JohnnyKay and Fred Doucette's HIM/IM focused Mentor group-CLOSED (Page 15)

Been MIA for the pats few days due to a ridiculous week at work. Luckily tomorrow is Good Friday, and in the Great White North we get this one as a holiday.  Hoping to ride outside tomorrow in 1 degree weather - I'll take what I can get at the moment as the weather continues to suck.

INteresting comments on the swim.  I actually spent 3 months focusing on my swim this winter, and was spending once a week with a coach for semi-private lessons + ots of other sessions by myself in the pool.  He had me working almost exclusively on my kick which was non-existant.  At the end of the 3rd month I'd had enough and dropped the coaching and extra swim time - I got no faster, and it just added to my frustration in the pool.  I've since regressed a bit with my kick and have stopped doing kick drills except for when I where fins.

Just wondering if I should suck it up and start doing some more kick drills without the fins.  Will it do much for me, or am I better off spending time just swimming?  Obviously I've created a bias on this already, but am looking for some other opinions.

double

My wife actually picked up a Finis Swimsense for me and I am loving it!  I never worry about missing a lap or mis-counting.  with over 40k yds on it, it hasn't missed a beat.  Great little tool and with 100 repeats, it is very easy to see the difference in stroke.   Also, with the output it gives, you can easily see where your fatigue starts to impact your stroke with SPS, DPS, SpDist...  it keeps split times for each 25yd section.  

At first, I was thinking more of a toy, but the more I get into it, the more I am getting out of it.  I am a 1:05 IM swimmer, so not bad and not good, but I am now thinking this thing can help me tweek my way up a few minutes... (along with more time in the pool and lake!)

Just finished a 8+ mile run in the dark of the night.  One of my favorite times to run.  Coming up to very long work weekend in the hospital.  Fortunately have the following week off so I can get my long bikes/run in.

My kick up to this year has been practically non-existent.  In the past when I did kick drills I found that I would have very little forward motion.  Then I decided to spend an hour in the pool doing nothing but kicking.  Ultimately I found that my kick got better as I experimented with head position, focused on hip position.  I now regularly practice with zoomers.  I'm not sure it has made me any faster (I'm pretty slow) but I like the work out and mixing it into drills makes swim more interesting.

For the more experienced swimmers I would like to know your thoughts on swimming freestyle sets with zoomers.  This allows me to focus more on my stroke mechanics.   Also, with regards to flip turns, do you push off hard and glide or push minimally to cause you to use more strokes?

You guys use your legs in the water????

Jimmy - we're down to a month before IMTX! Are you pumped yet? Come on man, I know there's a ton of pent up excitement behind those aviator shades just begging to be let out! Let me hear it...

It's official boys and girls...I'm sick.

I knew something was off this morning when I just felt like I was run over by a truck...even though Wednesday's workouts were light.  I skipped my run, and didn't even think twice about it...where normally I get really upset if I "chicken out" of a workout like that...especially since it was just an easy 4 miles planned.

Got through the work day and noticed I was having some minor body aches...didn't really think much of it though.  Then just before I left work for my group ride, I realized I "might" be sick.  Went on the ride anyway and pretty much blew up half way through.  Normally we ride about 24-28 miles at a hard pace...I dropped off the pack at mile 12, and limped in the last 4.

Those last 4 miles I was getting cold chills and even my butt was sore from the saddle...even though I was only riding for 35 minutes...and my butt never gets sore.  So I'm probably calling in sick tomorrow.  Tomorrow was supposed to be an "off training day" for me anyway...but the real challenge is if I can get myself to cancel my long ride on Saturday like I probably should.  The Saturday rides are what I look forward to all week...we'll see how I feel...but 95% of me knows I shouldn't ride no matter what.

Sorry I've not got much input on the kicking discussion although I think it is interesting. All the men in my swim class (It's a small class) have trouble with kick sets. I watch them and their legs just start to sink. I don't really understand why. I don't feel like I'm doing anything special, kicking is not even something I think about when I'm swimming. 

I've been thinking about trying to learn a two beat kick. It will have to wait for fall when I'm bored in the pool and don't have any races. Does anybody use a two beat kick?

Sorry you are sick. That had to be an awful ride. Rest up today and see how you feel tomorrow.  Maybe just a short easy spin would be enough to get you out and not too much to make you feel worse. Or better yet, stay home and take a nap!

bryancd - 2011-04-21 7:02 PM

docswim24 - 2011-04-21 2:43 PM

JohnnyKay - 2011-04-21 3:04 PM

docswim24 - 2011-04-21 2:58 PM

I have never heard of more ankle flexibility affecting the run.

Runners tend to develop less ankle flexibility.  The reason (or theory, at least) is that the reduced flexibilty helps promote running efficiency as more of the 'recoil' energy from landing and take-off goes into the forward propulsion (instead of losing some of the energy to 'floppy' ankles).  I am sure I butchered the actual physics, but it's something along those lines.

Interesting - thanks for sharing.

Yeah, that applies to our legs as well. That's why stretching post run is good but too much flexibility, like a gymnast, is bad.

I am not flexible like a gymnast but I think I fit this description. I can verify that too much flexibility is not good for running. I have a lot of trouble rolling my ankles. I can be running down a flat, paved road and all the sudden I'm on the ground.

Just a 30 min spin and 30 min run today. DH had the day off so I'm heading to the bike shop (which is an hour and half drive) to get some help with my bike fit this morning. I'm having some issues with my seat. Not sure if we can adjust it or if I need a different seat.

I'm chatty today - good think I'm leaving for a while LOL!

Was supposed to swim this morning, but unexpected late night resulted in some much needed extra sleep.  Doing a bit of work from home, but then I will ride OUTSIDE! 

Maybe a short run afterward.  Tomorrow may be another trainer ride with a x-country 5k in the mud midday.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Alright so I wrote my training schedule for the next 3 weeks, the first of three builds towards Racine. This is more of an informal schedule and I am just trying to lay down when I will do each discipline on what day. I will write exact schedules per week as they approach. A couple things I am experimenting with here are doing my long runs on Monday now after a bike heavy weekend. Also with the long run I plan on splitting it into two runs with the first run being about 75-80% of the distance and throwing in some harder efforts and using the second run as trying to hold an easier pace. Does anyone swim on days they do long runs? With the workouts planned in this order does anyone see any problems with day-to-day recovery? Or burning myself out too hard? I am not asking if this plan is right or wrong as I am trying a new approach just asking for ideas if it looks like I am increasing my chances of ijnury or burnout or whatever.

M- Swim easy (drillwork)/ Long Run 9-12 miles

T-  Swim distance set/ Bike Intervals 90 min

W- Easy run 4-6 mi/ Swim

R- Tempo Run 5-7 mi/ Bike workout of choice

F- Swim olympic set

Sa- Long ride 3-4 hrs

Su- 60 min TT/T-Run 3-4 mi

Any ideas of what to do for my long ride? I was thinking of doing such options as only riding in the big gear, or throwing in a 90 min TT in the middle, but since I am doing a TT on Sunday I don't really see the need there.

That's what I have planned, open for all of your comments!

When is everyone's next/first race? Crazylegs is in Madison next Saturday and is always a fun 8K to start the year, and of course in true Wisconsin fashion, free beer at the finish!

Jason - Hope you feel better very soon! I'm sure it's just a 24-72 hour bug and you'll be back in business in no time.

One of my training buddies just emailed saying his ankle/foot is killing him from last night's swim - funny we were just talking about this.

Okay so I do kick (a little bit) but I doubt I get much propulsion from it. A while back I had someone take a couple marginal videos of my swimming (very easy stroke, super slow turnover). I consider myself a swimmer but I know there's lots I can improve on - so let me have it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7k3H9Cv7Sw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nafFlvbAHPA

Just woke up after about 10 hours of sleep.  Feeling much better, but won't go to work today.  There has been something going around my office, so I don't want to spread it to anyone else.

We'll see how things go...I RARELY get sick...so I usually don't know how to deal with it.  This is probably the first time I've felt sick since I started tri training about 2 years ago...so really not sure what type of recovery process my imune system needs.

Overtraining is always an option that leads to sickness, but looking at your logs you are not doing anything with crazy volume, but you do hit the workouts every single day, that could possibly be the culprit, or you just simply got sick. I rarely get sick but when I do I rest, drink lots of fluid and eat well. Rest and get well, great chance to take some time away from training though!