RE-OPENED Birkierunner's 2013 mentor group - RE-OPENED!!! (Page 13)

Looking to join a mentoring group.  Experince level - not much to start with.  I'm 50 years old.  I've tried to maintain  some sort of fitness level....but alas that level as fallen short of where I want to be.  I work full time doing desk work, I work part time in an emergency room.  One of my ER co-workers told us she did a sprint triathalon.  It all of the sudden sparked something in us, because nnow we are looking at doing a sprint in Sept.  300yd lake swim, 12 mi bike and a 3mi run.  I did a sprint many year ago (1990) and had a blast, but due to military moves and deployments....let my fitness lacked. 
I am motivated to get busy.  As of right now I do not have a bike, but I do a pool (not sure of the lenght).

Looking forward to motivation and advice.

Rich

Hi Rich.  You can definitely join the group and I hope you benefit from the discussions.  Its nice to have a goal race that you can look forward to this summer.  Be sure to check out the information available on this site and also their training plans if you don't really know where to start.  Fire away with any questions you may have.  Welcome!

I have seen a number of posts in which people have lamented about their swimming technique, or they have asked specific questions about stroke mechanics, or they have simply commented that their swimming was poor and they wanted to improve it.  It got me thinking that perhaps I can offer a brief description of the freestyle stroke based on my experience and maybe help just a little bit.

I know that reading about swimming is not the same as a coach on deck and I certainly don’t want to intervene between you and a live coach.  I do however; want to explain a couple concepts so maybe you understand the freestyle stroke better.  To the advanced swimmers out there, you are already an advanced swimmer so keep doing what you are doing.  To the intermediate and beginner swimmers, if you are able to pick up one thing that helps to improve your technique and lower your time, then I have achieved my objective.

To try and keep this somewhat organized, I am going to break the discussion into four parts:

1)      Body Roll

2)      Breathing

3)      Kick/Leg Position

4)      Stroke

         a)      Entry

         b)      Catch/Pull/Push

         c)       Recovery

Unfortunately, my brief description got rather long.  Instead of presumptuously posting it here, I have posted it on my blog.  If you are interested you can go to www.goscottgo.info/index.php/swimming-technique  and view the articles at your leisure.  Thus far the 'Body Roll' and 'Breathing' sections are done and online.  I will have the other sections up in the next day or so and if anyone wants to know, I can post here when they are up.

Just trying to do my part to help everyone do a sub 50 minute IM swim!

Scott, thanks for doing this!  I'd settle for a 1:03 IM split!

Hi Jim, I would like to join the group if there are more openings.

NAME: calvin386 / Todd AGE: 42

STORY: I have weight trained for about the last 12 years so I have always been in pretty good shape physically. About 5 years ago I started riding road bikes along with my weight training. I did the RAIN (Ride Across Indiana) Ride which is a one day 160 mile ride. After that. A friend of mine said I should try triathlons. I had never ran even a half mile. After the first run I was very sore but continued to work at it. I have now completed a half marathon and many 10 mile training runs. swimming comes pretty easy to me although I don't have any formal training. I think the last time I swam 2 miles in the pool it took me 1h 18 mins. I am not very competitive by nature and prefer to enjoy my races rather than worry about who im ahead of or behind. Funny thing I have found that because of this I tend to finish ahead of some who seem overly competitive.

FAMILY: Married with 2 children. Current Training: 3 hours weight training. 6 hours swim/bike/run per week. Sometimes more S/B/R. Basically maintaining my base until I start the beginner Ironman training plan on April 7, 2013. 20 weeks out from Ironman Louisville Aug. 25, 2013. 

2012 races: 1 sprint, 1 Olympic. I hit a deer at 40 mph on my road bike while training and broke my collar bone. That really slowed me down in 2012.

2013 races: half marathon, Olympic tri and Ironman Louisville.

I live in a lake and can do all the open water training I want from May til October. I also have year round access to the Louisville Ironman course. Im big on prep. If I'm allowed to join this group, I know I will have plenty of questions. I hope I don't drive you guys crazy.

----

Todd

Hi Todd.  Yes, I'm still taking new members so we can get lots of discussions going so don't worry about driving us crazy.  We have another member that will be doing IM LOU (although in 2014) and he lives in Indiana so maybe you guys can hook up for training on the race course.  Welcome!!

Scott, when you get caught up and get a chance I'd love to hear about your world record experience...when, where, who type stuff....still have a hard time comrehending what that experience must have been like...

I had some bike testing this weekend and did pretty good - it seemed to hurt just a little bit more this time .  The 5MP actually stayed the same from 6 weeks ago.  Took a 10 minute EZ spin and some light stretching and then the 20MP test.  I was targeting 320 for the test.  Hoping to start at 315 and slowly build but just couldnt.  I was at 313 for the first 10 and then did start to build toward 320.  Finished at 316W for the 20' which is 4W higher than 6 weeks ago.

I was initially bummed until I realized that I had lost quite a bit of weight with food poisoning and not having much of an appetite following.  So, my W/Kg was very much in line with what I was hoping for so happy about that.

May be doing a 5K race on Friday night if things work out.  Hopefully the snow is melted on the course so I can get a good gauge of run fitness.

Yow!!  That is crazy...I had one run out in front of me coming down a hill as well.  I have also hit 2 with my car....elusive creatures those deer .

What Olympic tri will you be doing?  I am considering Pokagon in May although may be a bit too far.  I did it a few years ago..really tough run course.

Ryan - that's a nice job on the 20min test.  Working with power is great, but it can be really depressing when trying to hit a certain nunmber and falling short.  Nice job on the mental part of the test to keep going even though the number was a touch below target.

Oh, and that's a great number for your body weight!

Thanks Jim, 

I am glad to part of the group.

Right now I do not use the training log on BT.  I use Daily Mile ( http://www.dailymile.com/#ref=tophd ) track my training.  Should I be putting it on BT as well?

Deer are a part of training where I live.  It is not uncommon to see packs of 15 or more crossing the road.  After being sidelined for 8 weeks, I no longer pedal into downhills.  The benifits of going 40mph down hills is not worth the risk. 

I will be doing the Buckhead Border Challenge in July. It is on the Indiana side of the river across from the city of Louisville.  I did it last year and it is well supported and well organized. 

So where are you exactley?  I have relatives in Seymour, Madison, Deputy, and Paris Crossing.  I am in Terre Haute.

It's a really good idea to log your training on BT because then it gives other members the opportunity to review and pass along suggestions - especially when you have training related questions.

I started with this week.

Todd, good to see that you're logging on BT.  As mentioned above its a good way for the mentor group to see your history when answering future questions.  BT has some great summarization tools as well.  What does dailymile have for such tools?

Good morning all-

I have been following with interest.  Finally getting back into the training groove.  Trainer ride Monday and again tonight.  Looking forward to the coming season.

Erik

Glad to hear it Erik!  Consistency is the key...spring will be here before you know it

I started using Daily Mile because it synced with my phone's fitness tracking app (Jog Log).  I found it to be very user friendly.  It gives you weekly, monthly and lifetime stats and graphs like BT. 

Something I found helpful is to be updated about other triathletes workouts.  Some of my workout buddies and I follow each other on Twitter and as our tracking apps automatically post our workouts to Twitter.  BT does this automatically if you sign in with your Twitter account.

It serves as a pretty good motivational tool to get daily updates as to what other triathlete's training is like. 

My Twitter account is @calvin386 if anyone would like to follow my training.  If you are interested, post your Twitter handle, I would like to see what your training consists of. 

Todd 

Another weekend is almost upon us.  I'm hoping to get up to the American Birkebeiner ski trail on Saturday to get in a 40km ski.  The big race there is coming up on Feb 23 - 50 km x-c ski

What is everyone up to??

Sweet.  Did you get to see much racing?  I know zip about cyclocross.  Can you simply take a road bike and put different tires on it for trail and you're good to go?

We just got about 18 inches of snow in the last 18 hours...everythings shut down...cannot make it out of the subdivision without 4 wheel drive.  Wet, heavy snow that aint so much fun to shovel!!

Planning on riding today and longer on Saturday...hopefully the plows get the main roads cleared up and I can get a longer run Sunday.

Going to be at a work conference all next week...planning to bring my bike and trainer for the hotel room...they also have a lap pool and the dreaded treadmills at the hotel so should be all set.