kalalau's Group - FULL for now (Page 16)

Hi Dave!

How often are you taking gels?  What is your last week of training looking like right before the race?  I don't want to see you trying to get any last minute cramming in.  There's a common mistake.  You should be tapering your workouts that last week.

Also, it might help with the nervousness if you make up your race checklist right now.  You could even pack it all into separate bags.  Having everything ready, can calm things down.  Once you have everything ready, all you have to do it show up.  The rest of the day is just going through the motions.  You've done all this swim/bike/run thing before.

But, it's pretty normal to be nervous.  I'm getting sort of anxious about my next half marathon as well.  I would like to do well in this one.  My race is the same day as yours.

I didn't answer your question about places you can go to see what pros are doing in their training.  I haven't found or looked for websites that monitor the pros daily.  I bet someone is using twitter though, or has a blog.  But I'm not sure I would follow them much anyway.  Their training program is going to be at such a higher level than I am doing.  When Michaal Phelps is eating 13,000 calories a day and swimming 10 miles, I just can't identify with that. :-)

But what I do search for is places where they interview pros, or have coaches giving advice.  I listen to the podcasts at imtalk.me.  They have a weekly show.  SimplyStu is also a good podcast though it's not weekly, and this week's podcast has an hour long interview with Desiree Ficker.  There's a few other podcasts out there but those are my main ones.  Steve listed a few of his favorites early on in this thread.

Have you been practicing your transitions?  It's really common to take too long in the transition area when you are new.  You really need to get out of the water and onto your bike ASAP.  4.5 minutes can fly by really quickly if you are not keeping your head on getting out of there.  You can otherwise get on your bike within 1.5 minutes, though that is highly dependent on how far it is from the swim to the bike.  But look at that difference.  3 minutes that would cost you on the clock.  

One of the things that helped me in transition is that I no longer care about getting something to drink in transition.  I leave it on the bike and drink while riding.  I find that if I try to drink in transition, then it is easy to not be in a rush to jump on the bike.  You do need to drink a lot out of the water though, so make sure you start drinking as soon as you get on that bike.

If you are as fast as you've been training, and this race goes well, maybe I'll start going over how to keep your bike shoes on the bike before you get on the bike, and after you get off.  Super cool to do.  But you should not worry about that now, being new.  Took me 2 years to worry about that.

We are getting close enough to race day now that it might not be good to be getting used to the aerobars.  It can be pretty unstable.  No harm in installing them though.  Just only go onto the aerobars if you are really confident with it during the race.

Thanks guys...I think I have been resting better due to exhaustion.  I do not feel tired initially when I wake up, but I do get strung out during the day and I start to feel the fatigue later.  But last night, got a solid 8 hours.  It really does go every other day.  I would normally function great on 5-6 hours.  Now I am really focusing on my rest because I know I need it.

 I started this week with the Intermediate Olympic workout program (HR based) as found on this site.  So I have jumped up with workouts, both time and intensity.  I am on day 5 going on 6.  It is a HR based work out plan made to help with speed and efficiency.  I have mixed and matched though a bit.  I just completed the the 3750 yd workout yesterday in the pool and felt great, pretty zapped afterwords.

I will usually take 1/2 a gel before my workouts and a 1/2 during.  I am doing this both because I need it and also to build the "iron" stomach so that I am used to it during the race.  I am still drinking the gatordae during the workouts too.  I feel like I have the "during the race" nutrition down.

 I will look into those podcasts, thanks for that info.

I have practiced transitions a little bit.  The problem is I think I am going to do the sprint a.) without a wet suit and   b.) with out bike shoes.  I am putting power grips on the bike and biking with my running shoes.

So for the sprint, I will swim with just tri shorts on at T1, socks, running shoes and a skin tight REI mid thermal, glasses, gloves and helmet.  At T2 I am just taking off helmet and gloves and grabbing my  5oz. bottle.  I will take your advice on waiting to drink on the bike for sure.

As for biking, shoes, I am going to wait until I am in AZ to get outfitted with those and then crank on the bike  and get used to them.  I know that is pushing it close to the start of Tempe to get into new things, but I almost have no choice.  I know what you mean with the aero bars, I am putting those on tomorrow and will see how that goes.

I will be doing some work with a wetsuit after the sprint, I just do nto want to mess with that right now.

 You guys are awesome, this mentor program has been great and I am very glad to have you all as a resource...thank you.

Wow 3750 yard swim for an OLY workout, and you do 20mph bike rides with flat bike pedals and no aerobars.  You are hard core. :-)  It will be interesting for sure to see how well you do in Tempe, and to compare it to this first sprint.  Make sure you get those pedals on your bike in Tempe as soon as you get there, and ride as often as you can.  You want to be used to those things by race day.  There is an almost mandatory embarrassing fall that you will do when you are first riding with them.  It's very funny to watch.  But once you do it, you can consider yourself part of the club.  You also want to have plenty of time to make adjustments to them.  You don't want to find out that they are too tight on race day.

If you end up doing this first race without aerobars, just try to get yourself into a more streamlined position on the bike as you ride.  But not so much that you take power away from your legs.  It's a balancing act.  Try to get down on the bars, tucking your body in.

You might consider not even wearing gloves for this sprint tri.  It's just an extra thing to remember, and you won't be on the bike for much longer than 45 mins anyway.  Judge it based on what you think you need.  And if it rains, gloves are probably good anyway.

On the run, you can easily ditch your bottle at an aid station at any time once you are done with it.

I had no idea what Power Grips were for pedals until you made me look them up.  Pretty interesting.  I think I like those a lot better than "pedal baskets."

It's a pretty exciting time!  Our group is starting to hit their racing schedule.  Might even have to dig up Mike from the Poconos pretty soon and get an update on his half marathon.

LOL.  Ah yes, the "slow motion tumble."  I could be president by now if it's based on number of incidents...

Have you heard from Mike?  I wanted to give encouragement, but wasn't sure he was still following us...

The "slow motion tumble" - I like that, I've needed a name for it.

Nope, haven't heard from Mike since he last posted saying that his training was falling off due to sickness.  He might be having a hard time getting back on track and is getting discouraged.  I'm sure we can bring him back if we scream loud enough. :-)  I think he should do the half marathon even if it means walking most of it (if that's what it's come to).  It's an experience just to be out there.

Way to go Steve!!

I have a good bike ride on Saturday, 4 hours.  But blew Sunday by messing around with my bike and then having the bike shop fix my mess.  But at least now my tri bike is back to functional.  I was hoping to have a great weekend because my week is getting filled up with non-tri events.

On Monday I will be running 13-17 on the BWI Trail with a friend from work, after work.  You are welcome if you want to come for a loop or whatever.  We haven't settled on a time yet but I imagine it would be around 5:30.  Not sure you are looking for those kinds of miles right now since you have switched modes though.

Haha.. I know who had a great weekend... Abby ordered her new bike, and rode her existing bike on Friday and Saturday!!  She's getting back!!! Yeah!!

And Becky had a PR 5k, as well as a 1.5 mile swim, and that's only about half the training she got in over the weekend!  Wow.  

I don't think anyone is genetically limited to their distance.  Knee problems can usually be attributed to one issue or another.  Next time, I would start out with low distance and follow a plan to a tee and don't boost up your mileage too quickly.  Bec also has a good tip with changing your shoes every 300-500 miles.  It could be your shoes, it could be your schedule, it could be a lot of things.  I would head into a good running store, throw everything you can think of that has happened at them, and see what they think.  You might want to write down everything that you want to point out so you don't miss anything.  You live darn near THE Runner's World, so I'm sure there are lots of experts around.

Sorry to hear about the issues.  I can understand why you'd want to not do the race at all.  It's a bummer.

I believe in the muscle strengthening and stretching to resolve issues, but I have a hard time reading and finding out which ones cause which problems.  I think I am going to work on my quads for my current knee issues; hopefully that will work out.

MRIs and such are good to have, but it's a huge pain when they don't show what you want.  I have a hard time making people believe my shoulder is in pain because the MRI shows nothing huge! :-)  But MRIs and xrays are all we have before exploratory surgery.