Funked Up Triathletes - Season 2 - Olympic/Sprint Focus - Closed (Page 12)

I really like that book. I actually got to attend a clinic with Sheila last year. I wish I could say that I've done well putting her stuff into practice though.

Got the call that the bike is ready! Took closer to 2 weeks, but that's ok.

Of course, now it's about to snow. Just great.

Can't wait to see it!!

And here it is! And it's awesome! Of course only 16.6 miles on it so far, but I'm very impressed. Of course relative to a 20 year old bike, I just like that the wheels are actually round, no lumpy; the brakes stop you quickly; the gears shift when you want them to and don't slip; and nothing seems to be flexing on its way to fracture. You know, the simple things.

But a few observations on the bike from the first ride, especially relative to things I'd read about it on the internet.
- I had read aero road bikes are not as stiff as others, but I don't feel any real flex in the frame under power. I was impressed by the immediacy of it going when I put power into it, If I"m spinning in the saddle and stand on the pedals I have to drop 2-3 gears to keep enough resistance
- It fits me a lot better than the previous bike. When I would get down in the drops on the old bike, the reach was a bit long so I'd slide forward onto the nose of the saddle. That can lead to some, let's just say, numbness and discomfort. Any soreness today was on the sit bones where it should be, and they'll get used to it fast.
- Clearances are tight on it, I had to play around with the speed/cadence sensor a bit before I got things to not bump into each other
- The old saddle bag is not going to work, with the aero seat post I can't fasten a strap around it so my old one slumps and swings. I need to find a new bag that probably just attaches to the seat rails and can hold a tube, tire levers and mini pump, along with phone, and maybe a snack. Last two items are optional as I could put them in shirt/jersey pockets.
- I had them swap out the 12-25 cassette that came with the bike for an 11-28 and I love the wide range of gearing. Next ride I'm going to have to hit some real hills
- It's FAST. If you look at the ride on Strava, it doesn't look it; I didn't break any PRs or climb the leaderboard on a bunch of segments or anything. But I rode a route I've done a bunch and was at about my 3rd fastest on most of it despite it being a pretty bad day for me riding. The bike was great, but ti was 23 degrees when I got up this morning and only made it to about 50, so I was cold. I also think I have a bit of my daughter's chest cold as I was coughing a bit and didn't feel like I could keep an effort going as well as normal. Or I could just be losing some fitness from not riding enough lately. At any rate, the bike was fast but I was not. Just finished some bourbon and will go to bed early tonight. Tuesday is supposed to be about 65 degrees and I'll be working from home so I'm hoping to get another ride in, hopefully feeling more up to it.

Overall, very pleased!







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Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!! That is just awesome.

great looking bike!

Thanks!

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid 60s so hopefully I'll be able to get in another ride. Took my daughter to the doctor today and now she's on antibiotics for her chest infection, so that's probably not a good sign for my sore chest and coughing though.

It was in the 60s yesterday, so I did make it out for another ride. I ended up having to take the saddle bag off- with the aero seatpost there isn't a good way to keep it from shaking around. Spare tube, tire levers, mini pump and phone were all in jersey pockets, but that didn't bother me really. I'll have to figure out what to do during a race about that, but there's time.
It was a short ride, only 7mph since a storm was coming. Winds were pretty stiff, 18kt steady with gusts to 30kt and since they were out of the west it was basically a cross wind for my north-south out and back. And wow, do those thick aero tubes catch a side wind! I didn't have any issue with being blown off the road or anything, but it was very noticeable.
I had about a 1/2 mile warm up and cool down, and in between averaged about 18mph so despite a still congested chest I was moving pretty fast for me.
The forecast looks like a steady march down in temperature, so that might have been last opportunity in a while to ride unless I can get some colder weather clothing.

Cheers all!

Fire it up with that new bike!! I'd be out riding in my parka and a face mask if I had that thing!! hahaha

October/November has traditionally been a slow time for me (sloth-like food consumer). The clock change/darkness screws me up for a while. I am trying to change that this year. I've definitely been focusing more on the bike/spin and swim than run this fall for whatever reason (because I'm finding them both more fun!!). My base goal is to spin/bike M, W and maybe on my home trainer on F or Sat. I swim T/Th, though this week it didn't happen - may go in tomorrow super early in the morning. I've been sporadic with my core work. > I had joined a few different "challenges" some of my friends are doing. They are each only doing one - either burpees, planks, or squats and I decided, what the heck, why not do all three. Then I threw in push-ups with the squats so i could alternate sets of ten. Then the leaves started to fall and all I did for about a week was rake leaves and fell off the wagon for my "challenges." I kind of felt like I was getting something done with the raking, but couldn't log the numbers with my friends so I said screw it and opened a beer after raking. Sometimes it just has to be done. It will all come out in the wash I hope.
I did get another tweak on my bike and got a ride in. So great. I can't wait to put aerobars on this thing.

On a side-note, the skis are tuned, flurries are occasionally falling and I picked up a new pair of ski boots this year. Psyched! That squat challenge should come in handy! Waiting for freshies in the glades!

Smile everyone, it's the first day of the rest of your life! So much to be thankful for. Get your base going!! Next year will be fantastic!

Who wants a challenge? Let's get one going!

Skiing sounds like a great idea right now- it's 18 degrees here right now. I'd love to keep riding further into the cold weather, but I just don't have the gear for anything less than about 45 degrees right now. I did go running a couple of days ago in about 30 degrees and was ok but that was about the limit of my running gear too. I think my Christmas list this year might consist of some good cold weather gear I can use for both running a cycling, probably a good jacket, gloves, some shoe covers, pants/tights etc. REI has a sale going on that stuff right now, I might have to make a trip up there. If any of you have any cold weather gear you swear by, I'd love to hear recommendations.

I'm trying to also be better this year about not slacking off once the time change hits. Being sick hasn't helped, although I'm getting a bit better. The last bike and run I was still on psuedoephedrine, which jacks up my resting heart rate so I gas out with much less effort. I'm finally off that and hopefully just a couple more days until I'm completely over it.

I think this winter I'm mostly going to try to focus on running. Since I don't have a trainer it should be easier to be a bit more consistent. This year I started out with a 10k training plan that got me up to about 7.5 miles for the longest run, I'm thinking I might try to extend that out to 13.1. Between now and Christmas I'll just work on not losing too much fitness and then start a more structured plan to work off the holiday badness.

It seemed like a good time to take stock of 2014, and I'm pretty pleased overall with my progress relative to 2013. Just looking at my training log on Strava:

2013- 45 activities, ~260 miles. 82 miles running with an average run of 2.5 miles and a 12'29" average pace. 178 miles cycling at ~14.5mph.

2014 so far- 131 activities, 812 miles. 281 miles running with an average run of 3.1 miles at an 11'10" average pace. 537 miles cycling at 16mph. Recent running a cycling paces are more like 9'45" running and closer to 17mph riding.

So this year's training was a little more than 3x last year's and I hope to add a little more to it. I think my rough goal next year will be to double again this year's mileage (hopefully even more on the bike) and maybe hit 200 activities. I'll work on more specific goals later. Maybe sign up for a half marathon race, at least a sprint tri or two and maybe even an Olympic if I can work on the swimming more.

So I'm pretty pleased with 2014 since I've definitely improved myself which is really the goal for me. How about you all; how did 2014 turn out so far relative to your goals? Any general 2015 goals yet?

Thanks for the positive words Jen!

Thanks are going OK here, but the cold weather is a bit of a downer. I took several weeks off in October and have started back up, but nothing too serious yet. Just getting some consistency in. I've been on the trainer and running about 15 miles wk or so. I contemplated a half-marathon that would have taken place today, but opted not to commit to the training for it. I am in run shape, but not race shape if you know what I mean. So, I'm basically trying to get 4-5 workouts a week in.

Regarding 2015, I'm starting to put things together. I'm signed up for the Kansas City Triathlon in late May and Alcatraz in June. I seriously thinking about doing the 70.3 in early October again but have not put the money down. I'm also contemplating a 3-pack half marathon special here that would be 3 races in 5 weeks in April/May. I'm thinking this would get me in some good base running condition prior to Tri season.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to consider the budget a bit more this year. I've been blessed in that we pretty much do what we want to do when we want. However, my company just gave us our 2015 health insurance premiums and I'm going to be about $350 per month poorer just for health insurance. That's a whole lot of race fees. Plus, I signed up for Alcatraz and that entry fee is like $500 plus a trip to San Francisco. Not cheap, ha ha.

So, we'll just have to see. Feeling a bit down in the dumps over all of it. January is our 15 year anniversary and I was hoping for a Caribbean getaway with the wife after the new year...but not sure that's going to happen now either.

One other goal for 2015 I'm thinking of. IN reading about the Kona finishers, I was looking at height/weights of the men. Most of the pros were about 5'10" and 160-165#. I'm 5'11" and 190. OK, maybe more like 198 right now, after tri season ended. So, I'm thinking that I need to focus on my weight more than anything and work to get down to about 175. That would be my lightest since high school. I'm sure my speed would increase dramatically just by being lighter. This is one of the last areas I've just not really committed to addressing.

That sucks about your health insurance. That seems to happen a lot lately. Rather than a big premium bump for me, a few years ago we were shifted onto a high deductible plan, $4500/yr before my insurance pays for anything except preventive care. Despite assuming basically all of the cost risk ourselves, we didn't get any raise or anything as compensation. Lovely. Lucky for us my wife also works so we were able to put her and the kids on her insurance as well, and her high deductible isn't quite as high. People I work with lately that have had a baby have been paying ~$5000 out of pocket, so I guess I should be grateful the kids came before the plan switch.

I won't go too far into the political weeds here, but no sane person given the task to come up with a system of health insurance for this country would come up with the employer driven yet half government managed disaster we have currently, and my biggest frustration with our current politicians of both parties is nobody seems to be trying to do anything to fix it for the majority of people.

At least you'll be able to get Alcatraz in, I bet that one will be awesome.

One nice side effect on the increase in exercise (and my wife's forcing me to eat better because she wants to) is my pants fitting better. 140.0lbs this weekend. I don't know the last time I saw the 130s, but I'd like to bounce off of it before the inevitable holiday weight adds a little back. Following what my fitbit tells me works well for me, but I'll probably not be watching my calorie intake for the next 6 weeks. I need a mental break.

Snow day for the kids today- seems awfully early in the year for that in Kentucky. Could be a long winter.

Ditto about the health insurance. We've got the baby coming so we're looking at a 2K individual deductible (4K family). We are on my wife's b/c my company's is just awful. Expensive with very high deductibles. They absorbed the minor increase in the deductibles last year, not sure yet what they're doing this year. I should note, she hasn't seen a raise in 3 years. My company on the other hand will make it as expensive as is legally possible for the employees which is amazing b/c we're a healthcare company. My CEO has actually considered paying the penalties and having everybody go to to the exchanges (we're about 1K people). We are also self insured. Not a family-friendly company. It's a big part of the reason come spring time I'll be looking to move- I'm underpayed by about 40% (easy) and the benefits are awful. Nice place to work though, despite everything I've said.

Can't believe kids are getting snow days, we've got some cold here, and a little sleet last night. I heard we may have some snow tomorrow, but nothing significant. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow but I'm supposed to do a 4mile MAF test. I haven't done a test but I've been running MAF for a month or two now. Interested to see how it progresses.

Been getting in a lot more swimming lately, at twice a week at over 1K yards per session. I know it's not much, but it's a start. THinking I might ask for some swim lessons for my January B-day. I think it'll help.

Despite my lack of posting, I've been getting in a good number of workouts. Things have just been very very busy. Wedding season is FINALLY over, but my wife's sister (and our next door neighbor) had a baby on 10/29 which led to a busy week, followed by me getting sick (again). I'm thinking my 2 year old is responsible for this!!! Nevertheless, been running 2x per week, biking 1-2 and swimming about 2. Also lifting at lunch twice when I can.

Nice bike btw!!!! Enjoy it!

Seth, sounds like at least you're getting some good exercise in. It does seem like I got sick a lot when my kids were 2 years old, they were bringing home a lot of junk from day care.

Does anyone know much about GoPro's or Virb's?

I just got the idea to do Alcatraz with one of these cameras on me. It wouldn't me the most aero option, but I figure that is not going to be an event I'm necessarily "racing". It's an odd distance, so it's not like I have a certain goal time, and the course is unique enough that it will be more about the experience than anything. Any thoughts on this?

Wish I'd seen this earlier- I took a trip to REI today and would have taken a look at them. (Side note: I love REI, I'm like a kid in a candy store at that place! They're having a pretty good sale at the moment. Santa will be hooking me up with some cold weather clothes).

I haven't used an action camera of any type, but I do mess around with video on my DSLR. For footage with action and a lot of motion, I've found a 60 frame per second frame rate helps a lot at keeping things clear and not blurry. For that reason I'd lean towards the GoPro, or you could also look at one of Sony's Action cams.

Sounds like a fun idea.

I loooove REI!!! Sadly there is not one near here at all. It's all EMS or LL Bean. There are a couple of nice local shops though.

Time to get going again. My knee has been an issue over the last week/week and a half. I had done a bunch of spin classes and a couple of runs in the same week and I've done something to it. I think the fact that I wear running shoes on the spin bike (my clips are different) doesn't allow my feet to move at all. I can move my feet ever so slightly on my bike which is great for comfort. Regardless, I clearly need to spend more time on my bike on the trainer and less in a spin class. It hasn't quite healed and it still hurts but I'm going to figure this out. Ice, walking, rolling muscles. In the mean time I'll swim. I've been trying to get a couple of swims in a week (except this last week) at 2,000+ yards. I can feel and see a difference. - which is another reason it stinks to have not worked out over the last week+. If there is one thing I've learned, swimming fitness goes faster than running or cycling.
I'm doing a couple of challenges this month. First, let's face it, it's holiday season and I love to cook. So....tomorrow morning I will weigh myself and do so each week to "check in" and track what's going on. My last weigh-in will be December 31st with a goal of at least maintaining my weight. I need to come up with a good penalty though. Bwahaha.
Second, I'm going back to swim/bike/run and doing 30 workouts this month. Yup, Christmas Day off, that's it. But, it will be scaled way back to 10 minutes for runs and swims and 15 minutes for a bike. Sound useless? Well, typically if you start running and go 10 minutes, odds are you'll go for 20 because it's feeling good. The point is that the small time allotment seems easy to do so you'll get out there. We'll see how it goes! 8 months of darkness has begun up here in the north country so I'll need all the help I can get! Hahaha!
Cheers!
Jenn

As much of a techie as I am, I've never gotten into action cams. DC Rainmaker is pretty into them, you should check out his reviews. The Garmin ones can connect with your HRM to give you GPS and other info- looks cool.

Thanksgiving was a binge with respect to eating, which is frustrating. I've been making an effort to make better choices lately and to eat more. I've been putting on weight and I think it's partially due to not eating enough, despite high volume of exercise.

Over the long weekend I put in 16 miles on the trainer on Thanksgiving morning and a 7.5 mile run on Saturday (19 degrees out and it felt amazing). I'm starting to kick around the idea of doing the Philly Marathon next November. The wife is on board so long as the new baby is- basically we'll wait until summer and see how she's sleeping and whether I can properly train and parent. In the mean time, I'm doing straight zone 2 MAF training to build my aerobic base- I think it's working.

Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving!

We just got the REI about a year ago, which was pretty exciting. We have no EMS or LL Bean around here so it was really the first big outdoor store here that's not with a hunting focus like Cabela's or Bass. I do like LL Bean, I've actually been to the Freeport store before.

My Thanksgiving was a festival of bad behavior when it came to food and beer. My bathroom scale pegged the damage at +5lbs, but in the past the Monday after has been pretty alarming but by Wednesday about half the damage has gone away. So I'm back to tracking calories again. On the bright side, Michigan in November is flat and cold which I really like for running, so I did manage to run most days up there. I ran a 5k flat out in about 26:20 which was my fastest so far, then a short treadmill run, and then a 10k. I was hurting by the end of that one, and my heel has been sore since. I think just not used to longer runs (for me), it actually feels better after it loosens up from walking on it, in a few days it will probably be fine. Another reminder that I need to be more regular about it.

Seth- I seem to remember you having done half marathons, but would that be your first full?

short run tonight - then my back went out. i am flat on my back on the floor with 800mg of Advil floating around. My PT has already emailed me a couple of stretches and I see him on Thursday. Keeping this short as I can't sit, stand, or be horizontal for any amount of time without being in agony. This too shall come to pass - it's not the first time but I'm curious as to what caused it.
cheers and let me live my life vicariously through you guys for the next few days! Get out there and do stuff and post it so I know the world continues to spin in the appropriate direction and the isogonic lines haven't shifted! LOL
and don't forget, Thanksgiving comes but once a year - enjoy the hell out of it!! I do.
Cheers!
Jenn

Yea, first full, if it happens. Definitely not committing to it yet. 5.8 miles this morning. Temp was in the mid 30s which meant shorts and a t-shirt with arm warmers. Forgot my gloves and hat which made the first mile a little rough, but warmed up after that. The hat is becoming a more important part of my wardrobe because about 2 weeks ago, I embraced the thinning hair and shaved it for the first time, ever. Wife loves it and was pushing for it for years.

We don't have REI near me but there is one near my mom, about an hour away which is good but annoying. Where I grew up, in Paramus, NJ, there are very strict blue laws because of the sheer volume of retail establishments (highest retail volume of any zip code in the United States). This means that essentially everything, except the grocery store is closed on Sundays. We also typically go to my mom's on Sundays, so shopping at REI is difficult, as are doing returns.

Jenn, I hope your back is better or at least improving. I think we'll both have to live vicariously through Seth for a little bit- my foot is getting better but I'm going to try not to run on it too aggressively and aggravate it. I think I need to get on a plan for slowly building distance again, I was doing that early in the year. Probably not swimming for the next month at least after being attacked by my dermotologist (Swedish heritage and a childhood in California do not mix..) with a follow up attack on the 23rd. Not that I was swimming much anyways. I might try to squeeze in a bike ride this weekend if the weather isn't horrible. With kids and Christmas stuff it's a busy time of year.

3lbs of holiday weight have already fallen off. I wonder how much salt my mother in law cooks with!

I totally agree about the hat- my hair isn't what it used to be either, and I've always kept it pretty short. Running over the weekend I ran a 0.8 mile loop, so I could just toss the hat and gloves in the mailbox on my way past when I got hot.

I'm tired- probably due for a recovery week. Afraid that if I throw in recovery, it'll set me back. I know, I know...it's just how I think sometimes. This morning's run was scheduled to be about 60 minutes, but I cut it to 40 because I was feeling sluggish and having trouble getting my HR up to where I wanted it (148 BPM).

Separately, I'm not sure how long BT will have these groups for us- any thoughts on moving this to a FB group? I'd be happy to create it if anybody is interested. Personally, I find FB easier to manage and respond.

So, here's a problem I'm having, eating. Except when it's a weekend and I'm eating out, or holidays, I seem to have a lot of trouble eating ENOUGH. In my mine, I'm still a "fat person." and I have a lot of trouble getting away from the Weight Watchers mentality. That being said, I eat ALLL DAY. For example, here is a run down of today's eating:

Breakfast
2 eggs, 1 egg white, 2oz of lunch meat turkey- 7:30am
0% greek yogurt w/ dash of honey (10am)
3 hard boiled egg whites (11am)

Lunch
Stir fry- (2 oz whole wheat pasta, 4oz ground turkey (93/7 variety), asian chili sauce, brocolli slaw).

Snack
Philly soft pretzel (they were in the office)

Dinner
6 oz chicken and 1 veggie delite zuchinni souffle

1oz brie cheese with a few crackers.

Today's diet was similar to other days. Today's calorie total was 1570, and 36 WW Points.

Looking for other people's daily diet tips.
At the same time, I'm having trouble dropping pounds. I've been at the high end of my range for a few months despite good nutrition and lots of exercise. I know it likely is related to NOT EATING ENOUGH. Definitely looking for tips.

TIA!

I'm cool with a FB group if anyone else is.

Just out of curiosity, do you use an app for tracking calories? I use myfitnesspal when I'm getting serious (and I am now).

I have a problem with eating. My issue is portion control. If I don't do things pretty drastic, i will make really stupid decisions.

It's always interested in reading what other people are eating to get some ideas.

Here's my diet for today. My wife is making a cheesy/chicken/potato dish tonigh that i know is calorie heavy, so I switched it up today:
Breakfast:
2 hard boiled eggs + a Chicken sausage link (total 294 calories)

Planned lunch:
2 hard boiled eggs + 3 turkey sausage links (total 244 calories)

Snacks:
10 or so mint lifesavers
a Coke Zero or something similar (I drink little soda, but do find 1 in the afternoon at work helps and I am well aware of all of "bad" stuff of diet sodas)
If I get hungry, I'll have cheese stick that I stole from my kid's lunch box stash.

This should leave me with about 1200 calories (after adding my workout data from this morning) for dinner tonight. I won't use anywhere near all of that, but I like to leave "room" at the end of the day as it gives me a bit of a feeling of freedom. For a snack tonight, I may have some celery with jalapeno/artichoke dip.

It's a pretty boring process but it works for me.

I was kinda wondering about the same thing- when do these groups expire? I'm fine with a Facebook group. Another option is the Strava club you already started- it does have a discussion board. I'm fine either way, not sure if David wants to join Strava if he has not yet.

The thing I struggle with in terms of weight is that I don't have a good idea of what I should weigh. I peaked a couple of year ago at around 165, and it was pretty obvious at that point I was fat. I started losing weight, down to 140.0 pounds a couple of weeks ago, today 143. I seem to sort of bounce off the low 140s- not sure if it's just getting lazy at that point or if my body has some kind of natural adjustment it makes as I get to that point. I'm certainly not as fat now, but I can still grab onto a little bit of belly fat. If I just Google "what is my deal weight" or look at weight versus height of cyclists and endurance athletes, somewhere in the 135-140 range is about right. This has me wondering if my focus should really be more on body composition that actual weight at this point. Unfortunately I have no idea how to go about that. But if your weight is closer to what might be your ideal weight and no matter what you seem to do the pounds stay the same, maybe all the exercise you're putting in is making positive progress on body composition.

For calorie tracking, I started off a couple of years ago using a web tracker called Sparkpeople. It synced to fitbit which was nice, but now the fitbit tracker itself is good enough I just use that, especially now that it has a bar code scanner. I am a little annoyed that fitbit won't be syncing with Apple Health, it would have been nice to have my Strava and Wahoo fitness tracked workouts sync to Fitbit automatically.

Today's not a great food day for me (donuts are everywhere, I can't resist!). Friday is sometimes a day I misbehave. So I'll give yesterday's meals which were more typical.

Breakfast- microwavable breakfast burrito when I got to work, a bunch of coffee with 1 sugar packet- 310 calories

Lunch- cheese raviolis sprinkled with some olive oil and Parmesan- 800 calories. This was a little heavy for lunch, usually it's leftovers or a sandwich and some chips or crackers, more like 650 calories. But I was working from home and the pasta needed to be used up

Dinner- home made enchiladas. I made the tortillas and sauce from scratch, filled them with refried beans (from a can, not the best..) and cheese. Some beans on the side, also some Mexican rice (also home made). A dollop of sour cream. And a beer- total 740 calories. I make and eat a lot of Mexican food- my wife is of Mexican descent and I used to work in a Mexican restaurant in college. I'm the main cook in our house, and a pretty average cook except for Mexican food, where I can do a pretty decent job. I've found I can make a very filling dinner for around 6-700 calories, and beans are a good lean protein source, so I use them a lot.

Yesterday ended up being completely vegetarian, totally by accident. I find this happening a bit since I started eating better.

For the day I came it at 1850 calories, which is pretty typical. Fitbit says I have been burning ~2400 per day on average, so if I did this every day I'd lose a pound every 9 days or so, with some off days I'm probably really more like a pound every 2 weeks, and that trend seems to hold when I do ok with getting at least some exercise. I try not to let my calorie intake get too- adding the beer with dinner to get me over 1800 was on purpose, since I've found if I end up in the 1600s I tend to eat something like candy later. Not that beer is healthy, and calories are calories, but I prefer not to eat too close to going to sleep.

I guess I don't have any great tips, other than track EVERYTHING you eat, like what you eat so you won't stray to eating junk, and aim for a reasonable calorie deficit that won't throw your metabolism for a loop and that you can maintain, for me 500 cal/day on average seems to work. And if you figure out what an ideal weight is, or how to work on body composition, please let me know