konichiwa's mentor group - Are we having fun yet? - FULL

Welcome!

Roll call.  Please let us know where you are from as well as a little bit about yourself and why you are doing tris.

e.g.

Home: King of Prussia, PA (just outside Philadelphia)

Me: Look up at the first post for more details or ask me a question.

Why I tri: I love the competition.  I have a close group of friends, although geographically dispursed, who all tri.  I love the training.

Just so you all know, my fiance, gymnutt03, is going to be helping me out with the group too.  I'll get her to introduce herself shortly.

I'll be away for a portion of the weekend, but I'll be checking in on Sunday evening at the latest.

Train smart, train hard.

-Tim

Hey Tim!  Thanks for starting up this group!!!

My name is Keri, I will be 40 on 5/20.  I live in Houston Texas, married to Ken and Mama of 5 kids, my boys are 14 & 16, girls are almost 7, 5 and 2.  I homeschool the girls and have a web based embroidery business.

STORY:  Ummmm I don't really have one.  I didn't play sports until high school and wasn't any good at them though I always enjoyed exercise/fitness.  I became a NASM certified personal trainer in 1997 and trained for 6 years until it was too hard to train with one in the sling and one in the belly   I joined a run club in February in an effort to shed some left over baby fluff.  In March one of the gals in my run club mentioned a super sprint tri and the bug was planted.  I swam my first lap mid March and barely made it 25 yards.  Last Sunday I did my first SSTri on Mother's Day with my whole family cheering me on!  It was 200 yards, 8 mile bike, 2 mile run - A nice way to start. 

CURRENT TRAINING:  This is where I really need help.  I swim, bike, run and lift but I don't use a particular plan other than trying not to drown, trying not to fall and trying to go faster.  I should probably develop some kind of plan.

RACES:  May 30 - Race for the Pennant 5K, June 28 Y-Freedom Tri pool swim 300/12/3, August 9 Bridgeland 300/14/3.28, MAYBE September 6 Summertime Blues Tri 500/15/3 and Try Andy's Tri 300/10/3.  As you can see they are all sprints.  I'd like to see how these go before thinking of an Oly.

WEIGHTLOSS - 5-7 pounds would be good - I am going on a cruise in July and would like to look HOT

Is that everything?  If not feel free to ask, I am an open book.

Hey Keri, nice to meet you!  I think I can help you get some sort of plan together.  I am leaving tomorrow for the wknd, but we'll catch up early next week.

-Tim

Hi Tim

This is Tim. and I was wondering if you accept duathletes as well.  The pool I was swimming at is closed until August and have just finished my first duathlon today.  I will do duathlons for the rest of this year while starting to swim as soon as I can.

I am 36yo, married, have one daughter and am going to school to be a Neuromuscular Massage Therapist.  I usually train between 4 and 7 hours a week depending on the amount of tests I have in a particular week. 

I have not logged my workouts for a long time and will start tomorrow after I get the time from the race today.

Tim, bummer about the pool but we'll be glad to have you in the group.  Looking fwd to checking out your workouts.  Where you located?

-Tim

Thanks for having me in your group.  I live in Cincinnati Ohio.

Bryan, welcome to the group!  Congrats on the weight loss.  That is most impressive!!  Not sure how much running you've been doing recently (I haven't looked at your logs yet), but be careful about jumping too fast into the running if you haven't been running a lot lately. 

-Tim

My Monday wasn't too bad.  It's always a bit better when you have plans for the upcoming wknd.  My fiance and I are meeting another couple in Gettysburg, PA for sort of a mini training camp weekend.  From Sat-Mon I hope to get in two rides, two runs and possible one swim. 

I'm not on FB.  I think I am one of the last holdouts in the world.  I'll prob get there sooner or later as I work in technology and we have clients who reference it...I should get on to get a firsthand understanding of it.  That and Twitter.  I'll likely join twitter first.

Regards to running faster, I think running groups are awesome.  They get you out there and they keep you motivated.  I'm not sure how much running experience you have, but if you are relatively new, I would shoot for consistency.  For example, maybe you run 4x/week and have been averaging 15mpw (mile per week).  You may do something like;

week1: 15mi

week2: 16.5mi

Week3: 18mi

Week4: 10mi (cutback)

Two key points;  Follow the 10% rule (or close to it).  10% rules states you should only increase you weekly mileage by 10% per week.  Same goes for for you longest run.  Second, I always like giving myself a cutback week every so often.  It gets tricky as training, and training plans, are just as much art as they are science. 

keri -

Joey had great advice about running....slow down a bit and focus on running a bit longer.  Slowly build up that endurance.  The name "sprint" triathlon is kinda misleading...even though its shorter than other tris its still a 1-2hr adventure depending on one's ability.  These is a far cry from a 200M running sprints you see at the Olympics.

Since you were able to run 5k in your last sprint, I think you should have no issues running 10k later this year.  Just slowly increase your long run each week....even if its 0.5mi / wk, you'll get there is plenty of time.

Hi all!

As Tim mentioned, I'll be helping out with his mentor forum. There isn't much that Tim and I do apart
The following is a little bit about me:

NAME: gymnutt03 / Laura (27 years old; race age = 28)

STORY: Athletics have always been a big part of my life. From the time I was old enough to play organized sports, my parents had me signed up and trying everything under the sun. We always had the option to pass the following year if we didn't enjoy it, but I mostly played whatever I could. Stuck with tennis, basketball, and softball through high school and played tennis my freshman year of college (before finding out that I preferred drinking to traveling to away matches). Watching the freshman 15, then 20 creep on, I decided to pick up running my senior year of college. I dropped 40-50 pounds in under 1 year. I stuck with running until 2005, when my boss propositioned me into signing up for a tri that he was doing. The rest is history. I've competed at all distances and find myself most competitive at the Half-Ironman distance and most enjoying longer races. As Tim mentioned, we met through the sport, and he is also my coach. I'm a bit stubborn and sometimes choose quantity over quality, but he is helping me learn that it's not the hours you put in, but what you put in to those hours.

FAMILY STATUS: Engaged to konichiwa: our wedding is Labor Day weekend!

CURRENT TRAINING: I train how Tim tells me to train As with his training plan, mine is built using a periodization approach. We are currently in our build phase, with weekly totals approaching 16 hours. Typically, my week contains the following:
3 swims (2500-3500 m each)
4 bikes (one shorter ride, two medium rides, and a long ride over the weekend)
4 runs (one recovery run, two medium runs with one being speedwork, and a long run over the weekend)

THIS YEAR'S RACES: I ran the Broad Street Run (10 miler) in 1:20:40

2009 RACES:  May - Black Bear sprint (PA), June - Philadelphia Olympic Tri (PA),  July - Musselman Half, August - Wilkes Barre tri (PA), Patriot's tri (PA)

WEIGHTLOSS: I wish!

WHAT WILL MAKE ME A GOOD MENTOR: I have loads of experience in how to not train! Before seriously getting into the sport of tris, I was set on running every day and never taking a rest day or recovery week. This led to some terrible knee problems from overuse injuries. I'm learning how to train smarter and listen to my body. Additionally, I've been a competitive age grouper for the past 4 years. Although I may not do as much research as Tim, I feel as if I've learned alot through trial and error and have a lot of advice to share.

Just give us a little bio and you are in!  Welcome!