Swimmer's Group (Olympic Distance Animals) - OPEN (Page 10)

I better check in as well. I have been absent for good reason... Broke collar bone (4 places!) and 3 broken ribs while mountain biking in the Daniel Boone National Forest.... Oh yeah 3 tics! Must have jumped me while laid half dead in the weeds... The ER charged my insurance for the tic removals as well... Really???

I'm healthy enough now to get back in the swing of training again... 10 weeks to the next race sprint....
Let the training begin in full force!
It's been a depressing 3 weeks.... Oh yeah, almost forgot... Wife figured I could not train so you had me get a vasectomey 4 days after the crash....
It may take me awhile to get on the bike again....
Finally feeling motivated again.... Oh yeah I gained 5 lbs as well.... Really... It's not that bad... I think....

Irene--sorry that the shot didn't work for the toe. Hopefully you can keep workouts going around the issue and it will get better,

Greg--I've got to know how much the charge is per tick removal. I pulled one off yesterday; seem to get them any time I'm out in the back of the house or in the woods.

Howard--Great news on the progress of your training. Every time a reovery week came around I was really needing it and then I would be pleasantly surprised with my ability to increase the workouts during the build weeks.

I finally had a strong workout this past week; with vacations and business travel over the past 5 weeks or so, I have not had a solid week for a while. 3 swims, 2 runs, 1 weight, 4 bikes and a round of golf...

Howard, definitely a good idea to add in some speed. If you always are training at your "slow and steady" pace then you will race at that pace to. You want your legs to get used to the feeling of going fast. Work on some tempo runs, start with something like 15 minute easy run; 20 minute tempo @ 10k pace or slightly slower, followed by a 10 minute cool down. Do those every other week. Also if there is a track near you, make full use of it! 4x800s or 8x400s are a great workout to develop speed.

Greg, I think things can only get better from here on out!

Race WeeK!!! Doing the Diamond in the Rough Oly triathlon this Saturday! Will be my first tri since Columbia in May. Did some test sets this week and I feel my bike has gotten even stronger and my run feels right about the same. Good news for me is that the bike is slightly longer than 40k and the run is about 8k and flat! Good news for me as those runners don't have as much time to catch me. Although this isn't an "A" race for me, it does happen to fall at the end of a recovery week, so although it is not a full on taper, I think I will feel pretty fresh going into Saturday!

FOr the record, my toe isn't so bad now. Can I just say, being completely polictically incorrect, holy ! That sucks. Beyond sucks. However, I am feeling quite motivated now. :-)

So thank you, but damn.. I feel sorry for you man.

Hi All,
so it looks like everyone has fallen off and now getting back on track again? Apart from Jason who is still a machine!

Greg, that injury sounds awful, I would def be depressed after that, so you have my respect for getting the energy back to start up the training.
Irene so glad that your toe is a bit better.

I would love to say that I have been training so hard that I haven't had the time to post, but truth be told I have been having a holiday hangover, which means my cake eating and wine quaffing has extended way beyond the allocated 2weeks. Returning back home it is now winter. Chilly 12c days with mornings down to 6c. I don't like winter, one little bit! The cold gets in my bones and that drains all desire to exercise.
So then I started to get into again and caught a cold.....Have got over that so finally in the headspace to train.
In the ensuing time it appears I have gained 2kgs and lost some running fitness....so a bit disappointed with myself. I have a 10km run in two weeks and a 14k run in August, so have something to look toward.

Felicity....Get back on the wagon! You will be fine for the 10k and 14k run. Since you have taken some time off and are getting over a cold you are more than likely just feeling flat and need to shake the cobwebs off. Some consistant training over the next 2 weeks will be more than enough to get back into the groove. Add some speed work in to really shake out the legs and wake them up

Jason nice to see this race is going to be in your favour with the longer bike and shorter run! Good luck, sounds like your right on track training wise! Hard to believe you could be any stronger on the bike! Amazing!

Felicity it is interesting to see what a person gets used to! I had a little chuckle when I read about your winter temps. It is our summer here and we were +10C this morning compared to your winter +6C only 4 degrees difference between our summer and your winter!! I would suffer badly during your summers I can't get motivated to do much when it gets over +20C! haha

David those solid workout weeks feel great don't they! I just logged my best training week 2 weeks ago and I am really enjoying the feeling of being strong! I know others have expressed the guilt experienced during a recovery week but I too feel the need to back off for a bit so the old boy can rest and rebuild!!

Oh and on a positive note I managed to lose 5 lbs in the past couple of weeks!! I even weighed myself on two different days a few days apart and the 'ole scale said the same thing! Whooo hoo!! Just 10 more to go (gack)! LOL!

Well it had to happen sooner or later....out on a training run with my road bike and I crashed it doing between 42-44 kph! I am one big road rash! Finally managed to get it all cleaned up and my wifie spent the next 3/4 hour patching me up! What a mess! And just days before my next triathlon. Bike has a couple of scratches but otherwise okay! Kiss my bike shorts and shirt goodbye, I hate to think what I would look like if I hadn't had proper equipment on! Just need to heal fast before Sunday rolls around!

Well the Tri that I was planning on doing was cancelled. But I found another one 2 hours from me but it is a week sooner. So I am on the countdown 7 days until my first OLY distance triathlon. My wife even said she would have done the Try-a-Tri distance with me if she wasn't going to be away that weekend!! But her weekend might be cancelled yet so she may be swimmiing with me!!

Race Report up on my blog! 2 out of 3 disciplines were good, the 3rd not so much!

Tough luck there Jason! What do you think gave you cramps like that? I managed to finish my race too even though I wasn't in top form because of my bike crash last Tuesday. I should hopefully have the race report up later today I just need my times now. For a race that has been run for 30 years and me only racing for the past year, even I could see how this race could be greatly improved. Paid full price for the race and this was certainly a no frills race. No t-shirt, no "finish" medals, fruit only for post race snack, water only on the course, volunteers only directing traffic; no police etc. Have to wonder who was pocketing all the funds as the organizer didn't claim to have a charity or anything. Very tough hilly course with poor road conditions for the bike and run, seemed like you were either going up or down with little variation in between. Personally I won't be going back and I won't be recommending it either. To many better quality races held here locally in my opinion.

RR is up!

Howard

My daughter and I did the MightyMite Sprint tri this past weekend. The race is a point-to-point race in Forrest City, Arkansas; about an hour drive from my house. We got up about 4:45am; had everything ready and left the house about 5:15 with no problems.

I like the psychological aspect of a point-to-point race; it seems to go faster mentally and I don’t have to watch people completing their bike when I’m getting out of the water or finishing up the race while I am transitioning to my run. The only negative was the bike ride was north-to-south straight into the wind the whole time but it was only an early morning light breeze; it really picked up after the race was over…

The walk from the parking area to the swim and bike transtiion area took almost 20 minutes and I had to go back to the car (rode the bike for that trip) so I didn't end up getting warmed up for the swim. I didn't go very hard in the swim because I didn't get a chance to warm up and I also planned to take it easier this time anyway.

I could have pushed harder in the bike. A couple of times I let my effort drift down a little and I'd realize I was not pushing hard enough; I'd pick up the effort and still feel fine. I guess I need to stay focused more; especially on a 13-mile bike ride. There were a couple of hills that really took my breath away though. The race location is on Crowley's Ridge which is a long, narrow ridge (about 150 miles long x 12 miles wide) that runs north-south rising out of the extremely flat black dirt Mississippi River delta of Arkansas; an unusual geological formation with a number of hills.

I felt good off of the bike but the run had a long uphill stretch during the 2nd half of the first mile and I think I started out a little too fast. I may have slowed down too much again but after about 1.5 miles my legs got loose and I felt really good after mile #2.

This was a nice race that has been going on for 30 years now. .33 miles/13 miles/3 miles

I started (time trial) a couple of seconds after my daughter; I finished a little ahead of her in the swim but she passed me in transition. I finished ahead on the bike; she passed me in transition and I never caught her during the run...

My daughter took second in her age group and I, once again, took second in the family.

David

Edited by Day-Day 2013-07-22 2:03 PM

Learned a valuable lesson this past weekend. REGISTER EARLY!! Two co-workers and I were planning on doing a race but we were ging to register 2 days before. It sold out!! They had 60 people last year..this year was 174!! Not sure if it's the growing popularity of the sport or the fact another race was cancelled and the people from that one came over to this one.

That is a big jump in the number of participants.

We are debating on doing one on August 3 or one on August 4 (we're not doing both) and I don't like waiting so late either. Even if they don't sell out, I run the risk of being one of the last ones to start (start by order of registration); with my slow times, that puts me at risk of being the very last person to cross the finish line...yuk!

Registering early also helps some of us focus better and stay motivated during training.

David

Edited by Day-Day 2013-07-23 8:00 PM

Wow Matt nice race! Man you guys can sure post some awesome times! I am scheduled to do my first OLY in August and I am "hoping" to do it in under three hours. I couldn't even touch that time, nice job and congrats on the finish!

Matt nice race and a solid bike split!

Had a bike race this past weekend. Crit in Malvern, Pa. 20 lap around a business park that had wide open turns! This was nice since there was not a lot of yo-yoing out of the turns. I'll post of a race report today, but the quick and dirty is that I went solo with 7 to go and had a solid gap. One guy bridged up to me with 4 to go and we got caught with 1 to go. I was gassed, but tried to get away again knowing my sprint was shot, I got shut down immediately and soft pedaled across 2nd to last

Also realized yesterday after going through my training schedule that my next 'A' races for the year are 2 weeks from this past Sunday and then another 6days later on the Saturday. That can only mean one thing...TAPER TIME! Kind of caught me by surprise as I thought I had 3 weeks. Oh well I am feeling ready and confident especially after some track work last night

Hi Everyone,
I have been catching up on the posts and can see that most of you are in the midst of race season.
Over the past few weeks, I have started to get stuck into exercise again. I have had a couple of bouts of the cold, but now feeling great.
It was quite surprised that I haven't lost alot of fitness and did my second best time at Parkrun ever (over 5km it was 28:37). I also did a 10.3km running event which was held around the vineyards and did this is 1hr4mins. I was really pleased as this is bettered my previous 10km event by over 2mins.
Now planning for the City to Surf, which is held in Sydney in a week Sunday. Its a massive race with thousands of people entering and has a 1.3km long hill.
I am really looking forward to this event.
So overall feeling good, have not done any biking or swimming for a while, but will get stuck into this when it begins to warm up.
You are all an inspiration to me and I love reading about what everyone is doing and Race reports.
Cheers
Felicity