Tri Mark's Madness Group-Closed (Page 13)

Mark,

Your mom is going to love the signs and the cheerleading section!  I hope she has a wonderful first race.  She'll probably be like the rest of us and will get hooked.

We look forward to hearing about your PR tomorrow - you can do it!

Jacqui

I sort of raced today -- I co-led a pace group at a local half marathon.  I did great at the encouragement and cheerleading of our group members, but I am so disappointed that we made two critical errors.

The first was that we came in a few seconds early on mile 1 and 2.  Our coach's biggest pet peeve is going out too fast - he would rather you hit the first few mile splits a few seconds behind pace than to hit them too soon.  It was only about 10 seconds on the first and a few on the second mile, but still I am kicking myself for not slowing down and doing a better job.

Then, somehow we miscalculated the last mile.  We were ahead of pace so took a "strategic walk break" in the last mile to get us back on schedule.  Unfortunately I think we saw the 26 mile marker (we were only doing the half) and assumed we had .2 to go and started slowing.  The 13 mile marker came AFTER that point and so we were off on our timing.  We finished 2 minutes too slow.  Ugh.  It's not like we messed up anyone's BQ times since this was only a half (and a slow one at that!) but still I am so disappointed and frustrated with myself.

Enough of the whining  Did short swim afterwards which was my fastest to date.  It is still embarrassingly slow so I will not post the time.  A few weeks ago I couldn't swim so I guess I am slowly making progress.

Good luck to those racing and wishing great training sessions for the rest of us!

Jacqui

What an impressive showing by the whole family! I'm feeling very inspired!

Mark,

Congrats to you, your wife, and your mom!  It sounds like everyone should be very proud of their efforts.  Is your mom hooked now and already planning her next race?

Jacqui

Mark,

Great job by the whole family.  Congratulations.

Ellen

Well the Race was a blast! First 1/2 mary I have run in awhile.  Although it is still tough to judge as it was a trail run with 2,000 ft roughly of elevation.  Either way i set a PR at 1:45:20 and had a blast.  Racing conditions were perfect and I got a little hardware for the AG victory (only 5 people ).  Here is the race report if you would like a more in depth report!

http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=248703&posts=1&start=1

Wow, that's fast!  Congratulations on your PR and age group victory!!

Jacqui

Mark - Awesome showing by the whole fam! Congrats on the PR with challenging conditions. Very cool that those you love are out there with you.

Also - thanks for the link:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/Swimming/How_To_Pull_Underwater_2009.html

Watched and incorporated that into my swim yesterday.. Totally changed my stroke in the water, and paid off well. I could feel less resistance immediately. Now I just have to make it habit. Used muscles I haven't used before as well..

 linfieldpt - Sweet victory for sure, Congrats. I look forward to reading the RR.

 Jacqui – awesome deal on the pace group thing. Sounds like fun, and a challenge

Hope everyone else got in some quality training this weekend.

Happy Monday..

Tiana,

That technique definitely makes you quicker immediately.  I have had coaches harp on me to do it for a year now, but always felt stronger with a deeper and more powerful pull.  My body type always leads me to fall back on my physical strength to get through something.  In swimming, however, form is more important.  Reduced drag is more important than power.  I did it all last week and really engaged my lats more than ever before.  That is my key to knowing if I've been successful.  If my lats are sore, they were working.  When you dig deep and strong, you use your arms too much, and they tire.  The lats are huge and have a lot of power without outsized efforts.  Good for you for trying.  I know I was pulling 1:30 T pace for a 2000m pyramid last week, and that was a huge improvement for me (5-10 seconds).  The pyramid goes 100, 200, 300, 400, 400, 300, 200, 100.  If you ever want a good workout that focuses on distance but gives you a brief rest to hold form, that's the workout for you.  You take 15 seconds between sets and try to do each interval at T Pace.

Question for Mark and others about HR monitors again...

Normally on the teadmill i run 7 min pace @ 1 percent grade for my tempo runs.  HR goes from 155-160 tops.  Start of race yesterday first mile was 7:28 and HR was 160+ the whole way.

Is this common with races? Adrenaline and excitement jacking up your heart rate? Or due more to the fact that running on the road is simply just harder with ground forces to overcome? Maybe a combination of both?

thanks

This weekend was jam-packed for me. Saturday I drove 2 1/2 hours with my mom to see the route of the May 7 triathlon. We only ended up biking 8 out of the 13 miles of the bike route because it turned out my mom hadn't been on a bike in 2 years (she didn't tell me this in advance!) and by the 5 mile mark her legs were shaking and she was drenched in sweat. I didn't break a sweat the entire time, but since it was basically a scouting expedition it was well worth my time and we had FUN! We did drive the entire route so I know what to expect and feel completely prepared now. Having the route in my head definitely boosts my confidence. The route has a few very short, low, hills, but I consider it pretty flat and I could have flown around it twice on Saturday! I ride more hills biking to and from work on a regular basis.

Afterwards we crashed the first restaurant we could find. It was only in the mid to upper 30's for our ride plus high gusts of wind, probably 27 or 28 mph. I had hot tea and actually found the healthiest entree I've ever seen on a diner menu: 2 grilled chicken breast and a giant bowl of steamed broccoli. Yum!

After driving back home we decided (completely insane) that we would go to the gym just before closing. Got in a short walk/jog introduction for my mom and then swam 600 meters before they kicked us out.

Sunday morning I ran a 5k in about 34:00 (they haven't posted times yet and I forgot to start my stopwatch). Slower than my PR, but faster than I've been training this season and it wore me out! I used most of the last 2 miles to do speed intervals and it was a real workout.

Then I went home, packed a picnic lunch, and biked 8 miles to a friend's house for lunch and then biked back home.

A bit chilly, but at least Sunday was blue skies and sunny, and all in all it was an awesome weekend!

Wow, that sounds great! I'll call my eye doctor today and try to get my prescription - I do know I have a significant difference between eyes but even if one eye was right and the other was fuzzier I bet it would be an improvement!

Thanks!

Ditto - great job Jacqui, Mark (and family) and linfieldpt!!! 

Hearing your race reports makes me anxious to get out there and race.  My first tri isn't until June - might have to find a 5k or 10k to do before then.  We have "Bloomsday 12k" coming in a couple of weeks in Spokane - but with almost 60,000 runners, its a little too crowded for me.

-Ron

So, this is my "Recovery" week and my plan drops all my workout distances to about 60% of what they were last week.

I know, from reading BT threads, that there are several different thoughts on recovery weeks - from not taking them at all, to keeping the same distances but at slower paces, to dropping distance but upping intensity.  My approach, so far, has been to do the shorter distances but up the intensity and see how fast I can go. 

How do you folks approach recovery week?

-Ron