Category: Health
2025 Training Summary
Too cheap for Strava and its “Year in Review” (Although I do miss it). so used Claude to come up with my own. Exported CSV data from Intervals.icu and imported it for analysis.
Some of my favorite workout pics from 2025
CGM x Intervals.icu
Some interesting insights from overlaying Glucose levels (from Stelo) with exercise duration/intensity.
Generated by Claude.
Be a positive thinker and believer please …
An interesting study of older adults who have positive thinking are less prone to cognitive decline.
Repetitive negative thinking is associated with cognitive function decline in older adults: a cross-sectional study – BMC Psychiatry
Background Psychological problems such as depression and anxiety increase the risk of cognitive impairment in older adults. But mechanisms on the effect of psychological disorder on cognitive function is inconclusive. Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a core symptom of a number of common psychological disorders and may be a modifiable process shared by many psychological risk factors that contribute to the development of cognitive impairment. RNT may increase the risk of cognitive impairment. However, there are fewer studies related to RNT and cognitive function, and there is a lack of epidemiological studies to explore the relationship between RNT and cognitive function. Methods A cross-sectional study of 424 older adults aged 60 years or over was performed form May to November 2023 in hospital. To investigate the RNT level by using the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ), and investigate the cognitive function level by using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale (MoCA). Multivariable linear regression and subgroup analyses were used to explore the relationship between RNT and cognitive function. Results We categorized the total RNT scores into quartiles. The multivariable linear regression analysis showed that after adjusting for all covariates, the participants in the Q3 and Q4 groups exhibited lower cognition scores (Q3:β = -0.180, 95%CI -2.849~-0.860; Q4:β = -0.164, 95% -2.611~-0.666) compared to the Q1 group. The results of the subgroup analyses showed that individuals aged 60 ~ 79 years, junior high school and above are more prone to suffer from cognitive impairment with a high RNT score. Conclusion The study reveals a negative association between RNT and cognitive function in community-dwelling older adults. However, multi-center and a longer time span cohort studies on the relationship between RNT and cognitive function should be carried out to further explore the mechanisms involved.Color.com
Some interesting, and a few not so interesting or surprising insights from my DNA test from Color.com … SAP had a fairly large discount code offering employees to use the service.
| you are unlikely to experience the alcohol flush response | Blushing from alcohol flush response |
| you’re more likely to notice the smell of asparagus in your urine | What’s that smell? |
| you’re unlikely to taste certain bitter compounds. | The science of bitter taste |
| you’re somewhat likely to drink more caffeine than average | Your genes and your daily grind |
| you have a slightly higher chance of disliking cilantro | Beyond DNA |
| you’re likely to have wet earwax. | Earwax keeps our ears healthy. |
| you’re unlikely to be lactose intolerant. | Lactose intolerance, and other gut feelings |
Continuous Glucose Monitoring
I have been on the waiting list for Stelos early access program and was pleasantly surprised to see an email pop into my inbox suggesting I could order one 🙂
I spent roughly 3 months collecting data, doing workouts, monitoring my blood glucose levels, but like many of my data focused gadgets, it ended in with some unique insights about my health, but also nothing ground breaking or earth shattering. I did use it during a 70.3 Race, lots of tough training sessions and I was hoping to identify some weaknesses and low points which would correlate with low energy or fatigue but that did not seem to materialize.
Ultimately what I am learning is that the human body is extremely complicated, there are a handful of reasons why we feel the way we do which we can measure, but probably millions of others, which we can’t. It always seems to bring me back to the mantra of “Correlation does not equal causation”.
2024 Ironman Texas Training Review
It has been a great 16 weeks training for Ironman Texas coming up next week. One small injury (foot) from either running or pushing too hard off the wall while swimming. Some interesting stats through these training blocks:
Longest week: 18 hours
Max CTL: 116
Max TSS: 144
Cumulative Miles: 2161
3 week blocks, with 1 week rest. 2 week taper into the race.
Compared with past Ironman races, used the sauna during the last 3 weeks to get more heat adapted, and did a little more strength based workouts. (Not tracked in Intervals). I also focused more on Z2 efforts while running. The Oak Island Half Marathon got me running a lot more early season. Overall, I had some good PR’s during the last 4 months:
Cycling: FTP over time
Tracking cycling endurance training progress over time. As I have shifted my focus from MTB racing to Endurance/long distance triathlon, My sprint power has decreased slightly (5 minutes and 1 minute) but FTP (20 min+) has slowly been ticking upward. Since I have been swimming and running more, it probably has not increased as much as I hoped, but I am learning endurance is not something that gets established overnight ….
Is Hypoxanthine the future for monitoring endurance performance?
Super interesting article on the use of Hypoxanthine (from sweat) being used as a predictor of performance in athletes.
Having done HR tracking, Power and over the last couple of years, Lactate, it’s always interesting to hear of new methods and advancements in performance, and opportunities to improve metabolic health. So while I am still waiting for a reasonable/practical real-time Lactate monitoring solution, maybe I should skip to the next big thing …
Check it out here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23670363/
Abstract
Purine metabolism reflects the exercise-induced muscle adaptations and training status. This study evaluated the utility of plasma hypoxanthine in the prediction of actual sport performance. We studied male athletes: 28 triathletes (21.4±2.9 years), 12 long-distance runners (23.2±1.9 years), 13 middle-distance runners (22.9±1.8 years) and 18 sprinters (22.0±2.7 years). Season-best race times were considered, achieved over standard triathlon, 5 000 m, 1 500 m and 100 m, respectively. Incremental treadmill test was administered to determine maximum and “threshold” oxygen uptake. Resting and post-exercise plasma concentrations of hypoxanthine, xanthine, uric acid and lactate were measured as well as resting erythrocyte hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activity. Simple and multiple regression analyses were used to identify significant contributors to the variance in performance. Hypoxanthine considered alone explained more variance in triathletes, long-distance runners, middle-distance runners and sprinters (r 2=0.81, 0.81, 0.88 and 0.78, respectively) than models based on aerobic capacity and lactate (R 2=0.51, 0.37, 0.59 and 0.31, respectively). Combining purine metabolites and cardiorespiratory variables resulted in the best prediction (R 2=0.86, 0.93, 0.93 and 0.91; r=0.93, 0.96, 0.96 and 0.95, respectively). In summary, hypoxanthine is a strong predictor of performance in highly trained athletes and its prediction ability is very high regardless of sport specialization, spanning the continuum from speed-power to endurance disciplines.
Timeline of Pandemics
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