such. Here is a map showing the harbor that we’re swimming in. It has a gorgeous view of the White Cliffs of Dover and is located next to the shipping harbor where much of D-Day was launched. Good times. Wish it would stop raining.

View Larger Map

• 1 hour
• Gorgeous sunny weather
• 90 sea gulls

We did our first acclimitization swim in the Dover Bay today. It went well, and was short. It was a gorgeous weather day and based on the weather projections we won’t be seeing much sun in future days — so we really enjoyed feeling it beating down and warming our backs during our swim today.

Our familys’ being here to support us mentally/physically is sooooo wonderful! And Amy/Adam’s kids as well as his sister’s daughter Ava are such a joy to have bopping the house.

1. Never Let Your Tread Wear Out: Replace your tires frequently. With fresher rubber, you’ll have fewer flats and also a better-handling bike.

2. Regularly Inspect Your Tires: Sometimes you’ll come back from a ride with small bits of glass or debris embedded in the outer casing. If you habitually clean this stuff off, it won’t have a chance to work through the tire.

3. Same Goes for Your Chain: Keep it clean and lubed and your bike will shift, and look, better. And if you replace your chain before it gets too worn out, you’ll save the expense of having to fix or replace pricier items like cassettes and chainrings, which suffer increased wear and tear from old chains.

4. Buy a Torque Wrench: Modern bike components are made of expensive materials like carbon and titanium and highly engineered to save weight. But that also means they can be damaged by overtightening. Manufacturers test their products and provide torque recommendations. Make sure you follow them.

5. Find a Good Local Bike Shop and Mechanic, and Be Loyal: The more familiar they become with your bike and your riding style, the more able they’ll be to keep everything working to your liking.

1. Bad bike fit
2. Poor nutrition regimen (racing and training)
3. Bought products based on price/brand.  Paid little attention to catering to my race needs.

Last but not least — pictures from our rest day in Nottingham. We visited the Nottingham Castle, and the local bike shop Freewheel where the head mechanic rebuilt Neal’s bottom bracket and tightened Adam’s rear cassette. Thanks guys!

• Leeds to Nottingham
• 75 miles
• 1800 feet climbed
• 1000 sheep. Some cows. 63 pigs.
• 2 nuclear reactors

Our route took us through Sherwood Forest, which was fun for me. It’s hard not to feel like a kid again riding through Sherwood Forest into Nottingham!

Today was a pretty nice day.  It’s a shame that as we come further south our surroundings are less desolate and the roadways are much more populated.  As a result, we spend more time concentrating and less time enjoying our environment.  Weather today was beautiful.  Winds were calm most of the day, and there was only a 15 minute patch of rain that we unintentionally but fortunately avoided on our lunch break.

To say these last 3 days have been tough would be an understatement.  Mentally, there were a lot of obstacles to overcome.  Physically the back-to-back-to-back days of punishing terrain and distance were difficult.  I can’t tell you how many times over the past several months, I’ve cursed the name of Mike Kuhn, our coach (another link) as I opened the dreaded email that laid out the workout for the day.  “Tell me again why I’m riding 6 hrs today  I just did 4 yesterday.”  Today it’s clear.  This guy isn’t just a sadist. He had a method to his madness.  It was good to finish this segment of the ride and still feel pretty strong (and injury free!)

Tomorrow we’ll rest up and take care of some minor aches and pains and then it’s on to Cambridge.

• 63 miles
• 3500 feet climbed, to the top of a 2000 foot peak
• Inverness to Ballater
• 998 sheep

Proven: The land speed of a Scottish sheep is 14.1 mph. They can run this speed for one tenth of a mile. We raced sheep today. Check it out.

Another beautiful day in Scotland. Today was the nicest day of the journey thus far. While the hills were more daunting, the winds were down which made it much more enjoyable. We’ve been using the Suunto T6 watch to keep the data on each ride. We’ve included a portion of the output graph from the “Suunto Training Manager” software. You can see the hills we battled. Our legs are feeling the pains of the day, but our spirits are much higher after a day without head winds. We had nearly 5000 feet of total climbing over a 62 mile ride. A special thanks to the friendly old farmer who gave us directions. We’d still be out there climbing if it were not for him. Here are some pictures from our ride on the Whisky Trail today.

I was there for less than 48 hours, and Neal and I spent a good deal of that time training. We got in two decent swims on Saturday, and then we both participated in an open-water “race” put on by the Dolphin Club. We had to check in for the race by 6:00, which meant that the alarm clock went off at about 4:30! We took a boat from the club to the San Francisco Bay bridge, and once dropped off, it was an all-out sprint back to the club. The front group was ultra-competitive, with the winning swimmer completing the 2 ½ mile course in under 40 minutes (current assisted). Neal wasn’t too far behind at around 45 minutes, and I straggled in about 3-4 minutes after that. Many thanks to all of the volunteers who rowed beside us making this event as safe and as fun as possible.

We took a few minutes to bring our core temperatures back up to human levels, and then bee-lined for the airport. It was a fast and furious weekend, but all-in-all a great time!

Adam is driving cross-country to Denver on his way to his new home in Denver. He rode today too, in Ohio.

[Special section for history nerds] Valley Forge was the site where General Washington stationed 12,000 soldiers during the winter of 1777. The Confederates had already captured Philadelphia and the soldiers were there to protect the rest of Pennsylvania. The winter of 1777 was reportedly wicked cold, and 2,000 soldiers died of exposure and pneumonia that winter. The park service lets the fields grow fallow so we can imagine all the tents and the thousands of men who were stationed there. Seeing it now is beautiful, but I’m guessing (based on the number of deaths) that back then it probably was a real crummy place to be.

For our training here in Philadelphia these bikes have been seeing a lot more action now that the weather is sunny and warm. The river in the background is the same river that we swim.

[UPDATE] Friday April 25, At day break today we took the bikes out for a 50-mile ride. On the way back we watched a guy get struck by a car on his Kuota carbon. The guy’s shoulder and his anodized Fulcrum wheelset bore the brunt of the impact. We helped him collect his stuff and check his wheel. He was OK and biked away from the accident. Close call that one.

He who wants to find the sea should take a river for his guide.

We are training in the Schuylkill River! We’ve done it 3 of last 4 days. Today we swam for 80 minutes. And after doing those miles we plan to swim more and more. Here’s why we love it…

• It’s cold. Cold is important for us to acclimatize our bodies. The water temps in the Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River has been 58-64F, which is pretty close to the water temps that we’ll see in the English Channel which is 56-58F. So far the cold is treating us well and only our toes are cold during the swim.
• It’s beautiful. And a fun change of pace from the pool. Keeping the mind busy lets us forget about our shoulders and biceps.
• It’s clean. Despite popular belief it’s a very clean river. The Philadelphia Department of Water has a website with daily coliform/bacteria counts, water flow, and water temp. These three together form a proxy for water quality. Nothing instills confidence that the river is safe like that big green banner on the Rivercast website!

The green banner means the water is safe.

From behind the camera the river is idealistically beautiful! Up close there tends to be more duck weed and gunk. But we still like it.

1. Hands should enter water at 1 and 11 o’clock. Do not waste energy with side-to-side movement.
2. Hand should glide right after it enters water. Pull should start within first few inches.
3. Be long in the water. No hip bend. Little knee bend.
4. Be level and stiff in water to reduce drag and increase torque.
5. Hands should exit water at hip to follow-through to stroke.

Historically, Vetta has been a big player in commuter-level cycling computers. The V100 HR is a great leap into the world of serious athletes. It is feature rich enough to satisfy your every want and need, yet ease-of-use makes it a fantastic piece of equipment for the weekend warrior.

So lets take a look at the features and how well it works

First Look: Right out of the box I was impressed. Construction quality was solid. It felt substantial and well made as did the accessories. A flip through the manual suggested a very feature-rich device.

Installation was a breeze: Both the speed and cadence transmitters are small and sleek. I also like the fact that cadence is wireless

Put it to the test: One of the most common complaints about the V100 is battery life. The issue is a technical one that’s caused by the unit not turning off when you are done riding. I spoke with Vetta and they assured me that the culprit software issues were fixed early on, but the reputation has stayed out there. So obviously I’ve paid careful attention to this after each ride. To date I haven’t had a bit of trouble with this. At least in my unit, it seems the problem has been fixed.

I’ve had the V100 for several months now and it works great. The heart rate monitor and the cadence have worked perfectly. I love the screen. It’s compact yet it contains a ton of information. The three button-interface is very easy to navigate through at speed. Speed and distance accuracy is nearly perfect. Battery life has not been an issue.

A positive review, with 3 gripes:

• The first is a gripe I have with 95% of the computers on the market so I can’t fault Vetta alone for this. The wireless speed transmitter is not powerful enough to work from the rear wheel. This forces you to install it on the front wheel and therefore becomes useless on an indoor trainer. (Note: the V110 solves this!)
• The manual makes a valiant attempt to be thorough, and in fact, it is thorough. The problem is that it isn’t completely clear. Maybe it’s just me, but it reads as if it was written in a different language and simply copied into some freeware translator software. Another issue is that it doesn’t read smoothly. I was trying to learn how to use the different features and screen modes. I had to read through pages several times to understand certain details. One example – they spend some time discussing the IDS and STP screen mode, but they don’t reveal what IDS and STP stand for until 4 pages letter. (it’s Intermediate Distance and Stopwatch btw).
• Occasionally (maybe 3-4 times) the unit fails to turn on for some reason. I turn the wheel and nothing happens. I press the button on the transmitter. Still nothing. The first time this happened I spent about an hour trying to figure out the problem. I was 30 seconds from throwing the thing away. I took the battery out of the head unit, reinstalled it and it worked perfectly. The next time this happened, I went straight to the battery and fixed the problem right away. This only happens when starting the unit. Once I’m riding, I’ve never had any issues with losing signal. Odd.

Conclusion: The V100HR is a great computer for both serious athletes as well as the weekend warrior. It’s easy to install and easy to use. It has tons of features that work together seamlessly. In my experience it has debunked it’s critics and has been a dependable cyclocomputer.

Here’s my poolside review.

And a video of the player in action.

So as you can see from the review we think Finis is pretty awesome. They’ve wonderfully offered to lend us extra players if we wear them during our 15 hour swim across the English Channel. I suppose it’ll be the first time that anyone has had the opportunity to rock-out during a channel crossing.

[UPDATE] The Channel Swimming and Piloting Association (the org that certifies channel swims) voted in 2007 to ban MP3 players on official swims of the English Channel. I think the Association’s decision is overly nostalgic, but c’est la vie. At least I can use the Finis during my training swims. The vote from the association’s minutes looks like this:

MOTION 3 “The use of MP3 players shall not be allowed by the swimmer while swimming during any English Channel swim attempt” Prop. – D Carter, sec. – C. Golding. 15 for, 2 against, 3 abstain – carried)

As part of my acclimitization I swam in the 45-degree Atlantic Ocean this weekend. You see, my two good friends Rick and Carla live smack-dab on the ocean, so my training was a great excuse to visit and spend some time with them in their home. I was the only swimmer on the beach and the fisherman thought I was bonkers. Truth be told, with the wetsuit it wasn’t all that bad. My core stayed warm and my cognition was clear (cold water sometimes prevents us humans from thinking straight). Here are some pictures of me and my good friends.

Next weekend I will try the same swims without the wetsuit — such swims have been done by our friend (Mark Robson) for several weeks. He is also training for the English Channel swim.

Everyone wants a healthy lifestyle. There are new trends that help a healthy lifestyle fit into our day-to-day. I put together a list of what I think are THE leading-edge fitness trends; and just for fun I put them to the ABCs. I am involved in most of these trends, but not all (there are 7 that I’m not involved in). I will let you all postulate in the comments which of the ABCs I do not do.

A for Adventure races – like 10 Degrees!
B for Balance training (taichi, yoga and pilates)
C for Creatine
D for Dry-land training for swimmers, or the reverse
E for Eating breakfast – eating early makes you thin at night
F for Fixed-gear bicycles – brakes are for flakes
G for Google map your next run
H for Halfsizes – restaurant portions are twice the FDA recommendation
I for Intense workouts trumping long workouts
J for Juice bars
K for Ketone breath avoidance
L for Lactive threshold (LT) training
M for Mind/body exercise (yoga, tai chi, and qigong)
N for Navy Seal bootcamp-style training
O for Online videoconferencing allows group training at home
P for Power meters for bikes
Q for Quest-based adventures (7 Summits, et al)
R for Recovery drinks
S for Stability balls
T for Thule roof racks to bring your kit with you
U for Underwater MP3 players for swimming/surfing
V for Video analysis packages for bike fits like Dartfish
W for Wrist computers to track workouts
X for Xtreme sports
Y for Yoga
Z for Zucchini

1. Incorporate competition and goal-setting into your routine. You don’t necessarily have to sign up for races, but aim to reach the far wall a smidgen faster than you did the day before, or try to break a minute in the 100-meter freestyle, a good benchmark for speed.
2. Swim large distances. He swims 3-5 miles per day
3. Streamline your stroke. Ryan swims 15 meters underwater after each flip turn to focus on being hydrodynamic. “I work a lot on staying high in the water, not fighting the water, moving with the water,”
4. Incorporate dry-land exercises. Before every pool session, Lochte (below right) and his Florida teammates pass around the medicine ball, do multiple sets of push-ups and 500 abdominal crunches.

A related NYT article is here: Coach’s Corner