Fast Twitch Tri-FULL (Page 12)

I went to this kind of a pull after my shoulder surgery (12/2011 180 degree posterior tear shoulder labrum) to save my shoulder. You're right it is a pretty good pull, but it doesn't change my speed much. Maybe a second or two. I have this fantasy that one day I am going to change something (like this) and I'm going to magically go from 1:45's to 1:20's. I'd also like to win the lotto. Argh.

Curious, anyone here fight calf cramping issues (at night especially) & chronic calf tightness/soreness?  I've had issues since high school with this as far as I can recall, and have had a history of calf injuries every since the post 20's/early 30's party life lifestyle change when my wife and I started running/tri's in 2002.  At least once a year since I've been down for various periods of time dealing with my calf's.

A PA friend of ours who works at the VA suggested to take whey protein immediately after exercise and I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now and seems to be working wonders for me (we picked up some GNC 100% whey at Sam's club). Cramping at night is much less and tightness/soreness is practically nill.  I skipped taking some a few runs ago and had issues again the next days was too much of a coincidence to have the same ole issue again.

I spoke with her again this past weekend when we all were at a swim meet for the kids and she asked how it's going.  She then asked some more questions: does it seem to be related more with running or with biking? (knows my tri background).  I stated I typically don't have issues with riding only, always with running.  She mentioned compartment syndrome where swelling from exercise increases pressure increase due to sheathing surrounding the muscle(s) in the lower legs and this leads to compounding pressure and blood flow problems.  I mentioned that when I first put on compression socks I have a feeling of something crawling around under my skin but it gradually goes away.  She told me to use the compression socks all day if doing an early hard/long run or overnight for my evening runs. 

Just want to see if anyone else has had issues like I've had with the calf's.

Go Giants! (up 4-0 early)

Interestingly my speed hasn't changed much maybe 15-20 sec, but my RPE has dropped a lot since I started doing this 1.5 years ago.  That's what I needed to run hard into T1.

DONTO -

I've had some calf problmes over the eyars. but at their worst - about '07 - they were on the bike and not the run, and lawsy left calf.  I'm not sure why it happened, and why it went away, but it got me in about three or four races that season.  Youch!

I've never had compartment syndrome, and sure don't want to.  It sounds brutally painful, right up there ith full-blown sciatica.  it might be that the crawling sunsation you feel is some precursor to CS, but my guess is it's just the musculature adjusting to the pressure of the calf compressors.

As for solutions, calf compressors are one good option.  You can probably keep them on all day, and even though I have never run in mine, that's an option as well.  And cycle in them!

In the supplement area, magnesium is good ast supressing cramping.  almost any supplement company has straight magnesium capsules, or you can get a good dosage of them in a decent multivitamin.  Not many gels have magnesium (maybe Roctane is it right now; E-gel used to), but some drinks do -- i think HEED and EFS have the highest amounts.

As for whey, i have heard that assimilation is best at night while you are sleeping.  Check that out on google, maybe, and if you can stomach whey as a just-before-sleep drink, that might help.  I'm not sure of what in whey would help cramping, other than the good, pure protein source that it is.  I will have to google that myself!

QUINCY -

I think of it as both -- exposing weaknesses and THEN helping one swim better.  (How's that for fence-sitting?)

The biggest weaknesses it will expose, I think , are in the pull, and then maybe how much one engages their core.  It is a drill that will "reward" people who have a fairly high stroke count AND who have a very effcetive pull, while the flipside is it murderous for those who swim very leisurely AND who have a faulty pull.

So, if you sink and/or drift while doing it, from the former you can suspect that your stroke is either too slow or not efficient, and from the latter you can maybe assume that you use your feet too much to keep you straight, as in keeping them too wide apart when you kick.

I guess as we all know, one doesn't need ripped abs to swim well; they just need to effectively engae what they have while swimming.  But this leads to another discussion, which while being highly beneficial is not for right here and now -- especially as for me it isn't the main point of tube-band swimming.  I really do use it as a check on my pulling efficiency, which I know is never quite what I want it to be.

The big caution to tube-band swimming is (assuming one doesn't sink and drown) the shoulders, and (a) it should be entered into very cautiously, as in a few lengths only for the first few attempts at it, and (b) it shouldn't be used more than once a week.  (SHANE - What do you think about that)  I just think that if you suspect you can benefit from more of a focus on your pull, you can do it more safely while using a pull buoy.  But this goes back to the core stuff, and if one's core is poor AND their pull is not strong, then they will almost certainly run a higher risk of starining their shoulders in an effort to stay aflaot and make it across the pool.  That's where I think the pull buoy is safer, especially for people who engage their core not-so-well when swimming.

Of course, use of a pull-buoy is another contentious topic, and one maybe also left for another thread!

I envy your 1:45/100 in the pool ---- but am surprised at it being slower in open water.  it works trhe iopposite for me, but that comes downs to my kick, which I don't use in race swims.  And that's ANOTHER topic!

ANYHOW, I envy your speed, as in our 25m pools up here, i'm hard-pressed to consistently go at 1:55/100!  (2:00/100 is more like it.....)

Hi Donto.  I had calf issues when I first started adding mileage to my running.  Cramping, a feeling I had strained them at times, muscle spasms.  I began doing yoga and that helped some--i.e. TONS of stretching.

Then I discovered it....the foam roller.  My best friend who hurts me oh so good.  I began rolling the living poo out of my calves, not to mention several other areas of contention.  Within a few months, problem solved.  

My understanding is that what we think of as tight muscles often starts with the tight fascia over the muscle.  We have to break through that barrier before we can even affect the muscle.  Foam rolling over time creates looser fascia so that the stretches we do can actually impact the muscle. 

DONTO -

Adding to what I wrote earlier, and to what AMY wrote just above:

If it continues to be a problem, a practicioner of A.R.T. might be able to help.  Calves are right in their wheelhouse of efficacy, so if you have an A.R.T. person in your general vicinity, keep that in your hip pocket if it doesn't resolve on its own.

A final though which came to me when I ready amy's comment about "TONS of stretching" is that plantar fasciitis issues -- even though they manifest in the arch/heel -- are often rooted in calf problems.  If you go to www.tptherapy.com (website for Trigger Point Therapy), you will see that their protocol for working through PF involves almost exclusively calf manipulations.   So as if you needed any further incentive to overcome calf cramping and tightness, there it is -- keeping dreaded PF at bay!

I had a bout of PF in 2007 when I started ramping up run mileage for a possible Mary attempt after I did my HIM and several tri's but aborted it.  When I first saw a therapist he couldn't believe the amount of tension in my calf's, not the big muscles but on the sides and the relieve of him finding all those problem areas really helped me over come PF.

It takes a lot of work to stay "healthy" as I age, after a pretty dismal summer of training, I realize I can't be lazy, need to be steady at it and try to avoid major ups and downs.

Thanks for the feedback all...

That said, I'm getting ready top run home tonight from the office.  Great running weather, for must of the run it'll be a ~35* yaw angle , ugh!

DONTO -

Your mention of martial arts brings to mind again the thought that, even though we triathletes like to think we are tough and fit and disciplined, it's nothing compared to serious MMA guys. 

Let's see:  masters of a bunch of fighting styles; strengthx3; cardiox4; flexibilityx6; mental toughnessx??; sufferabilityx???  I guess many train ALL day, just jumping back and forth from one area to another, and then there is their attention to diet, which is scrupulous to the nth degree.  It's all pretty impressive, to be sure!

I'm not selling "us" short, mind you, and maybe for pro triathletes they begin to approach the some of the training/lifestyle/mental demands of top MMA people, but..........

"Atmospheric" running is so much fun, I envy you doing a flirtatious run with Sandy.  Just don't get blown away by her!  (She's fickle, footloose, and fancy-free!)

Hi everyone,

just wanted to share that I got an email back from Mr. Woodley at BlueSeventy! And it's great news!

Q -

Great news indeed!  I will now have to go to my three wetsuits (two RIP, and why I haven't trashed them, I do not know) and look at the inside of the leg bottoms and check the construction.  It makes me wonder if BlueSeventy designed it that way just to accommodate people who need to make "alterations".

It is always highly heartening to hear about companiers who are responsive and/or flexible.  I have always had phenomenal dealings with DeSoto and Newton, which is why i try to be uber-loyal to them both.  And back in my days of heavy-duty tri-gear ordering, I always felt that www.tri-zone.com bent over backwards to do anything that would help me.

Way back when, maybe '01-'03, when Mizuno was just breaking into the serious-running shoe scene, one of their guys must've been on Slowtwitch 24/7, and he always provided complete answers to any questions, as well as enagge very actively in any shoe-based discussions.  I was a pretty loyal Asics person at that time, but trying to deal with them was like squeezing blood from a stone.

Rudy project is also pretty good, or at least they were maybe 4-8 years ago.  That's probably the last time I dealt with them, and they've grown lots in North America in that time, so maybe they are less rsponsive.  Hope not!

And then there's WTC, who I see as pretty much Pigdogs From Hell........but don't get me started on that topic!

TIFFANY -

Now I'm the late responder!

Many thanks for all of the background information on where you are, and have been, concerning anxiety and preformance expectations.  I can't remember what all I siad in my large post to you, but I'll say now that while I have never really had problems with anxiety, I sure struggle at times with performance expectations.  And in areas of my life outside triathlon, I have had problems in finding it easier to not start something, then to start it and risk failure. 

At the risk of telling you something you maybe already know, you'd be surprised at how many elite and pro traithletes get reduced to walking part of a run in a huge race.  I have certainly seen it at longer distances (half-iron and iron), but also last year, watching an ITU Olympics-qualifier race in Buffalo, I saw several guys walking on the 10km run.  It just points out that none of us are bionic, and we can all make pacing mistakes, or have a poor day witth nutrition, or just go through rough patches in which the wheels essentially all fall off.

Beyond that, i'll tell you that what just happened to me a few weeks ago at an oly in Virginia.  Now, i swim a ton, and this season had me do OVER 80 open water swims.  I LIVE for these, and I have virtually no fear of any water, unless it is full of large vicious snakes or something.   the swim was announced as non-wetsuit, which is a downer for me but not a deal-breaker.  i wore a swim skin over my tri stuff, and felt great in a 5-10minute easy warm-up swim.  The horn went and I started off just fine, feeeling good and all.......and then about a minute into it, I couldn't control my breathing.  Or, rather, I felt my breathing was fine, but I was also feeling breathless.  I gots all angsty about this for another bunch of seconds ---- and then wnet to breatstroke for maybe twn strokes.  then it was back to freestsyle, and it happened again -- and it was another short stint of breast.  During this one I saw a guy about 20 yeards ahead of me and close to shore, and he was walking in knee-deep water.  I started in again, and once more it happened, except thsi time I swim over to where it was shallow and walked for about 20 seconds ( the USAT rule is that one can walk on the seim as long as theya re in contact with the water).  I then resumed swimming, and the rest of the swim was like 99.999% of my OWS -- all freestyle, no problems.

I can tell you, though, that I felt terrible falling apart like that, just being humbly reduced to breats and -- gasp! -- walking the shallows.  But that is all just a case of false pride, and i got through it by telling myself what I truly know -- that sometimes stuff happens.  There may or may not be a clear sign as to WHY a aprticular episode of stuff has ahppened, but the bottom line is that it requires swallowing my pride and doing what needs to be done to make it to the other side. 

I can also tell you tales about when I have had to walk on a run, and that is also humbling and humiliating -- until I realize that something has gone wrong, and walking is what I have to do.  The places where this has gotten me most often is HIM and IM -- but once a few years ago on a 4.2-mile run in a sprint-oly "hybrid", I had to stop THREE times on that run and walk a bit.  And damned if I know why; still haven't figured it out!

It really helps, though, to know that far better people than I am have been in those same spots..........and I just wonder if that knowledge will help you ease up on yourself when you feel the need to do breatstroke for a brief spell, or get off the bike, or walk part of the run.  You are quite new to this stuff and are still working through all the ins and outs of pacing and how to handle your least-favorite race-day weather and what to eat/drink and when, so it makes sense to me that you will face struggles that put you into a place you don't want to enter.  The good news is that (a) you will come out of that palce, and (b) no one is really noticing but you, and (c) that THE best learning experiences from racing are those that are born from adversity.

Let me post this before it etherizes,a nd I'll be back soon!

TIFFANY again -

You know, if you do a couple of sequences of walk-run in your training for N.O. 70.3, that would indeed get you prepared for that eventuality -- if it comes to it.  Half-irons are "great" places to suffer on the run due to either errant pacing or faulty nutrition -- or both!  Again, i could tell you stories of some of my half-irons where one or both of those mistakes were made, and a periodic stint of walking was required........and it all turned out okay! 

My last half-iron featured a few walk breaks, and I still ended up around 5:25, so that shows that walking some needn't be devastating to one's performance.  Granted, i finished probably 3-5 minutes slower than i might've had i run the whole 13.1 miles, but I admitted to myself that (a) I pushed way too hard on the bike, (b) I took in far too few calories on the bike, and (c) I badly underestimated how tough the run course was --- even though I drove it the previous evening (I don't know where my head was on that surveillance mission!)

So, the message here is that mistakes happen, bad days happen, and Plan B or Plan C......or Plan K, need to be employed, and that in this complicated endeavor that is triathlon --- that's okay!

Finally, there are those races in which one is reduced to a run taht turns into a shuffle, and where walking is actually faster than the shuffle!   So don't be afraid to play around with some run-walk sequences, jsut by way of general preparedness.

Finally-finally, let me know if you think you could benefit from seeing a video or two of pro triathletes who bonked or hit a serious wall during important race, and how they came through it smiling, and in one case could even re-enact it in a humorous setting a few years later.  And while my own many rough patches were quite awful at the time, I can look back at them with a certain amount of amusement -- and also gratification that I did what I needed to do to get back on track and in the race again.

Good morning and happy Saturday! 

While we're all preparing for Frankenstorm (a.k.a. The Hurripocolypse) here on the East caost and I was slugging through a cirt simulation on the trainer this morning, I was wondering about bike training distances when training for short course.  First, let me define "short course" as "less then International distance", so figure you're training for somewhere between a 12 and 20 mile bike segment. 

The question I have is:  how long would your "long" ride be during your training plan, and is there even any value to longer aerobic efforts (say, > 90 minutes) in Z2?  I mean, in a race you're gonna be Z3/Z4 pretty much the whole time, so shouldn't you train almost exclusively there (accounting for warm-ups and stuff) and bag the longer aerobic efforts? 

Just a random thought while at 110% LTHR on a Saturday morning... 

MIKE -

If the absolute ONLY thing I am doing in my training is working towards my next important race, i will never go much longer than the distances of that race.  So if it's a conventional oly of 1500/40/10, I would maybe do my longest efforts at 1750/45/11, give or take -- and precious few at those distances.

Therea re times, though, and especially with OWS, when I'll go longer just because it seems like a pleasant idea at the time.  And for the swim, it's not as if I have a set of speeds to work at; mine are "moderate", and "slightly more moderate".  So, my swim workouts are hardly efforts to become faster, and why not just swim a bit longer?  (And I regularly do those ~1750 swims even when it's a sprint I'm training for.)

There are lots of people who just love riding, and so will set out on a 3-hour weekend ride in the same spirit that I regularly do those longer swims.  But for them, and for me, I would caution that too mnay over-long efforts just become "junk" miles, which are mostly okay but can become a problem if an "A"-priority race is coming up.

I used the example of an oly above, but the things become complicated if one is bouncing back and forth between sprints and olympics.  That is, if I have a sprint, then a weekend off, and then a sprint and an oly on the next two weekends, it may become more difficult to justify doing those oly-type workouts in light of those sprints.  I think this is where the importance of prioritizing races comes into play, and that leads to how one structures one's season so that too much racing doesn't muddy the issue.  (I am VERY guilty at this!)

My "solution", which took years to get adept at, is to do many of my at-distance rides and runs as tempo efforts, and for me it is simple -- do the full ride or run at race-pace.  So for an up-coming oly, I'll do a couple of full 40km rides at race-pace, and a couple of 10km runs the same.  This allows me to have that speed in place for an "intrusive" sprint race, although in prep for that, i will also do some 5km runs and 20km rides at race-pace for those distances.

So, if sprints and olys are interspersed tightly in my race schedule, I WILL do over-long S/B/R with respect to the sprints.......but I will NOT do anything much over-long with respect to the olys.  (In a stretch of Sept when I did five sprints in four weeks, I kept my training distances very close to the race distances.)

Keep bracing yourself for sweet Sandy!

WAYNE -

You may have seen this in a post I did to someone else a few days ago, and it referred to soemthing my former coach told me:  it takes about 5 or 6 years of serious cycling for a triathlete to get really strong on the bike.  It worked almost exactly like that for me, so for you I wouldn't assume that you won't get faster on the bike; on the contrary, if you work at it you will get both faster and stronger.

My money is on you to break 8 m/m by the end of the year; you are so close to it now!  And while you refer to a 5km PR of 8:03 as "slow", that would be gold for so many people.  I mean, it is great that you want to continue getting faster (don't we all!!), but I just don't want to see you beating up on yourself for for a 5km PR that is just a tick about 8 m/m!

It sure is tough to look back on "wasted" years and decades!  I didn't start getting serious about this stuff until I was 49, and I often wonder where i could've gotten had I begun a decade or two earlier.  i view the aging thing as a double-edged sword:  maybe I could've honed my abilities much more quickly when my body was younger.......but maybe I would've broken down that much sooner.  I am fortunate to have some decent speed and skills at my disposal, but unfortunate in not having anything close to a bionic body.  So, i break down easily, and even now -- into my post-season -- I am wrestling with an injury that is keeping me from running.  Not a bad to me to have an injury, but still -- it's another in a very long line of injuries over the past 15 years or so.

Your final line -- "My body is not better now, but my training is" -- is key.  The former is the situation for most of us, so we need the later to bridge the gap between where we're at and where we want to get to.  I've talked to "kids" at races who are really fast, but train very little, and chaotically at that; for them, they just rely on natural-born speed which is augmented by youthful durability.  Pretty nice package, if you've got it!  (And by "kids", I guess that's anyone under 35!)

As you say:  "Sigh"

Oh, I'll keep getting faster than I am now, just don't think I'll get faster than I was in college.  I'm just barely back to it, got the road bike at the end of July, and was just 10-15 seconds short of 21 mph at the Amelia sprint on wet roads and strong crosswinds (on the way back).  Now, that was about as flat a course as it gets, but still I was happy with my speed, especially with it being less than 3 months of riding.

Yeah, I have some coworkers that think that's fast.  Mostly they don't run much though.  One runs 5k's regularly, but she's not lean, so I doubt she trains that much.

I see 8 m/m as "slow" as it's not even remotely competitive.  It's a good improvement from my "break 30" speed at the beginning of the year though.  I'm happy with my improvement, and that my goal for the year is within reach.  My perspective is from seeing 5K tri times much faster than that, and that's my stand alone 5K speed.  In the last tri I was 24th on the bike and 58th on the run.  Ouch.   In bigger 5K's I'm doing great if I'm in the top 50%; although maybe that's when I was doing 9+ m/m.  I usually only wait around on awards if my daughter is running, she's pretty fast.  In local 5K's she's medal'd every time except for one race.  She runs on the HS XC team and I can't even imagine what it would be like to run like the top boys on her team.  Good googly they are fast!  I won't be the fastest runner, and I'm ok with that.  I'll just keep working on it and see what I can do.

I'm looking for another flat 5K course that's certified; that counts for Peachtree start time qualifier.  There was a 5K here last weekend that was actually 3.4 miles.  Oops!  Glad I didn't run that one.

WAYNE -

That's incredible to "miss" a distance by so much.  Now, I'm a technological dunderhead and do not even remotely understand GPs.......but my wobbly understanding is that it's kind of hard to miss on, especially on land.  Thousands of people have spent hundreds of dollars on Garmin-type stuff in a quest for exactitude in their training, so it seems that RDs can and should get pretty close to advertised distances.

A local race org, which is run by terrific people, did this to me:

• In a '05 iron, mismeassured the run overlong by a mile and a half.
• In a '07 half-iron, mismeasured the run short by about a kilometer. 

The last one was a killer for me, as I crossed the line in 5:07 and was thrilled to have a half-iron PR.........and then got the email a few days later apologizing for the fact that the run course was short --- and there went that PR.  ARRGGHHH!!!

My second-to-last race this season featured both a swim and run that were mismeasurerd too long.  Another half-iron, in '10 in Vermont saw me emerge from the swim in 34 minutes --- so I knew that the swim was WAY short, as my best half-iron swim before that was 38:07 or so, with 40 being far more common.  Grrr!

You're right about viewing times as "slow" if they are "not even remotely competitive", and that opens up a whole new outlook on our goals and our training and our performances.  For you, there are two intersecting lines (this might've been waht MATT was suggesting about a week ago), and those are the improvements you will make over the next however-many years with consistent training, and the fact that as you continue to age you will find your times edging closer and closer to being competitive.  How old are you now?  (I will search back to your bio for that info.)

And there's also the aspect of running off the bike, which as you know changes things quite a bit.  But that too is conquerable, and far and away the most satisfying miedium- to long-term accomplishment I have made in triathlon is learning to run off the bike quite well -- to the point that my stand-alone 5km and 10km times are not that far off what i can produce (on a very good day) when running in a spint or oly.  It took a few years of concerted effort to do this (thus the use of "medium- to long-term"), but it is all a matter of chipping away and not expecting to get there overnight (that's where people end up imploding on the run!)

Congrats to your daughter!!!

Good questions.  I've been doing sprints only for the last 3 year now and in that time have gone from ~20.5 mph to a peak of 23.4 mph last year.  Most of my training for the races has consisted of doing Jorge's/BT cycling training plan 2-3x per week and an outdoor "long" ride.  Obviously the cycling plan has it's training phase(s) structure and I use virtual power for it.  The outdoor ride has been anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours (or 25 to 50 miles). I have to qualify this as riding time not actual time as I go out with a few friends and we often will stop (pee breaks) and meet up others.  The long rides are estimated along the lines of being 50-60% Z1-Z2 and 20-40% Z3 and 10-20% Z4.  Personally I can't be outdoors on the bike and just constantly pedal along in Z2 range. Depending on the point in training I'll do 2-5 miles so called race pace intervals every so often.  Also on our favorite 40 miler route there is a small hill that loops around were bikers go (remember this is coastal flat FL I'm talking about) that we'll do several times to get in some short but hard climb intervals.

For Sprints races where I've worn the HR strap, I'm Z4 (LT based) the whole time.

I'm wondering about this too. I'm probably going to end up doing a 2.5-3 hr "long" ride once a week to maintain my bike handling skills, do group rides, etc. I ride with a bunch of really strong guys so it ends up being a lot of Z3 work for me...but some Z2 stuff too, and wondering if that is just junk miles or useful for "sprint/oly" training.

But that's sort of fitting training to what I want to do. I'd love to hear from some of the bike gurus on this topic...

And sending out positive vibes to the East Coast crew...this storm reminds me of the 1991 Halloween storm where several storms combined to create "The Perfect Storm." Hoping it doesn't get that bad.

Steve, I missed this response before I wrote my last post...I am definitely going to have to re-think my desire to do the longer rides. Maybe earlier in the season and then shorten up. I like your approach with the tempo efforts at race distance. Going in my "mental notebook." Thanks.