Fred D and Queen Zipp's SWIM, BIKE RUN consistency thread.... CLOSED (Page 10)

Good questions, Gretchen!

A brick can be a swim to bike or a bike to run.  In general, its the bike to run.  One of the guys I swim with has done IMFL about 10 times.  He finishes his swim workout and takes a slow lap to jog  around the pool to get used to being upright like a transition run.   Any two triathlon disciplines worked in close proximity is a brick to me.  Others may not think this.....

Foot cramping when swimming can be caused by hydration (or lack thereof) and/ or body position.  When I have foot cramps my coach tells me that my head position is too low and the rotation to breathe is thus thrown off with my body position.  Do you have anyone with a good swim background to watch your swim?

I used to get lots of foot cramps when I was starting out swimming.  It was worse if I'd run or biked over to the pool before swimming.  My solution was to grab a pull buoy (the foam block you stick between your legs) and finish the workout without kicking. 

The cramps went away with increased swim fitness, in my case.  I bet I'll be getting them again though, since it's been a long time since I last swam.

I know the pull buoy is a no-no, but hey if it gets you through the set...  plus, it sort of simulates swimming with a wetsuit on, so it's not THAT bad to use, right?

I'm no expert, but from my POV, a brick can be a swim followed by a bike or a bike followed by a run.  As I get closer to my A races, I occasionally do a bike-run-bike-run workout, but it is pretty rare.  I do feel there is some benefit to doing those swim bike bricks  so you get your legs used to pedaling after being horizontal for so long.

I think some people get foot cramps from pointing their toes too hard.

I'm an Intercollegiate Athletics Administrator.  I do some guest lecturing and my dad is a prof.  Does that count?

You know the day is not going to go well when it takes 15 minutes to scrape ice off the car, you stop for gas and what should be a 5 minute stop is another 15 minutes cause the reader in the machine won't accept your PIN number.....and you get to the pool to find another IM set on the board.  I did my own thing......Found out my coach is leaving us at the end of the month.  Not sure if the gym will have someone take over the class or not.  Hard to find a real swim instructor.  Last time there was a vacancy they put a kid in who just put the workouts he was given on the board but had no clue what the workouts meant!  

Sure wish I was at the GRAP (aquatic center in Richmond), but my husband will never go for both an aquatic center and gym fee.....

You know the day is not going to go well when it takes 15 minutes to scrape ice off the car, you stop for gas and what should be a 5 minute stop is another 15 minutes cause the reader in the machine won't accept your PIN number.....and you get to the pool to find another IM set on the board.  I did my own thing......Found out my coach is leaving us at the end of the month.  Not sure if the gym will have someone take over the class or not.  Hard to find a real swim instructor.  Last time there was a vacancy they put a kid in who just put the workouts he was given on the board but had no clue what the workouts meant!  

Sure wish I was at the GRAP (aquatic center in Richmond), but my husband will never go for both an aquatic center and gym fee.....

I'm not a prof, but I do swim at a school pool.  The local Junior College is less than 5 miles away, and has a sweet outdoor 25y x 50m pool.  Technically I'm a college student I guess, as I register for a swimming class to get access to the pool.   It's listed in the course catalog as a 'stroke improvement' class, but it's essentially just open lap swim for the 1 1/2 hour of the class.  Cool thing though is the instructor is the head coach for the local 'fast' age group swim team (he had a previous swimmer in the olympics this summer, that was cool to watch) and he's happy to come over and give some tips when asked.  Pool opens up next week, I admit I'm actually a bit excited about it!

I'm jealous!  And not only of your 70F weather.  I would love to have Paul want to ride with me.  We used to until I picked up this crazy sport and now he has the notion that I would dust him or he would hold me back.  Neither is true.  Well, I could dust him , but I wouldn't. 

Fantastically beautiful weather here today!!  About 50F and sunny--it isn't 70, but at least is isn't 22 like it was this morning when I was supposed to run!

I got my long run of the week in at lunch--a slow 2.67 miles around the neighborhood. 

Hope you are all having great days!

I'm impatiently waiting for the dryer to finish so I can go for a run!  I'd forgotten how much laundry working out every day requires. 

I finally got a new battery for my heart rate monitor strap, so I'll start using that again.  My goal is to stay in z2 (for me, I'll try to keep it around 135bpm) all the time.  Is anyone else using heart rate for training pacing? 

Here is what my wife said to me the other day (she does all the laundry)...

"Let me get this straight...you are working out and creating three times the laundry for me AND you are going to be around longer to keep creating all this laundry as a result???  What's in this tri thing for me?"

My answer?  Something shiny.

She did get her revenge by putting ALL of our bath towels in the washer before heading out this morning, so after my lunchtime workout I got to use a hand towel to dry off!  Good times!

I am!  My z2 is in the 150s.  What method are you using to determine HRs?  

I had a nice easy half hour run today with some weights afterward.  Tough day as I stayed up late watching the football game and then was up early today.  Another early morning tomorrow as I head to Florida for work, but looking forward to logging some miles in warm weather.

I do HR training -- sort of--- I've learned when I most effective on my run and at what HR.   I use the HR Monitor that's part of my Garmin 305.

I'm still figiting with how to determine best my zones, particularly on the bike.

Thank you Suzy, I wanted to respond to that and didn't have a chance to look up a reference.

Long winded heart rate stuff to follow...

I started from the couch in 2009, and after a few months of just randomly running I did some reading around here on heart rate training and bought a watch with a HR monitor (Garmin 305).  Here is a good article on some of the different ways to determine your target HR.  I decided to use the Friel method by doing an LT test, and in January of 2010 I did the field test.  That test really sucks, btw!  It's a 30 minute time trial, an all out effort over 30 minutes.  Hard.  Not fun to me at all.  I did it once, and would rather never do it again.  Anyway, the results of that test gave me a lactate threshold number of 163 bpm (that was the HR I averaged over the final 20 minutes of the time trial).  I plugged that number into the BT HR zone calculator and this is what it spit out: 

 So I ran almost exclusively in Z2, at around 145 bpm.  I just looked back in my logs to Jan of 2011, which was about the peak of my running.  I ran 100 miles that month, and in that timeframe I was averaging about a 10:00 minute miles at 145ish bpm.  

Now lately I've been reading a lot about the Maffetone method of running, and he has a very simple formula to set your target HR when running.  The theory is the same, do all of your running at a low HR and your body will get faster even without speedwork.  The difference is the formula, which is 180-age.  Then you add or subtract a few points depending on your condition.  So... for me it would be 180-42=138.  Then -5 for being out of shape = 133.  According to the MAF method, this should be my target.  That's what I've decided to try this time around, as my number one absolute priority is to not get hurt.  In an effort to run a lot, and not get hurt, I'm going to be running 6x/week at a very easy pace.

So... I put on the HR monitor today and headed out for a run hoping to keep my HR under 135.   Total failure.  There was no way to keep my HR that low.  I was able to keep it down to around 145, but the overall pace for the run ended up at 12:30 minute/mile!!  I had to walk at every incline to keep my HR down.  I finished the run at a final average of 147bpm, and if felt WAY easier than I recall 147bpm feeling long ago, so my HR to RPE (rate of perceived exertion) is off at the moment I guess.  Last week I was just running on RPE with no monitor, I'd guess I was up around 155bpm without realizing it (higher than I want to be).

So, 2 years ago I was running 10:00 minute miles at 147bpm.  Today I ran 12:30 minute miles at 147 bpm.  Lesson is, DON'T TAKE A YEAR OFF!!!

anyway, that's the long version of how I came up with my 135bpm target.  And why I'm now moving it back up to 145bpm.   I have not done any LT testing for the bike, quite frankly I can push as hard as my legs allow and my HR doesn't generally get over 140 at the most.  Usually on the rollers I slip below 125 if I'm not paying attention, so I don't think it's an issue to worry about yet.  I just ride as hard as I can sustain, and my HR is plenty low to stay in an endurance zone.

OK, it's 10pm, and I'm off to ride the rollers!  see ya in the morning.

edit: sorry about the table, not sure why it ended up so wide!