RE-OPENED Birkierunner's 2013 mentor group - RE-OPENED!!! (Page 17)

I stopped reading at 10%...

Hey all - my apologies.  A few weeks ago I said I would write a few articles on the freestyle swimming stroke.  I got a couple done, but then my travels and my little hospital stay kind of slowed down my writing efforts.

I have finished a brief article on the kick.  Here is an excerpt and the link to my blog where you can find the whole article -

I am going to start by making what many will consider to be a controversial statement.  You are not looking to get much, if ANY propulsion from your kick.  Even the most elite freestyle swimmers – Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte, to name a couple World Record holders – get less than 10% of their forward propulsion from their kick efforts; and that is at what can be considered a sprint distance (100M, 200M). In a triathlon, even a sprint distance, you are swimming a considerably longer distance.

The vast majority of beginner swimmers and triathletes gain next to NO propulsion from their leg kick.  Accept it and move past it!

http://goscottgo.info/index.php/swimming-technique/30-kick

Not a bad way to get through a treadmill run.  Lot of variability to keep things interesting. 

I am so ready to hang the Yak Trax up for the year.  Although last year I did not even break them out since winter never happened.  Hopefully the roads are clear by Sunday so I can at least pace my intervals and not rely on RPE.

97 minutes of threshold work on the bike in the last 4 days and a VO2 ride scheduled for tomorrow...gotta love some bike focus.

Have a good weekend.

Hello all, I had my second swim lesson today and it went much better than the first.  Hopefully, it a sign of improvement!  The coach was heavy on the kicking and continued to tell me that I needed to kick more. The whole time I was thinking of all the discussion here about very little benefit from all the kicking and how it will fry your legs for the bike and run.  Anyway, she gave me some great pointers regarding my hand entry in the water and recovery.  I think it was an overall good session.  She did say something interesting but I am not sure how true it is.  She said for every day you take off from swimming it is equivalent to a week in other sports.  Any comments?

Finished the workout with Djdavey's treadmill workout but only did three intervals.  It was fun and made the run more interesting.  Felt great to focus on forefoot strike at the different elevations.  I hope everyone has a good weekend.

When I was swimming competitively, I was coached by Jim Montrella.  He was a US national team coach for something like 12 years, was a US Olympic coach for 3 different Olympics and is a member of the USA Swimming Hall of Fame.  He always use to say, "Assuming you are in good shape, if you miss one workout, it will take a full week of workouts to get back to where you were before the missed workout."

We were doing 2-a-day workouts so using his theory it took 14 workouts to get back to where you were BEFORE the one missed workout - not improve, just get back to where you were.  Not sure if that ratio directly applies to an athlete that is not at an elite level, but I think the overall premise still holds.

The takeaway is simple - consistency matters.

This kind of highlights a concern I have expressed a couple times on this forum.  As a triathlete, you are training for an endurance swimming event.  Even a sprint distance triathlon has a swim of at least 500-700 yards (or meters depending upon the event); obviously the longer triathlon events have considerably longer swim segments.  Most swimming events at a swim meet, which is what a swim coach is typically training their swimmers for, are 200's or less.  Yes, there are a couple of events that are longer, and those swimmers tend to specialize in the longer event - oh, and they generally use a 2-beat kick.  I absolutely agree, if you are training to compete in a 100 yard freestyle event, you should learn and master an 8-beat kick.  On the other hand, if you are training for a triathlon, and you hope to do well on the bike and the run, you probably don't want to use all the glycogen stored in your legs during the swim segment.

When a swimmer competes in a swim meet, he or she may swim three or four events over the course of an eight hour day with the average event lasting less than 2 minutes. They will swim each event, climb out of the pool, dry off and REST, until their next event – often several hours later. 

Unfortunately, a triathlete does not have the luxury of resting after the swim portion of a triathlon. On race day, a triathlete will complete the swim leg of a triathlon, exit the water running, strip off a wetsuit, pull on a pair of cleats and helmet, hop on a bicycle and head out on the road.

Swim coaches are generally coaching swimmers, not triathletes - AND OFTEN DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND THE NEEDS OF THE TRIATHLETE.  I would never suggest you openly disagree with your swim coach/instructor.  However, I would certainly encourage you to talk with your coach/instructor and have them explain their rationale for having you perform all the kicking drills, etc.

I am really big on knowing "WHY" you are doing something in training and how that fits into your overall training plan and long term goals.

I'm a new endurance athlete but I have studied a fair amount about nutrition.  I would venture guess, that in addition to the green tea having high antioxidant quality, the move a way from coffee would have a lot to do with adrenal fatigue.  Although green tea does have caffeine it extremely low relative to coffee. 200mg in coffee to 10mg in green tea.

As you may know as an endurance athlete our adrenal glands take a huge beating.  Caffeine is a big contributor to adrenal fatigue.  If your adrenals become fatigued you won't recover as quickly and ultimately you will burn out.

Hope that helps!

feeling really good about my training these days, extending the trainer/spin bike rides out and getting faster and going longer on my runs.  although all this inside stuff is starting to get a bit tiresome!  im no swimmer by any stretch of anyone's imagination but even i can't wait to get into some open water!

That may be true for the top 1% of swimmers who are swimming everyday and are trying to eek out fraction of seconds in their swimming races.  For most triathletes, if you are swimming 3-4 times/week you are doing well and can likely make very nice improvements.

With that said, I would disagree with her statement as it relates to triathletes.  Although I do agree that consistent work over time in endurance sports is the key to success.

Had a really good week of training.  My legs are absolutely shelled and really need to get back to focusing on recovery and eating better with my current training levels.

I know when it starts taking this long to recover from workouts that I am doing something wrong.

Just said on the news this morning that we got 47 inches of snow in february.  Yesterday was my first run on a dry road in a long time.  I am getting sick of the yak trax especially when it comes to interval training.

Is this is still open I want in! 

My name is Cesar Ortiz, live out here in Washington state in DEsert Aire WA. Pretty much the middle of no where. I am a fanatic and have been speaking the tri language and hoping to complete my first for the past 5 years. I get motivated do a race then life gets the best of me and I completely stop. I am curently in the same position I was last year. I just signed up for my first duathlon coming up in april 20th in a 6 reace series nearby in Tri-cities. The races include 2 duathlons and 3-4 tris, with one being a sprint at the end. You can lookit up its under 3rrr.org- 3 rivers road runners-under calendar. 

Well I want to be able to complete the series this year and move on to bigger and longer races.

I am 186 pounds, 5'11'' school teacher, married. 

I work out 3 times a week, weights, bike, runs. Starting a trainning plan I found here today. 

I have 4 halfs and 2 duathlons under my belt. 

I know I need guidance and I know this is the pace to look for it. 

I have my gear, and ready to go!

Hi Cesar...yes, we are open and you are IN!  

Well, I'm sitting in a hotel in Jackson, MS at a meeting this week while the best skiing of the season is back home.  My 50k ski race last Saturday went well but we had 6" of new snow the day before so the course was really slow.  But I had fun and finished my 16th American Birkebeiner.  I realized I can no longer "fake" the Birkie like I've done the past few years and need to get my skiing strength back up to where it needs to be next year. 

I can't imagine a 50K ski race, and certainly can't imagine trying to "fake" my way through it.  Hope the snow sticks around till you get back home.

and, its not a flat 50k either

Is that a net downhill??  I take back my earlier statement. 

Hi Jim,

 Am I reading this right, did you reopen your group? I would love to join!!! I've been doing tri's for a few years now but i still consider myself a newbie and need all the help I can get.  I have a half in July, the Musselman in NY.  I did it last year and want to improve my time, that shouldn't be too hard as I walked the whole run.  Jeri

I am beginning to put together my nutrition plan now for Ironman Louisville August 25, 2013.  So I can train with the nutrition I plan on racing with. 

I am considering starting with the PowerBar line of products.  Perform, Energy blasts, gels etc...  Anyone have any thoughts on this line of endurance nutrition products?

Also wondering if anyone knows what the on course nutrition will be for the Louisville Ironman.  Do all Ironman branded races use the same nutrition on race day?

Todd 

Hello, all --

My very first triathlon, the "Beaver Freezer" sprint in Corvallis, Oregon, is coming up next month.  I chose it for my inaugural event because it features a short pool swim -- only 500 yards -- which even I can do.  Plus, no mass start with a couple hundred of my new best friends thrashing wildly all around me, and no wetsuit to worry about the first time out.

So here's my question.  A few years back, when I was running on a local running store's racing team, the owner gave me a Sugoi one-piece tri suit.  I was thinking of using it during the upcoming event.  That is, until an Ironman buddy of mine suggested that the top could produce drag in the water, because of the pockets in the back (they're pretty small, and the top fits quite tightly).  My buddy suggested using a two-piece tri suit, and putting the top on after the swim.  Today, one of the gals at the local tri shop had a different take.  She thought that whatever drag might be present would probably cost me less time than trying to wrestle a top onto my wet body following the swim.  Both opinions seem to make sense to me.  Any thoughts from you veterans out there?  One piece (which I already own), or two piece (which I'd need to buy).  Drag, or wrestle? 

Gary