Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 145)

I try to do long, continuous swims every couple of weeks.  It helps my confidence, if nothing else.

I'm a bit frightened!  I'll get my plan in a couple weeks.  She muttered something about getting some great info and advice at the upcoming USAT coaches conference.  I'm on pins and needles!

It's great to see you back Paul.

As Tracy said, it seems life has thrown a lot of curve balls your way this year.  Hopefully things will get much better in the coming months and everything can begin to get back on track.

I am guessing you're doing the Monumental HM?  I was there last year but did the full.  It was good race and I had a lot of fun.

Do you have any word on when you can get back on the bike?  You might try to get re-fit so you can get rid of the back pain and maybe get those 3 vertebrae out of the danger zone.

Paul welcome back and it's good to hear from you. Sounds like you've had a lot of stuff going on and it's good to see you have some time to get back to training and to start thinking about next year. I hope you can get your back problem taken care of as well.

Great to hear from you Paul.  Sounds like a tough time on all fronts lately.  Stay the course.

On the training font, back issues seem particularly tough.  Jeff has some great experience recovering from that, so maybe he'll chime in.  Planning any races we can follow you on?

I am doing myself a disservice by not doing long continuous swims at all.  It's not part of master's swim practice and it's not traditionally part of swim training.  But physiology is physiology and just like long continuous runs and rides are important to cycling/running I think the same principle holds for endurance swimmers.  Triathletes can forget this because we train like swimmers.

Paul, sorry for your divorce.  I know it hurts more than anything.

I have the disc issues too.  I assume your pain is localized to your back and not radiating down the leg?

I endured my back for 20 years before it improved on me.  For a number of  years if I rode my bike for 30 minutes that was all I could handle and I paid for it for a few days. 

Glad you posted.  Good to hear from you.

At the beginning of the season I called out Dirk and suggested we compare our USAT ranking scores for the season.

They aren't official yet, but I don't think I have any high scores outstanding...he's 2 points higher than me so he won the smackdown.

Good job Dirk!!!!

How about next season we try to race head to head???

So glad you checked in. It is good to hear from you even though I hate to read of any of the junkies going through rough times.

OK, so I am going to stray from triathlon talk for a moment because I just finished a parent teacher conference for my 4 year old daughter in preschool. I've been on pins and needles because I was her preschool teacher last year and it was a real strain on both of us then this year she had a terrible time transitioning without me there. Plus Gracie is a bit of a free spirit and her preschool is very structured.

Anyway, long story just to say she got a great report. Whew, I'm so proud of her. Last year her personality was so difficult I was really afraid of what we were in for but she has changed so much this year. And best of all the teacher said Gracie stands up for herself and tells the other kids straight up when she does not like what they are doing even before she tells the teacher. I love that so much.  If you are or girl or as the Dad's you have raised girls you know how important self esteem is and for a 4 year old little girl to have a voice - priceless.

Ok, back to regularly scheduled tri talk .

Dina that is great news. It looks like you did a great job and you should be very proud of her. Your daughter sounds alot like my younger daughter Erin. She is the type of person who has no problem standing up for herself and telling you exactly how it is where as my older daughter Kayla is how should I say maybe a little more reserved.

That is awesome news Dina.  Sounds like you're well on your way, and couldn't agree more about raising girls with self-esteem and confidence.  Those first few years of school and the transitions required are pretty tough sometimes, so glad it is going well.

Listening to all of you with girls on here it gives me hope for the future of our race hearing and seeing how well you've done with your daughters.

What???   No way!!  I'm not buying it just yet.  I'll wait until the official scores come out and I'll check for myself.  I seriously can't believe I score higher.

Race head to head?  That scares me!  I think it should be a HIM if we race head to head.  Then maybe I'll have some type of advantage since you haven't raced a HIM (I think).

I think it would be incredible fun to meet face to face first and then to race head to head.  But I haven't raced any one person before and it would be kind of weird to actually race a particular individual as opposed to my personal times and percentage goals.  The only exception to that would be when I had made it a vendetta race at the Lima Kewpee sprint last season when I screwed up the swim so badly and swam 630 yards instead of the 500 yards I was supposed to swim.)

I say let's start the planning stages.  It would be fun!

Edit:

Wait!  Do I have a higher score because I raced more?  Are you trying to sucker me into a humiliating defeat?

Well, you do use two arms while swimming.

Great news, Dina!  I love hearing about little girls that find a backbone early in life.  It will serve her well. 

I would start with an easy 10 minute spin to get the legs going followed by some short sprints and short rests. 

Maybe something like this:

10 min easy in a progressive zone 2

5 min zone 3

4x1 min high zone 3 to low zone 4 with 1 minute recovery

2 minutes in high Zone 2 with only a few minutes to get the bike to the start and get ready start the time trial.

I think it's best to get a good sweat going and have your HR already up before beginning your TT.  During your typical speed work outs, whether bike or run, the first place and worst place, in my opinion, is that initial HR increase.  As your HR increases things seem to level off after a few minutes and the same effort can feel to your system much easier. I think this is close to the point that would be best to start the race.

It seems that every time I have done a MLSS test it is the first 2-4 minutes that I am absolutely miserable and then things level off until the last 10 minutes. Then the last 10 minutes about make me want to puke.  So if you finish like you are almost ready to toss your cookies, you will have done great.

I did my scheduled 500TT last night and I didn't fare to well, or at least not as well as I had liked.   I believe there were many factors that seemed to cause my demise

1. I had chosen to do a solid set of fast 50's before doing the TT.  10x50 on :55 (:40 swims followed by :15 rest) which is near my sprint speed took more out of me than I thought it might.  I had not attempted a TT after doing anything fast before and I thought I would give it a shot on this night...........BAD idea!
2. I went out too fast on the first 50 of the TT.  The splits on my G-910 tell me I was at 19.1 and 19.8 for the respective 25's and this put me in a O2 deficit that I felt would not be recoverable over the rest of the test.  (These were the best 25's of the test and the worst were 22.6 at the 275 yard mark and 22.9 at the 375 yard mark.)
3. The fast set of 50's prior to starting the test wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  However the number of reps I think was the more important factor in my demise.   I believe had I committed to no more than 5 reps and a slightly longer rest (I took 1:03 rest) before starting I may have had a bit better time
4. The next thing I think caused me to be slower than I would have liked was my mental capacity (yes I am a little slow at learning).  As many of you may have heard me say before, once I get my body engaged in a certain pace, be it running, riding or swimming, I am not easily able to pull the current muscle memory back down to a sustainable speed.  I had set the tone for the TT by doing the fast 50's and despite trying to pull it down my arms and brain couldn't detatch from that pace.
5. Finally, I intended to get my HR up by using the 50's to get my mind and body into "speed thinking" before the test.  This I don't think was a bad thing.  I actually think is the right way (of sorts) to get ready for short tests and races, just be smart about it (see point 4).

There are a few things that can be taken away:

1. Take time to do things differently.  If you are in a rut in your training, meaning no particular gains or new milestones, change something up.  Experiment.  Explore.  And be determined.
2. Be thoughtful.  Don't go about your training following a plan that works well for someone else to the letter, you aren't that other person. (BTW, I have never followed a plan as outlined by another athlete.  I have followed concepts however.)  I think Macca pretty much develops a kind of day to day type of approach to his training regimen.  But he does so very smartly incorporating all the right mixture of stress and recovery.
   My training for the HIM's this past season were my thoughts on what I thought would work for me.  It seemed to work out based on what happened for my last HIM by having what I still think was a most incredible race and beyond what I thought imaginable.
3. Determine goals.  It doesn't have to be time goals but maybe goals determined by fitness, volume, finishing in a certain percentage based on AG or overall field or any other form of personal measurement.  Goals can provide more motivation when we seem to be in training ruts or funks that can be otherwise difficult to pull ourselves from.

I agree with Dirk's warmup prescription.  The key to a short TT is the right warm-up (as well as the right pacing of course).  To get that warm-up for a cycling TT it really is critical to bring your trainer and set it up near the start and to use all of your warm-up time precisely so that you have no more than 5 minutes between the end of the warm-up and being sent off on the TT.

Have fun and let us know how it turns out!

Oh there is no doubt you carry the volume to get through a HIM easily.  But like you said pacing is the bigger key to getting those last 13 miles in at a fair race pace at the end.  Something I will still be working toward for the next racing season.  (I would like have another 2 HIM season next year.)

A very close to head to head could be possible at a race that would be similar to a Tri-Indy style of race.  They do a TT start but they start each person about 3 seconds apart.  There is a seeding process that is NOT followed closely, so it would be possible for us to start one after the other based on the way the race starts.  From there it would be mano-a-mano to the end.

I actually knew the USAT scores weren't influenced much by the numbers of races, or at least they shouldn't be.  But as I have watched you race for the past year and a half I have seen some remarkable times and paces, leading me to believe I would be bringing up the rear if we raced.  Regardless, it would be very fun!

I want to come to this race!

This is very funny and I would have to agree.

My sister was just telling me today about a 'power yoga' class she's started.  Sounds right.