To Infinity and Beyond - Becoming a Better DopeyBadger (Comments Welcome)

That's so cool! I've always wanted to do a lot of those as well, but haven't due to cost and inconvenience. How did you get into the study?

The lab just sent out a mass email to university employees looking for volunteers. Applied back in October and just heard back today. Figured I hadn’t qualified since it had been so long.
 
Stoked that I got picked for a research study on body composition techniques. They're going to give me the full data on:
  • Measures of height and weight
  • Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan for muscle, fat, and bone analysis
  • Ultrasound measures of muscle quantity and quality
  • Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) measures of body fluid volume
  • Resting energy expenditure
  • Physical function and strength battery (non-strenuous)
I've always been curious about these things and now I get them for free.
My nerdy question is 'what form is the data in?' I do not touch anything that has every been alive, but a quarter of those words are shared in things I do touch, and data I look at all day long. Does DXA come as an image, some sort of data cube, or a 'great bones!' note? Do you get impedance data from between several different electrodes or is it just a spectra for the entire body, or just some sort of rating of fluid volume?
 
My nerdy question is 'what form is the data in?' I do not touch anything that has every been alive, but a quarter of those words are shared in things I do touch, and data I look at all day long. Does DXA come as an image, some sort of data cube, or a 'great bones!' note? Do you get impedance data from between several different electrodes or is it just a spectra for the entire body, or just some sort of rating of fluid volume?

I don't know the answer to that definitively. The language in the October email was "Participants will receive their body composition images and analyses." I already asked for clarification on whether this was still a perk of participating in the study. If the protocol has IRB approval, then I imagine the language of the email should have been carefully crafted. Additionally, the consent form should spell everything out in greater detail. But my initial feeling from the email was "images and analyses" meant something closer to the order of a full information dump than a piece here and there. I believe the purpose of the study was to "look at ways to improve how doctors and scientists look at muscle. This will help to improve our understanding of clinical malnutrition."

I'll be sure to gather as many nerdy details as I can!
 
??? Week to Go! (???) + Some running and some cycling + LIIFT4

2/17/20 - M - OFF
2/18/20 - T - LIIFT4-Legs + Owens (60 min; 85 TSS)
2/19/20 - W - 70 min Run at Easy
2/20/20 - R - Pettit-1 (60 min; 27 TSS) + 7 x 3 min CV w/ 5x10 sec Sprint Run at Easy
2/21/20 - F - LIIFT4-Chest/Triceps + Townsend-1 (90 min; 54 TSS)
2/22/20 - Sa - Antelope (90 min; 96 TSS) + 60 min Run at Easy
2/23/20 - Su - 119 min LR (Run) + LIIFT4-Back/Biceps

Total Run Miles - 39.0 miles
Total Run Time - 5:10 hours
Total Run TSS - x TSS

Total Biking Time - 5:00 hours
Total Biking TSS - 262 TSS

Total FIIT4 Time - 1:59 hours
Total FIIT4 TSS - x TSS

Total Training Time - 12:10 hours
Total TSS - x TSS


Highlights

-Tuesday's VO2max cycling workout went a lot better than last week's. Doing it in the afternoon instead of 4am really does make the difference.

-Decided to take Wednesday's run out to 70 min.

-Took the Thursday night run out to a 7x3 min interval set. The GAP was 6:20 for the 7 intervals. But with the floating RI, it meant some fast mile splits. A 6:46, 6:33, and 7:00. Then I was able to get the sprints down to a 4:45 min/mile. Here's the downside. The temp was 6-9F. I thought I had dressed well enough. Essentially worn similar clothes in colder temps at similar paces for similar durations. So when I got home and my ear was super cold I didn't think much of it. But over the course of the next several hours I could tell the ear was painful and something was not right. Still bright red comparing it to the other ear. Went to bed and woke up with the ear not looking any better. Figured it must be frostbite. Called the doc and they had me come in. Confirmed it was mild frostbite, but thankfully still had good color, not blistering, not black. So they decided to call the burn unit and after a discussion they gave me some things to do over the next few weeks to keep the ear healthy. I got lucky and dodged a much bigger issue. Can't really explain it since the ear was better covered the my face, and the other ear had no problems. But the short of it is I need to be better about wearing enough clothing in cold conditions.

-Decided to add in a Sweet Spot cycling activity on Sat morning. A 5x10 min workout. Things starting to feel better on the bike again.

-Decided to go with a 60 min easy run on Sat evening. Got a new pair of shoes, Saucony Ride ISO. It's been a while since I've worn a pair of Rides. But I feel like my shoe arsenal was missing an "easy" shoe. I got lucky though because I had my finger on the mouse for some Kinvara 10s I've been watching at RW for the last few weeks. Tried to get them on the cheap but they sold out on me. So I scoured on a different option and decided to give the Ride ISO a chance. I'm happy I did. They felt really really nice at my easy pace. Comfortable and responsive, but don't feel like they're destroying my legs on an easy day like the Kinvaras were. I did some strides at the end and the shoe actually felt really good still even at the 5:30s pace. It's funny because with my cadence and such the shoe ends up making very little noise compared to the Next%. Just a different type of shoe.

-Bumped the Sunday LR up to 120 min. Wearing the Next% again. The goal was a nice even consistent effort. Mid-run I decided to do 90 min LR + 30 min M Tempo. The LR pace was too fast. I averaged a 7:24 GAP through the first 12 miles. I mean it felt fine, but when I tried to kick it up to M Tempo it became clear that the first 12 miles were too much to overcome. It was probably a combination of several factors (overdressed to compensate for frostbite ear, didn't eat breakfast, probably not enough food yesterday, and too fast of early pace). The 3 miles I could put in at M Tempo pace were 7:03, 6:58, and 7:04 GAP. Although admittedly, I was super happy when I was stopped by cars in a cross walk twice during the 3rd of those miles. I pulled back during the 4th mile and then tried to do a fast finish through my standard FF loop. I could only get back to a 6:57 GAP. It was a tough run under the belt. It's not all that different than the Haunted Hustle HM which occurred on 10/20/19. Average pace (7:25 vs 7:24), GAP (7:20 vs 7:19), HR (144 vs 144) and 2.5 hrs of exercise the day prior in both cases. With Madison HM happening on 11/10, that puts me at about 3 weeks away from what was peak performance back then. I've got 7 weeks to Milwaukee.

In the past, I've typically returned to fitness after about 42 days from a marathon. Forty two days from the 2020 Disney M was today (2/23/20). I'd say I'm right on target in terms of how I feel. The CV run felt good, and the LR was at a decent pace (7:19 GAP for 16.1 miles). I've got about one more week to make a decision on the Milwaukee M before the price increase. So we'll see.

I'm excited about the US Olympic Marathon Trials next weekend. Lots of great storylines and hoping for a fun race!
 




Based on the weather forecast, I'll be wearing this:

View attachment 476569

I believe it. Looks like 39-41F "feels like" during the race time. I'd be bundled too if I were just standing around. But if it were racing, then that's definitely shorts and singlet weather. Will be interesting to see how everyone fares in the colder than expected temps.
 
??? Week to Go! (???) + Some running and some cycling + LIIFT4

2/24/20 - M - OFF
2/25/20 - T - LIIFT4-Shoulders + Spencer (60 min; 77 TSS)
2/26/20 - W - 70 min Run at Easy
2/27/20 - R - Pettit-1 (60 min; 27 TSS) + 3x10s@S + 2x1mi@Hard + 2x10s@S + 200m R
2/28/20 - F - LIIFT4-Chest/Triceps + Fuji (60 min; 66 TSS)
2/29/20 - Sa - Townsend-1 (90 min; 55 TSS) + 45 min Run at Easy
3/1/20 - Su - 4up+5MT+1down (Run) + LIIFT4-Back/Biceps

Total Run Miles - 28.8 miles
Total Run Time - 4:03 hours
Total Run TSS - x TSS

Total Biking Time - 4:30 hours
Total Biking TSS - 225 TSS

Total FIIT4 Time - 1:48 hours
Total FIIT4 TSS - x TSS

Total Training Time - 10:21 hours
Total TSS - x TSS


Highlights

-After last Sunday's LR + LIIFT workout my left quad right by the knee was sore. Nothing like Disney, but definitely "off".
-Happy to have an easier cycling workout this week. It's recovery week, so everything was toned down a bit.
-Decided to try and run hard on Thursday. Something like a mile or so intervals. So I did some strides to start, then 2 miles fast, then some strides to end with a 200m R. I wore the Next% because I wanted to see what they felt like at a faster pace.

Screen Shot 2020-03-01 at 10.12.51 AM.png

The two miles ended up being something like 5k effort for a mile. The first was 6:20 and I was happy with it. I walked/slow ran around a lap (about 5 min) and then gave it another hard effort. About halfway through I snuck a peak at the watch and saw I was doing a lot better than I thought. I tried to hold on as best I could. Ended up with a 6:12 mile. That's my 4th fastest mile ever and fastest ever in a training run. The 6:20 was a top 10 mile as well. So overall, a good run. I finished up with some short strides and then a 200m R rep at 5:09 pace. I think I could really tell a difference at the super fast paces when it came to the Next%. And additionally, it helped propel me forward during the CD as well. All in all a good impromptu workout.

-Legs weren't necessarily happy about Fuji on Friday which included 9 sprints at max speed for 20s each. But I got through it.
-Decided to take the workout down a level on Saturday morning. I changed the workout from endurance to more recovery type work. I got up early because the release time of the Alphafly was unknown when I went to bed. So I did the workout at 4:52am. Finished up the workout and saw release time was 9:00am. I was all ready and prepared but wasn't able to secure a pair. Looks like I wasn't alone as it seems less than a handful were successful even within 1-2 seconds of it opening. Almost seems like it was a "fake" sale just to meet the new world athletic guidelines.
-The OT were fun to watch. I had read an article on Riley prior to the race about he had foregone contracts so he could run in Alphafly. And I remember watching Seidel in college during her days at Notre Dame. So it was fun to see some runners I "knew" that were a little off the beaten path.
-I took the evening run super easy. My legs felt like bricks.
-Up early on Sunday morning since Steph had to work. So was off and running at 5:30am. Goal was a 4 mile WU with 5 miles at M Tempo on a 2 mile loop that was 1 mile downhill and 1 mile uphill.

Screen Shot 2020-03-01 at 10.29.15 AM.png

The beginning of the run felt good. Had a Maurten Caff gel around mile 1.5. Then it was time to start the M Tempo portion. The paces were all over the place but that's to be expected at even-ish effort when running constantly down or uphill. So the splits were 6:51, 7:08, 6:39, 7:00, and 6:35. But GAP was 7:02, 6:52, 6:48, 6:45, and 6:43. Average wise they were roughly equal (6:51 vs GAP of 6:50). It was a good effort overall. Too bad the HR data didn't work appropriately. I don't know if that was a sustainable M Tempo workout, but regardless it was 5 miles around 6:50 pace on hills. Super happy to have a working iPod shuffle again. My other one broke a few weeks ago and I got a RCA from Target as a replacement since the iPod shuffle isn't being made anymore. The RCA was absolute junk. So I found a shuffle on ebay. Glad that it seems to be in good condition and working well thus far.

I've got until March 6th to decide on the marathon before the price goes up. Probably not in sub-3 shape, but even just a PR over the Fall 2017 race would be good at this point. So I'm leaning towards doing it, but we'll see what I end up doing.
 
Results from the research study this morning!

-I weighed in at 182.8 pounds with clothes on. That's about 6-12 pounds heavier than 2020 Disney and 25 pounds heavier than 2018 Disney.
-My Tissue (%Fat) was 24.8 which was a lot higher than I expected. That's on the upper end of average for a male (>25% is obese).
-My Fat Free weight was 139.1 pounds.
-My fat distribution was 29.1 for Android and 27.5 for Gynoid. Ratio of 1.06.
-BMI was 24.8. Oddly enough the exact same value as my %Fat and also 0.2 away from overweight (ETA - originally said "obese" here).
-My total BMD was 1.388 g/cm^3 with a T-score of 1.9 and Z-score of 1.6. If I'm interpreting this correctly, this means that only about 2.2% of people have more dense bones that I do when normalized to a 30 year old male. My BMD for different areas was 2.678 head, 0.892 arms, 1.588 legs, 1.151 trunk, 0.860 ribs, 1.349 spine, and 1.239 pelvis. In general she said I had denser bones than the average person.
-My resting energy expenditure was 1783 Kcal/day.

They'll probably call me back in a year to see the differences.
 
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Results from the research study this morning!

-I weighed in at 182.8 pounds with clothes on. That's about 6-12 pounds heavier than 2020 Disney and 25 pounds heavier than 2018 Disney.
-My Tissue (%Fat) was 24.8 which was a lot higher than I expected. That's on the upper end of average for a male (>25% is obese).
-My Fat Free weight was 139.1 pounds.
-My fat distribution was 29.1 for Android and 27.5 for Gynoid. Ratio of 1.06.
-BMI was 24.8. Oddly enough the exact same value as my %Fat and also 0.2 away from obese.
-My total BMD was 1.388 g/cm^3 with a T-score of 1.9 and Z-score of 1.6. If I'm interpreting this correctly, this means that only about 2.2% of people have more dense bones that I do when normalized to a 30 year old male. My BMD for different areas was 2.678 head, 0.892 arms, 1.588 legs, 1.151 trunk, 0.860 ribs, 1.349 spine, and 1.239 pelvis. In general she said I had denser bones than the average person.
-My resting energy expenditure was 1783 Kcal/day.

They'll probably call me back in a year to see the differences.
Really interesting! What are your takeaways?
 
Results from the research study this morning!

-I weighed in at 182.8 pounds with clothes on. That's about 6-12 pounds heavier than 2020 Disney and 25 pounds heavier than 2018 Disney.
-My Tissue (%Fat) was 24.8 which was a lot higher than I expected. That's on the upper end of average for a male (>25% is obese).
-My Fat Free weight was 139.1 pounds.
-My fat distribution was 29.1 for Android and 27.5 for Gynoid. Ratio of 1.06.
-BMI was 24.8. Oddly enough the exact same value as my %Fat and also 0.2 away from obese.
-My total BMD was 1.388 g/cm^3 with a T-score of 1.9 and Z-score of 1.6. If I'm interpreting this correctly, this means that only about 2.2% of people have more dense bones that I do when normalized to a 30 year old male. My BMD for different areas was 2.678 head, 0.892 arms, 1.588 legs, 1.151 trunk, 0.860 ribs, 1.349 spine, and 1.239 pelvis. In general she said I had denser bones than the average person.
-My resting energy expenditure was 1783 Kcal/day.

They'll probably call me back in a year to see the differences.

OK, I change my mind about wanting to get this done. If YOU have that high of a body fat percentage and women naturally trend higher on that, I seriously do not want to know what mine is. Sheesh. I know you've said you weigh more than you did previously, but that's a hard number to believe given all the exercise that you do. I guess it goes to show that I don't have a good idea of typical body fat percentages.

Like Christian, I'm interested to know what you think about the numbers.
 
I decided to pull together some pictures of me from the last 8 years where I roughy knew the weight I was in each of the photos. I didn't include the pics from the days of 200-250 pounds because I've got no intention of going back there. But it was interesting to me to see that over the years while the scale had the same number I'd say in some of the pics I look vastly different.

October 2012 - 175 pounds

478248

January 2015 - 190 pounds

478252

August 2015 - 169 pounds

478254

May 2016 - 157 pounds

478255

October 2016 - 157 pounds

478256

October 2017 - 167 pounds

478257

January 2018 - 157 pounds

478258

May 2019 - 171 pounds

478259

November 2019 - 170 pounds

478260

January 2020 - 176 pounds

478261
 
Really interesting! What are your takeaways?
OK, I change my mind about wanting to get this done. If YOU have that high of a body fat percentage and women naturally trend higher on that, I seriously do not want to know what mine is. Sheesh. I know you've said you weigh more than you did previously, but that's a hard number to believe given all the exercise that you do. I guess it goes to show that I don't have a good idea of typical body fat percentages.

Like Christian, I'm interested to know what you think about the numbers.

I'd say the most obvious takeaway for me was that my bones are really dense. A lot denser than a normal person. And this is very likely the by-product of the run training I do as well as the amount of calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D that I take on a daily basis. But they're not so dense as to suggest some sort of potential "too high" BMD value that would occur around a T-score of 2.5 or higher.

Secondly, if I truly have a Body Fat % of 24.8 at this moment in time (which admittedly I could lose 5-10 pounds and be ok with it), then my BF% must have been ridiculously high back when I weighed 255 pounds. The handheld device I used back in high school said it was about 36% (from memory). But if we're to assume my LBM is roughly the same (which doesn't necessarily have to be a safe assumption), then we're taking about something on the order of 45% BF. Likely in the range of morbidly obese. But it was a bit surprising to me to learn that I'm about 2 pounds away (or 0.2% BF) from medically being considered obese. I certainly don't feel obese.

Thirdly, at my lightest I was probably around 11-13% BF (again assuming a LBM of 139 is near the same). This would have put me just around ideal for the marathon distance as an amateur.

Fourthly and probably most importantly, my weight hasn't been the best predictor for my running speed. Over the years, my weight has changed quite a bit. But sometimes that's been because I focused on getting healthier or getting stronger in other areas than running. I'm not sure my weight at 155-157 pounds was sustainable for me. It seems like that based on the Daniels calculations that's where I should be, but I also didn't stay healthy for long in that weight range. And while I had some major PRs when I weighed 157 pounds, I also have since bested those PRs at 167 pounds for the M and 171 pounds for the HM. So I traded off some weight loss for strength gains. It leads me to believe that the scale doesn't always tell us the full picture. In the previous post, I weighed roughly 170 pounds in August 2015 and November 2019. To me, I look a lot more defined in the November 2019 picture. Additionally, I ran a 1:46 vs a 1:28 in those two races. Obviously there are tons of factors related to those race times, but something to look at minimally. I think that's where I want to be normally. Somewhere around 170-175 pounds while doing lifting multiple times per week. That'll put me in the area of 18% BF.

Ultimately, I run to be healthy, leave a good impression for G, have fun, and to continue to challenge myself (primarily by earning PRs).
 
Dense bones must have been a reassuring finding given your history of stress fracture.

I'm really surprised about the fat percentage! My eyeball guestimate based on your race photos is way under 25%. Does this mean the InBody machine at my gym has been feeding me vanity readings that are half the real value!? I'm with @avondale , no desire for any accurate testing now.:faint:
 
Dense bones must have been a reassuring finding given your history of stress fracture.

For sure. It just means if I fracture them, then I must really be training too hard. Makes me wonder what the values were in the past when I was having those issues.

I'm really surprised about the fat percentage! My eyeball guestimate based on your race photos is way under 25%. Does this mean the InBody machine at my gym has been feeding me vanity readings that are half the real value!? I'm with @avondale , no desire for any accurate testing now.:faint:

Certainly surprising. I guess I just carry it well. No reason to believe though that the values I got would give any possible predictions on you or anyone else.
 

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