Julia's Group - Full (Page 14)

Caycee--One of the drills that I do is the fingertip drag drill, which sounds very much like brushing the top of the water.  It helps to focus on keeping your elbow up and also reachign over your head.  Yes in outdoor swims you have more to deal with, but your form will pull you through.  Right now one of my biggest questions is if I am coming through too high taking away more energy than necessary.  Video tape yourself and check it out. 

Nutrition is SOOO important!!  In fact, I am SURE it is why I bonked in my HIM last season.  The keys are two though - nutrition AND hydration.  I've tried LOTS of things and I keep trying new things.  I know that I burn close to 1,000 calories per hour when at my peak performance...  Imaging a 5 hour race and trying to take in 5,000 CALORIES?!!  So the first key is the week leading up to the race.  Carb loading doesn't mean just eating pasta the night before the race.  IT means taking in extra carbs that WHOLE week and making sure you are not hungry.  Your body stores carbs for use in lots of places and if you can have those ALL full you'll have a head start! I typically just add a bottle of Heed (or gatorade or whatever you use) to every meal.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds 100 cal of carbs X 3 per day for a week.  Plus you're adding hydration and electrolytes too before you start purging them on race day. 

Then you get to ACTUAL race day.   First question is what is offered ON the course.  Do they have a water bottle exchange on the bike?  IS it just water, or gatorade or both??  Do they hand out gels on the bike course??  On the run course??  How many water bottle cages do you have on your bike??  Sounds like a LOT of questions, but you need to know all of that before deciding what to take out on your bike for the race.   I used to always take one bottle of HEed (100 calories and plenty of electrolytes) and a bottle of Sustained Energy (300 calories) plus 2-3 gels (100 claories each - total 700 calories or so).  The problem with that is that it leaves me with NO water.  IF there's a bottle exchange on the course it works GREAT.  I can down the SE quickly and keep the hydration with the heed.  Drop the SE bottle and pick up some water at mile 25 (or wherever they hand out extra water.)  If there's NO bottle exchange on the course, I would rather use my bottles for hydration alone and use bars and gels.  I've been experimenting with how many gels my body can handle...  During my marathon, I trained and ran the race with gel and water alone.  I also had some endurolyte tablets for electrolytes.  They had only water and accelerade on the course and I HATE accelerade - it upsets my tummy!  So I took 10 gels and water at every aid station and popped about 3 endurolyte tabs.  IT's imortant with all of the water to get some electrolytes - either from a drink (like heed, gatorade etc) or from tablets like saltstick or endurolytes. 

OK so my plan for my NEXT race is to take water and heed in my water bottle cages and take 2 hammer bars (250 cal each) and 2-3 gels.  Add another 2 gels or so on the run and PLENTY of water (700 calories on the bike, 200 on the run)  That's for an OLY race.  For a HIM I will plan on SE plus 2 bars, 3-4 gels, heed AND water.  I just got one of those Aero drinks, so I will load that with Heed and have one water bottle cage with SE.  That would give me 1100 calories on the bike and another 300 on the run...  That's about as much as I could possibly take in.  But I WON'T bonk again   The rule is generally one gel every 20-30 minutes because that's all your stomache can handle in pure carbs.  It may be some trial and error.  I personally am a HUGE fan of Hammer Nutrition products and I use thier bars, gels, drinks, and recovery products almost exclusively (although I DO like the Snickers marathon energy protein bars for recovery.)

The key is to practice and make minor changes, then stick to your plan as closely as possible.  Don't try something new on race day!  The last thing you want is to be stuck in the prota potty for 20 minutes   Which also reminds me...  Your nerves will also keep your tummy a little keyed up, so in the few days before the race, watch what you eat in terms of fiber.  It's FINE to cut back on the fiber for a few days if you catch my drift!! 

I know it's a hard bullet to bite - but GOOD for YOU!!  I hope you can get some conclusive evidence of the problem and get it FIXED!!

Good luck today

Yes!  One of the biggest ideas is to stay streamlined in the water and getting the most out of your stroke.  What this means is rotating onto your side.  One of my favorite drills is the 6/3/6 drill.  You put one arm out front and are on that side for 6 kicks, then take 3 strokes (putting you on the other side) and stay on that side for 6 kicks.  It really emphasizes this rotation.  Meeting with a swim coach is a GREAT step in the right direction.  I don't think that many triathletes realize how much difference your FORM can make.  And it can often make a difference more quickly than physical conditioning!  Nice job

trYgrl - 2007-04-30 4:08 PM WAHOOOEEEEYYYYY!  Ok, so I am just a little excited.  This morning I was stood up for my swim, so I was a little PO'd because I couldn't swim without a partner since I open the pool and it was 5:30a.m.  So....I swam tonight, so much better for me.  I was just thinking how great it would be to get to 3000 yds this spring.  Well, how about today?  So I made it 3000 yds! So I had a few celebratory bites of ice cream (ok, I ate right out of the container!), it was more than a few bites!  IN any case, I am really excited for tomorrow and finding out my results from my MRI...still not sure what is best case scenario.  But, I just want to know! It is almost like the first day of school excitement all over again!

NICE WORK!!!  Pretty good   Fingers crossed for the MRI results tomorrow too.  Congrats on a great breakthrough!!  And you deserved the ice cream

So APRIL is OVER!!  How did we all do on our monthly goals?? 

My goals are :  Swim 10 hours, Bike 25 and run 15. 

OK so I hit swim 11 HOURS (YEAH!) Bike 25.5 (Double yippee!!) and run 11 hours.  I am actually OK with that.  This was a very bike focused block, so I think any more running and it would have hurt my legs for biking. 

Goals for next month... 

Stay Sane.  RACE WELL AT WILDFLOWER (next weekend - YIKES!!!) and

Swim 10 hours, bike 25 hours, run 14 hours.  We'll see if my coach agrees  

I just squeaked in meeting all my goals with an evening run on April 30th. I was just over my goal times of 5 hours running & 6 hours biking, and ridiculously over my swim goal because of starting masters. Part of that is because now I track just the total time in the pool (too much trouble to time with the watch like I was doing), but I also more than tripled my swim distance! Gotta love it, although I wonder if my triceps will ever stop being sore.

trYgrl, yay for no surgery! and Diane&Mike, yay for getting back out there! Good job everybody.

Way to go on the workout.  That sounds about right, It think for the 500....Check out others times to see where they fall and that would make sense.  Was that with or without drills?  It is a beautiful day here today, I think I will go for a hike at a local nature preserve....and maybe if I am brave, I might try to run a few steps...not sure if I am ready for that yet, but what the heck right?  I see my P.T. guy tonight anyway.