Penn State's mentor group - CLOSED! (Page 101)

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Training is going well...still feel fatigued a bit when biking or running. I swam for the first time since LP last night...and it was just so nice to get in the water. I had the biggest smile on my face as i was thinking "the last time i swam..blah blah blah".  My tattoo is FINALLY healed so i can really get back at swimming now!

I decided to take several days completely off this week, after having stupidly started training, and then racing an oly, before I felt completely recovered from IMLP.  Hoping 4 days of nothing will really help get some fatigue out of those legs.  I'm going to ride the Savageman course tomorrow just to punish myself for the early-week rest.

I also managed to cut my thumb while slicing a tomato and bring home a few stitches from the urgent care place on Sunday, so I've kept out of the pool for a few days too... mostly because flexing my thumb does not feel good!  For once I have a legitimate excuse for my lack of swimming.

I joined our local tri club last night (First Wave Tri) and now have a regular group to workout with. I also got in a 1 1/2 hour workout at the gym last night. I did an hour on the stationary bike (Random hill) and averaged over 20 mph for the first time. I can really tell my legs are getting stronger. Then just did a 30 min run after that felt really good. I think overall my cardio level is finally getting stronger. I just can't wait for it to cool down here so we can get back outside for all of our workouts.

At our club meeting last night we had some physical therapists talk to us and show us a lot of core building exercises. I could definitely see the benefit of having a strong core in triathlons. We did a bunch of exercises that most if us struggled with. You could tell that triathletes get stuck in the S/B/R training and neglect core and strength training. Another thing that i really have to work on is stretching.

What does everyone do for core, strength and stretching?

On call has been pretty busy but the money is good.  A few incidents has taken most of my spare time away, next week will hopefully be better.  I finished work last night and was focused on swimming, looked at the clock and it was 9:45 pm; I just went to bed.

Its a lot harder to get motivated when you have no scheduled races.  I'm going to look into some swims to train for;  I don't want to sign up for a tri because I'll set a time table for training (i.e. 20 week IM plan) and if I'm still hurt I may return too soon. 

Still, if I want to do advance in the sport, and there's no excuse not to train.  There are very few injuries out there that prevent you from doing all 3 sports, and I don't have one of them.

This is my last "Big" week of training for IMWI.  Bad timing as I am traveling with work this week, so I am pretty much limited to running until Saturday, Friday will be completely lost with work and travel.  Looking to get a full course ride of IMOO in on Saturday and a long run/swim in on Sunday.
 
As I have been slacking off on swimming lately I will be hitting that a little harder until the week prior to the race.  I don't have a real problem recovering from bigger swims, unlike bike and runs.

I think I'm finally back in the groove with training. My two runs so far this week have both felt great and I'm planning to go to yoga tonight for some nice stretching and core work. I signed up to mentor a new triathlete from my tri club and Saturday we have a 36 mile "Muffin" ride (a social ride with a stop for breakfast) with the person we are mentoring. It will be my first ride since Vineman (doh!) so I'm a bit apprehensive but it should be fun.

Considering joining a training program for my December marathon. It is coached by one of the coaches who does Ironman coaching for my club so would be a good way to try out their coaching style to see if they would be a good fit for coaching for IMAZ next year.

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Grats on joining the tri club and your improvements.  I'm sure the longer rides and runs have alot to do with it.  I'm sure you'll improve even more now that you have a group to train with.

I stretch lightly after, and use ab machines (obliques, abs) at the gym to strengthen my core.  I've started working with weights, partly for injury prevention and partly to get my chest and arms back.  Legs one day, arms and chest the next.

Edited by furiousferret 2010-08-20 12:02 AM

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What's stretching?  Seriously I am really bad about this and hardly ever stretch.  If I do I normally stretch after working out as I prefer to after I am warmed up.

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I did a 40 mile ride yesterday morning and have an hour ride and hour run today. I'll still end up an hour under my training goal but I should be somewhere around 120 miles on the bike for the week. This is the third week that I've been over 100 miles and I can see my strength and endurance increasing. I'm still slower than most people in my training group but I can see myself catching up quickly over the next month or so.

I hope everyone is having a great training weekend.

Found this video on Dean Karnazes (Ultra Marathoner).

I'm still here!

I have a feeling that the pulled muscle the dr told me I had back in April needs  closer look.  It is bugging the hell out of me (to the point where discomfort wakes me up at night and I just can't fathom swimming/biking/running with less than a month to go for my HIM!!) so I'm going to bite the bullet and say to the dr "you know how you mention that ultrasound if this didn't get better....".  I feel like now that I'm a month removed from Lake Placid the doc can't really say "rest and see what happens" because I wasn't hurting like this after LP.

With the stretching conversation...
I do dynamic stretching in the shallow end of the pool after aquajogging and in my mind I count it as resistance training too. =)  I think it's helped keep some injury risk at a lower level than if I hadn't been doing it.

For a swim only week I would definitely throw in a day of just one long continuous swim where your only plan is to go for an 'x' amount of time and keep your stroke long and pretty the whole time.  I would also throw in some repeats of 100 yd swims watching the pace clock.  For example, swim 100 yds at an RPE of 7-8 and maintain that for... 10-20 reps of that 100 yd swim... so I would try to hold a 1:25/100 yd swim 15 times with...a 20 second rest (it's a little long for someone coming from a swim background, but 20 s rests seem pretty normal for triathletes).  I would also throw in pulling, kicking, drill work and some other strokes for good measure.  Who cares what your backstroke looks like-just swim a few lengths to give your chest and shoulders a change of scenery. 

I ended up doing about 13 miles with my friend in Leadville over the weekend.  I wanted to do more, but there were others there wanting to pace him as well.  I thought about pacing someone else but the 'grab a random other pacer' was about 27miles from the finish and it would have meant either running 40miles for the day or being fine with 13 and finishing the night drinking instead.  So I chose 13miles and beer so I didn't injure myself (if you consider a night of drinking not injuring yourself).

But, I would like to add that my friend crushed the course and finished the 100miles in 22hours 54minutes.  Took 35th place overall (out of 363finishers and somewhere around 650starters... yes, that's nearly a 50% DNF rate).  It was his first 100M ever and he looked great the entire time, definitely paced himself extremely well early on.  He even said that during the first 30 miles he was running with guys that said they had finished in 28hours last year and it was making him nervous that he wouldn't hit his goal of sub-25hours.  It just goes to show how the pacing you do for yourself early on pays huge dividends late in the race when you're doing long races (Ironman included).

On a side note, he's not doing it next year since he feels he accomplished everything he set out to do at that race plus a lot.  He doesn't think he could beat his time, so he's looking for his next challenge instead.  But, he's going to pace me next year when I attempt it ;-) 

Wow, that's amazing.  I'm not sure what other challenges are tougher than Leadville, except for Badwater

Great job on the pacing and good luck with the race next year Pete.

Congrats to your friend! and tyo yourself for making the choce not to pace a random runner....and instead enjoy your night of beer

how is everyones week going?

WOw thats great! glad the week is starting off so strong for you! keep it up

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