MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 168)

JITO -

I posted a few days ago about "swimming downhill", and have since thought of a couple other aspects to doing it.

As I think I said, the concept is one of "pushing the buoy", meaning to lean, in effect, on your chest as your swim.  This can (and at the beginning, should) involve "burying" your head, meaning most of your head - including the top and back - is below the water line.  the effect of this should be to raise your hindquaters, from the waist on down.  When done right, you actually do have the sense that you are swimming downhill.

If you are having trouble achieving this sensation, and if you are working with a pull buoy at times, you can mess around with the position of the p.b. to help elevate your hips and rump and legs.  most likley you have the p.b. quite high, probably right close to your crotch.  If so, try a few lengths with it just above your knees.....and thena  few lengths with it just below your knees.....and finally a few lengths with it donw clsoe to your ankles.  With each subsequent movement of the p.b. downwards, you shoulf feel a better sense of your lower body rising --- and your upper body "sinking".  If so, then you know the feeling you should be looking to attain when you "press the buoy" by swimming by preessing doen on your chest.

One thing to be prepared for, as you move the p.b. ever-downwards towards your feet, is that you might need to recruit core and glutes in order to keep a rigid, long line from hips to toes.  It may be different for you, but for me I need to do this when I use the p.b. (or better astill -- a wee innertube donut from a wheelbarrow!) below my knees and definitely when it's right near the ankles.

Have fun!  Glub, glub!

Follow-up thoughts on MOSSMAN:

• I'm not convinced the bike was a full 12.5 miles.  I just don't think I was averaging 22.2, which was what my bike time of 33:51 would be for 12.5 miles.  Plus, just before I reset my bike computer for my first ride post-race, i thought I saw it at 20.6 km -- which would also have included the walk back from transition to the car.  So maybe the bike was really 12.3?  12.2?  That would lower my pace to a number I think was commenserate with the conditions of the bike course, and the way I rode it.
• Um, I seem to have forgotten the other points.  I think there were others, anyway!  (Maybe they'll return, maybe they've flown the coop for good.....)

DAVE -

Yes, that was a very "meaty" brick, and I think you approached the run portion wisely.  I think I said before that a 45' 10km pace is ambitious for most age groupers, so looking for a compromise goal was smart.

I think i also said that I don't like to do bricks "randomly", which means what -- that I do them just to do them, i guess.  I like having a goal, which for me is to do them as almost exact replicas of race-day.  So, they come out being "tempo" bricks, which means as close to race pace as possible.

In my earlier days, when I still struggled all-too-frequently with running comfortably right from the get-go, my brick approach was to do just short run segements off the biie in training.  This might be 5', maybe 8', sometimes 10' ---- nothing more than to get  the feel of moving the legs and feet expeditiously from my first step out of T2.  I honestly think these helped me hugely, and I'd recommend them to anyone.  (Truth told, they were how my former coach had me do them; I wouldn't've been clever enough to do them that way on my own!)

Doing short, sprightly ones also gives the illusion of speed, which is a superb confidence-builder for actually working towards speed in races.  the opposite is to do slog-runs on bricks, which only teach one how to slog, OR, to take it easy on the bike so the run goes as well as possible.....which only teaches one how to take it easy on the bike.

One could argue that doing a fast 5' brick run only teaches how to run fast for five minutes.....and that's true to a point.....but at least there IS a speed componenet there, and one that can built upon in subsequent bricks.  At least it worked that way for me!

The learning curve on this stuff is soooooooooooooooooo long! > > > > > > > >

Thanks so much Steve! You might just have to pay my friends to go to your races and take pictures

I added one last picture at the bottom of the blog if you want to take a peek.

This was a good confidence boosting race. I know, barring big mechanical issues, that I can at least finish IMAZ! Now I have 16 weeks to get faster so I'm not out there all day.

Yes, this was Dave's first HIM. He has time constraints with work and it was really hard for him to get the training in. I was a little surprised that he said he would do another but I hooked him!

I think my weakest spot is the bike. My swim is stronger and mostly I've learned to relax and I know I can get better speed on the run. The bike is still taking a while to get stronger on. It'll come but sometimes I still can't figure out how some of those people whip past me

It's nice to have a good midseason race. My plan has me scheduled for a HIM in late September and I'll do one on my own so it'll be nice to see how I do with a few more weeks of training.

Johanne

JOHANNE,

CONGRATULATIONS, again on a great race.   I LOVE that last picture you added.   What a great looking medal. 

Everything STEVE said to you and more.   You seem so casual about doing an HIM but it is a BIG deal.   When we go to these events and see so many people we think everyone does this stuff, but it is really a VERY small % of the population.    Pretty cool what us 'old' women can do. 

Saying that you could have run more amazes me.   I really cannot envision thinking or feeling that.   

Can't wait to see you knock off your next goal!

STEVE,

CONGRATS again to you as well!    Enjoyed reading your race report and enjoyed seeing the STEVE I remember surface again.   Your competitiveness just oozes off the page!       I am happy for you.

I think the fact that you were able to perform so well just reaffirms a couple of things - our bodies need time to recover from the continual thrashing they get from tri training and you don't need to put in VOLUMES and VOLUMES of training to perform at peak level.   As Louise McGonigal once said, the secret is NOT to train more, but to deterioriate LESS than your competitors.  

Another race this weekend in Vermont?   Which one is it?   I love Vermont.     On our travels to and from Edmonton we came upon 3 different tri's we hope to do some day.    One in Bemidji, one in Kenora and one in Pigeon River, I think.  

I finished my (long) race report if anyone cares to have a look at it.    Not as interesting or pretty as Johanne's!    I'm going to have to get some lessons.

If you go to my blog and click on the '8th' on the little calendar on the left it will take you to that day, where the detail are. 

25 minutes improvement is awesome!  Congrats

Steve,

Great race report! You might feel like you started racing late this season but now you're back on track with back to back races I think you would be fun to watch in a race. I can totally see your game face!

Johanne

Anne,

Loved reading your rr too! Was this your first non-wetsuit swim? I've never swam in open water without and it would make me a little nervous, especially with contact. How long have you been biking? Mostly, how do you go so fast??? Great race. So when is London? Are you going to make a long vacation out of it? What's  your next race?

Johanne

ANNE -

I love the Louise McGonigle quote, and I suppose in my own helter-skelter way, i have been abiding by it for a few years now.  I have to say, though, that my actions are driven less by sound common sense than by the fact that deterioration HAS occurred and in no insignificant way is forcing my hand.

The half-irons are a great case in point, and especially the fallout my feet underwent after my half-marathon in Oct. '10.  It was a stellar race for me.........until about two hours after when things footish began to go wrong.  That all kept me from doing a HIM last year; well, that and the hip problem.

I am casting an eye towards a HIM in early Sept, one along coastal Rhode Island.  It is called Firmman, and has been around forever.  Way back when it was one of the flagships in a relatively small fleet of half-irons, but has since been swallowed up by the plethora of half-irons that have sprouted over the past bunch of years.  It is still a bargain, though, at $175 --- showcasing how skyrocketed the fees for HIMS have become.

The timing is not perfect, in that if I crash and burn in my training, that'll be the end to the season.  I will wait a few weeks and see how it all goes, deterioration-wise!

Back in a bit.

ANNE again -

The sprint is prosaically named "Sprint Triathlon II", and is put on by Race Vermont (www.racevermont.com).  This is the oragnization with which I have a love-hate relationship, to wit:

In '03 they did a phenomenal job with a new oly, Burlington Triathlon (but out of Shelburne).  It was so good that I submitted it as a "best lesser-known race" to Jeff Henderson (Musselman) who was then a feature writer for the now-defunct Inside Triathlon and craftng a piece with that as a theme.  I guess Jeff was so impressed that he used the race as the first one in his article.....and then they stopped doing races for a few years.  When they returned it was with ones that weren't sanctioned by USAT, so i didn't do any of them.  (What a snob, eh?)

Fast-forward to '10, and you may remember this story --- the RD was named the RD for the USAT Championships in Burlington (last year and this year), and so set up a new oly tri for August '10 as a trial for the future Nat Champs.  I signed up, and then was chagrined when, about five days out from it, I got an email that told everyone that they weren't pursuing USAT sanctioning for the race --even though it had been advertised as a USAT race is all the race info, and in the fee structure for registration.  I was a bit halt and lame then, anyhow, so in disgust I just decided to bail on the race and eat the fee.  GRRRRRR!!!!!!

It is largely for that reason (sour grapes, much) that I avoided the USAT Champs last year....and this year I can't do it due to Jane's wedding.  So, I had pretty much decided to bury the hatchet, i guess, and proved it when I learned about the race just a few days ago.  The price is right ($50, sans t-shirt), and I'm game to go.....and will give hime the advantage of the doubt that circumsatnces beyond his control forced the non-sdanctioning of the one two years ago.  And afterall --- it's my problem, not his, that I'm so pigheaded about USAT races.  Right??

JOHANNE -

Well, my competitive face is mostly inside.  Outside, I am:

• Very chatty and useful/helpful pre-race
• Courteous on the swim, never trying to upset anyone else by being too aggressive.  I always assume that there are lots of people around me who are very nervous in open water and don't need any undo rough-housing.
• 99% of the time when I yell"To your left!!!!" before passing on the bike, I will say "Thanks!" as I pass.  I will also wave to enthusiastic spectators, and encourage people who pass me.
• On the run, I can be very supportive and chatty; doing that is a highlight for me.

All that said, though, the fires do burn, and where I feel it most is pre-race.  In fact, I think much of the above activity is displacement activity for my competitive drive -- maybe keeping me grounded?   But I look at most of my race photos, and "grim" comes to mind.  I can mellow that a bit by saying "focused".....but "grim" really isn't bad.  Surprisingly, I have had few photos taken in which I am chatting or being supportive; I'd like to see some of those!!  The photo I use here makes me look happy, and I was -- just about to finish my best-ever half-iron (or was it second-best?).  I wasn't yakking with anyone at all --- just mostly pleased with myself!  (And for the record, that race is the one that ANNE is doing in a few weeks, on Labor Day Saturday.)

Blah, blah, blah!!

Hello All,

Thanks Jeff, Dave and Steve for your reply on the swimming.  I plan to do a swim session this weekend and will try to find some videos on what you suggested and try it out. Will keep you posted.

Steve - man those times in your race are awesome, I'm breaking a sweat and breathing hard at this moment thinking about your times. 

Johanne - Congrats on your HIM and PR, that is really awesome.

Well gotta get back to work.

Again thanks to your replies.

Posted a bunch of pictures from Edmonton trip in my photo albums. 

STEVE - a quick peurusal of GarminConnect reveals 4 files for this year's Mossman sprint bike portion. Distances are 12.27, 12.33, 12.37, and 12.38 miles. So it appears that your instincts are correct and the course was short. But 21.8 MPH is still nothing at which to sneeze!

ANNE - Maybe I'm just missing it, but I can't seem to find a link to your blog to find your RR. Help!

JOHANNE - That is one beautiful RR, color, glossy, nicely formatted, with lots of smiling faces. Makes my grey BT RRs look, well, grey! Nice performance improvement too.

THOMAS - Since my study was otherwise uncompensated, the value in it to me was having the testing done in hopes that it could inform me in my training. I followed up with my UPMC study people to ask if they could estimate my lactate threshold from the information that they captured, and they gave me the following:

Ventillary Threshold was 36.0 ml/kg/min, and my corresponding HR was 134.

Peak (at perceived exertion of 85%) VT was 47.4 ml/kg/min at 161 bpm.

The med student sent me an article describing how VT is closely correlated with LT. However, there is no way my LT is 134. When I did a Joe Friel-method test back in mid-May, my HR average 175. I just think that HR lags so much that the test wasn't long enough for HR to catch up to labored breathing. They used a combination of faster speed and major incline on the treadmill to increase the difficulty quickly and then back it off just as quickly once we got to 8 perceived exertion. So a long way of saying that I don't think any of the information is going to be particularly useful.

Other tidbits: 2 minute HR recovery was 91 bpm. VT VO2 ÷ peak VO2 was 76%. They plugged these into a formula and deduced that my fitness is categorized as Excellent. So my takeaway is that, if nothing else, all of this exercize is making me more fit so that's something.

MOJOs - Did a shorter track workout last night. (And more amazingly, my eldest daughter agreed to come with me. She's a sometimes-sullen pre-teen, so that was a victory. She ran at least a mile along with some shorter sprints. She's also annouced that she's going out for Middle School track & field in the Spring. May wonders never cease).

Anyway, to STEVE's point of doing workouts at race pace as the race approaches. All of my workouts these last two week seem to be geared toward that. So last night was a warmup, then 6x2' 10K pace on 1' rest. This was followed by a 24' HRZ1-2 endurance run. The intervals were not terribly difficult, and cadences averaged 87, 86, 85, 85, 85, 84. But a strange thing happened on the endurance portion. Running slowly (maybe around 9:00 / mile pace) felt much more difficult than the faster intervals which I did at 7:30 pace. I notice that my cadence drops to an average of 79 on the endurance run. I'm hoping this means I'm developing some sort of efficiency running at a higher cadence that will translate to faster race day performance. Only time will tell - in more ways than one!

DAVE -

Cool beans!  It is remarkable that that sort of info is "out there", and I ought to figure out how to access it myself.  There are so many times that I suspect something isn't measured correctly, but I don't trust my own instincts enough to be categorical about it.  Plus, my Cateye is getting real old and quite sketchy at times, so that's not a "reliable witness", either.

Yeah, initially I was thrilled at the thought of 22.2......but I have a good idea of what that feels like and what kind of conditions foster it --- and that wasn't present at Mossman.  I will still be thrilled at 21.8, especially at this stage of my season, and it's just good to not "live in a lie"; no delusional thinking for this here cat!

This leads kind of nicely into the "seesaw" approach to the bike/run combo, and at its simplest it is measuring how hard to ride while still being able to run sub-23 for a sprint and sub-47 for an oly.  It usually takes about ten minutes into a sprint and twenty minutes into an oly to gauge what I'm capable of on any given race day......and then I spend the remainder of the ride, minus the final mile or so, monitoring how I'm holding up.  This will determione how I approach that final mile, i.e., at what point and to what degree I will dial things back in order to ensure the best run I can manage that day.

If I'm feeling real frisky, i will ride it hard until about 100 yards out, at which point I'm getting out of my cleats in prep for my dismount.  if I have concerns, I will spend part of the final mile alternating between 10-15s standing grinds (big ring, smaller cog) and 10-15s of fast spinning (small ring, medium cog).  I'll do this about 3x for each, and feel it is a good way to loosen up my legs and get some of my running muscles activated.  As a small note, I seldom do this for sprints, but about half of my olys and virtually all of my half-irons have featured it,

Featured it, that is, since about 2007, when I began to figure out the seesaw.  I had spent my first 5-6 years of tri favoring the run, to the extent that I never really actualized my cycling capabilities.  But in 2006, when I had a torn meniscus and couldn't run, I entered a bunch of aquabikes where the ground rule became simple --- pedal as if there is no tomorrow, or at least no run after the bike.  that taught me how it felt to go to the wall in terms of sustained cycling efforts......and then it all became a matter of learning how much to pull back on that maximum effort so as to allow energy for a decent run.  And hence --- the seesaw was born!

It's not infallable, of course, but mostly I can make it work for me.  Well, actually, it is still a work-in-progress for half-irons.....although if my hip doesn't allow me any more of those, i'm all set.  Perfect!(NOT!!!)

Does that explanation help at all?

DAVE again -

First, that drop-down to 91bpm, two minutes after hitting 161, is quite good, I think.  It suggests the old ticker is handling tyour demands quite nicely.  Halleloo!

Second, I am very intrigued by your thoughts on cadence/speed correlations, and how it felt easier to run at 7:30 than at 9:00 pace.  You wonder if that indicates that your efficiency is improving, and I say YES!!!, without a doubt!   At the very least it shows that you have become comfortable at the higher cadences, to the point that the Z1-2 endurance run feels pedestrian, cumbersome....something like that? 

So, you're right when you say "time will tell", and I think it will prove to be very hard to go back to running at a slower cadence.  For me, this was mostly irreversible, meaning that once I got the cadence up to 87/88, say, anything significantly less hardly seemd worth doing.  This is why i cannot follow the longslowdistance guidelines of 2min/mile slower than projected race pace, which I can only manage if I run at what feels like a slo-mo shuffle.

As you continue to increase your cadence (which should begin to happen easier now that you've made those significant nudges to where you're at now), keep in mind that there is probably an upper limit for you; for me it is at about 92, and that is quite a bit more demanding than 90 (91 is a stretch, too).   So, it is good to get comfortable at each new level before moving on to the next, realizing that the end is nigh, anyhow.  I took a long time to get to 90, mostly through being comfortable at each new and improved number for ever-increasing distances.  That is, I eventually wanted to feel that, when inspired, I could hold 90 for 10km, say.  (Last stand-alone half-marathon I did, I kept it at 90 for about 75%, and probably never sunk under 88; I considered that a success!)

Keep at it, Dave -- you're on to something good!  And congrats on your daughter's newfound affection for running, and take some fair credit for settting a fine example for her to follow!

Anne, 
I love the pictures! I'll have to go back and look at all the others now. I didn't realize you has so many there Your race looked beautiful!

Johanne 

Just click on 'latestarter' here in this post, which will take you to a sort of summary page where it shows 'Logs' and 'Races' at the bottom of the page.   Click on 'logs' and it will take me to my blog, and then you can click on the date of July 8th in the little calendar that shows on the left.   That will bring that day up which is where I typed the report.    If you can't find it, I will post it here.  It's just that it's a big long. 

Dave, 134 does sound quite low! Esp if you can hit 175 in an LT test (isn't the Friel method an avg HR of the last 20 mins of a 10k or something?) 

I got parts of my test results back too. The VO2max and the indoor TT's.  They tested the maxtest on a cyclingmachine which was labelled "excalibur", ahum, probably an inside lab-joke It started out at 200W I think, for a while, then incrementally increased at a rate of 30W per minute until I couldn't keep the cadence at 90 for a sustained amount of time anymore. I failed at 510W which took about 14 mins, and gave me a 67 ml/kg/min VO2max. 

Then the TT's with warmups. There were three versions, one with a 10 min warmup at 35% of the max, so 179W, then one at 70% or 357W and finally one without a warmup (yikes).

Instead of giving me some numbers on the TT they gave me some graphs, so I''ll post them here too :P 

With 179W warmup:

Without warmup:

And with a 357W warmup:

I think what this told me is that I really need to do a warmup, haha. The difference is quite dramatic. I did perform best with a 35% warmup, but I think somewhere between the 35% and 70% would have been better, the first being too easy and the latter being quite intense. Then again, a 4km TT (which inside with less rolling resistance and no aerodynamics worries is closer to a 3km TT outdoors) is really very short. Bursts and stuff like that would probably also have been helpful. But hey it was their test  

I''m still promised my outdoor TT data, as well as the anaerobic test (30s all out sprint).

Thomas, I find this stuff quite interesting.   I've had testing done a couple of times and am at 50 ml/kg/min V02 max which is well above average.  You are almost off the charts.   You are very lucky.    V02 max is largely genetically predetermined and has little to do with the efficiency of your metabolism, but the AT is definitely 'trainable'.    Elite athletes are generally within 10% or less of the LT, they are so efficient.

When I had my first test done in 2007 my AT was only 136, similar to Dave's number, despite having a max HR of 169, so his number could possibly be correct.   In 2010 it had increased to 144 and I am much more efficient at burning fats for fuel.    Haven't been tested for a while, but I know I can go out and cycle for a couple of hours with an average HR of 146-148 without any lactic acid, so I think it is higher yet.     This was for cycling.     The running results actually had a slightly lower V02 max but I was more efficient running.   

THOMAS -

Amazing "workout" they put you through.  I will study it later (see next post), but a cursory viewing shows some good data -- and the experiential gleanings from having suffered through the session!

And you mean 510W.....as in 510 watts, I assume?!?   That's massive, and you're one heck of a horse if you can rattle out thAt power, even for a wee bit.  Mercy!

GANG!

I'm going with Plan A (or was it Plan C?) --- anyhow, the one that has me waking at about 2:45 and leaving home at about 3:15.  That allows about 3.5 hours until packet pick-up is ready, and I'm counting on being there by 6:30.  The race starts at 8 (or is it 8:30?), and if all goes well I'll be home by about 2p.m.   Piece of cake!

So, I'm heading off for my morning shower now, and then lights out by 9:30.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz?  We'll see!

Back to you tomorrow, fine persons!