TexasMPGal's Motivated Mentor Group (CLOSED- TRAINING IN PROGRESS!) (Page 10)

ebshot - 2009-01-22 11:13 AM

gator22 - 2009-01-22 11:30 AM I agree, but I hope that your young. When I hit 30 it seemed to get harder all the time

Gee thanks.  I just turned 30 in December.  I sure do feel encouraged now!

Take 2 on my long run.  I'm locked and loaded, ready to go!

Erica, they say women peek phsyically between the ages of 27-35/37 so we get a nice long time in there to get better.

And sure, the older you get, the harder it might be/the longer it might take to see the improvement,  but the improvement can and will come if you're committed to it.  It's like racing a distance you've never raced before, it's a personal best regardless of the outcome.  The healthier your lifestyle gets, the further from the couch we get, and we're better off than when we initially started!

BTW- I have decided I'm never turning 30, just going to celebrate the anniversary of my 29th b'day over and over and over again.

Ha!  Brittany, I agree with you.   I'll be 29 for the fourth time 6th time come May!

Bring it on!!!

Wow, Kirk, you really know how to make a girl feel special!   Thanks!

Okay troops, I did my 10 mile run yesterday.  It actually ended up being 11 miles.  I didn't plan my route very well!  Oops!  I was pleased with my time (2:01) and very happy to be finished!

On to my question.....how do you know how many calories to take in during a long run/ride.  I took 3 GU's and felt okay but still didn't feel great.  I also tend to be a salty sweater.   Yuck.  So should I be taking in salt too?  Way too confusing for me.  I have heard about sweat tests but don't really know what it is.  Anyone have any advice or recommendations for me? 

This is a really good question, and requires a good answer.  Let me do a little research and I will get back to you on some of my thoughts--but anyone else, PLEASE feel free to jump in as well!

Hi Guys!

I had to take some time to get my life straightened out (or made a bit less crooked) but would still like hang out in Ms. Brittany's awesome group. Thanks to you guys that checked on me. I'm so glad to be able to focus on training and have some folks holding me accountable.

Since I was feeling angst about the slow start to my 2009 season training, I went back to look at my 2008 logs. I feel better now.  One of my bike rides this time last year was a 12 mile 2 hour ride. (hahaha) I did that on the trainer yesterday in 50 minutes and was doing drills and drinking coffee.  My long swims were 800-1000m and I knocked out 2000m yesterday in less than an hour. The contrast between this year and last year gave me some perspective.  Even taking some time off, I'm starting where it took me 5 months of training last year to get to. YeeeeHaaawww

As to the age thing....I'm going to be 46 in a couple weeks. Just think, I'm just 4 more years from going up another AG...That's a good thing! 45-49 AG is tough. Maybe 50-54 will narrow the ranks a bit! You gotta look at the bright side. 

Les

I officially went 5 days without training!    My first sprint is coming up in 6 weeks, so I will have to find time to bust my butt.  I feel confident I could FINISH a race now, but it might take 2 hours.

-Wes

TEAM,

I'm sorry I've been absent. My Mom came in for a weekend visit for her birthday and the last time before they move north to Buffalo, NY.  So, I spent some good quality time with her.  Erica- I have NOT forgotten your question...we'll have some nutrition/fueling during workout posts this week, I promise!

Les, glad to have you back!

Buffalo is only an hour away from me, but we are better than they are in Rochester! I have a group question. I am giving blood today for the first time in like ten years. I am supposed to run and swim early tommorrow. Any experience good or bad as to how that might effect me???

I also gave blood in college (it was "highly encouraged" which in militaryese means you better do it if you can) and we would go after practice (let me tell you, after pitching softball practice, giving blood was easy cause the blood was flowing FAST in that right arm!)...then we'd still have practice the next day and it was never much of an issue.  But like Kedra said--hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and get some good sugars back into your blood--things like fruits help with this, and eat something prior to your workout.  I also wouldn't push it ridiculously hard either, and if you do feel dizzy...feel free to go ahead and stop!

FUELING DURING WORKOUTS

Okay, I've been doing some looking and reading and there is SO MUCH on this topic.  I have a book I really like called Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes.  It covers SO much but is written for the normal person to read, so if you want LOTS of great info for each sport individually and triathlon as a whole, check the book out. 

From the book, pg. 211

"Anytime your schedule or personal food tolerances preclude adequate food intake prior to training, think about what you can consume while exercising.  Sports drinks, bars, and gels provide glucose for your exercising muscles and can offset muscle glycogen losses that occur later during exercise.  Proper refueling during exercise prevents your body from entering a greatly depleted stated and will ultimately speed your recovery.  Try to consume 30 to 75 grams of carbohydrates or .5 gram of carbohydrates per pound of boyd weight per hour for workouts lasting longer than 75 minutes or during high-intensity interval sessions.  If you decide to consume only water during very low intensity workouts, keep in mind that muscle glycogen and blood glucose stores will eventually drop to low levels as training time progresses.  Keep in mind your training goals for that day and that week. Consuming carbohydrates during training sessions is especially important if another training session will quickly follow with limited recovery time in between.  If your training schedule is not as demanding, then you may have more recovery time.  But consecutive training sessions are not uncommon for multisport training.  Hydration is important during any workout and during any part of your training cycle, and sports drinks provide the right balance of carbohydrates and fluid, as well as electrolytes, to stave off the depletion that can occur during heavy training."

Sweat rate, especially for heavy sweaters, is important because it can help guide how much you need to consume during workouts.  To do a sweat test, follow these steps:

1. check your weight before and after training.  This should be done in the nude, and after training be sure to use a towel to wipe of excess sweat so you get an accurate weight. Also, use the bathroom before the weigh-in pre-workout and after the weigh-in post workout or be ready to figure out how much urine you passed. Calculate your weight loss by subtracting the two weights.  This is the first step, but not last.

2. Keep track of the amount of fluid you conusmed during training.  15oz of fluid weigh approx 1lb. 

3. Sweat rate = (body weight pre-training - body weight post-training + fluid ingestion - urine volume) divided by exercise time

This will tell you how much you are sweating and give you an idea of how much you need to take in while exercising.

Thus, one of the things many of the articles say is that if you are a heavy sweater, then you need to take in more fluids.  Sports drink is a good help, but at the same time, you don't want to overdue the calories.  Different sources say that, depending upon body size, one can consume 250-400 calories per hour and actually have it available.  For smaller folks (like you Erica), you'll be on the lesser side of this.  This could be a lot of sports drink, or you could balance it with gels as well. 

While I am no expert, I have found that I like to have sports drink (GU2O for me) and NUUN (5 cals per serving but with electrolytes) and gels for my long runs.  For my long rides, I use water and customized INFINIT.  In tri's (especially olympic and longer) it's important to try and take in the right amount of calories during the bike because your body can more easily digest them than when running.  You want to make sure you are not depleted when you start the run. 

This is just a snap shot, and I hope it helps some...please ask more and I'll see what I can add. I do highly encourage everyone to experiment with what works for you while training.  Some people love the gels, others the chewy blocks or jelly beans, and some just fluid.  Others, in the Half-Iron and IM distances like some solid food in there like cliff bars or power bars.  But you don't know until you try it out.  Some sports drinks work better on the belly than others for each individual. 

One important thing though, especially for those of you trying to lose weight, don't do it at the cost of cutting calories during the workout or during recovery.  Eat the proper stuff, if not your body will tend to hang onto what it can so it can fuel you.  Eating properly actually encourages proper calorie burning!

^^^^^^^^^^Good stuff.  Thanks Brittany!  I'll have to work on that sweat test soon. 

Okay, I was checking logs and Wes was rocking out to some music on the trainer.  So, the question must be asked.....what's on everyone's playlist???

I listen to a wide variety depending on what I'm doing or what mood I'm in -- but usually I end up listening to the likes of Skillet, Third Day, TobyMac (Christian genre).  It may be corny, but I still find myself putting on the Rocky soundtrack sometimes... lol.

I stretch to slower stuff with a rock edge, like Evanescence.

I have also been using some running podcasts that feature more techno type music.  This is more background noice with a beat to follow than anything.

On giving blood - In college, blood drives always seemed to line up perfectly on the day I was supposed to pitch and the coach never would allow that.  I have given blood 5 times in my life and passed out twice a few mins afterwards.  I don't have a problem with the needles or anything, and I felt perfectly fine when getting out of the chair, but yet I have found myself lying on the floor with people around me and the last thing I remembered was sitting and drinking juice.   

HEY, we have similiar playlists.  I think TobyMac is my favorite, but I must admit I also have the "Veggie Rocks" CD on it and enjoy the Veggie Tales tunes rocking by popular bands like Kutless and Reliant K.  I also like Zoe Girl and some Rebecca St. James.

This past week on my long run (15 miles) my ipod died at 1.5 miles in...UGH.  Thankfully, I don't rely on it, and don't race with it, so I was fine without it, but it is a nice distraction and means I don't have to entertain myself.

Sorry the blood giving and working out didn't go so well...

Hi everybody!

I was listening to XM last night on the trainer. My teenage son came in and asked me why I had the music turned up so loud. I like to really rock pretty hard when I'm running or on the trainer. It was on XM Octaine:they play bands like metalica, slipknot, disturbed, rage against the machine... on my ipod: radiohead, wolfmother, queens of the stone age. white stripes (I grew up in the punk scene in San Francisco and still like "energetic" music.)

I also like Indie soup runner podcasts on itunes. Cadence revolution has some good techno stuff that they put together specifically for bike trainer rides or spin classes. Both of those are free podcasts that you can subscribe to. There are a few more but those are the two I like the best.

I'm about to get really busy with county stock show Thurs/Friday and Sat. My son shows pigs. I'll post some pictures so that those unfamilliar with this rural phenomenon can observe! It's pretty fun.  He'll be showing at the San Antonio Stock Show mid February too.

Wow!  I couldn't even open the doors of our vehicles this morning because they were iced shut.  I had to get a pry bar!  This is not supposed to happen in Texas

Sad thing is I've cleaned up my garage and the car could have easily been inside!  Oh well, just a rant from being spoiled by the nice weather a few days ago.

 -Wes

Gee Wes, I'm so sorry to hear about your ice problems.  We haven't had any winter weather this year!  

We got a few more inches of snow before it turned to rain today.  I bet it will be ice by tomorrow morning.  Yuck!  Again, I say, I am ready for spring!

Fair enough!  But I can still complain about it   At least it is sunny outside, that's nice. 

Not denying it!