Madcow's mentor group -CLOSED! (Page 12)

Congrats both of you for the longest swim and a great race.

I did a n easy 6.5+ mile run. I Need to work off that conference belly.

MY daughter was invited to tryout for the Young Olympians Program which is really just the beginning steps to getting on the Women's National team. Pretty exciting, but a longshot at best.

Congrats both of you for the longest swim and a great race.

I did a n easy 6.5+ mile run. I Need to work off that conference belly.

MY daughter was invited to tryout for the Young Olympians Program which is really just the beginning steps to getting on the Women's National team. Pretty exciting, but a longshot at best.

Congrats. That is equal to my fastest half marathon time. Rest up and start getting ready for your half IM. That will be cake for you when it is race time.

I am looking for some articles for you. I will post them soon

Did spirnt drills today for first time. 250 warm up with 3 sets of 100 meter sprints with 30 second rest between followed by 250 cool down. Did each sprint in 1:57 and thought I was going to die by the end. Need to build that up and quickly.

Scott, continue with your swimming. One day it will all click and you will be a fish. If you are racing with a wetsuit, then you should expect to shave 10-15 sec/ 100 off of your race time.

Kip, I am still looking for that article, but basically, you can go one of three ways: Living off the course, being self sufficient or a combination of both.
Some people won't carry anything and will eat what they have on the course. the problem with that as you found out, is you are limited to what they have left on the course.

If you bring everything you need, then you will be weighted down. The other thing is, usually people only train with one thing, so when they rely on that for the race, if something happens to that stuff (lost, spilled etc) then you have to experiment on the course, which is never a good thing.

If I were you and Scott. I would find out what the race offers as far as nutrition. Practice using that stuff, especially the flavors of gels and gatorade that you don't like. Then work in your own nutrition stuff. If the course stuff works for you, then you are all set for the race. If you want to use your own stuff, then you will be prepared if something happens to your stuff.

As far as how much to take: The general rule of thumb is 250-350 calories per hour. I was always on the higher end, but I know people who have problems taking that many calories.
For my bike I made an Ironman Cocktail of CarboPro which is colorless and tasteless carbs (100 calories per scoop) and add a couple of scoops of either GU20 or powdered Gatorade (something with flavor and color). Each of my bottles were 600 calories. For an IM I would take 4 bottles and for the half IM I would take 2. Basically, I drank 1 little sip every 12 minutes or 1 big sip every 10 minutes, so I was finishing a bottle in 1.5 hours. I also have an aero bottle filled with water and I would drink at the same rate and quantity as I was the IM Cocktail, just between drinks. So, in theory, I was drinking every 5 or 6 minutes on the bike. Realistically, I was drinking 2 sips at every nutritiion break, one of cocktail and one of water. For solid food, I would eat a banana or oranges (whatever sounded good at the time). I didn't really need solid food because i should be OK with the liquid calories, but if I was hungry, I would eat.

For the run, I lived off of the course. For the half IM, I carried gel holders and took gels throughout the run. Since then I have just used whatever gels they have on course. Also, on the last half of the run, I used Cola. It is great stuff and just pure energy. The problem with it is once you start takling it, you have to keep taking it because the crash is pretty hard. So I left it for the last half of the run and as a reward for being halfway done. On the run, I took something at every aide station. Alternating between just liquid (water/ gatorade/ cola) and water plus solid food (gel, banana, cliff bar/ oranges, pretzels)

All of this stuff you should be practicing with over the course of the next few months. Figure out how many calories per hour you can tolerate and what type of food you can handle. Also how often you need to eat.

Another rule of thumb is "If it tastes fine during training, it will taste like crap during a race. If it tastes great in training, it will be Ok during the race". So find out what tastes great now

Good luck guys!

Congrats on your run.

I got in a few little runs over the weekend. Nothing major, just getting out there. My daughter had soccer all weekend.

Swam at lunch with a 250 w/u followed by 3x100 sprints followed by 250 c/d. Ouch - felt like something was trying to get out of my lungs using a blow torch.

Nice. Good to see you able to ride outdoors now. I will have ride outside sooner or later

 I got in a 9 mile run today. It felt pretty good the later into the run I got.

You have plenty of time between now and September. Plus the Oly will be a great time to experiment with your nutrition. Figure out how many calories you would want to take for your half, then use the appropriate amount for your Oly, even if you could do the whole race without the calories. Use the Oly as a training day.