Beth and Yanti's Manatees Mentor Group--FULL! (Page 15)

I am ready for the Manatee Challenge...I will have to come up with my goals later today...thought about them some while working out but I am not set on them just yet.  I will post them later today or tomorrow.

Everyone be safe and train hard.

Greetings and salutations!

Today I'll plugging along at work and then will go for a short jaunt after. Three days in a row, I must be going for the record!?!

Positive Thought of The Day: I've been very patient and good at following the advice of the physical therapists. It's probably one of the hardest things I've done. I'm ITCHING to go full bore and they have me on a short leash. It's not easy for me to look at 70 minutes of running for an ENTIRE week, but I am.

I will become unbroken.

Thanks MOM!!!

I am currently reading the book "The Secret" and it talks about the concept of positive thoughts and expectations...great book by the way.

To be honest, I don't really suck at swimming.  It is just that I have no endurance and none of the other training seems to have carried over from a stamina standpoint.  I have been told by a swimming coach that I have a great stroke (whoo hoo) but it is the distance thing that gets me.

I accept your challenge as I know I am going to get better...I just need more time in the pool and that will come.  I am sorry that I have waited this long to "get wet" but I can still make great improvements by race day on June 22.  In fact what I have been trying to address is how to work my swimming motivation into the Manatee Challenge...I'll figure it out tonight.

Here are my goals for the challenge:

1.  Have my graphs meet the planned amount of training in my Oly plan. (so far, so good, for 13 weeks)

2.  Quit blaming my family for my inability to get myself out there.  I can make the time, and if I can't, it is NOT their fault.  Life is busy.  Each blame gets a negative point for the rest of the month. Each point reduces my overall training by ?? percent (I will think on how to make this a punishment numerically)

3.  Send two inspires a day to my manatees.  It doesn't sound like much, but see #2 and you will understand, life is busy!!

<--new avatar today

--Leslie

AWESOME GOALS. Just IMHO ... no need to reduce training done ... blame is punishment enough, no need to add. But maybe a public confession, hee hee hee ...

I LOVE YOUR AVATAR! Out of the dozens of spazzalicious photos of you, I think that is my favorite. 'Cuz a hot chick is hot, a hot chick in a wetsuit is sizzling, and a hot chick in a wetsuit rockin' a guitar is just SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION!!!

Hi all...

I'm in for the challenge but need to think about my goals a bit.  I'll post 'em tomorrow as it's been a crazy busy day and I have to be up at the crack of stoopid to teach tomorrow.

OK...I think this will work.

My regular Challenge goals are thus:

• Swim- 7000 yds.
• Bike- 50 Miles
• Run- 70 Miles

I will add to those:

• Per Momma Beth's threat request- Each time I swim I will post a positive comment (probably in my Blog) about that swim or swimming in general.
• I will stick to the marathon plan that I am starting- Any missed workouts will result in a public acknowledgement in my Blog.

That should do it...I am now accountable to my Challenge Group (East Coast Hipsters), to my Marathon coach (Dr. Death Wish) and to the two hottest Mentors on the site and the best mentee (sp?) group you could find.....(oh yeah......to myself also...Duh) 

nice goals Steve - just tweaked them a bit - you know, to represent the actual facts of the story  

I will also post my goals tomorrow - if anyone has any input on what they should be - chime in

MrsUSMC - 2008-05-06 10:58 AM Hey Manatees. I see I'm not the only one trying to catch up after being sick. I came down with a throat infection last Tuesday, but I was trying to suck it up and didn't go to the Dr. until Friday. Should have gone earlier, because by the time I got there I was in sad, sad shape. I had a blood vessel in the back of my throat ready to burst, plus the doc wanted to know why I didn't feel worse that I did (worse???). Drugs are a wonderful thing. So I'm back to reading the computer and I'm so far behind with you all. I hope you didn't start the challenge without me.

Terri!  glad to hear you are feeling better 

Dear Kettle,

Next time don't wait so long to go see the Dr.

Your friend, the Pot  

Suzy,

sorry for taking so long to post a response, I really have been thinking about it - I actually had to run and swim in order to get my thoughts around what is hopefully a helpful response.

The reason I asked about how you feel when you breathe when you are running is that, eventually as you get comfortable in the water, it should feel as natural as it does when you run.

For me - I gasp for air when I am running (it happened again tonight) - I know I am not efficient and could be much more comfortable if I could get the breathing down - tips are welcome!

Does your swim coach have you do any breathing drills - things as simple as this can help

• Stand at the edge of the pool and stick your face in the water to your hairline
• Breathe out (blowing bubbles through your nose and mouth) into the water - just before you expel all your air, rotate your head to the side and inhale from the nose and mouth
• Rotate your head back in the water and repeat

Try rotating to the right and left sides to help with the bilateral breathing technique

The purpose of this is to focus on exhaling into the water and getting a feel for when you are ready for the next breath without the added stress and distraction of everything else.

In my former life as a swim instructor - this really helped a lot of people (both kids and adults) get more comfortable with the breathing piece of it. It may feel weird, but it really can help.

A variation of this is to do the drill with a kickboard.

As a side note, most recently (a couple of years ago) a friend of mine was starting to train for tri's - he asked me to help him with the swim part.

I made him do this drill over and over at first. (I know, hard to imagine - LOL) - he hated doing it

At any rate, when he started swimming, he could barely make it 25 - 50 yds without stopping and gasping for air. He could run 10 miles at a shot with no trouble and could bike fast and for long distances. (sound familiar?)

He took it one lap at a time - and last year completed a HIM and can now kick my azz in the pool

FWIW

x2  Congrats!

Good morning Groupo!

So the swimming and breathing thing. I've been thinking about it and have a few thoughts. I'm not sure they'll help, but I figured what the hell.

When I first started swimming a couple of years ago I could run and bike fairly well but getting in the pool was HARD. I think the first session I had, was at a gym and MAYBE 10 minutes. I remember standing in the shower afterwards thinking I was going to pass out. From that I learned two things: 1) you are using a lot of muscles that you aren't using in any other sport or possibly activitiy. They are not used to working hard and lead to you needing more oxygen. This leads to 2) you can't breathe when ever you want in swimming. In the other sports you can breathe at will and if you're not used to this activity then learning to regulate your breathing can be difficult.

Here's a couple of things that I do that might help:
1) Try and relax. Getting your body tensed up just makes you need more oxygen sooner. I heard one of the guys at my Master's group the other day say that the secret to swimming is being as lazy as possible. This was in response to somebody saying it didn't even look like he was trying and he FLYS across the pool.

2) After you take your breath and put your head back down in the water, immediately start slowly letting it back out. I try and let out the same amount throughout my whole stroke so right before I take my next breath I'm nearly empty. I find this helps me to get in a breathing rhythm and I then feel that I'M in control of the breathing, not just gasping and blowing.

Remember, the more that you do it, the better that you will get and the easier it will become! I'm by no means an expert and Yanti or somebody else will probably be able to explain it better but I thought I throw this out here.

Positive Thought of the Day: I got up. I did not want to get up and I did. That is a big thing for me. I'm very good at procrastinating and I didn't. I give myself kudos for that.

Have a great day and train well!

I think this is a great idea.  While I am significantly more comfortable breathing than I used to be, I really don't know if I exhale everything before taking the next breathe. I pretty much learned to bilateral breathe from the beginning (although right side was really an issue for a long time) and it is so ingrained that when I try to vary it things fall apart.  My swimming coach (who I love) wants me to work on varied breathing patterns in the event I need it during a tri and for sprint workouts.  I suppose it is a little like learning to bilateral breathe in the first place You do what you are used to doing.  I will give your idea a whirl in the pool tomorrow and report back on my progress.

As far as gasping for air while running, what is your HR doing during those times? This usually happened to me when I was starting out too fast and runnning out of gas.  I switched to a walk/run and then eventually got a HRM and that told me everything.  I needed to slow down to get faster. At the beginning it was painfully slow, but the more base I built the faster the pace became. Does that make sense?  In fact, this same phenomenon happened to me in swimming. I would rush through 25 yards freaking out that I might drowned and was cashed at the end of it.  Once I slowed down (and got down proper form) things became better.

Breathing:  I find that if I think people are watching me (which odds are they ARE NOT) I get uptight and have mini panic attacks and can't get my breathing to work out.  Years of varsity sports and that never happened....I think it must be from the years of building up my low self-esteem that makes that happen.  I am working on fixing that.  In the spirit of that...I posted ALL my duathlon photos in all their dorky glory, as they are me and only me and I am doing it and that's that.  Pictures of me sitting around watching Oprah and eating chips would be much less appealing.  I must keep that in mind at all times!!   

I am working on posting dog and kid pix as well.  I am also trying to work on my manatee challenge of not being mad and blaming my family for my lack of swim and bike riding today...it is not their fault as much as it is situational that I am not out there and I can reconfigure my week to get it done, I can, I can, I can.