PLMsbr (JD) Group - FULL (Page 15)

I feel the same way Tom.  I think they will be starting up new groups as soon as these end.  Maybe we can talk JD into continuing his mentorship next session.

Yay did strides for the first time lastnight and 1 leg pedaling on the bike or (isolated leg pedaling).  It is great fun I would recommend both to anyone who feels good about their training.  It will change your mind quickly 8). 

So what is the trick to 1 leg pedaling on the bike, I can kill the dead spot when accelerating, but once I reach speed, I start skipping and cant hold it.  Anyone have any advice here?

The mentor program is set up in fixed time intervals, usually around 3 months; as described here . I guess that's so mentors and mentees both have an out if they don't like it Here's the relevant text:

********************

How long will this last?

This mentoring program will last 3-4 months from Mid December to the end of March.  That should be long enough to get beginners triathletes or beginner exercisers into a program consistently while also giving enough time to begin to conquer fitness and weightloss goals and get that first race done in the Spring/Summer.

********************

However, there is no rule that says the thread cannot continue, and this link actually posts some options for continuing on. Note that there will be new groups starting up in April, and all of you are free to look into those groups and join one of them. For those of you who would like to stay, I personally would love to continue to see how everyone progresses through the season. Maybe you can post here once in a while, even if you decide to join another group. No hard feelings no matter what you choose.

I don't think that I'm going to start a new mentor group, especially since my April is going to be crazy busy (trips to Galveston, Mexico, and Boston all that month). As mentioned above, though; I'll continue to contribute to and monitor this thread for anyone that wants to hang around. So, for Tom/Tim and anybody else that desires; we can just keep this going as long as we feel like it.

I haven't done a lot of it myself, so not much advice I can offer; other than it probably just comes with more practice at doing it. I know one-arm swimming made me feel like a moron at first, now I'm able to just feel stupid

I will be staying with this group as long as we are still posting...JD I'm sure we will appreciate any time you may have for this blog once you get really busy. With spring and summer coming, no doubt we will all get much busier...

Didn't do much brick work this week...busy doing "grown up" stuff. I'll get a swim in Friday morning but then it's off to REI to spend my Dividend!!! And then off to the Anniversary Inn to celebrate our 22 anniversary!!!

Yay completed 10 mile race today in 1:12:33 which is a big PR at least in my mind from the same race last year that was 1:18:45.  I did first 2 miles slow....er, raised the bar for the next 5 and then brought it home strong for the last 3 with an average HR of 171, max of 182.  Not sure I could have done it any faster for current training.  Off to do a race report in a bit.  Perfect weather.  I did no taper for this race, just put it in as my longer run day.   

The plan was go out slow (7:27 mpm/160 hr) for 2 miles, then pick up the pace a bit for the next 5 miles (7:18 mpm/173 hr) and then bring it home fast..er (6:56 mpm/176 hr).

The guy who won the 10 event was a tiny bit fast.... he had a 4:53 pace for the 10 mile run omg!

Didn't have much time for brick work this week...I'll pick it up next week. I did have a good time at REI yesterday with my dividend. One of the "free" things I got was a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS/HRM watch. Haven't even used it yet and I love it. Took it out in the backyard and got tracked by 12 satellites. I read many reviews and everyone pretty much it was very rare to get dropped, even momentarily. The Timex I have now doesn't even track under the trees in the winter when there are no leaves. I'm hoping to see some "better" pace times!

I'm trying a new breathing pattern in the pool. I went back to every 4 strokes and breathing on the same side for 1 length then switching to the other side coming back. I'll try it again on Monday and see what happens. Trying to find that comfort level.............

Hey all,

I'm all for sticking with the group.  It's hard to believe anyone would want to ditch out on something like this without finding out how everyone's story ends for the season!

Baowolf, are you a mouse?!  I don't recall exactly how old you are, but I think I'm younger by a couple of decades and I about pass out at 170 bpm.  Then again, I can't run a marathon in under 4 hours either...  and I'm pissed when I have to drive more than 5 minutes to swim... 

Hehe, ya I'll be 42 next week.  I held 175 +/- heart rate for 7 ish miles with a solid 180 for the last mile.  I have hit 185, but around 190 my heart starts to pound in my chest in an uncofortable way and I tend to dial it back at that point.  I was at the doc the other day (cold/flue/viral something) and my resting heart rate was 42, blood pressure 99 over 50.  The nurse was all, hrm ya don't see those numbers every day. 

Anyway who has races comin up?

My closest race is my first Tri...Apr 4 weekend. The YMCA Spring Sprint. We swim in the pool Fri and ride/run Sat a.m. With it just a few weeks away I get nervous blogging about it!!

I get my HR up to 178 doing a 1/2 mile sprint at a 7:00 pace on the TM. By the time I get to the 1/2 mile mark I feel like I'm going to explode! My RHR is 63. Those sprints, just like JD said, have really helped increase my longer run pace.

Will...I'm doing my first full marathon in August. I'll be hoping for anything less than 5hrs. Maybe next year I can shoot for something under 4...right now sounds out of my league...just like my first HIM in June--I'll finish it and I won't be last...I'll be happy with that! I'm shooting for a HM this year under 2hrs. Last year I did my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd HM. They all had very significant hills, but I did do each one faster than the previous. This year I'll be doing at least 2 flat HM so hope to finish in less than 2hrs.

You know, it's real interesting to work in the ER here at the VAMC--I took care of guys tonight in there 50's that I would have thought they were easily in their 60's. At 54 I'm feeling better all the time!

Hope you all have a great week!!.........Tom

Sounds like your rackin up the experience and your speed should follow accordingly. 

I worked ER psych evals for 7 years.  Ya get a lot of stories there.  Burn out rate in that job is about 1 staff per 4-6 months. 

Ya really got to nail that nutrition for the full mary and HIM.  Half mary you can get away with it, but at 3+ hours... you won't have any reservs without good supplemental nutrition and after 5 hours well it becomes critical in a stay standing kind of way.  I am sure you will rock if you are running 7 min pace even at a short distance now.  Heck that 10 mile run was at a faster pace than my 5k last summer. 

My coach is focusing on intensity to bring up my speed, so right in line with what you are doing.  Man my pecks are sore from that first strength workout last thursday.  I feel like first day of wrestling practice in high school.

Congratulations Baowolf on a great 10 mile PR race! Sounds like you used a pretty smart race strategy, and those splits are truly impressive.

I have no concept of how to run 5:00/miles or faster for any type of distance at all... that's just wild.

I think you'll enjoy that Garmin 305 Tom. I got one late last year and have loved it. I especially like the freedom to try new routes or change things up, but still have accurate distance and pacing.

HR numbers are funny, they can be so different for people in a similar group. For me, if I get close to 160 I feel like I'm going to have a coronary. When I did that duathlon it hung around 150, and in the marathon it started 130's and moved into low 140's. I just use those that type of data as rough guidelines when I train, and check once in a while to see how my HR compares to my RPE.

Keep thinking positive on that first tri... you've done the training and now it will be time to enjoy testing it all out!

I usually go by percieved effort, but my coach wants to um help me to improve my intensity and so needs the heart rate data to "check up on me" to see how I did in my workouts.  So in my workouts I typically run around 155 heart rate, but in the race low 170's were fine.  I think this means that I have more low 170s that are going to enter into my workout plans 8). 

The other thing I will need to learn to do it appears is to develop a kick and integrate it into my TI style swiming somehow.  I have no idea how to do this yet... so hrm guess we find out.  Currently I just have a 2 beat kick at each body rotation (1x for left arm, 1x for right arm into water).  But then I also know my swim speed has not gone up at all in the past 4 months ( partially due to availability of a pool) but also due to that being about where TI ends me up at around a 2:00 min 100 pace.  If I were in better swim shape I could probably increase the stroke rate, but if I go too fast I get tired very fast and splash more and have not so good form.    

grats on the PR Baowolf!

My HR in my HM averaged right around 170 and has been up in the 180's in 5k's (now if only that translated to speed).

My pool is set to reopen today and I'll be heading there shortly!  While on the topic of swimming, I got my bonus last week so now I am shopping for a wetsuit.  What are you guys using?  Any suggestions?  I know fit is important but I don't think we have a store here in the desert that sells them so I could go try them on.  Right now I think I'm leaning towards the Xterra Vector Pro 2 that's on sale for half price right now.

JD,

You were right about finding that Profile Design saddle for cheap.  I figured $35 was worth a shot.  I doubt it will be the right saddle in the end for me, that big knob on the front end is a bit much, but it is definitely an improvement over the road saddle I was using before.  I was on the trainer today - something that usually tears me apart - and I was very comfy.

I'm in the middle of a pool disaster...  One district pool on my side of the island is closed and the other now closes regularly for various community groups.  I'd move into the open water, but the pineapple express has set up shop for the next couple of weeks.  So I'm down to my fourth string - the YMCA.  Twenty-five yards and two lanes of 80+ degree water...  I don't think I have to swim during water aerobics classes, I think I'm probably the last person to look into this option.  I don't know what my chances of finding a lane are.

Yeah, it's great to have some HR data to go along with RPE; so you can self-check your *real* level of effort for a given exercise. Race day makes a great data point, since you usually give it your all. I've started using the computrainer, and really like having that power output measurement. Indoors on the trainer looking at watts, there's no hiding from the effort you are truly giving!

Sometimes I like to play devil's advocate; i.e. provide the other perspective just to balance things out... so in that spirit here's my take on the kicking issue and TI. As a triathlete, you are going to want to minimize the kicking in a race, so be careful about overemphasizing that aspect of your swim speed. Watch the pro triathletes in a race sometime, and pay attention to their legs. You'll see minimal kicking, since they are saving their legs for the bike/run. Flip side of that is that you will be kicking, so you do need to work on and practice the kick to some extent.

I read the TI book and used that myself, and made great improvements in my swimming. Until you learn to balance your body and streamline (which is tough for us non-swimmers); you're not going to get very far. At some point, though, most people seem to have incorporated that into their technique, and are ready to move beyond those basics. It basically boils down to having better technique, so now it's time to start upping the effort and intensity. As you mention, the danger is getting sloppy with your technique, so there's a balance; which is why it's so great to have some type of coaching. Best way I know to self-coach recognition of losing your form is stroke count. When you speed up, you will have a slightly higher stroke count than your comfortable stretch and glide; but if it really starts jumping up you need to stop, rest, and go back to thinking about long strokes.

And yes, it is *really* difficult to improve swimming when you don't have pool availability. Just hang in there and do what you can do, it all pays off eventually... just sometimes not as fast as we'd like

I have an Xterra and am happy with it, but I did try on about 4 or 5 brands in the store to find the one that fit me best. Half price is hard to beat given how expensive wetsuits are... as long as they have a good return policy. If you haven't worn a triathlon wetsuit before, just be prepared for it feeling somewhat tight and constrictive, which makes breathing seem more difficult until you get used to it. And the shoulders get a little more fatigued as well. I've seen some folks claim otherwise, but common sense tells you that anything that puts even the slightest extra pressure on your shoulders is going to add up over many hundreds of strokes. Proper body roll is very important to help with that, and it also helps limit the infamous wetsuit neck burn.

Glad it's helping some, and not too bad of an investment if you find something that works better. You may find that cushy nose comes in handy when spending lots of hours in aero position, though

Bummer about the pool situation. Too bad we can't all afford an Endless Pool. Speaking of... isn't baowolf close to having an at home swimspa soon? Lucky dog