TexasMPGal/Smilford/Mattb1's "Faster and Stronger in 2010" Crew (CLOSED) (Page 11)

I went to MD for my hip/back pain yesterday and emaiiled my foot surgeon on Tuesday and running is out for about two weeks and cycling, elliptical training, etc is to be built up slowly. Swimming has no restrictions. I missed my workout because my muscle relaxants really kicked in and I missed my alarm this morning and I work late tonight. Tomorrow should be a better day for me. Just want to give the drugs a chance to work.

Janet here checking in from snowy Michigan.  Today (Friday) is an off day for me.  Saturday has a 5 mile run and 45 minutes on the trainer, Sunday is a 7 mile run.  My footing might be a bit sloppy on the run tomorrow, but temps should be in the 20's with a slight wind. 

I find the trainer really hard.  So far I've only been able to hang on for 30 minutes at a time.  I'm still planning on getting the workouts in a binder book that was recomended.  For tomorrow, I think I'll just listen to a podcast or some music and try to push on.


JC

Was suppose to swim but I canned that because of......... you guest it........ the weather.  The pool is heated but there is still an outdoor component to it that made my cold kick up a notch after swimming yesterday.  So, just finished a short cycle - with a short run on tap for this evening.

Probably going to convert the Olympic distance race simulation I had planned on Saturday from SBR to RBR.  I'm starting to really get behind with my swim workouts...

No wonder your so darn FAST!!!

You guys need to toughen up.  We got 12 inches of snow and supposed to get down to negative 20 with the windchill. 

Tomorrow's run for me will be on the treadmill

Going to get around 4k yds in the pool today.  I was supposed to ride this morning, but skipped it.  I worked a 17 hour day yesterday and needed to sleep. 

4000 yards?  You guys are hardcore!!!

After yesterdays pretty crappy swim, the workout tonight(4000) went much better. So that was good!

Hope everyone had a good day as well!

I think it is so funny how one swim can totally SUCK, and the next day it is fantastic.... so wierd.  So when I am having a very off day, I keep telling myself that the next swim should be great!  Keeps me plugging away at it...

Hope to finally get my 4.5 mile run in this afternoon when the temps climb a little higher than the current 9!  If I can fit it in, hope to get over to the gym for a bike workout...  tomorrow 7 mile long run... and that's the plan for the weekend and then it all starts over again on Monday!!

Stay warm everybody... cheer for Pam!

Saturdays workouts in the bank!!!  Now I get the pleasure of taking down and storing up all the XMAS decorations.  Normally this is done long before this time in Jan.  O what fun?

Better of been no slacking off today!

No slacking here! Had a great long run, much better than yesterday's in how I felt.  My cold is definitely dissipating, and today was the longest run I've done since IMAZ, so I'm a happy camper.  Granted, I came home to something on my sprinkler main connect gushing water--I'm sure something busted in the cold--thankfully I got it turned off and hopefully I didn't buy too much water, and hopefully it's not too much to fix.  At least it wasn't the house.  This is what happens when you don't know these things. I even have a protective bag over that sucker, guess it didn't protect enough and I didn't know to turn off that sprinkler water main ahead of time...I know now! This is why I have a rainy day account...

Brit, Stephen & Matt,

You guys are some pretty speedy guys in the water, bike and running.  I would be interested in getting your thoughts on mixing in higher level intensity work.  Over the course of past 14 months (when I started training)  I have been reluctant to mix in a lot speed work for fear of injury and how it might hurt my consistency.  I give myself doses of it here and there but I'm not one that tries to set PB's everytime I go out the door.  I realize that you have to train faster in order to go faster but the question is what is the right mix.  I'm interested in getting your take on the subject.

I think that's a good way to get started, keeping it all fairly easy. Of course I'm sure there were some pretty good efforts in there over the past 14 months for you.

As for adding intensity into the work, it's still best to think in total load for the week just like you do for overall weekly hours/miles. At the start of the season, for the first 2-3 weeks it's a good idea to just work on getting your training load back to normal. Keeping hard workouts pretty minimal is a pretty good safe bet. After that you can start introducing more intense workouts. Which I think you most certainly should do. You just don’t want to go overboard with it. A good rule of thumb is to stop when you think one or two more would really hurt, or I could hold this pace for another mile but that’s it. You should stop by then for sure. Always leave something for the next day, unless it’s a race!

A few things to keep in check, you don't want to do too much over your threshold (roughly your max effort over an hour). So let's say you can sustain 6minute pace for 60minutes on the run. It's a good idea to keep your total effort of above your threshold to around only 7-9% of your total load of running that week. So if you're running 30-39 miles a week, that's one solid 4-5k interval workout on the track basically at a pace under 6minute pace. Then for work done right around threshold (6:00-6:20 pace for example) that's an additional 10% of your total weekly load. A short tempo run basically. As an example that would be, 1 workout at 5k pace on the track broken up by intervals, and a shorter tempo run at 10k to half marathon pace. The rest of your runs could be moderate to easy pace.

Since we're triathletes, and we have three sports to play with it can get a bit more complicated. I say take your weakest sport and make sure you get those 2-3 quality workouts in a week, especially during the winter months. While the other two sports you may want to have one quality workout week. Follow that up with a moderate workout and an easy workout for the week. Spacing them out so you can recover from the really hard workout is always a challenge. Typically we can recover much faster from hard swim workouts than compared to running or cycling, so we can fit in quite a few hard swims. If you try to get in three hard workouts done above your threshold, no matter the discipline you’re most likely going to run into trouble. Generally don’t do back to back intense workouts, give yourself 24hours to recover (Active recovery works) from something like a track workout.

So Yes adding some intensity is good, but introduce it slowly and never go overboard with it. Do that and it should all work out.


Edited by smilford 2010-01-10 5:13 PM

Morning team! Hope everyone is well. I am up early to get to work early to get on top of an item i left unfinished on Friday   oh well.  Looks like another week of high volume training for me.  Feeling really good after getting a good night of rest.

 

Thanks Stephen.  Since I'm numbers kind of person I like your percentage examples above.

For us newbies it gets kind of kind of confusing with all the information that's available on the internet about how, when and where you should implement speedwork (or should I say a harder workload for us guys that are not so speedy!!!).

Brit,

Read your race report for IM Arizona.  Really inspiration stuff.  11:02 for your 1st IM!!!  Wow.  1:52/100 swim, > 19mph on the bike and almost sub 9:00 min/mile on the run.  Another Wow!!!  I think you mentioned that your Garmin my have gotten messed up and you did a lot of your pacing based upon RPE.  Do you do a lot of your training based on RPE (or did you prior to the race)? 

I think I'm starting to get addicted to my Garmin and the constant HR readings.  Not sure if this is a good thing or not!!!

I'm grateful Stephen answered the interval/speedwork question!! He understands those concepts better than I do, and so I'm grateful (in a masochist type of way) when he has me do them even though they hurt. 

Jeff- thanks for the notes on the race, it was great, though lots of hard works to get there. As for the Garmin, yeah, the HRM never actually registered for the bike or the run for whatever reason (too many others, etc.) so I did go off RPE.  For the bike I never really watched my HR much, just kind of kept a note on it, and really pay more attention to cadence and speed and effort anyhow.  On the run, I was never a slave to the HRM, but I knew where my ranges are that meant I was probably working too hard.  Again, it didn't register on the run, so I just ran--paid attention to RPE and speed.  In the end, I'm glad I did it that way, of course I don't know if it'd make a difference or not, but I had trained enough to know what felt right.  My friend trained nearly exclusively by HR on the bike and the run.  When she finished she said that she wished she had gone by RPE on the bike, and while she looked at it on the run, she did pay less attention.  She feels that the taper, the adrenaline, etc. that you get on race day helps push you a bit more. She said she had some left in the tank.  I will probably continue to train that way, and then race without slaving myself to it...RPE will outweight HR for me, but it IS a useful tool.  

Hello team?

There's some good discussion going on here! Just wanted to check in to say. My motivation is still high and I am building up my run volume to get ready for my first race of the year.  I'll be doing some hills tonight.

Busy day for me, so i'll be off. Are our Texans still in the cold?

Weather is great here now. Starts off a little chilly, but gets into the mid 50s and sunny! Perfect weather.

Just doing some training. Running pretty good, swimming great and riding like crap.

You always need something to work on!!! 

I read one of Alan Couzen's blog where he quoted a study indicating that the average person needed to train:

  4,000 hr. for a 15 hr. IM (BOP)
  6,000 hr. for a 12 hr. IM (MOP)
12,000 hr. for a 9.5 hr. IM (FOP)

My guess is that you are a little ahead of the game given your age.  Well done!

Texas is out of the cold, yea!  I think we are done with any freezing temps as of this morning.  Mid-50's in the afternoons, so much nicer for running and I hope to get out on my bike soon, although they are calling for rain later in the week.

Had me a nice swim this morning, and have a 4.5 mile run on tap this afternoon.... and then I hope to veg on the couch and watch American Idol tonight!!