Hashers And Mashers - Part 3 - Open (Page 10)

I've been kind of lazy since Sunday's bike ride.  I rode for 4:30 and covered the southern 100km/ 62miles of my upcoming GranFondo on July 13th.  It will be a 160km ride.  Just a fun ride through wine country.

I swam and ran yesterday and again tomorrow then on Friday a 1:30 swim (aiming for 4000m) and a 2:00 run.  I'd really, really, really, like a good run on Friday.  Then on Sat or Sun we've got a 5 hour ride which may take me 5:30.  But it is a really fun ride, scenic, 4200' climbing and decent roads.

Mike - Love your BBQ  Your prawns look awesome.  Never had black-eyed peas though.

Marilyn - How's your ankle coming?  Don't rush it.  If you try running and feel any discomfort it is too soon to be running.

Anna - How's your knee?  I hope you're lucky and it's feeling fine.

Nicole - is this your first Tri?  I think you said it is.  First off don't over think it or you'll get nervous.  Just think of it as any other old workout.  Just like the SBR you did with your Tri group.  You're right not to worry about your time.  Just plan to do your best and have fun. 

Leading up to your race just don't do too much on the day before your race.  Get your gear together and ready to go.  Being a Sprint you don't have to be too careful.  A COLD beer after a race on a hot day goes down really well.  I also love chocolate milk, pizza, cookies and watermelon.  Anything but bagel bits or pretzels (too dry).  Every race is different and after race food is always a surprise.  At one 5K I went to they had hot pancakes for us - they were great.  Although, Marilyn's race with crab cakes sounds like the best I've heard of.  For my first sprint I took a water bottle with Gatorade but I really didn't drink it until after the race and I didn't eat or drink anything else during the race.

Looking forward to reading your report.

Gary-  I use a Polar 300RX, it has zone alarms and interval alarms. It's a bit fiddly to set up and the manual is difficult to understand, but it does the job. I must admit though, I don't use the zones anymore (I used to, a lot) but just run off feel and the readout on the watch face. It worked out to be easier.Polar has the advantage of being able to read your heartrate in the water, if you use the compatible chest strap.

Nicole, relax and have fun on the day! I tend to eat well the last 2 days before the race (not "load" as such) and remember to have some muesli and yoghurt just before bed. I'm not very good at food before training in the morning so I have something low GI last thing at night instead. Definately have some beer afterwards. Preferably in a pub overlooking the beach, with a big plate of seafood and chips, and a group of other competitors swapping noshit stories .

LAZY? LAZY? If that's lazy then I must be comatose!

And the knee's doing OK so far, thanks. Had an experimental 4 k slow run on it today without twinges. This weekend I'm planning a mini-HIM around the Challenge course, hoping to do the full swim distance, maybe 60k of the bike and 5-8km run so I'm thinking if it survives that it'll be good for the half marathon.

I ran this morning!  I only went 2 miles and iced my ankle for 10 minutes after I got in from the run, but I did it and it DIDN'T hurt!  The ankle still hurts if I twist or roll it in certain ways, but running on paved roads will be fine, and it can bear the weight of running.  I was SOOOO happy to be running even though it was disgustingly humid this morning and my asthma was acting up.  I will have to try out my new water bottle next time

Anna - Good to hear your knee is OK.  Let us know how your mini-HIM goes this weekend.  Sort of a mini-race report.

Marilyn - Also good to hear your ankle seems to be improving and you're getting going again.

Nicole - Have a good time in your race this weekend.

Chris - Training wise I've had kind of a weird easy week.  I've logged some good hours (I'll cover todays bit below) but I've also had 3 days off including tomorrow.  Tomorrows my "taper" before another long bike ride (approx. 5:30) on Sunday.  I'll be riding most of the Challenge Penticton route (125km of the 180km course).

Your bike fit sounds like a step in the right direction.  I know from my own experience that subtle adjustments can have good or bad results.  So it is important to get it done properly.  Retul was the same as I had done here.

All - I purchased a set of clip on aerobars yesterday and I'll be installing them after my Sunday long ride.  I can't imagine them making a big difference in my speed but they can't hurt and I need something to get me a bit faster.

I wasn't looking forward to my workout today but I got up at 5:40 (I'm retired - you'd think I could sleep in once in awhile).  I had breakfast and got my wife up (she wanted to come along) and we left home at 6:00am got to the lake in 10 minutes and by 6:30 I was in my wetsuit and wading into the lake.  My wife was already in her kayak waiting for me.

There was some kind of Triathlon clinic group training about 20 swimmers practicing swim starts so I had to walk around them to get to the first swim buoy where I start swimming (and timing).  Then I signaled my wife that I was starting swimming and took off.  1:22:08 later I had swum a nominal 4K.  The actual distance was between 3400 & 3800m so I'm claiming 3700m for the day.

The water was a really nice temp, the lake was flat calm and the only reason I knew it was raining (heavily) ...on my wife... was that I could see the drops hitting the water each time I took a breath.  By the time I finished swimming there were many other swimmers on the same swim lines and I altered course a few times to swim around other swimmers coming straight at me from the opposite direction.  It is surprising how often head-on collisions happen over a 2km course with say 4 to 10 swimmers at any given time (usually everyone tries to swim early because the lake is calm then.  Once the sun rises high enough the wind picks up and it gets choppy fast.

My times for the swim were: 18:15/ 22:21/ 19:39/ 21:53.  Each leg was a quarter of the distance.  1st & 3rd were faster than the 2nd & 4th.  I can only guess there is a subtle current going from east to west.

Then I took my wife home and changed then headed out at 9:00am for a two hour run.  I was very pleased to be able to run the entire time without stopping except for a couple steep hills where I walked briefly.  I'm a slow runner but I managed to run a small fraction further than I had guesstimated I would be able to finish in the 2 hours.  I ran up the last hill which felt like forever but once I reached the crest it really was downhill for the last km on the home stretch.

Then I had a nap.  My favourite part of the day (so far).  After the nap I walked around feeling really good but really tired.  And, now I'm looking forward to a relaxing day off tomorrow.

George, sounds like a great workout day. From your description I'm guessing there are semi-permanent marker buoys out where you swim? It would certainly be a useful training tool for open water. 

Chris, good to hear the fit went well and is useful. I don't know much about the Retul system so I did a little googling, it looks very interesting. I like data, and I'm getting more and more into gadgets and tech (thanks to triathlon and all the nifty useful and not-so-useful things you can buy for the sport) so I'm liking the sound of Retul!

I went to our local parkrun this morning to try out my knee again, had a steady/moderate run, knee was good, and I came in with a time of 29:41. I was once again amazed at how consistency in training can do wonderful things...12 months ago a 30 minute 5km was a bit of a pipedream, now sub-30 is a steady pace. Somehow I don't think I'll every be thinking the same of a 25 minute 5km, but you never know.

Hey Everyone -

Sorry I've been awol. We went camping/vacation and have all been sleep-deprived (especially the munchkins. I've been meaning to catch up, but y'all are so chatty, it's difficult!

Anyway, I am doing a sprint tomorrow, first tri of the summer. I did the aquabike for this race a few years back (when I was newly pregnant and had been throwing up for several weeks). It has the hill we were discussing a few pages back. The swim promises to be super easy - river swim with current. The bike has the hill and is long 18.8 miles. The run I don't know. I think it has a lot of shade and is on trails. So it should be a fun race. No great expectations. I seem to have taken the tactic of "taper early" thanks to the camping. My muscles are ready to work!

Hope I can catch up a bit with everyone next week. Enjoy your Sunday workout/race all!

-Rebecca

PS my 5 yr old competed in his first-ever swim meet this week. He did 25 "free" in 1:21.36. Proud mama here! (And aghast that some of these kids are loads faster than me! At least not the 5 yr olds!)

Carlo--good decision on the rest week/days. I find I need a rest day every 7-10 days, and I need an easy week  every third or fourth week. (Easy sessions and 2 days off).  If I try and push through I'm tired, unmotivated, the workouts are very lacklustre. Or I end up injuring myself somehow. Rest is vital!

Rebecca, have fun at the tri, and congrats on your son's swim meet! I can totally relate to the proud mother thing, my 4 year old daughter finally got the hang of swimming unaided (head under, kicking and paddling herself along, can't breathe yet though) 2 weekends ago at her swimming class and I was as proud as punch. 25 yards free is a real achievement! 

We had a challenging training session this morning down at the HIM course. Had a short swim to get started, just 1km or so. Lucky we hadn't decided to go much further, I had goggle issues with them leaking (too  loose, then too tight, then knocked off by a nameless thing in the water--I really, really hope it was a medium-sized fish and not anything that could eat me...), After the fish incident I got the fear of swimming things with teeth and what little concentration I had was gone. The wetsuit behaved itself, I feel it's settling into shape a little, and apart from the mild resistance of the neoprene on my shoulders and my feet sticking out of the water it's fine.

Out of the water, suit off, dried off a little and changed into dry cycling gear, then headed out on the road. This time we were tackling the second half of the course, the hillier valley ride. Started well, I managed to get up and over "The Beast" with its 18% incline, but it turned out that was one of the easier bits. The road is a long, winding, very scenic hilly ride with a lot of long and/or steep climbs, narrow shoulders and a fair bit of traffic on a sunday. By the time we were heading back and climbing back over "The Beast" ( A grindingly long moderate grade climb on the way home) all I could think was "How on earth am I going to do a half marathon after this???" Back at the carpark and we'd ridden 65km, with 464m of climb. 

Was meant to have a run off the bike but I had nothing left. Drove home in a bit of a daze and have had a reasonably quiet afternoon doing chores around the house.

So, I know I need to do a lot of work on bike fitness. I need to get new goggles (already ordered)  and develop a bit of open water confidence when in a small group. Large groups/mass starts don't scare me; there is safety in numbers. The big plus for bike training is the course is not too far away, and I should hopefully be able to get a few more  sessions there before the race. I think my nutrition worked well ( a banana beforehand, dates and gingerbread babies on the course, drinking Endura sports drink)

Race report posted!

Hoping for a massage and going to bed. Later, everyone!