Fast Twitch Tri-FULL (Page 13)

SAMANTHA -

Thinking more about what I posted on this topic this morning, I'd say that if the race is an "A"-priority one in which you are looking to podium or PR or place overall as high as you can, then you should spend the training time on (a) working on overall speed/pace, and (b) trying to simulate the course's features in your training rides, at least some of them. 

For the latter:

• If it's a hilly course, then hit the hills and work at "spinning small circles" along with judicious use of getting out of the saddle;
• if it's technical, go somewhere where you play at cornering;
• if rollers, work at pushing hard on the pre-roller flats so you have maximum momentum hitting the incline

For the former, I'll just go back to what i said in the other post which is that for me, I get big benefits from doing the race distance as training rides at tempo -- which I view as race pace for the entire ride.  But if you haven't done that before, or not much of it, try various "surges" at race-pace or faster, and here a surge can be whatever your body and lungs can handle.  One way to do this is take a 45-minute ride and spend 10' as warm-up, 10' at pace, 5' slightly less, 10' back at pace, and then a 1-' cool-down.  The premutations on that are kind of endless, but over time you will find that you can reduce the w-u, slower-tan, and c-d phases....until you hope on the bike and bury yopurself for the entire 20km training ride!

With a goal of sprints, well, this is just the perfect setting for working at a speed foci.  And even when I was more of a half-iron guy, my speed efforts were always way short(er) -- more geared to what has served me well as I have morphed into short-course emphases.   But for you looking at getting good at sprints, it all ties together so very nicely! 

It was surprising.  I was thinking of running it but decided it was too soon for any improvements.  I had mapped it via MapMyRun as best I could from the description, and I just couldn't get it to come out right.  The description kept saying "over the bridge", but if I did that it was long.  And it was long.  Doh!

I'm pretty sure the run in the Ameliaman sprint was 3.0 instead of 3.1.  Some of the info said 5K or 3.1 mile and some said 3 miles.  My time looked more like 3.0 and a few others thought the same thing.

Sorry to hear about your "almost PR" in the HIM.

Okay, so question... all winter I'll be on the stationary bike, so I won't be able to judge speed or any sort.  But, I will be able to monitor my heart rate since that is on the machine.  So I feel in this case, it'd be best to do my workouts based on HR?  But, I don't usually train by HR so I don't really know how to train based on it.  How should I judge what my HR should be for any given workout?  In the past when I've been on the stationary, I have come up with an arbitrary number to stay above... say, making it a goal to keep my HR at 150+ etc as I felt that forced me to put in a good amount of effort.  I wonder if the best way to figure out what HR to be at is just getting a feel by effort of what type of HR may be a good goal...? 

Thinking back to this past summer, I feel like I rarely truly pushed it during any of my bike rides.  So that's something I'd like to work towards!

I really appreciate this post.  I had a disappointing 10k race this morning.  My fault really, but I'm still so new to running / tri-ing that I make a lot of mistakes.  I finished, but with a poor time.

It's really kind of motivated me to focus on good training and make some adjustments ahead.  Again, this was really helpful and encouraging to me.

Thanks.

Joe

Why not much over the full distance?  The longer the race the more that makes sense; why go more nuts for a full IM.  I'm just starting back, and not really following a plan, but I'm going much further than the sprint distances.  I've missed a bunch of long rides recently, but I was doing 30+ miles.  I'll go shorter when I do a brick, but that's also a function of how much time I have when I drop my daughter off at tennis practice.  My long runs are 8-10 miles.  For swimming I do sets of 500 yd and some days I'll do 700 - 1,000 yd non-stop, largely just to reinforce to myself that I _really_ can do 400 yd in the race.

I do the long rides largely for getting my body ready for 90 minutes of activity, and I like riding.  The long runs are more to improve my running.

I wear a HRM on all of my bike rides.  It keeps me from "cruising"; slow rides don't help much.  Out on the trail with no other bikes in sight I may not push it as hard without the HRM.  With other bikes in sight (to pass) I go pretty hard.  In a race I find I use it the opposite way, more of a limiter at the upper end instead of lower end.  The HRM will beep at me and I'll look down and see I'm going too hard (176 bpm at one point at Ameliaman) and I'll back off the pace.

I'm asking because I've got a lot to learn about training.  I'm not in my early 20's any more, so I can't just go off of youthful exuberance and beat the snot out of my body and not notice the next day.

Wayne,

I'll chime in here because your run goals are very close to what I can currently do. I've been at it for three seasons, but lost the first to injury so really two. I started off terribly slow at running. My first stand alone 5K last fall was 8:30 pace. A couple of months ago I ran 7:03 pace on the same course. I've lost probably 10 pounds between the two races and (knock on wood) stayed healthy and trained all year.

I'd say the 10K goal is definitely easier than the 5K goal pace. I was undertrained for my only 10K and broke 8 minute pace (about 7:45) in that before almost reaching 7:00 minute pace in my 5K -- still haven't quite gotten there. 

Your logs look like you train more volume than I do so endurance should be fine. I saw you had a 5K segment of a sprint tri at about 8:30 pace a couple of weeks ago. That leads me to believe you might be at 7:30-7:45 in a stand alone 5K. I don't see any training paces faster than about 9 minute mile pace recently but it may be due to the fact that you do so many bricks and are running on tired legs or saving something for the bike. Personally I think you are capable of a lot more speed in training runs. 

I'll chime in with some workout duration input, based on my own philosophy.

For the bike, I make sure that I do several of my rides at the duration that I expect the entire tri to take, so if I'm at 2:15 for an Oly tri, my rides will be that long or more for long rides. I'll make sure that it's not just a dawdling pace, too. Hard efforts thrown in. Shorter rides will be at race speed. But I ride almost every day.

Runs can top 8 miles, but mostly around the 10K range. I'll vary the run distance, but I usually only run 3 or 4 max days a week. So a typical week where I'm at 10K target would be one day at 6 miles, one at 8, and one at 4 or 5. Shorter days would have other workouts, longer days likely not.

Swimming... I'll make sure I can do 1.5x the race distance non-stop, but I'm doing it pretty hard. Not quite race speed, but not far off that. Aside from that, most of the swimming will be 200's, concentrating on form. I may do it with a pull buoy, paddles, or just swim it. These would be faster than race pace, with enough rest to be able to maintain the pace for each interval. The thought is to swim more of the distance in perfect form, ingraining it into my muscle memory, so that when I do get tired, it's still there, automatic.

Now all this is aligned with the base -- you need the base to be able to put in the speed without it breaking you down. Same thing here -- I need to know I can do the distance and more before I know I can RACE it on event day. It may be all mental, but that mental part makes all the difference.

SAMANTHA -

I am a RPE guy, meaning Rating of Perceived Exertion.  I've been strictly this way for 8 or 9 years now, so I'm not the best one to ask about HR.  I'll wait a few beats and see if anyone comes aboard on this topic, and if not i will do what I can, given my probably-sketchy knowledge!

However, for now I will say that what you ahve done in the past seems to be a combination of HR and RPE, with maybe the emphasis on the latter.  As i read your post, you worked until you got to what felt like a good, hard effort...........and then you'd check your HRM...........and see it at 150 or so.  That's not bad for a rough estimate of how HR jives with effort, and you now have a sense that 150 tells you you're working hard.

Two questions:  How long can you keep going at 150?  Did you ever go all-out until you thought you might explode, and then kept it there until you wished you'd explode --- and then checked the HRM?  Let me know, okay?

JOE -

I'm very pleased that post was helpful, and I think my following one to Tiffany had more tales of my various forays to the Dark Side --- for your edification, perhaps?

Of course, i am sorry that Oracle wasn't what you wanted it to be.  i looked at your RR, and you have a whole bunch of reasons to explain what happened.  all of them are completley viable, and really -- any one of them could upend a race goal, and you battled with three "externals" -- hills, wind, altitude -- along with two "internals", thsoe being sub-max training, and overenthusiastic pacing.

I too am a flatlander, and have to travel some to get to some semblance of hills.  Without some hillwork, a hilly course can be murderous, although that gets better with experience -- which as you say, does NOT apply to you right now. 

As for wind, I find that worse than hills --- and I am "blessed" with being in a windy part of eastern Ontario (picture flat farmlands, with not much to beat down the prevailing westerlies!).  But wind on a race is a cruel trick of fate, and for me it is not something that experience has made me better at.  I try to get smaller, and thus less of a wind target.......but at 6'2" and 170, there's just too much extraneous surface area.

Pacing is a bugger, especially going out too fast.  It can mess up even a wily running veteran, and for someone quite new to running, it can spell the end to hopes for a solid race.  For something like a 10km stand-alone, the first km or mile is critical, and I watch out for that marker like a hawk.  If I am too much faster than my goal pace, i will back off a notch or two just to get kind of "recalibrated", and then pick it up again.  But i spent far too much of my earlier running career seeing that first marker, and looking at my watch, and being thrilled to be on such a scorching pace............only to have the wheels fall off along about mile 5 ( for a 10km).  It really did take me a bunch of races to get over myself and pie-eyed visions of going sub-40 or something.  Slow learner, i was, or maybe just a hopeless optimistist, but whatever --- an initial pace that is too fast is a certified race-wrecker.  Bah!

For you, you learned stuff at Oracle.  It's all part of The Process, and while it's maybe a bit bitter now, I can almsot guarantee that, in a year or two, you will look back at it almost as a rite of passage -- a tough race that you grew from.  Onwards!

WAYNE -

I guess I just get quite literal about it, and am mostly only concerned about doing whatever the race distance is as fast as i can.  So, it doesn't seem to help me to know that I can do 50km, say, in a certain time, when my upcoming race is 40km.  I may go longer if I just feel like it, for any number of reasons, but mostly I choose not to.  

I know that back in my first few years, i regularly rode (or ran) longer, in big part because I was still exploring those distances.  Not only was I never too certain about how I would feel doing 40km, but I was also interested in longer stuff -- it was all pleasantly terra incognita.  But somewhere along the way it got where there were no mysteries to these distances, so that made it easy to get literal and decide that I would turn them into time-trial efforts -- not all, but as races approached, most of them.

As you describe yourself as "starting back", it makes 100% sense that you would want to explore the outer limits, and so I can see where if you miss 30+ rides, that would represent a loss (or, maybe, a non-gain?).  I certainly felt that way acutely back when, and it was essential to my growth as a triathlete that I went overlong quite often.  At that time, too, I was neither too focused on being highly competive, nor fixed on being a "specialist" at any distance, so everything was wide open. 

I have never loved riding; that's another consideration.  I have a history of sorts with flats, and I am a mechanical moron, so when soemthing happens and I am far from home..........that's not good.  So nowadays, with my focus being more on shorter stuff, I guess I use that as an excuse to ride no longer/furtehr than I think i have to.  And then there's my labrum ("complex degenerative tear" say my MRI results), which can get fractious when i go longer than about 90 minutes.  I CAN push it further, but again -- why bother (is my rationale).

Again, though, how you are doing it makes perfect sense.  I like your comparison of riding and running, referring to doing long rides to get your body ready for 90' of activity, and doing the longer runs just by way of improvement.  The fact that you are doing those at lengths 8-10 miles is superb, speaking really highly of your overall conditioning, and my guess is that you can look at an oly-distance tri and view the 10km run with impunity.  That is one of the essential stages in doing this stuff -- getting the confidence so that certain distances are not intimidating, and are actually really quite attainable. 

You mention bricks, and if you think I'm maybe a bit rigid about going "overlong" with rides and runs...................wait til you learn how I approach bricks!

WAYNE again -

Oops!  I just noticed your post a few above the one I just responded to.  better late than never, I guess!

January b-day?  I'm the 13th; what about you?  The "new" aging-up rules of USAT are mean to us early-in-the-year people.  I liked it so much better back when your race age was the age you were on the day of the race.  (I have a funny story about that, but it can wait.)  The two races I didn't win the a.g. this year were to guys who were 59 on race day, and weren't turning 60 until this fall.  Yeah, yeah, i know it's all arbitrary, and it really doesn't rattle me that much, but still.

I will be 64 in January, and there is an excellent chance that i will be the oldest USAT guy in 60-64.  The a.g. will from Jan 1 '49 to Dec 31 '53.........and there are relatively few 64ers......and the chances are small that there will be another 64er born in the first 12 days of 1949.  I know someone has to be the oldest in the age group........but why me?

ANYHOW, your age wil get you to that point I was taking about the other day -- where your increased training and the slicing of your stand-alone times wil get you much closer, and more quickly, to being competitive.  (See, aging is not without its fringe benefits!)  Seriously, though, it will work that way --- and just wait until you hit 55-59!  That's quite easy compared to even 50-54, which is WAY easier than the crucible that is 45-49.  You might even be able to gleefully celebrate turing 50, all with an eye to an easier age group!

For now, 7 m/m is probably not unreasonable --especially if you can nail the 8 m/m for a 10km.  7 m/m for 5km will hurt, and you'll be in an uncomfortable zone for longer than you want, but it's not unattainable and is worth having out there.  Now, i'm basing that on how close you are to 8 m/m for the 10km goal time, and training for a red-line 5km is a whole other deal than  a steady-hard 10km pace..............but that's part of the fun of this stuff!   Suffering is always an intriguing phenomena, especially how awful it can be at the time --- an dhow quickly post-event the bad parts go away.  So as you eye a red-line 5km, think about how much twisted fun it is to suffer!

Keep in mind the reality of "plateaus" -- that is, periods in which your performance just settles for a while.  These can lead to thoughts of "I've reached my peak", but for you, at your age, I doubt that'll be the case for a while.  I just say that in response to your comment that you don't know what the rate of increase will be in your improvements, and how fast you can get; I suspect you have a decent "upside" to you.  Anyhow, when plateaus come, don't let them make you feel that it's all deterioration from that point on!

I have to split the scene now, but I will try to remember to address your swim thoughts when i return.  In a nutshell, i have never been able to show significant growth as a swimmer, even though it is what i love the best and what I do the most.  Sad but true! 

While I run every year I haven't run much until this year.  I ran more in the past week than I ran in all of April.  And April would have been a normal training round for me getting ready for the Peachtree 10K in July; i.e. not enough.  My first 5K for this year was on June 2nd: 28:32, 9:12 m/m.  Some rolling hills, but none steep or long.

I've dropped 24 pounds from the beginning of the year.  Thanksgiving to my birthday in Jan always seems to add 5-10 lbs.  I have a serious sweet tooth and love to bake and cook; dangerous combination.  It's been quite some time since I've been this light.

Getting back into shape is my main goal with the triathlons.  Performing well is icing on the cake and fun, but being back at a lighter weight and being in better physical condition is focus.  After that, is getting a good start time for the Peachtree.  I was in Start Group E this year, my daughter was in A.  I've done well enough for C and B is 24:28 for a 5K.  So, my next two 5K goals are break 8 m/m and break 24:28 for a 5K.  I'm aiming for 24:15 as some years they move the qualifying times, so I want some padding in case next year's B time is faster.

Wow, very close, well other than 16 years apart.  Jan 9, which means my birth year is my birth date, when split up in the common format in the US; 1965-> 1/9/65.  Nerdy/geeky things with numbers!

Yeah, I like age on the race day thing too.  I don't mind it with the USAT rules though with 5 year age blocks.  Our youngest daughter does tennis and the USTA does it on birth month, so she can play 13-14 yo through the last day of July 2013, she turns 15 at the end of August.  So, once August rolls around again she'll have to play 15-16, or up.

The middle daughter runs and ran a race in June with a fellow XC team mate in the same grade.  They both got 1st in their age group.  My daughter in 15-19, her friend in 11-14 as her 15th was in July.  The second place girl from the 11-14 age group in that race is now trouncing them in the XC meets this fall.

Yep, these two I will be working much better at.  Thanks for the reply!

Anyone here train with a tri group?  I train solo and thinking it may be beneficial to train with a group.  I really don't have an issue with staying motivated to train but I think I could more out of each training session training with others.  Would be interested in hearing the pro's and con's of training with others.

Greg

How often do you do your long swim?  And how many times a week do you generally swim?  I'm thinking of doing a long swim maybe once every other week, but I wonder if it's something I should try to do every week?

This is embarrassing... Okay, I only "train" the swim basically when I have a tri looming on the horizon. Not that I don't like swimming, it's just that it's the one thing I basically can't do out my front door. And it's an immediate expense. So I only do what I have to do for any particular event. One year that happened to be a 5K OWS... Anyway... Most of the time I'll do my long swims as OWS. I have no problem swimming alone in the middle of a lake, as long as it's a no-motor lake. Pool work will be the form concentration. Probably 4x a week, 5 id I can swing it, with 2 of those being long efforts. I've done a few events with nothing but OWS training, but that's rare.

I know my training methods are probably very anti-triathlete. The only numbers I track usually are time and distance. No HR, no power, I only check average speed or per-mile pace after the session is done. I will do my swim intervals on a pace-clock, but that's more so I don't dawdle around taking too much rest between each interval. I'm not as type-A and number happy as most triathletes, I just thrash myself enough in training that race pace isn't a big deal.

SHELLY -

Glad you made it............I was beginning to wonder!

I will come back soon with a detailed response to your bio, which is intriguing and compellling and inspiring; don't quite know where to begin!  Give me a day or two to get to it, as I am playing catch-up with the group.  Yesterday was gonna be a bi one for posting.......and then Lynn commandeered the machine for some work she needed to do.  The nerve!

Again, welcome aboard the Fast Twitch Limited!  (Limited as far as "passenger" list....but unlimited when it comes to possibilities and potentialities?)

GREG -

Glad it all worked out, glad you're here!

Although you asked for pros and cons about training with others, i can't offer much because I have virtually no experience with it.  I live in the country, and even though i get into Ottawa 4-6 times a week, it is pretty much exclusively on my own terms.  And if I had one general thought on training with a group, it might be that it probably wouldn't work for someone (like me) who doesn't work well with schedules generated by others.  I don't know how big of a contributor that is, however.

Getting motivated and being pushed are the two biggest benefits I could see from training with others, and for something like Masters swim programs -- having drills set and possibly receiving some technique-pointers -- there are instructional possibilities as well.  I'm sure that if I lived closer to training groups (or even other like-minded people), I would've done less of the past 15 years as a solo operator, but it's just more conveniently turned out that everything i do, i do on my own.

The biggest problem, and it's really a double-edged sword, involves open-water swimming.  I do a ton of it, as in 50-80 solo OWS every season (late May-early Oct)...........and as a solo, there is a considerable risk-factor to it.  On the other hand, were I to wait to OWS until I had others to swim with, I'd do very few of them.  The only concession I make is to avoid OWS when conditions are gnarly, which mostly means big chop or waves, or when it's just fasr too frigid.  In my earlier days at this i would swim regardless, and I now look back at that time wondering where my brain was.  (And by earlier, I'm not talking about being a dopey kid -- it was as recent as about five or six years ago, when i was late 50s!)

PATTI -

Very belatedly, congrats on signing up for Devilman!  that too is on my list for next season, although a downturn with my hip labrum has me (probably unnecessarily) worried about how much of a '13 season i will have.  Ack!

I guess I can also lead you into temptation by sending you back to Piranha to have a look at Escape from Ft Delaware.  If you get there (the website, that is)........whatdaya think?

Nicely played on getting Coach Booger a kayak, so now you have your very own Support Crew! 

I can relate to your comments about being a loner, as I hint at in my post to Greg, above.  I'm not sure how much I would get from group encouragement, but it's so foreign a concept to me, and I've been solo for so long, that i probably have no perspective at all.  In races, i don't get much from crowds, although I love encouraging other athletes when they look as if they need it.  I guess I feel i might have something to offer (in a training group), but not much to gain myself as i've grown so accustomed to being solo and just propping myself up all on my own.   A real recluse!

DAVE -

Nothing at all to be embarrassed about!  It makes perfect sense to not make yourself crazy getting to swim-spots if they aren't convenient.  I do that because I love the act of swimming, but i also fully understand the pull to just back off from the hassles.  Pool-swimming does carry a cost, and I'm not always happy with it -- especially when, as now, I'm kind of "off-season" and haven't gotten a three-month pass.......so each swim is pay-as-you-go........and I feel obligated to make each worthwhile.......even though at this point i hardly want to swim seriously.  Decisions, decisions!

But it sounds as if you do a really good job on swimming on an as-needed basis, as your frequency numbers are impressive.  In fact, there are any number of accomplished triathletes who do virtually no wintertime pool swimming, preferring to do as you do -- bump up the swimming as the season, and especially big races, is approaching.

I am quite like you about numbers --- no HRM, no Garmin, just me and my Timex Sleek 50-lap watch.  I keep a log into which go all my info on time and (when i know it) distance, but that's about it.  I do my weight and resting heart-rate every morning, and beyond that, and notes about workouts, not much.

I consider myself Type-A when it comes to performance, but that's an anomaly.  I am generally about a Type-K person, spent most of my life that way.......and it wasn't until I started triathlon that I unearthed some Type-A aspects that i enver knew I had in me.  But I am also a technological moron, so that is one enormous limiter for being more of a numbers guy, even if I really wanted to be.

I spent a few years, maybe '01-'05, using a heart rate monitor on and off, and it did help me figure out a few zones and the volume/intensity of worjk I could handle at this stage of my development.  But i then began to feel that following my HR was quite enrelaible,a dn often a limiter, and since then have been strictly RPE. 

When I was coached, I was pushed very hard and responded in kind.  I still can do that, but the years have taken a toll of sorts on me and my current mode of training is quite similar to how you express things in your final line:  "I just thrash myslef enough in training that rsce pace isn't a big deal".  I will add that for me, at least based on this season just finished, that didn't work 100% --- so now I have to re-evaluate my plan for next season!