James G Group - CLOSED

Well what a great start to the group, I am not going to go into too much detail until we get a full group togther I reckon 6-7 shoudl be a good number. Let me say I joined a group thsi time last year when I was starting out and I made some very good friends and learnt a lot. Some thoughts.

Molly - Welcome Like me you come from a running background, in my opinion that is best, it is easy to learn to swim up to a good triathlon standard and cycling is time on the bike. Running in my opinion is the hardest to pick up. Well 1.47 is a smoking time great job. It is great you are getting so much training in and have such great goals managing a professional career and young children. It is tough 8-)

Tom - Welcome, we have a lot of similarities 6'3 215lbs, I wont lie to start with it is tough to loose the weight but after the first 8-12 weeks it gets easier I am at the stage now where I struggle to keep it on. I have some very good tips to help you. Your running and biking will improve vastly with the weight loss, it is free speed 8-) 6 hours 30 is a good goal. Let's touch more on this later.

Aarron - In December 2006 my swim pace translated to a 30 min+ sprint swim time my Half IM in Sep 2007 I swum the 1.2miles in 32 minutes. No secret to swimming lot of hard work and coaching sounds like you are on the right track. It will improve. As part of the regular topics I will look to touch on one of the first will be swimming as this is where most new people struggle in the sport. Great to see you are also in CT I live in fairfield county and train and race with TrifFitness, saw you plan to race Bridgeport tough race I Did it in 2007 and had my worst performance of the year 8-)

Ok Folks once we have a full group will post some more, enjoy your weekend. 

Charlie - great to have you on board and sounds like you really have the running and riding bug. I love to ride and run it relaxes me hugely.

Swimming as mentioned is usually the key limiter for people. We will touch on this sounds like you are on track though. Winter is a great time for addressing swimming limiters, that is what I am working on at the moment.

Two more people and then I will close the group. These are my thoughts on how it should be run. Please feel free to add comments, as it is your forum. Weekly I would like to post a fairly detailed analysis of a particular discipline or issue i.e some thoughts as follows.

1/ Training and following a program and periodization.

2/ Nutrition Weight Loss.

3/ Swimming Technique

4/ Biking Technique

5/ Running Technique.

6/ Rest and Recovery.

7/ Setting Goals.

8/ Race Strategy.

9/ Addressing limiters.

10/ Race Selection.

11/ Race Nutrition. 

12/ Heart Rate Training and Pacing.

13/ Weight and Strength Training

And Lots more. 

I also know some very cool people on this site including my own mentor. I will get some people into to make some guest appearances and talk to their specialty.

Also Once a week say on a Friday I thought it would be great to conduct a pop quizz to get to know each other. i.e. How many bikes do you have and why did you purchase it etc.... 

Please feel free to ask questions as they arise.

 JG

I'd like to join too!

Name: Kristen

Age: 35

Married, 2 kids ages 11 and 8

Story: I was kind of in a rut and needed to find an activity that would inspire me to push myself to do new things, so I chose triathlons. When I began, I was in the middle of moving my family from Rhode Island where I was born and grew up to Texas for my husband's job. I wanted to be able to have something to focus on that I could start in RI and continue in TX. I started training January 1 of this year and managed to complete 4 sprints and lose about 13 lbs. Most recently I was part of TriOKs mentor group and they truly inspired and motivated me.

Current training: I am not following any specific schedule right now. I will start training in earnest again in January where I will focus on my running since I'm pretty slow right now. I plan on doing 2-3 sprints, 2 olys and a 1/2 mary this season.

Weightloss: I'm back to Weight Watchers and following their Core Plan  since October and I'm finally starting to see some consistant progress. My goal is to be 135lbs or less by my next birthday which is in June. I'm currently 153.

 I have loved getting to know other BTers through TriOKs group and I'm looking forward to meeting some new triathletes and getting new ideas in this group.

Hey Molly - See attached a very cool link to a triathlon calculator. I love this thing. Very good for time planning http://www.bx3.com/phil/tri/tritime2.asp

This is what I do I look at the previous years results for the race, just type the race name and the year in google and ask for results. That will tell you a lot on whether it is a slow swim course or a long swim course by looking at the results for your AG. 2min/100 Yds would give you a time of 17.30minutes this is probably going to put you approx middle of the pack in Swim for your AG.

Don't get too hung up on times my experience is the distance is always off so stciking to a time goal can freak you out when you miss it. This happened to me in my second Triathlon. I was expecting to swim in under 15 minutes and ended up swimming 17 minutes as the course was 200 yds longer it killed the rest of my race!!!!

Kristen - welcome it is great you have been on a group before feel free to add some thoughts on what worked well there and what didn't I am a first time mentor so any help would be appreciated. Congrats on the weight loss sounds like you are on the right track. I am doing the Rhode Island 70.3 in Providence so expect me to pick your brain later as you were a local 8-)

Mitch - welcome aboard buddy, I know that feeling of waking up and realising you have put so much weight on. That is impressive the amount of weight you have lost. Your wife and son  must be soooo proud. That is great you are on a Bt beginner program that will stand you in good steed to start building to achieve your 2008 goals which by the way are very sensible. After losing that much weight you will need time to strengthen your muscles and tendons and let the fitness catch up.

OK Team if no one has any objections I would like to close the forum, if we get a straggler or two want to join maybe we can let them in. 

A little later today I will post some ground rules, I am not big on rules but in a forum of this nature I think it is important to establish some to ensure and efficent and effective group...

So we are a full group, congrats to all for joining up. Quick summary of who we are.

James G – From Connecticut 2^nd season main goal in 2008 to Complete  IM and not just go to finish.

Molly – From Las Vegas, running background whom is looking to complete 1^st Tri in 2008.

Tom – Not sure where from, goals to drop weight and do a triathlon in 2008.

Aaron – From Connecticut, goals to race lots of races in 2008 culminating in ½ IM.

Charlie – From Long Island, goals do first tri in 2008 and improve swimming and fitness.

Kristen – From Texas, 2^nd season of triathlons goals to lose weight and improve running.

Mitch – From Down South, goals to do first tri in 2008 and improve fitness.

Ok in terms of rules there are no rules outside those based on basic human courtesy. This is your forum so please raise questions and generate ideas and discussions as much as you want. No question is too silly to raise chances are if you are thinking it so is someone else. My role as I see it is as a facilitator and a knowledge base to assist you in questions. Please remember I am not a coach and what I say and advise 100 other triahletes may have a different opinion. I talk to my personal experience and what works for me and what I have read so please take everything you hear from me or for that matter on the BT site with a grain of salt. Listen, decide if it works for you use it if not ignore it.

Please don’t be too sensitive if I or anyone else questions something you are doing, this is where you learn the most, how do you know you are doing something wrong or could be doing something better until someone advises you. Yes absolutely we should be encouraging people and motivating each other and that is the primary purpose of the forum, but I find the 1 comment critiquing what I could have done better or differently are more constructive than the 10 comments along the lines of what a great job etc. If you are a person that only likes positive messages send me a Personal Message via the mail feature in your log and I will ensure any feedback I give is all positive. Likewise at times I may use extracts from your logs, goals etc as part of my weekly topic update if you aren’t comfortable with me critiquing these please advise the purpose of this wont be to point fingers at anyone it will be for learning opportunities.

1/ Add each other to your BT friends list.  This can be done by going to the control panel  -->  edit training settings --> friends.  Enter each person in the group and you will have instant access to their blogs.  That why you can check in and hopefully encourage each other on a regular basis. To inspire someone just go to their log and click on inspire and type in your message. If someone else has left you a message and you want to reply hit the blog button on there message it will take you to their blog with the initial message. Don’t hit reply as it will just reply in your own blog.

2/ Start logging your training time from tomorrow in your blog if you already don’t this will enable the group to see your training and leave inspires.

3/ Update your blogs with your goals for all to see. Go to Quick Links Square Box -> Click on Goals - > Update and don’t forget to hit the apply button at the bottom.

Oh and finally apologies for getting all heavy on the rules etc, but the purpose of this forum is to have fun as well as discuss training, talk about beer/wine, kids bad food days things like that it is your forum please enjoy it start firing away the questions. I will look to post first article on Friday or Monday latest I thought I would concentrate on training program as a topic.

Tom - Michigan huh, by any chance Wisconsin? I have a small date with 140.2miles Sep 2008 at Madison 8-)

I was originally going to write one article/topic a week, what about we do it a different way to get us started what about everyone today and tomorrow post the 1 thing they would like me and the group to cover off for discussion. I will then cover the 7 topics in not so much detail as I would the one weekly topic and we can all add our 2 cents in? So Tom yours would be selecting a bike right? I am sure someone else will raise swimming 8-)

Cheers

May I add that Open Water Swim (OWS) practice before your first race is invaluable. OWS is very different from pool swimming both physically (no line to follow, currents, waves), and psychologically (lots of other people, being in deep water).

 For me personally, swimming is my best discipline. I'm not fast, but I have good endurance. Even so, I totally panicked during my first race which surprised me. As I've done more OWS practice, that has gone away. If you read the message boards you'll see a lot of space devoted to this subject because so many triathletes struggle with swimming, more so than the biking and running.

Practice, practice, practice!!!

Hi All - Hope your training has gone well today?

Nothing for me so far today going home to put my kids to bed and then spend some time on the trainer.

Apologies for not posting anything today have been getting crushed all day at work. Will start drafting some replies tonight to your questions and post something tomorrow/Friday with any luck. Good to see there has been some questions/ideas about swimming and running today

I would encourage all of you to go into the rest of the groups logs and post some inspires. Hey it is nice to open your log and see some encouragement....

 I just moved away from there this summer. I was living in East Providence....probably about 40 minutes away from you.