kenj's group - closed with a great bunch of triathletes in training!!! (Page 10)

Good to have you with us!  Hopefully the winter illnesses will stay away from you and your family!!

As Lewis has said, and others in earlier posts, there will be plenty of people doing sprints on mtb!  My advice would be if the only reason you will be riding this summer is to complete the sprint, it obviously doesn't make sense to spend a lot on a bike.  Making the mtb as comfortable for road use with road tires is probably the best money spent, unless you have a friend or family member you can borrow a road bike from!  You will be better prepared for the run coming off a road/tri bike than a mtb!  But, those that race on mtb have just as big a smile on their face crossing the finish line as those with big $$$ bikes!  (Sometimes a bigger smile!)

My hope, and the reason I like mentoring, is that you will see the benefit of tri training for your health, weight and overall fitness and after (or even before) you get to your first race you will fall in love with the sport!  Then you can more than justify the expense of either a road bike or tri bike or both!  Because you will get up before everyone else in the house or stay up after everyone has gone to bed to get your workouts in because you want to, not because you have to! 

Good advice Doug on everyone getting to the pool!!!

As far as kicking goes, doing kick drills and kicking better will make you a better swimmer overall.  Tri specific swimming usually minimizes the kicking to save the legs some, plus you will find that in the open water with the wet suit on your legs will float more and you really don't need the kick to keep the legs out of the water.  But, I wouldn't shy away from improving your kick, or learning other strokes as well if you have the time in the pool.  The value of knowing other strokes and kicking well just adds to your comfort and balance in the water.

I wouldn't get overly worked up over bi-lateral breathing (breathing from both sides).  It is something you should work towards learning, but until you get to a point where swimming is not difficult and you have the endurance to get from the start to finish of your tri, this should not be a worry.  That said, those that bi-lateral breath well do so because they have good balance in the water and are very comfortable with their stroke.  Obviously something that would benefit us all, but even with good stroke basics, time in the water is big part of reaching this comfort level. 

I should do a better job of practicing what I preach and get a little purple in my graphs!

None of us do this for a living, and probably all of us have things that take priority from time to time.  Although I am a big proponant of scheduling time for yourself each day, sometimes life just gets in the way!  Come race day, if you have hit 80% of your workouts as scheduled, you won't have any worries about a couple of missed workouts! 

You are right Lewis, if missing several weeks of a training plan most people shouldn't just skip the weeks.  Especially since missing that much of a plan was probably caused by an injury. 

The only thing I would add, if you miss a workout and you have a rest day you could switch the rest day with the missed workout!  However, most plans would have the rest day before key workouts or long days.  So it would not be wise to put a hard workout into a rest day before a long run or bike. 

I have gotten the bulk of my run/bike knowledge from reading the forums here on BT, reading Triathlon, Running Times and Runners World magazines and their respective websites.  Some of the info in the forums have lead me to other resources and websites.  The trouble with all of this info is that it is generally opinion based by the writers.  Figuring out what is best for you can be confusing.  Nothing wrong with trying new things if you are careful and don't go to extremes.  For me, I try to keep all this stuff as simple as possible, but I do have a weakness when it comes to gadgets!

Another plug for the resources here on BT, look through the articles.  Some of them are written by members sharing thier experiences, others are by respected coachs, physicians and nutritionists. 

Good to see you back Geoff!  Too bad about being sick while traveling and visiting family!!!

Great challenge Lewis!!!! 

Have a great vacation!!!

I've read that 1% simulates outside flat ground.  But if you are doing 2, you are that much ahead of the game! 

I hadn't heard that about knees and treadmills Scott, I've been fortunate that I do a lot of my off season training on the treadmill and haven't had any problems. 

I certainly prefer the outside like most.  This time of year it is tough to get outside during the week.  Frustrating this week that I am in an area I should and have in the past gotten outside even before daylight, but there have been record rains and wind storms since I got here! Maybe it will clear up this weekend!!!