jsiegs and slornow's Train Hard and Have Fun group - CLOSED for Training (Page 13)

Massage question, I get one a month, love it! 

Just started a few months ago and its great.  I figured it would help with recovery during training and it has.  My last one was two weeks ago and I am not getting one this week before the race.  I have heard that if getting a massage is what you are use to than do it, if not stay away from it.  I am definetly having one the day after the race.  90 minutes will be like heaven. 

No.  I'm sure my 4 year old daughter would prefer i be racing in Disney .  I'm doing an olympic race near my house.  My mom spends the winters in Naples.  I might look into doing the Disney HIM next year.  She could go up and hang out with the kids while I race.

@Karla - Great race report; it was so fun to read and definitely is pumping me up for my upcoming season And congrats on finishing! I'm so glad you loved it! Take this week off or very easy and make sure to reward yourself with some treats, too.

@Joe - Wow, an Ironman! Congrats on making the commitment!

I officially signed up for my first Olympic triathlon today, the Evergreen Lake race in central Illinois on July 16. This is the one I have been training for. ...and training has been going well so I'm officially IN for the race. Still very nervous!

Have a great week everyone! It's a big run week for me but I get a bit of recovery on my swim. Bike stays relatively flat from last week. I have a lot of work to do on the bike that's for sure - my cadence on the long rides gets SO SLOW after about the hour mark. Not good but there's plenty of time to improve before July.

Thanks Nicole! My treat is a jogging stroller, ha!! I also get to put my USAT Proud Member sticker on my car. Sounds silly, but A. I'm not big on stickers on my car and B. I think that is a well deserved accomplishment, and now I want other drivers to see it, LOL!

Question about biking - what is a good pace on the bike? I have soooo much to learn about riding, but figured I'd start with a basic question! My pace was 16.1, I have no idea if that is good, bad, middle of the road... I know having a good bike makes a world of difference, but until then, this hybrid road bike will have to suffice.

Thanks Joe!!

Just for the record, today I bought new goggles, and an extra strap so I now officially have two pair... just in case, lol!

Who's this Joe???  I'm definitely not crazy enough to sign up for an Ironman!

OMG! Sorry! I was supposed to say Congrats to NICK!!! NICK - see above note. That's awesome!

You both have black in your thumbnails, I got confused. Plus, it's Monday a.m. And I have a major case of the Mondays.

haha, no big deal.  When I step away from the thread for a little bit and come back to tons of posts I easily get confused remembering who said what.

At the Oly distance, you can definitely do a brick of at or near race distance to practice pacing.  Bike for 25 miles at what you think is the right effort, then get off and run.  Doesn't need to be a full 6 (but can be if you're able to do that distance without  too much recovery cost) becuase you'll know after a few miles if you went too hard on the bike.  If you run the 6 (or whatever you planned, 3 or 4 is probably good too) and it was easy...ramp it up next time! 

Even though it leads to a bad training day, and skipping part of the run portion of a brick, I think it's a good experience for everyone to know what overcooking yourself on the bike feels like and to know for certain you MUST bike easier than that on raceday.  I know I've done it a few times in training, and I think that's help me (mostly) avoid it in races.

My coach gave me a race planning presentation and recommends starting at LT-10 bpm as a target for HR on the bike.  Then run a controlled 5k, 5-10 bpm under LT to start, but drift up.  Last 5k is like a 5k, drop the hammer!  But, definitely give it a go in training first if you can.  You can hold off on some of the hard running if it will beat you up too much.  You'll get a good feel even if you don't run all out.

@MattCan - Thank you for the tips, the details in your response have helped a lot!  I went out again today, not a huge improvement but a definite improvement.  If I can do just a little bit better each time, I think I'll meet my goal race day.  I would be happy with an 18m. swim...(today was 19:40).  After contemplating, I didn't do much sighting.  I was so busy trying to catch my breath and stay warm, I just kept hammering away at the water.  I usually swim straight in the pool, but didn't account for the current in the OW.  When I did occasionally sight, I lifted my whole face - just like you said, my legs sunk, I could feel how much harder it made it for me to get back into a balanced swim.  Ideally I need to learn to take a breath stroke and sight stroke separately.  At this point, I can't sacrifice the breath stroke for the sight stroke.  I'm hoping this gets better in the next week or two...I have just under 5 weeks to race day!  Thanks again!

Good morning everyone.

I forced myself to swim last night after the kids went to bed.  It was so boring.  I wanted to quit half way in.  It was hard to keep myself going.  What do you do to stay motivated during boring workouts?   I have a time in mind for my swim next week.  I just kept thinking about that number.  

I was also wondering what kind of snacks everyone keeps around for after/before workouts.  I often find myself starving after a workout, with nothing good to eat.  I end up eating junk.  I've also had to stop workouts early becuase I was rushing around and didn't eat anything before hand.   I try to keep Luna bars in my gym bag, but I get tired of them.

Have a great day!
Christy

How are you swimming?  Just a straight swim of a certain distance/time or do you do different sets with rest etc?  I pretty much dread any set over 400 yrds.  A 5x200 a slightly faster than threshold pace with 10-15sec rest is much easier to deal with mentally than a 1000 straight.  From what I hear, sets at threshold pace (or faster) are much more effective for building speed on the swim (that's what my friendhad me doing on the plan he made for me).  I had one swim a week that was like 20 X 100 @ threshold pace - 3sec with 10 sec rest.  Until you get out to the IM distance, I wouldn't worry about doing super long straight swims either (for instance, I'd probably never swim more than 500 straight in training while preparing for a HIM - the exception being if I was doing a 1000 TT or an OWS practice swim).

My roommate and I go to Sams club and basically buy the place out of protein bars/granola bars/powerbars whatever bars, as long as they're in convenient packaging and relatively healthy.  My staple food to buy each week is a bunch of bananas.  They travel (reasonably) well and are very easy digestivly for me even if I eat it right before a workout.  Apples are great as a snack, but not just before a workout for me (too much fiber).

Good morning all! Christy, I keep apples and bananas around, too along with protein bars and then a lot of frozen fruit. I'll make myself fruit smoothies with greek yogurt, fruit, flax seed meal and unprocessed honey. It sound complicated for a quick snack but everything just gets dumped in the blender.

I do drills when I am having a bad or boring swim day. Glad to know we all go thru this, it's not just me!

My husband bought me a pair of the new FILA skeleton toes...sort of like the Vibram's, but cheaper. I am going to run a mile in them today to see how they feel. I have a training workout and then will run again in my regular shoes.

Joe, how's your vertigo? A friend was just diagnosed with that.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Good morning! Christy, you may want to look at your calories throughout the day - how are you spreading them out? Are you getting enough? 

When I started on my current food plan, I wasn't getting enough calories at breakfast and wasn't planning my snacking, which left me STARVING at night. Now I get like 400-500 cal. at breakfast, 500 at lunch, and a 200-300 cal snack at 3:30 every day. I make sure I'm including fruits, veggies, fiber, protein, fats, etc. If I stick with that plan, I don't need to snack at night, and usually a post-workout milk or even chocolate milk is all I need at night.

Lately, when I really burn calories (long workouts) I forget to up my calorie intake evenly throughout the day, and as predicted, I am starving at night and nosh on junk. Likewise, if I have a crappy breakfast (like today's cinnamon scone instead of peanut butter and banana on wheat toast) I know I'll be hungry all day long. I'm considering adding another small meal in somewhere on Saturdays and Sundays just to get the calories back. Long weekend workouts are really screwing me up right now;  I haven't adjusted nearly enough!

As far as snacks, one I absolutely LOVE is to get a bowl of berries, then add 0% greek yogurt (a few spoonfuls), 1 teaspoon honey, and cinnamon. It is totally delicious and addicting and you will love it

I also really like chocolate covered almonds. And, sometimes I take a Wasa Rye Crisp and put peanut butter on it, then top with trail mix or dried fruit. It's like a build-your-own energy bar. 

Christy - I'm glad I'm not the only one with a snacking problem! I've been eating Zone bars before workouts, but I had a Luna Bar sample at the the tri, I think I like those better. Although, Zone bars kill my chocolate need!

Like you, I need something quick, something I don't need to prepare or fix or make... and that's hard. Our HEB has a trail mix bar where you can put your own combination of goods in a container. I like that and I usually fill it with yogurt raisins, peanuts, dried papaya and dried bananas. I portion it out, about 1 cup and snack on that. It's kind of filling too, sometimes I don't finish the cup.

I love fruit, but I hate cutting it up! (I'm THAT lazy!!) I try to keep cantaloupe and apples on hand and I have 1/2 grapefruit everyday for breakfast. I love oranges, but they are messy and by the time I get done peeling it, I'm over it!

I have the 100 calorie Kettle popcorn on hand for those late night cravings. I'm a big fan of Kozy Shack Rice Pudding, or the new Jell-o Temptations. Calorie wise though, the jell-o is kind of high.

All that being said... Deb, I'm going to try your smoothie recipe!

Goooood Morning All,

Ok, only 5 days till HIM in Orlando!  I can't wait till it gets here, yesterday did 20 mins swim, 20 mins bike and 20 mins run all at various intensity levels.  What a blast! I flew thru it, it felt great.

Am I anxious, YES!  I've been trying to relax, meditate, breath deeply, helps only a little.  Its all good and I think I might be overexagerating a little.

I don't think I can comment on diet, I am eating lots of carbs this week.  Not a normal diet.  But pre-race carbo loading is fun since I love pasta.

Enjoy

Not good.  The other day was walking my fiancee's dog to my house during a thunder storm.  She was so scared and trying to jump in any car/house/hiding place she could.  So I tried jogging a block at a time to get home quicker.  I did three blocks total, but stopped in between them.  Even that made me dizzy until the next day.  Whatever it is, it's not going away on it's own.  I couldn't get the next tests they want to do scheduled until next Monday, so I'm in wait mode until then.

Snacking...the true fourth sport for us all.

Somethings that have helped me:

Make a large amount of snacks at one time, set aside a half hour or an hour and do some 'cooking.' Whether it is making your own trail mix, and bagging it. Or cutting up fruit (i am the same way, I would rather spend the few dollars sometimes, just to know that I will eat the fruit instead of it rotting on my counter). Or you can make a large batch of smoothie, and put the mix into a pitcher. I have started doing this and it has helped me in the mornings when I am trying to get to the pool by 6a. Those are just some of my secrets

On topic of swimming: Ever since the Tripower.org website was posted, I have been doing some of those workouts. Yesterday I did the 2500m swim, and towards the end I felt as If I could've easily kept going, mainly because my rhythm finally clicked. I have had a few bad workouts, and that is when I (like others) break it down into drills. Grab a pull buoy, and practice on hand entry and breathing strokes (bi-lateral breathing), and some other various routines. I think it is inevitable that we will be having bad days within training, the more we more we train the more likely it is to happen. It's not just us, the elites experience this to. I heard Dirk Bockel talking about how bad his swim was going the other day, and yet he looked way smoother than 90% of us at the pool at the time. I guess it is all relative.

I am definitely excited for you, I look forward to hearing your race experiences. I am signed up for HIM Augusta in September, and I am already starting to get anxious (it's going to be a LONG few months).

I am definitely excited for you, I look forward to hearing your race experiences. I am signed up for HIM Augusta in September, and I am already starting to get anxious (it's going to be a LONG few months).

Exciting!  I get the same anxious feeling before races.  Generally it's right up until the swim start.  Once the gun goes off though it just seems to fade in the mass turmoil.  I guess the crazyness that the swim start causes is good for one thing!