Swbkrun mentor group - Closed (Page 14)

As far as swimming goes, for me the key thing to focus on is FORM! Without good form your time will plateau quickly. You need to do drills to develop good form. Everyone's physiology is different, so good form is different for each of us. The goal is a compromise between improving propulsion and reducing hydrodynamic drag. The form needs to be one you can maintain for the distance you are planning to race.

I do one arm drills with a buoy under one arm, lengths with an ankle strap, kick drills with the buoy as a tombstone, alternating side kick drills, fist drills, sculling drills, and many more.

Doug

No racing for me. 

Goals for 2013 are to stay healthy and be happy.

Not focusing on time or mileage or even race outcomes (until race day!)

Biggest goals in training are maintaining fitness, building strength and the keeping the almighty life balance.  

Feeling kind of zen about my training these days and have no one to answer to except myself.  And I kind of like it!!! 

Good luck to anyone racing! 

To piggyback David's post(rant) about minimizing shorter distances in racing and training, I am in total agreement with him (and the million + one)!

I am noticing lots of the newer peeps in the MG having really ambitious goals, which are awesome, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing wrong with ramping up to the HIM or IM distance in a year or two or three or more or never! 

For myself, especially being a really challenged swimmer, I found the olympic swim distance of 1500 meters to be a HUGE jump up from my 400 and 800m sprint swims.  And 56 miles on the bike was a lot more than 24.85 x 2 + 6.3 (well, not mathematically, but for these little legs they needed another year of building up!)

I went first year (learned to swim- sprint), second year (olympic and 2 sprints), third year (oly and HIM, marathon), fourth year, (2 HIM's), fifth year, (marathon, HIM and IM), last year (marathon and HIM).  wow, I've been doing this 6 years! 

Anyhow, just my 2 cents and as an older athlete a bit longer recovery often needed. 

and hey, RP!!  nice seeing you!

Not racing...Here are my Goals:

1.  First is to arrive at my A race (Vineman Full); just arrive at the start line.

2.  Along those same lines is to finish the Vineman Full.  Stretch goal would be under 15 hrs.

3.  Experience a 2.4 mile OWS before Vineman (Practicing patience).

4.  Do 1 Organized Century Bike Ride;

5.  Maintain 8 out of 9 Training sessions per week (Fink 30 Week Competitive Plan); no long runs or long rides missed unless due to injury. 

Great posts about distance, goals and specific training, and I agree it is not about distance it is about what is your goal for that distance or race or training.

I must be ADHD because now I have no idea what to do

No racing this weekend.

I am still struggling making my goals concrete.But these are the races I am planning in my head for now.

HM, OLY, HIM, and two sprints.

My "A" race and what I will be training for is the HIM,  trying to decide if I should do it at the end of June or the end of August. I kind of like August only so I can build up more of a base. But others are trying to convince me to do June and get it over with so I can enjoy the summer.

Any thoughts on this?

No races in sight yet.

Goals:

I'm a bit scared to approach this topic.  I've got the Boise HIM on the schedule and my first goal is of course to finish.  But I feel like I've already put a little too much into this to simply want to finish.  I just don't have a great gauge of what my "time" goal would be.  As my training progresses and I am able to analyze my data (mainly brick data) I will re-adjust the goal of finishing with perhaps a time goal.  Anyone have any advice on how to approach race goals, especially for a noob like me?  

The second major goal for the year is to continue to become more healthy and enjoy the lifestyle changes I've made.  The more this becomes a life style the easier it is to get in the work.  I'm hoping this is a life long change for the better.

If it is your "A" race, getting it over with is not the attitude I would want to carry into my training.  I like the idea of doing some shorter distance racing ahead of it to get some solid speed work done and get yourself prepared to race hard.  Last year, I did very few races leading up to IM and for me that was an error.  I need some "practice" sessions to get me in the right frame of mind, especially if one of your disciplines is weaker than the others.  I would do August.

Rather than have an overall time goal, consider breaking each discipline down and having a goal for it.  And it may not be time specific.  For swimming (which is my weakest link), I have a goal not to panic at the start and to swim even.  For biking, I use power so it is to stay within a specific watts range.  For running, it is completely by RPE (feel) and depending on distance ranges from VERY HARD for a sprint to HARD for an Oly, etc.  I don't look at a watch until I hit the chute.  The benefit of doing it this way is you are true to your training versus trying to hit an arbitrary goal. If you start faltering early in the race for whatever reason, having a time goal can be deflating.  This way you can still salvage parts of your race.

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No racing this weekend. My 2013 goals are 1. Stay healthy and kind 2. Enjoy to journey not just the destination

John, you should know that it is a known fact, documented with Wikipedia, that if you put your name on your bike both your speed and power will improve.  However, I don't think you know what you are signing up for if you put the S on the bike though.  You would have better probability of ending up in a Zumba or Body Pump class than out on a Cyclocross training ride.  

A flag next to your name on your bike makes you even faster.  This is doubly effective if your flag looks like this.

(SufferlandriaFlag.jpg)

This flag makes you faster at cyclecross -

(BelgiumFlag.jpg)

This flag makes you faster at Zumba.

(United NationsFlag.png)

I don't even know what kind of files these are?  My computer started blinking when I tried to open them...