TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress) CLOSED (Page 11)

Time trial bikes are what you think of as bikes used in triathlon. They are approved for UCI bike races. Triathlon bikes are like the Specialized Shiv that I ride. They are not approved for bike races but are approved for triathlon. Their design is a bit more arrow than time trial bikes. I love the Shiv because it is very user friendly for bike fit purposes. Very easy for the LBS fitter to get a great fit for you.

I always tell folks their first bike should be a road bike. One reason is they are more versatile. You can use them for triathlon. They can be made more arrow by simply adding clip-on arrow bars. Also, they can be used for group rides. Triathlon bikes have the brakes away from the hands when you are in the arrow position so they aren't great in groups.

Hey guys - sorry for my absence the past week. Work has gotten the best of me. I am a project manager for a specialized elevator company and we are fabricating and installing an elevator for the new Oakland Bay Bridge. I have had this project for 5 years and it is coming to an end but it is killing me. 70-80 hrs week the past few weeks. My company is very flexible with my training time (late starts - lunch workouts etc..) so I figure every once in a while I need focus 100% on actual work haha. i have also been having a real tough time getting back mentally with having my surgery set for February 26. I have this feeling like "what is the point of working out for 4 weeks to just have to take 4 weeks off?". I am preparing myself for the recovery but know I should also be making myself stronger for surgery. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Plus I think I am nervous about the surgery...

Anyways I sat down tonight and caught up on all the posts (you guys have been way to busy) and I think it was theraputic and has helped me get my head straight again. Thanks to KC for keeping up with everyone and welcoming the new members and also to Scott for jumping in and using those coaching skills. As most of the new members can tell we have a great core group here and i hope that we can help you this season.

Sorry for the long post but like I said you guys were busy..

Simone - Great news on the bike and having a plan to get the P2. I really like that bike. No more talk of how warm it is down under haha. We are freezing over here! I am forgetting what an outdoor pool even looks like. Glad to see you volunteered for IMOZ again.

Deb - great to see you back on the board. You will be fine fitting everything in with school. Just take it day by day. For the training plan you need export it from TP then dump it into BT. I have a spreadsheet set up that has the correct headings. I think you need to be a paying member of both services to do this also.

Darrin - welcome to the group!

Todd and Gil, Helen - I have done Racine the past three years. This year I am doing Rev3 Dells so I and am not gonna race it this year but I plan to be up there around the course cheering you guys on.

Helen - Welcome to the group. CDA is on my bucket list of races to do. Do you track your daily nutrition and calories? In regards to stretching I don't believe in stretching before working out at all. I stopped back in 2008 after I was having IT Band issues and felt it was the cause. I believe in the slow warm up and then maybe some light stretching if I still feel tight. I will look into the hip flexor stretches to offer some suggestions. Kathy brought up a good point about the bike fit.

Nate - welcome to the group. I can understand your feeling about wanting to get in shape because of your kids. I got back into running (eventually triathlons) after my oldest (Evan 9) and have been going strong still - and a lot of that is because of them. It makes it worthwhile to me when they feel that working out and staying healthy is the "norm". You will get down to that 175 goal. Keep up the good work.

Anne - I love that Wisconsin Spinerval course DVD - although after a while Coach Troy starts to annoy me haha.

Dan - gald you joined the Master group. It will definitely help you. It is amazing how the littlest things can help your stroke and thus your times. Sorry to hear about the ankle. I completely agree with coach Scott and was thinking the same thing . Rest it and take it easy. You don't want a nagging injury right no w this early in the season. I don't think you need to totally stay Zone 2 but just be smart about it when you do short Zone 4 work.

Gil - If you have the time I would suggest the 20 week plan especially if you are trying to build up slowly. What plan are you looking at?

Jen - That Boulder 70.3 is the inaugural right? I wanna do that race!

Kathy - I think the best way to increase your running cadence is to increase your running cadence I know that sounds like I am being a smart a** but I really think it is the best way. Add some blocks of high cadence running into your workouts to get the legs turning over faster and used to it. The key to running form changes is SLOW. Don't do anything drastic and risk injury. You can also add some more speed work (400 repeats) to help also.

Elana - $250/month sounds like a lot of money for training but that is just me and I wouldn't pay $10/month haha. If you are comfortable paying it and you think you are getting the results you expect then go for it.

April - Welcome to the group. 6 months is plenty of time so you will be just fine. Plenty of info to suck up around here.

John - welcome to the group. Listen to Scott he has some great advice. I would suggest start with a sprint and then go from there. Odds are you will be hooked like the rest of us and want to continue on.

Murdock - rest days are called rest days for a reason. The tri season is long and pushing on rest days is a recipe for burnout. Burnout sucks and is very difficult to get going again. One thing we often forget is the mental aspect of training. Stay fresh. Push it and your mind will push back. Enjoy your rest day - your earned it

The swimming will come - Dan is right you should continue with the drills but I would also add a workout once a week in which you try to extend that length. A lot of it is mental and once you know you can do it you are good. Add 25Y each week. Stay calm and confident.

Don't feel you need to ALWAYS do bilateral breathing. Yes it will help balance out your stroke but my personal opinion is that it is more important to be able to have the ABILITY to comfortably breathe from both sides. I breathe to my right side - I can bilateral breath for about 200 yards then I get winded and I stop and switch to my 2 stroke breathing and I can swim 3500Y continous (or at least used to be able to haha). Long story short - don't focus on bilateral breathing and let it limit (frustrate) you.

Amen. Endurance base first. Then add speed drills.

Bilateral breathing isn't just breathing every three strokes, one side then the next. You can swim a length one side, then swim the other side the next length. Or switch every five strokes, every seven. You still get the same benefits of bilateral breathing which are 1. a smoother stroke because both sides are working the same way. (That is the goal, it is never the truth unless you are a very exceptional swimmer. But any swimming while breathing with your weak side will help even the stroke.) and 2. As a result, you swim straighter which is important in open water. You can add LOTS of yards to a swim by zig zagging. 3. If the wind is blowing waves into your face from your strong side you had best be able to breath from the other side. But the truth is that as much as bilateral breathing is promoted, in a race you will need all the oxygen you can get so you'll be breathing from one side more than you think.

Edited by IceManScott 2014-01-28 7:58 AM

Tim - I'm looking at the Don Fink 16-week plan for HIM and also at the BT 20-week plan. They can both work for me it will just depend on were I'm at come the begining of March.

As I mentioned yesterday the pool was closed so instead of the 75 minute foundation bike and 2300yd swim I did 120min foundation bike (avg. 17 mph) and 30 mins of strength training, sound good? Also, before I turn this into a really long post I'll just float this out there. I've maintained a food log for quite some time now and I feel like it is no longer as effective as it once was as it has become such a habit. That being said I need to seriously revamp my eating as I feel I am moving in the wrong direction (I need to lose 5-7 pounds to be at race weight). If I posted a day of typical intake would anyone be willing to critique/ offer alterations, advice etc.?
Hope everyone is having a great day!

Helen

Good work! I'm not a nutritionist, though I've lost about 200 pounds. Several people here have tried several different approaches so I am sure you will get good input. I have about 10 or so to lose after IronMan. Never fails.

Thanks. I had ignored bilateral all together in favor of an every 4 then every 2 once I got tired. I was feeling like my legs were dropping as I fatigued. My success with the bilateral breathing may have been improvements in conditioning and totally coincidental with the bilateral breathing. At some point I will invest in a masters coach but want at least get a couple of sprints in before I invest to much. I have been trying to freestyle continuously for a longer distance and was able to go 100 yards this week on a couple of occasions. May have been able to go further but didn't want to waste my workout. In my last 300 I was able to swim all but 50 as freestyle. Thank you for the goal of 25 yards a week it while be a good short term goal. It would be nice to swim my first event all freestyle especial since its a pool swim.

Thank you for the insight. I will keep you all posted on my progress.

Nate

Tim good luck with your surgery. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Nate

Do most of you use HR zones during your training? During my run I feel like I could go further but limit myself to the planned workouts for the week. My HR at the end of a workout is typically in the 160-170 range. During the bike it stays much lower. I should not that I don't have a monitor. We used them a little in college but not some much for our base runs, more to gauge recovery between intervals.

Iceman - at the risk of making a fool of myself I'm going to disagree with you. If you can't swim freestyle for an entire sprint you need to work on form, not endurance. Get the form down and you can swim forever. Training for endurance with bad form is a recipe for injury.

That is good that it has become a habit and as long as you don't have any major meltdowns you are probably ok. I like the feature on BT that tacks your calorie intake and also accounts for your calories burned giving you an idea if you have a deficit or surplus of calories daily.

Post your daily and we can look at it but one "typical" day is good to look at it but you get in trouble when you deviate from that haha. Tracking seems to keep people accountable for those deviations.

Gil - As you know I am a Fink guy haha. I like the "Keep it Simple" philisophy and found the BT plans are almost too involved. I like with Fink I know exactly what my workout is base dont he day of week - just have to note how long. If you are leaning toward the 20 then you can repeat the first week for a few weeks to get your base down. i think Scott mentioned this and I actually did that when I started with Fink plan for IMWI. I just repeated the first few weeks then when it came time for the plan I knew i was ready. Good luck.

Interesting conversation. I am thinking you both are right although my feeling is when I hear someone struggling to swim continuous it usually comes down to breathing. Poor swim stroke can add time but you can still swim continuous (either slow or fast). Poor stroke will make you slow -bad breathing will make you stop. Joining the Masters Group is a good call just to get someone looking at your stroke. Another thing (if you have the ability) is to videotape yourself an post here so we can critique. In fact I think KC hired a personal videographer every workout to follow him to the pool the first year he was swimming so he could post and we could critique him.

160 to 170 is actually too high for endurance training. I am assuming you are in zone 3 or high zone 4. Have you determined your HR zones for running and biking? If not that is the first step. Check out this BT article about that;

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=...

160 to 170 is actually too high for endurance training. I am assuming you are in zone 3 or high zone 4. Have you determined your HR zones for running and biking? If not that is the first step. Check out this BT article about that;

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=...

Thanks Tim & Iceman,

I like the idea of repeating the first week to get me used to the plan. I will definitely keep this in my plans.

Not very often do I disagree with you Tim, however my Zone 2 in running is 157 to 167. When I run my HR goes up and stays up. it has been like that for several years and even had an EKG. My heart is healthy it just has to work harder when I run. Your HR does tend to go up towards the end but shouldn't be nothing too drastic. As long as you can hold a conversation comfortable in the aerobic zone it shouldn't matter what your HR is.

No worries Kathy haha - you are correct but that is why I was asking about testing and actually knowing your own HR zones. Just from looking at it I am maybe jumping the gun and assuming it is too high but odds are I may not be. Without testing and eventual retesting one would never know. From what I have experienced, read about and witnessed - most people train way higher than they should. The best description I have seen is that Zone 3 work are junk miles/minutes. It adds no additional benefit than Zone 2 and Zone 4 and only increases your chance of injury. I think it is key to stay out of it BUT you have to know what it is first.

Here is one site to help determine HR zones. You need only figure your resting heart rate. Before you get out of bed, take your HR for 15 seconds and multiply by four. Do that three days. Then take the average.

http://www.digifit.com/heartratezones/training-zones.asp?MaxHR=158&...

It gives several readouts based on how they are figured. I use Friel because the man has proven he knows how to coach. Choose your poison.

HR is a fair way to train. Many do. Some rely solely on real perceived effort, a scale of 1 to 10 from very easy to very hard. It works too. Watt meters on bikes are pricy but very exact. Wait to invest in that until you know you want to stick with triathlon and really be competitive. Otherwise HR is good.


I assume people are swimming freestyle for the swim. For everyone, swimming is form. Faster, easier, not harder. When I say endurance is the key, I'm assuming freestyle form is in place, right? If not, get some instruction. Masters is a great way. Otherwise, ask swimmers in the tri club or a friend. But first what we want is endurance, to be sure we can swim the needed yards in a pool. More yards than required is better.

A lot of the basic stuff about triathlon is in Friel's Triathlete's Bible. They are about $15 at Amazon and well worth it.



Edited by IceManScott 2014-01-29 11:33 AM

So here's my swim questionf ro the day: I'm training for a HIM in early June. My biggest concern is my ability to comfortable knock out the swim. While I'm comfortable in the water, I've never really done any long distance swimming (or long distance open water swimming). My longest open water swim to date has been a sprint tri (1/4 mi).

I've been building my swim base for the last two months and am up to 1700 meters continuous. I only stopped because my wife was at the gym with me and needed to leave. Pretty sure I could have done another .2 or perhaps more. The thing is, I'm training in an indoor 25m pool. I don't kickturn but do an open turn at the end of each length. I don't really stop per se but I do take a breath with my hand on the wall. I intentionally do not kick off hard so as to avoid the cheat factor that I won't have in open water. Obviously I'd like to test things out in the open water before my HIM but that's not an option now and won't be for a couple of months.

So...what are the group's recommendations on how far I should be able to comfortably swim in an indoor 25m pool in order to have confidence that I can bang out 1.2 in open water?

If you are swimming 1700m you will have no problem. The question now becomes how fast are you swimming the 1700. I think it is always good to hit your race distance for a mental aspect but I would not make it a regular thing and risk injury. Focus on increasing your speed and improving your stroke over the next few months - increase your total workout distance. Scott can probably offer more but I would say you should be swimming on average 2500 to 3500 yards (about 1 hour session) comfortably come this summer before your race. You will fine. My suggestion is worry about he run more than the swim where you can either blow up and lose hours or dominate and own the race passing all the walkers at the end. Nobody remembers the swim and how good or bad it was at mile 10 of the run...

Hi Tim - I did video but I did it myself or had friends do it for me and it was great help. I would post them to youtube and make all of you guys look at them lol. It worked great.

KC

Dont worry about the 25 yard pool and touching and turning. As the founder of this group once told me (Coach Dave, who is no longer in the group) he said - "Kevin, if you can swim 500 yards you can do an Ironman". Of course I told him he was crazy when he told me that because when I started this Tri addiction I could not swim half the length of a 25 meter pool and had never swam in my life until about 4 years ago LOL.
Here is the proof - taken at my 2nd swim session - made it exactly half way. It is amazing looking back on it now.

Check it out - this is me, 2nd swim session - had no clue what I was doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1v244XFl7k


Anyway - long story short - Listen to Tim and IceMan - and believe me when I tell you - YOU CAN AND YOU WILL DO IT.

KC





Edited by kcgolf 2014-01-29 1:48 PM

Ok Team - sorry to scare any of you with video of me in my suit swimming I will probably post more so get used to it lol.

Speaking of swimming - I did an extra pool session yesterday afternoon for an hour - worked on my Total Immersion drills - needed the refresher

On tap for today - Swim at 4 (going to do speed and interval work, keying on proper body position) and then a 45 minute run on the dread mill when I get home watching something on TV I guess. The weather here is so brutal I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE

OK - Tim and Iceman - thanks for all the great advice - I still have so much to learn from you guys

I will continue to post the A race list for everyone and I know I am missing a few so for those of you that are not on this list, please post a race or two for me to add - even if it is just a possible race.

Stay warm and safe everyone.

Off to the pool.

KC







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