SBR Endurance Group - CLOSED (Page 12)

I'm new to tri but I love being able to see the  distance I ran accuratly, i seemed to think I ran less then i did before so its nice to feel good about myself. I always lose track counting laps though and round down and wish i had the money to get the garmin 910xt that can count laps too. I would just watch for sales on amazon and such, i snagged a 410xt for $140 right after christmas and appreciate it.

Congrats on your race report and the good fortune you had, Jaelin.  Here's a link to my lap counter, it works great for my use:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FKMEJU/ref=oh_o01_s00_i00_details

I have some info I'll share Randy but I'm so tired right now my eyes are crossing!

Good night all!

Congrats Jaelin! And what fun to get prizes too. Bet you can get some nice sunglasses.

I use the same lap counter that Monty has and I love it. I use it in the pool but it would work on a track too if that is what you were talking about.

I had a great workout today- Spin with the tri group, I think for 1 hr and 45 min then 1 mile run. There was ice on the sidewalks and I am scared of ice but don't have much choice around here in the winter. We are going to start increasing the mileage on our runs soon. I am really going to try to do a lot of bricks this winter. Last 2 years I did not do many and I really suffered in the run on the tri's that I did.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everybody!

Jan

Oh, I almost forgot. Lost another 1.6 lbs in the BL competition. I am happy with that. Not really cutting back that much on food, mostly increasing exercise, but cut out mostly all the sweets and trying to just add in more fresh fruits and vegetables and drink more water. By the way, somebody asked about another healthy drink besides water a while back. I forgot what has helped me before to get the water in since I don't like water (coffee and wine are the only things I really like to drink!). I put lemon juice in my water and for some reason it is really refreshing and I drink more of it easier.

Great workouts to everyone!

Nice job with the workout and weight loss Jan. Thanks also for the inspire, I needed the encouragement, it has been a frustrating week in more ways than one.

Took the last 2 days off so had my own mini tri today.  Rode the trainer early, ran hill repeats midday, then to the Y late this afternoon.

Considering an indoor tri next month.  Did it the last two years but not a big fan of the spin bikes they use (it's set up to go so many miles but there are no tension requirements so you just spin as fast as you can without falling off the saddle).

Hey Everyone!  Hope you are all having a good weekend!  We FINALLY got some snow here but... it came with a bitter cold snap.  Today was -15!!  That's about 5 degrees for you Fahrenheit peeps! I went for a run and felt good but when I got home I realized that even with all my layers - there were places where I had no feeling (ie thighs and butt)!!

I had a good week but still managed to miss a lot of my planned cycling and two of my swims.  Oh well.  Next week is another week!

I've started back at resistance training and it is kicking my butt!  One thing I've noticed is that I train with a 29year old (I'm 41) and while we can run and cycle at the same pace - I take soooo much long to recover than her!  She's tacking on extra miles to the run and I'm hobbling like an old lady afterwards!!

In my quest to become stronger I've decided to put my focus on resistance vs. training for the half mary in February.  I've been struggling to do both as the weights are leaving me feeling too tender to perform at the other sports.  Any one else have this challenge?

Congrats on the weight loss Jan!  I've been working on it too.  I've lost a pound since the holidays - thought I'd lost more but seem to be up again today.  Will work more at it next week.  I planned out all my eating in advance this week but noticed that when I'm at work - I have a habit of skipping my snacks or leaving my meals too long and then I'm ravenous and it's too late.  I'll not eat enough one day only to make up for it the next.  I think I'm making wise choices but my body probably doesn't know when it'll get fed again and is in survival mode too much to be healthy.

Another week on the brink!  Anyone have some really specific goals or targets this week?

Oh!  I use the Forerunner 205 - a really old version.  I've banged it up so badly it no longer has that clear protective covering and yet... it keeps on going.  So until it dies I'll deal with it.  It's pretty big in comparison to the newer ones.

I also use a lap counter which is good when open water swimming - if you know roughly you swim XX distance in XX minutes then you can just press it once, measure your time and get an estimate on how far you've been going.

Congrats on your weight loss Marcia, particularly in -15 deg weather, yikes! I know what you mean about slower recovery, I have also noticed a big difference from when I used to train hard for Taekwondo in my mid 30's to now. I'm 43 and my body doesn't suggest days off to recoup anymore, it just shuts down! Keep up your resistance training, it will take you a couple of weeks to adjust. I generally change my program every 6 to 8 weeks to mix it up, as the body can get used to it and plateau really quickly. I also found the same issues as you, doing strength training before cardio completely zonks my muscles, so I now do cardio first. I usually do strength on run days and I'll run first and then do my gym work as I find the cardio a good warmup and less depleting on my muscles, this way it allows me to get all my workouts in.

My target goals for this week are to get three road runs in, which will be a challenge cause it is heating up again. Only four weeks till my first race and I want to make sure I don't fade on the run. Getting excited and also a little terrified!

Joe, nice job on the mini tri and good luck with the indoor should you decide to do it.

Jaelin, you are a machine! I'm sure you'll break that 20 min barrier in no time, congrats on the race and the prizes!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me an inspire this week, I have really needed it and very much appreciate it!

Hope everyone has a great training week.

I don't do any weight training because of my back but I have tried resistance bands and now have the Rip60 workout which uses straps you attach to the back of a door but my husband installed them in the ceiling. It is like the TRX thing if you have heard of that. After the last 2 bootcamp experiences I am just going to use this. All the people I train with are a lot younger than me and I don't come back from a hard workout like they do but not too bad. I look at other people my age and think I am doing pretty well. I think we can all look forward to aging well with all of our activity as long as we don't get hurt!

Marcia, I try to eat frequently but sometimes it does not work for me either. It gets busy or something unplanned comes along. Drinking a lot of water first when I am starved helps. I also always carry a clif bar in my purse just in case because those usually fill me up and make me feel like I have really eaten something since they are kind of chewy and sweet. Right now there are some kind of puff pastries, a huge slab of chocolate with M&M's in it and a jar of little chocolate candy bars to my right as I am typing. (I am at work) I am NOT going to eat any of it! (I hope)

Joe, sounds like a different sort of tri but do it! It will be good experience and a good workout.

My workout plans for this week are: short swim this morning when I get off work, then spin with the group and run after (I hope) this evening.

Tues-Rip60

Wed-probably rest, have too much to do to get a workout in

Thurs-spin/run

Fri-swim/run

We'll see after that.

Enjoy your workouts!

Jan

Randy, I've had the same question for a while now.  Neither distance or time is a good indicator of a workout without factoring in intensity.  Unless like you said, you're just looking to finish.  When I started running five years ago my workouts were base on trying to run father and faster without any real training direction.  The main reason I went with distance instead of time was because I'd never ran 5K, 10K, or a HM before and I didn't know how much "time" to train up to.  The more I study about training concepts the more I see both time and distance being used in training but not without intensity.  

Out of the last five years I've seen the most improvement in the last ten weeks!  Mainly because I made a plan and I'm sticking to it.  I started with the mileage I wanted to run my the LAST building week before my tapper and HM run.  Then I subtracted 10% off that total back twelve weeks.  I have the same HR workouts each week only adding 10% to the distance, endurance (Z2), intervals (Z2-5), recovery (Z1-2), fartleks (Z2-4).  It's made a noticeable improvement to my hearth rate while running.  One note: I'm running four times a week now and could/should have left it at 2 or 3 but I've backed off the swimming, cycling, and weights not to stress myself out.

Very good!  I hadn't thought of it from that perspective.  Thanks!

I did find a way to grade workouts but it doesn't work well with Triathlons because cycling takes so much more time/distance than lets say swimming.  So if you miss a cycling rotation it would really screw up your weekly numbers. 

You multiply your time (or distance) with your average heart rate for the grade.  So a 20 minute run with an avg HR of 130 would have a Trimp (TRaining IMPulse) score of 2600.  When doing intervals you would have to calculate each interval and add them together.  But you're not careful I think one could spend more time calculating than training, lol.

Joe Friel's book Total Heart Rate Training.  "In 1975 Eric Banister of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, introduced the concept of TRaining IMPulse (Trimp). This is a simple way of using a heart rate monitor to calculate stress from a workout and also the accumulated stress of several workouts during a week. It is defined as: Trimp = training duration x training intensity"

It sounds like yours is about the same.  I will say using RPE and getting a 0.97 seems surprisingly close to me but I have played with RPE much.  I figured as new as I am to tracking my workout it would be all over the place.  Here's how a week of Trimp scores would look:

An interval workout would be the same table but with intervals in the day field and a total for the workout at the bottom:

This works great for single sports but runs into issues with triathlons like I mentioned earlier.  I've plugged in some numbers from the last eight weeks of running and I found several places where I had high Trimp scores two or more days in a row.  Thus possible over training.  At the least, added stress I could have avoided.  Thanks for your comments, Stuart.

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a great training week.

I have a question about nutrition. Basically I was wondering what sort of complex carbs most of you eat? Also how long before or after training do you eat? I have found my energy levels fluctuating quite a bit and I am trying to find a nice balance between eating enough to sustain my workouts, but still staying in a negative calorie zone so I can keep losing weight (fat not muscle). At the moment I'm consuming anything from 1000 to 1500 calories a day. I mostly eat chicken and salad or cooked veggies, oatmeal, occasionally pasta or lasagne and if I need an energy boost I'll eat a protein or carb sports bar. I drink mostly water apart from Gatorade when I am replenishing my sodium/potassium levels after a session. I am particularly interested to hear from those of you who have done a half IM or IM event as to what you do on long training rides and runs (I find I get dehydrated very quickly whilst running). Do you take in extra calories during the workout on top of your normal daily requirement, or do you just factor the calories from gels/sports drinks/sports bars into your normal calorie intake? I know before when I was doing Taekwondo I found a high protein diet worked better for me and helped me keep my weight down, but that obviously isn't the case here because of the endurance factor. I still have 47 or so pounds to lose to get to my ideal weight so I'm reluctant to eat unnecessary calories. I'm thinking of actually cutting out all the "sports" calories and just becoming reliant on good clean basic food, at least until I get my weight down.

Any comments will be much appreciated! Thanks.

Simone, thanks for the inspire it is motivating.  Especially when I look at your training log and see the tremendous input you commit to your training.  Absolutely awesome.

Regarding nutrition I'm all ears as well.  I have no real idea as this will be my first TRI season coming up.  I'll need to start messing with it on some longer rides/runs when the weather turns a little warmer here.  It's going to be a juggling act for me.

I'm down what appears to be 18 pounds now since starting Sept 12th at 254lbs now 236.  I'd really like to be sub 220 by race season and the lower the better.  It's been an average training week for me and I'm ready for some recovery time next week.

Good luck, Jon! Have fun!

I would love to hear advice on nutrition too. Also during the race.

Thanks, Simone for the inspire.

Jan