kenj group - Closed (Page 13)

Great job!  The walk/run program is successful for a lot of runners.  Saturday I think I passed the same guy 10 times and vice versa.

Another month in the books! You guys are all doing great with your winter training!  It is sometimes tough to stay motivated when the racing season is a ways off for most of us.  You guys have been great to work with! I was a bit nervous about becoming a mentor, but you have all made it easy!!!  Thanks for that!

February is going to be a run focus month for me (mostly because I am going to Florida this Saturday for a conferance).  But when I am home I will continue the bike and swim as scheduled.  I have a 10K on 2/28 that I am hoping will be my first sub 50 minute 10K.

I know a couple of you chimed in on doing a challenge, anyone else want in?  Any other race goals for the month?

Yea, I'm in for something.  Just got to figure out a reasonable goal.

So, in the interest of being held accountable it's time to review my January goals:

• Find a sprint event I can enter and put it on the calendar
• Done - Not really a sprint but...  Ozark Valley Triathlon (1,000 yards, 19 miles, 4 miles) - June 21.
• Get a plan in place that will get me ready for the sprint
• Not Done - but I'm working on it
• Swimming - Get in the pool and find a local coach to help keep me from drowning.
• Not Done - I had an appointment with a coach at the pool for Jan 29 but the storm hit and we postponed it.  Rescheduled for February 5.
• Cycling - Get in at least one century on the bike.  Ride 300 - 400 miles in January (mostly indoors)
• Done - Got the century in early and rode approx 316 miles.
• Weights - Focus on leg strength for the bike - squats, inverted leg press, glutes, hamstrings.  Min. three workouts / week.  Move off the squat machine and on to free weights.
• Not Done - I had a really hard time with this.  The cycling and running made it very difficult for me to focus on legs.  I'm happy with the strength training I did, but it was almost exclusively upper body.
• Running - Begin a running plan to increase my V02 max and start building a running base.
• Done / Not Done - I did get started but had some pain issues that kept me from getting very far.  This will be a focus area for February.

Not great but not horrible, thanks in large part to support from you guys.  I'm looking for February to be a good month! 

Ken - thanks for being a mentor! I have loved checking in on the forum and hearing what everyone else is doing.  Too bad we aren't closer or running the same 10ks because I just went sub 50 this past weekend and we could pace off each other!

 I'm pretty happy with January.  It was a whole month of prep for the base building that I'm doing now.  Yeah the shoulder was an obstacle, but it gave me time to work on body position in the water through lots (lots!) of drill work.

 For February, I'm going to have the goal of consulting my husband sooner when things start to hurt and stay consistent with sticking to my training plan.   I think as long as I don't make excuses (which I have been really good at so far) I'll be ready for a half IM for July.

Other than the swim, and we'll give you a pass on that with the storm, you did great!  Running is better to build slowly, so we will work on getting the consistancy in February.  It is probably time to start looking at a plan, but you should wait until after meeting with the swim instructor to see what type of program he can help with then look for a plan that works around that.

Great job!

That's a good plan!  I wouldn't say you missed much (outside of the shoulder issue) in January.  You have plenty of time to build and the main thing is consistancy with the workouts and getting the rest when it is called for.  You will be in great shape for the distance by July!!!

Having a pacer would be great!  I was close to 50 at the end of Feb race last year, so as long as I get a good month of running I'm hoping!

I have the opposite problem! I struggle after getting home and comfortable.  Especially if it is waiting until 8:30 for Masters!  Lately I have been bringing my stuff with me and stopping on the way home to use the Y pool just to make sure I get the second workout in.  It is a little easier in the summer when there is a lot of daylight left and a bike ride to do.

I think you just get used to it! Hang in there!

I haven't posted in a while.. (been reading them all however).

Swimming has been pretty good.  I get 30 mins while my son takes lessons.  My times have been getting better but still need to work on the endurance.  

The bag/leg is better but it's slow going.  The PT appts help and it's slowly betting better but at this rate it's going to take months.  So I decided the other day to just start back running.  I figured it'll either make it better or cripple me for life.

Riding is going to be tough for the next month or so.  By the time I get home it's dark and when I get up it's dark.  There is a 6AM spinning class that I'm going to start going to.  At the very least it'll get the cardio back to where it needs to be.  I'm going to try to get out on the weekends too.

Hey, at least it's not freezing down here..

Glad to hear your leg is on its way to recovery.  As for biking, can you get a trainer?  I found one on Craigslist for $60.  Its about as boring as boring can be but at least it gets you saddle time on your own bike.  Plus you can do it at home which makes it easier. 

Actually I have a trainer but I think I'd rather watch paint dry.  Ugh... soooo boring..

So last night went for a run (have not logged it yet) and it was COLD!  OK so it was only 46 but to us in Florida that's COLD.  My lungs were burning the whole time.

I'm not sure who you Yankees can run in 30deg or below weather... Yikes!

30 degrees would be a warm weather run lately!  I'm going to be in Orlando next week and will be wondering how you guys run in the humidity! Although after a run or 2 I actually get used to it a lot quicker than getting used to the cold again when I come home.

Right now it's not too humid but come summer watch out.  We take it as a badge of honor. (much like you wackos running in the snow )

I once saw a temp/humidity chart that shows the heat index.  Each grid was colored yellow, orange or red.  It said to not exercise in the orange colored areas and to stay indoors in the red areas.

Ah here it is:

I think 50% of my run/bikes are in the red and the rest are in the orange for 3-4 months during the summer.

Ha!  I just notied that we go off the bottom of the chart a lot of days.  It's not uncommon to have a 96 deg day with 80% humidity.

There in lies my problem!  My of my workouts are off the chart in the oposite direction!  maybe 4 or 5 weeks in the yellow, and a few days if any in the next catagory!  But when we go to visit the inlaws I can adjust fairly quickly!  I just mentally visualize what it is like at home!

I lived down there for a few years, and someday will live there again.  But in the meantime, we'll just complain about our winters and brag about our summers!

I have figured out why we Floridians are such wimps when it comes to cold.  We don't know how to dress for it.

So I head off for a 6AM spin class today.  I'm wearing tri shorts and a tech-t.  I step outside and it's 32 degrees and blowing 10-12 knots.  Run to the car, drive to the gym, run inside the gym.

And hour later I'm all hot and sweaty (soaked) and decide it might be fun to go for a mile cool down run (the Y has a nice track around the building).  It's now a balmy 34 degrees.

HOLY CRAP!  I think my shirt my have frozen at one point.  My ears were stining and my lips went numb.  If I were smart I would have quit after one lap but I didn't want to be the wimp that came in from the cold.  So I toughed out a mile.

We just don't have warm exercise clothes...

I'm taking the easy route this year!  She is going with me to Florida and is going to spend some time with her folks while I am at my conferance.  I have to come home Thurs for another meeting and she won't get home until late on VD.  I'll just meet her at the airport with some flowers.

I think we all struggle with that after the first few years.  I told her before our last anniversary that she needed a new hobby like triathlons that required lots of toys!

The funny thing is I bought my nicest and warmest cold weather running gear at the Sports Authority in Lakeland Fl when I was down there at Thanksgiving!  It was all on sale, apparently not much of a market for it.

BTW, at my race this past Saturday there was a couple of guys with beards that had frost on them when they finished.  I was going to try and get a picture for you southerners, but they had gone inside by the time I got my camera out of the car!

Well, I finally got some purple on my workout graph.

Started this morning with a two hour zone 1 ride on the trainer.  What a mind-numbing / butt-numbing experience.  My wife points out that the two aren't too dissimilar in my case.  Still, it's all part of the effort to raise my Vo2 max on the bike (currently at 67.0 ml/kg/min).

Then I met with a local tri coach at the pool and found out that I'm probably not smart enough to swim.  It was like taking a freaking golf lesson.  The coach did a good job of breaking everything down but I'm a long way from being able to put it all back together.  I seem to be able to keep my head down or roll to take a breath or get my hands into the water at the right spot or glide... but can't do more than one of those things on the same stroke.  Humbling.  So it's to the pool for at least 30 minutes at least twice a week  to work on drills only. 

In fairness, I did actually see some improvement.  He video taped a lot of the session and I could see that I was swimming uphill less at the end.  It was an experience for sure.

Then, tonight, I tried to finish the push up challenge.  I knew by the time I was in the 40's that I wasn't going to make 100, so I stopped at 50.  Tried again with the same result.  It's going to be interesting to see if I can get to 100 without taking a few days off to rest up for it.  And what's the point in that?

It's going to be an interesting February.