Baowolf's Winter training is FUN group..no really it is!! (OPEN) (Page 18)

Hi All,

Sorry for my absence.

Took it pretty easy last week in preparation for the relay.

Texas Independence Relay! 200 miles.. 12 team mates. I did about 19 miles over Sat and Sun. Not used to running that much.. really slacked on the long distance running since my half marathon in January.

My left knee didn't like it, at least.. so I'll be resting for the next few days to get this to recover. Have about 26 days until my first sprint tri. I'm sure I'll be fine.. just want to be able to train again!

How do relays work? Is it a timed thing, like overall or individual? Good job on getting out there and doing it at least! :-)

Kicked out another 20 mile ride today... feels like my is fighting a losing battle with my saddle. I guess I just need more time on the road...

Tomorrow is my swim and strength training.

Quick check-in on monthly totals. Slight, because of work on a rental. Am thrilled tho about losing 2 pounds - especially since March had birthdays and a cruise.

Run: 13h 59m - 69.82 Mi
Core Training: 4h 00m
Stair Running: 2h 05m
Stretching: 45m
Walking: 3h 30m
Yoga: 4h 05m
Weight Loss: Another 2 pounds!!!!!

Rebecca, hope you had fun at the relay! I did Ragnar Tennessee last year and loved it.

Been gone quite a bit this month so my numbers aren't great.

Bike: 341 miles
Run: 57.4 miles
Swim: 8.11 miles

Worst of all, I've GAINED weight this month while trying to lose. I'm 6' 4" and trying to get from 224 down to 195. Last November, I was down to 212 following the LCHF (low carb, high fat) diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association. This doesn't really fit with endurance sports (so I've been reading) so I slowly added some carbs back. The change has not been positive.

So, two questions for my diabetic friends out there: 1) what diet (general principles) do you follow during training for an Olympic tri or longer; and 2) how do you manage blood sugars during an event?

My ultimate goal is an IM but I'm focused on Olympic for the moment.

Thanks for any advice or experiences

Dan : welcome!

Rebecca : congrats on the relay, I hope your knee gets better for your tri / training.

My March totals:

Swim : 1600 yds / 55min
Bike : 91 miles / 5h50min
Run : 20 miles / 3h52min
Yoga/Strenght : 2h40min

Even including my March break week with no SBR and a few days of complete rest after the hospital "visit", I increased my numbers from last month and from March last year, so I'm happy about that.

BUT I do need to swim & bike more, and keep up with the nice running I've got going on. I need to run 3-4 times a week though, I only seem to manage 2-3 runs a week and I feel it's not enough. I'm still building base miles always running in zone 2 but I need to be ready for some speed work or intervals by May.
I'll be unable to swim for the next 3 weeks so I bought a set of swim stretch cords, to at least allow me to strenghten the "swim" muscles. My upper body is a lot weaker than my lower body and I want to work on that, even if it's not the same as swimming for real.

I want to go ride oustide!!!! We are still in the 20-30's and lots of snow and ice on the roads still...

March numbers:

Swim: 18h 10m - 40200 Yd
Bike: 38h 50m 38s - 670.67 Mi
Run: 24h 49m 10s - 154.9 M
Weight Loss 5 pounds (down to 155).

Top of the right knee bothering me, sigh. I will have to research how to fix that, it must be a muscle balance thing. It is going to totally screw with my IM training though and I am only 6 weeks ish out. Hopefully I can get in enough workouts to just maintain what I have until race day without irritating it further too much.

March Numbers!

Swim: 40m - 1376.49 Yd
Bike: 40m - 12.9 Mi
Run: 24h 42m 03s - 159.02 Mi
Basketball: 5h 30m
Rock Climbing: 2h 30m
Soccer: 6h 00m

It looks like work will be sending me to China this month, which is really a bummer because it will cause me to miss my marathon .

In other news, I'm planning on switching from a run focus (for the marathon), back to a tri-workout. Since all I have to do is maintain my current run ability and I will be set for the marathon (if I can make it back in time).

March numbers

Swim: 6.1 miles
Bike: 65.3 miles
Run: 40.9 miles
Strength: 2 hours

Seemed to have caused a bit of an issue with my ACL though... It's painful! :-( Focusing on non-impact activities for the time being, swimming and strength.

Fellow Trainees

Survived Pre-Hell month !!!
This insane training caused alot of changes physically and mentally . I developed chronic insomnia and anxiety and am currently on meds now just to keep up otherwise i wont be able to recover and keep up with the workouts. April will be a month of century rides and half marathons it would be fun if they are all flat but hill after hills is just complete torture!!


March Report
Swim: 9h 23m 37s - 23308.98 Yd
Bike: 30h 40m 10s - 525.45 Mi
Run: 14h 19m 10s - 85.23 Mi

Weight Loss 7 pounds

So it begins!! I hope i dont get sick, please pray for me

Good Job to all that raced and Good luck to every ones goal.

Cheers

Carlo

Edited by strykergt 2015-04-01 1:54 PM

This relay was 200 miles.. had about 40 legs. Between each leg was an exchange point. So you assign leg #s to your teammates. Everyone runs their leg and hands off the baton.. or rather in this case.. the slap bracelet to the next person. Judged on time. . and they give awards based on how well your team does and when the team finishes. There aren't really age group awards.. it's more like.. 'all female team' 'all male team' 'all female master team' etc etc. I run with Team RWB so we were placed in the military bracket. Needless to say.. we lost.. but.. it was a good time.

March numbers:

Swim: 8h 45m 17s - 19500 Yd
Bike: 14h 52m 41s - 189.62 Mi
Run: 9h 28m 41s - 56.04 Mi

Jimmy: sorry to hear about the bad timing and missing the race. What part of China are you going to?

My workouts were going great until last Wed. We had the Travel Channel / Hotel Impossible show in town last week and I somehow became the town's coordinator of over 2,000 volunteer hours spread over 72 hours. All in my 'spare' time. I didn't workout once in 5 days and slept only 7 hours in 3 nights Wed(4hrs)/Thur(3hrs)/Fri(0hrs). I could barely move Sunday, but loosened things up by the end of the day. It was an incredible experience and a joy bringing the whole community together to pull off the impossible. This week is a recovery week and I'm doing a bit more than scheduled to make up for the loss, but I'm keeping it all low intensity.

Good month for me. March totals...

SWIM: 13h 03m 36s - 47408.53 Yds
BIKE: 35h 03m 10s - 678.80 Mi
RUN: 17h 15m 51s - 115.03 Mi
STRENGTH: 6h
WEIGHT: -6 lbs

Steve - My knee experience. I use to get the same above the knee pain when I was building on the bike. (I see you recently had a 16hr week on the bike...nice). I ride pretty forward and my knees were some 100mm over my feet, right at the upper recommendation limit. After moving the seat back 1.5cm it got better as this will move some of the stress off the quads/knee and towards the posterior chain while riding. I would take a guess via internet and say it's the quad tendon, same as mine was. After the saddle move it took about a week to be pain free. Legs both the same length? Saddle not too low? Either way and I am sure you know this already but I am going to say it anyways...don't stress it anymore than you have too!!!

Team RWB...nice. I am going to have to look for a chapter near my parents when I am back in the states.

China...Work always try to get in the way. I'd wash my passport so I could race. Haha

Weight loss for the month WITH a cruise in there. How did you pull that one off? Nice job!

Todd - Sounds like a lot of moving parts to coordinate. Better you than me.

Everyone else...is it spring yet?

WOW - scubabrad those are some good distances there man! Really makes me realize how far I've got to go with swimming.

I am having great difficulty with my swim, people - I need some help. I've stopped coaching as it was getting a little pricey, so have to go this alone from now on. My biggest problem now is endurance. I'm focusing every time on form, correct catch and pull, etc and I'm trying not to over exert myself but I still have extreme difficulty doing anything more than 100yds in one go (and even that is a stretch for me).

I find I work best when I have specific cast-iron goals, broken down. So this morning I tried to work on a kind of pyramid plan, 50yds, 30 sec rest, 100yds, 20 sec rest, 150yds, 10 sec rest and then back down - 100yds, 50yds. I managed to do 50x100x50 before I felt like I was drowning and my form was so bad it was probably detrimental to what I was trying to accomplish anyway. I swim 6 times a week for 30 minutes a time, so to fill in the rest of the time I'll have fins on and focus on form and catch, slowly. I'm getting a little disheartened and not sure how I'm going to fair on my first tri in 5 months.

Does anyone have any advice for how I can increase duration and length? Any particular exercises or plans that might benefit me in this situation?

Hey David! No getting discouraged! If it was easy everyone would be doing it, right? As Steve says, we shouldn't compare what we do with others. Everyone has different schedules and backgrounds. All I do is workout, eat, recover, sleep, repeat. Plus I come from a competitive swimming background growing up were 80,000yd weeks were common so I had a base to draw from.

Since you asked about swimming, 5 months is plenty of time at 6x a week. I would personally ditch the fins. They are going to throw your timing of stroke, breath, kick off. If it were me I would do something like:

200 Free EASY Warmup
Main Set 1: 12 x 25 w/ :20 rest interval (RI) holding your best average for all. So if you come in at :45 then you try to make them all :45 and take :20 rest. If the next one you come in at :50 you would then take another :20 rest after that.
Main Set 2: 8 x 50 w/ :20RI holding your best average. First 4 will be free (no toys)/last 4 would be with a pull buoy.
Main Set 3: 10 x 25 w/ :30RI holding best average. Once again 5 no toys/last 5 with pull buoy.
Main Set 4: 6 x 75 as 25 back/25 breast/25 free all with :20RI
Main Set 5: 4 x 50 on 4:00 Go as fast as you can on each one then enjoy the rest.
Main Set 6: 25 w/ :15RI right into 50 w/ :20RI right into 75 w/ :25RI right into 100. All at about tempo pace (85%)
Cool down 100 however you like.

Record your times for the best averages and fast ones. When these Main Sets (MS) roll around again you either 1) try to get better times on same rest or 2) lower rest interval and get same times (or better). After ~4 weeks we would find your CSS pace (fancy way of saying threshold thanks to SwimSwam.com) and go from there.

As you get stronger then I would increase your yardage per MS to fit your schedule. And you will get stronger. Your putting in the time.

As for technique best I can advise is go on SwimSwam.com and look at their videos and try to emulate. It's really hard to try and replicate though. For example you might think your hips are up but in actuality they are not. You might think you are not crossing over your centerline but you do. If you can find a good coach that you can have one session with were you just look at your technique and pick one or maybe two things to work on then that might be beneficial to you. No one needs to be given 8 things to fix all at once. Sensory overload. I totally understand the expense thing as well and yes, it does become expensive.

Just my .02 on how I might get started if I were starting tomorrow. Go just long enough form is starting to break and take just enough rest to get form back for the next interval. No getting discouraged though. Some speed and endurance will come. Technique will be a little harder to master solo but not impossible to master solo.

Good luck and I am sure others will have some good advice as well. Hang in there. You will be ready come race day.

Brad

Brad...

You rock, sir. That was exactly the kind of information and pick me up I have come to rely on from this amazingly crafted group of people :-)

I will hit the pool with a renewed vigor tomorrow morning and push myself to stick it out following the plan you put up. I will do my best and put up a post tomorrow to let you know how it went (accountability).

Thanks again!
David

I've just been roped into a 10 mile trail run before work tomorrow, so the swimming will be back on Saturday morning!

Dennis... I had the same issue early on in my running. There were two things that sorted it for me:

1. Body Glide
http://www.bodyglide.com/products/original/
I now use this stuff for each discipline and haven't had any chaffing or rubbing issues at all.

2. Tech T-shirts. It turns out that the T-shirts that were making mine bleed when I started to run were just normal sport t shirts and not sweat-wicking tech t-shirts.

Spend out on a good tech t shirt and some anti-chaffing glide... If you have done this already and still have the problems, then I'd refer to Andy from The Office and put some band aids over them!

Definitely agree with tech shirt that whicks and I do use a bit of body glide for runs longer than 10 miles. For the sensitive folks bandaids will work the little circle ones for long runs, especially marathons etc. Alternatively, tight tops like triathlon tops don't move as much and it can be another way to go as there is less rubbing. Cold weather can make one perky so be extra aware of temps 8).

Definitely agree with all of the advice regarding chafing. Body glide, Vaseline, and I've even heard that deodorant works in a pinch. And tighter clothes. It's very important to "test run" any clothes to find hot areas, seam issues, or tag problems. And also race strategy dictates areas that will chafe. In my last mary, I stayed with a friend who was doing run/walking. I don't have problems with thigh chafing when I run but with the slower pace and the walking, I was hurting. Thankfully the mid point aid station had Vaseline and I thanked every one of those people for providing it. (The man behind me couldn't understand why I was so happy until he saw me applying. He then grabbed a big old handful and begin smearing on himself too.)

Happy Easter All! We went to sunrise service and will now drive to my mother's for her service.

'Recovery' week complete. Let the fun begin again.

I will be headed to Wuxi, in the Jiangsu province.

I have been trying to change my work schedule so that I am able to get to the flying pig marathon, mostly to support my sister-in-law. She's attempted this marathon in the past and was not able to finish it. I told her that I would run it as well, so here's the best that I have been able to come up with.

I might be able to change my work schedule so that I get back from china the night before the race (probably late the night before). I definitely wouldn't be able to run it for time, but I might be able to run it with her. She will be doing a run/walk that I would normally consider to be a very easy thing at such a slow pace.

I don't mind having to drop out of the race if the jet lag catches up to me too much, but I would really like to finish it. What are your thoughts on this? I really don't want to risk injury too much since I am training for other races as well, but I am not sure how much more likely I would be for injury.



Keep up the good work David! I am not good at swimming, so I can relate .

Thanks Jimmy! I also don't see it being much of an issue in walking/slow running for the marathon but it's dependent on how you feel. Listen to your body - it will let you know if it's not a good idea.

Regarding the swimming - I printed out the workout and got 400yds in, but that's good for me! I managed the "12x25", then 2 of the suggested "8x50". This has helped a great deal, so I will keep pushing until I can get through the entire workout, then work on bettering my times! Thanks again Brad!

ACL seems fine again now, so brick session today... 20 mile ride + 3 mile run.

Well, I've been working on stamina lately and have the distances in swimming and cycling just fine. No idea how the times are but I suspect slow. Yesterday was 55mins for 2,000m (swim) and 2 hours for 26.6 miles (bike). What should I be aiming for to get middle of the 56-60 AG?

And what's the mid-AG for the 6 mile run?

Thanks

David - great job on the swimming. I want to clarify that each Main Set (MS) is for a different day. So the 12 x 25 is one session's main set. 8 x 50 would be the next session's main set and so forth. So a day would have a Warm Up (WU) followed by ONE of the MS, and then the cool down (CD). Glad you got in some pool time. Also glad the ACL seems to be better. Definitely watch that one.

Brad