What off-season? Early season racers Mentor Group - OPEN! (Page 11)

Guilty, I was depressed after the superbowl, lol!

Been focusing on running and biking. Long run is now up to 8.2miles (with the dog no less!) and biking has really been progressing with the power program.  Swimming is starting again tonight, I've been really bad at getting to the pool and its now the time, no slack here forward.  Still looking for a wetsuit to buy.  Anyone here using the Xterra suits that can be bought pretty cheaply? 

Big Bend was Fantastic!  It's getting late in the season though.  It was 96*F in the basin yesterday.

How have the last couple weeks gone for you?

I ran and swam last night.  After the 4.75 mile trot, which I felt lonely not running with the dog, I did 3x200m and another 100m. Actually felt good during the swim since I was all warmed up from the run. Thinking today might have to be an off day as I have to go to my daughters 1st ever track & field meet.  She's doing the 800m and Shot Put.

Which pool is that?

Sorry, all - I have been SLACKING!

I see a few updates - how is everyone else doing?

I did Ragnar Florida Keys two weekends ago, and I crewed a 24 hour MTB race for a friend last weekend. So much fun!

I had felt like I was really slacking on my training. Not running because of my shin was getting to me, and I felt like I wasn't biking/swimming like I should have been.

The good news is that the shin is more or less ok - I'm worried I'm ramping up the run miles too quickly (18 miles at Ragnar!) but, honestly, until there is PAIN, I will keep going.

I did my final pre-race FTP test yesterday. I was happy to see that despite my few weeks of slacking, My FTP went up just a little I was afraid it would drop!

I'm in the final two weeks before taper, and all is well. I'm getting excited for race day - and I'm hoping my tempo run on Sunday reaffirms that!

For the last few days I've felt the same.....

13th was my birthday so I took a day off training, 14th was a night to spend with my wife and I didn't think it wise to spend an hour or so on the bike :-).

the 15th I woke with a really bad head cold that subsided yesterday morning so I was back on the bike last night.  5 days off when I should have hit at least 6 hours training in that time as I was coming off a relaxed week already, so I've had two slow weeks. 

When I hit the bike again last night my wife's comment "at least I got you for a few nights."  said with a smile, but I guess it was due :-)

She did buy me the 310xt for my birthday so it can't be too bad :-)

going to run/bike tonight try and get a couple of hours in and see how I feel.  I need to do back to back long sessions this weekend, I'm thinking 1.5 hours running and 1.5 hours riding both days or 2:1 run/bike.  Will also drop in a swim a some point, my wife has started swimming again and is already kicking my butt!

Race days are 21st, 22nd and 23rd March so I will start to taper 3-4 weeks from now........the excitement is building for me, but there's also a little concern, the weather over there in the UK has been pretty awful and the route we're racing (coastal trails) has already had some cliffs collapsing in to the sea!, all this means is diversions on race day, last time they did this we raced over 33 miles on one of the days!  oh what joy, It'll be interesting to see what the total distance will be this year :-) 

Slow and Steady this year, Slow and Steady!!

Oh man - good luck!

Remember - pain is temporary, but your finishing time will be posted online FOREVER!

Good luck to you peeps in or starting a tapers!  I ran an easy 40 minutes today and the foot held up just fine!  Only 8 weeks till 70.3 Galveston but I feel like I can at least make a showing now.

3 days a week and getting to 3,000 a session is probably a good place to start. See what you're getting out of it and go from there. That's *about* an hour at a time which it fairly typical of a masters swim session.

The aspects of the workouts you put in will be part of every session. They should not and really can not be separated into very isolated aspects as many like to think. Don't think about building a base really, just go directly at the fitness. Since you've definitely looked at running quite a bit recently, have you been able to look at various types of intervals much? Daniels (for one example) has cruise intervals (T-pace), Intervals (I-pace), and Repetition (R-pace). McMillan also has equivalents. Much of the work will be something like T-pace work, which is commonly done as various tempos, but broken into intervals. Hence understanding cruise intervals. With swimming, the other two can, and likely will, be mixed in at times. And sometimes will be more the focus of the workout. But much more often it will be like tempo work.

Technique is very important in swimming, which is often understood quite easily, but that doesn't mean you should spend a lot of time on drilling. You're always working on something while you're swimming. Pretty much every time there should be one or two things in the session you're trying to work on in regards to the stroke mechanics. And that's through the entire set. The drills need to be done correctly and some may be hard to do without someone else observing. What they'll do is help advance the idea in a particular aspect of the stroke. You'll still need to incorporate that into the stroke and develop the fitness to maintain it. Also, much of the time the speed and endurance will be built together, though there will be times where one will be pushed much more. The speed part in particular as you have to learn how to go faster to do so. Much more so than with the other two.

First of the swim meets today. Wasn't sure how I'd do being sick the few days before, but felt past the worst of it. 200 free started ok, matching speed with another 2:15 seed in the next lane for about the first 75, but then lost it. Energy just gone and faded big time. Ended up with a 2:26. Chalking it up to still recovering, especially as that did not feel like a normal fade or later race burn. Dropped out of the 500 free because of that. Wasn't much point in swimming what would be a practice rep time. Had signed up for a 50 fly in between and went through with that. Felt fine technically, but not as fast as I'd like. Still ended up with a :33.