Funked Up Triathletes - Season 2 - Olympic/Sprint Focus - Closed (Page 17)

Sorry, I've been away fro posting for a bit. I've been here, but not alot to say. Great news about surgery! If it was me, I'd sign up for the HIM and switch to the Du if I had to. But I'm not always known for the wisest decisions.

Training is going good. Is seems this year I'm having a harder time getting my mornings training sessions started. We've found a great babysitter to watch our kids one night a week so the wife and I can get a good swim in together. This takes away one early morning training session.

Other than that, training is going OK. We're into the meat of it with first race about 5 weeks away.

Hey everyone! I'm still here!

Jen, glad to hear you won't need surgery, I'm sure that comes as a relief.

And glad everyone's training seems to be going well. I've been staying reasonably active, but not very organized. Things have been crazy busy here, so it's been hard to get into a routine. Part of that was a week's vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico though, so I'm not complaining. I was pretty good about getting a morning run in while there, which was good. I haven't been as good about cycling this last month, but I did get in a late afternoon Friday ride with a friend from work I've been out with a few times. It was a nice gauge of how I'm doing, as I've ridden with him here and there for a few years now, but it had been a while since we'd last gone. In the past he'd outrun me, but it was much more evenly matched this time.

A little frustrating though was a definite creaking from the bottom bracket of the bike. I'm thinking with the warmer weather now and things expanding it may be too tight now, I'll probably have to take it into the shop.

I've been running a bit with the kids lately- they're going to do a "last mile" race at the Cincinnati Flying Pig marathon next month where they run 25 miles beforehand, then the 26th mile on the race course. One kid is doing really well, while the other is sort of complaining, so we'll see how that goes.

Have a good week all!

Wow, Dave - five weeks out (close to 4 by now!)! It's coming quick!
That's great you get to train with your wife - it's nice to support each other that way. I love swimming with my husband - he's a very good swimmer and it's nice to watch his technique. I love watching people do things well - it's like art. (he's amazing at fly fishing too - just impeccable technique and skill at reading rivers/pools). Sorry - tangent there.

Andrew: Mexico....home of the margarita....I would never make it home... Hahaha
Definitely get that bike in to have it checked.
That is so cool to have the kids finish their last mile at the marathon - they'll never forget it!!
I sounds like your training has had more benefits than you think! Maybe in another month you'll be leaving that guy behind!

3,500 yards in the pool yesterday.

Today I finally did a walk/run without pain - for the first time since October!. My PT made me promise to only do 100 yard runs and walk a few minutes between each. No more than a 1/2 mile of run and no more than 1.5-2.0 total distance; so that's what I did. I am to only do this every other day to slowly ease the knee back into it, do my PT exercises and roll as much as I remember to...well, more than that... Strangely my 920 said it transferred the data but it doesn't show up on any of my sites; but it's still in the "history" section in my watch. I've tried hooking it up to the computer to sync it as well as through WiFi. Never had that happen before.
I've got a Corporate Cup Challenge 5k on May 14th so maybe I'll be able to run the whole thing...we shall see! Taking it slow.

Hey! It hit the low 70's today!! Believe it or not we still have snow in the backyard - but it will be short lived! I saw so many folks out there on their bikes today. Yea!


Edited by aviatrix802 2015-04-13 6:26 PM

Hey guys..I got my Fenix 3 yesterday. Pretty excited about it. I did one pool swim last night and should get a short run in tonight. It's a recovery week on my plan, so things are a bit light. I'm eager to put this thing through the grinder. One thing that I already love: it accurately counted my laps last night. Once I figured it out, I loved the "send away" timer on the swim. On my Timex GT I used the "lap" button simply to record every 100/yds. I would then look at my splits and I knew that every "lap" that was 1:30-1:45 was 100 yards. This is so much better. Another huge plus is the auto Wi-Fi uploading. For the past 4 years, I've toted a cord back and forth between work and home so I could manually upload my workouts.

That is so great!! I love not having to count my laps - especially when you start getting into longer and longer straight sets. So great.
Auto-upload is HUGE!! My watch uploads to 4 different sites!! Garmin Connect (hey, find me - I'm JennVT or something like that), MapMy Fitness, Strava, and here on BT. The only thing I manually upload at this point are comments and if I want to title it something! You are sooooo going to love it!! Wait until you start open water swimming - I haven't done this yet, but i can't wait!! I used to roughly map out where I swam on Map My Run to get an idea as to how far i was swimming. This will be so nice!!

Slim workouts since Friday. Inlaws called us Friday night to let us know they were coming Sunday through to today which meant loads of outdoor and indoor work and I was up until 1:00 am Saturday night prepping my Monday class as I couldn't do it yesterday. Slept on my son's floor last night as we had to give up our bed for them and I taught class today. I was supposed to have been flying right now (but thankfully the weather is just gusting and blowing rain so I cancelled) but just got home instead. Kids are off this week which will make it challenging to get swims in, but I should still be able to do trainer rides and run/walk with the dog/kids. I feel like I could sleep for two days right now. Semester winds down next week and exams are the week after so then I'll just be finishing my flight student up. Should be in the clear after that and all I plan to do is train my fool head off and get outside finally on my bike!!

Cheers all! At least the snow is gone in the valley here!! (though rumor has it we're supposed to get a dusting this week some time! Ack!) LOL

Yesterday was the big day for the kids. We ran the Flying Pig Marathon last mile and it was a blast. The whole weekend is a big event for the city, with the kids run, a 5k, 10k, dog run and stuff on the Saturday, then the 1/2 and marathon on Sunday. They have a pretty good expo on Friday too for packet pickup, so we checked that out. All the excitement definitely makes you want to run a big race next year. My wife also did the 5k and ran a pretty good race too, around 32 minutes which for her is good time.

We couldn't have asked for better weather this weekend, sunny and 70s with mornings in the 50s. I did manage a 22 mile ride today, which was the first one in a little while. I had to take my bike into the shop, something in the bottom bracket was making a grinding sound which was horribly annoying, but it's fixed now. Back to loving the bike.

I'm still trying to get into some kind of routine, and with the kids being done that will help a little. I have to travel for work this week though- Jenn I'll be not too far from you, in Bromont, Quebec. We thought about flying into Burlington and then driving up, but Montreal ended up being a bit cheaper. Should be nice, I've never been to Quebec before.

Hope you are all doing well.

Montreal is 1.5 hours from me! It's a beautiful city (practice your French!). That would have been very cool if you flew into Burlington - the airport is only 18 minutes from my house. It's also a beautiful city and worth a vacation here sometime (or talk work into flying you through here next time, with a layover!).

I would like to see Vermont again, I haven't been since I was 12 or so. We have another facility in Rutland I'd like to get to someday. The forecast looks pretty nice up that way, I think I'll pack some running shoes.

My mom grew up near Rutland - pretty in the hills. Beautiful this week, unusually warm temps - I'll take it!!
I did 2 doubles over the last 2 days - can't really call them bricks as they weren't one right after the other - bike and a run/walk and yesterday a bike and a swim. Today is supposed to be a rest day though I was off most of last week. Gave a final exam today; papers are graded and grades are already submitted so I wash my hands of that class this year. ??
I have a Corporate Cup 5k next Thursday, though for me it will be a walk/run. Getting there slowly. I only run 0.25 at a time and at around 2.5 my knee just tightens right up. Working on it! I'll admit I haven't been rolling as much as I should be. Oops, have to get the troops geared up for baseball.
Cheers!

Hey guys, just checking in. Recovery week this wk so my volume was a little down. I ran a quick 3.5M yesterday and noticed a little twince in my Achilles. Yikes. Hopefully it's nothing, but I'm 8 days out from the 1st race of the year.

Jen, I briefly glanced at your training log and noticed on one of your swim sets you did 500 pull. What exactly are you doing there?

For my swim training, I basically swim twice per week. One longer session and one shorter session. On the long day, It typically goes something like this:

500 warm up
drills:
200 "catch up" drill
200 - free style with fists for 25, and then "Tarzan" on the next 25
200 - with paddles

6x250
6x100
200 cool

My shorter session will eliminate the drills and focus on a main set with longer intervals like 2x800 or something.

I'm curious about what drills others do. Honestly, I do the above mentioned drills to unknown effectiveness and utility. Are they making me a better swimmer? I don't know. ha .

Hey Dave! Nice swim workout there! Enjoy recovery week! I had mine last week and literally didn't have time to do anything for about 4 days or so, the timing was perfect! I was feeling pretty bad about it, but hey, that's life and it's okay.
Lately I've just been following the BT HIM plan but sometimes if my knee is irritated I'll use a pull buoy instead of doing a regular swim set. I had to do that a lot over the winter - it even bothered me to push off the wall if I wasn't careful. The part to watch out for is overuse in the shoulder doing too many pull buoy sets. My garmin logged the drill set distance but leaves a gap for the kick set and if you pull up the workout on my garmin connect page it looks like I didn't do the two drill sets (or maybe that's on Strava - I'm connected to so many 3rd parties it gets hard to keep track! LOL). Hey, if you're on Garmin Connect, you can "friend me" or whatever it's called. I think I'm JennVT on there.

I got in a 3,000 yd swim today (below), a double yesterday and the day before (not really bricks as they weren't one right after the other) and I think tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day with a s//b/r on Sunday. I may knock that workout out tomorrow since the weather is much nicer tomorrow than Sunday. I don't know if I'll do as well without the rest after this weeks workouts. Do you guys ever do that? Move stuff around and just deal with it if your performance isn't quite where you'd like to see it? I could always do the bike piece on my trainer, but why waste a nice day? (esp. here in VT - few and far between! LOL).

WU: 300 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 swim
Main: 2 x 900 consistent pace
CD: 6 x 50 each slower than the last
Cheers! Have a great weekend - hope your weather is conducive to outside activities!!

It's race week for me!

I'm a bit lost. I'm excited for the race and feel relatively ready (physically), but don't have a clear goal. All my focus has been directed at Alacatraz, only a few weeks away. My training plan is built to taper at Alcatraz, so I am improvising my "taper" for this week. It's sort of unsettling for me, because I don't have a mental focus and I don't have a specific race goal. I need to set my sites on something...and soon. So, that's where I'm at this week.

Whoop, whoop!! Fire it up!! You will be fine, Dave!! Take it for what it is - an opportunity have a faster workout with lots of friends you haven't met yet. Let us know how it goes!! Keep that motivation up!!

I did a 5k Corporate Cup Challenge today at our capitol. My plan was to run 0.5 and walk for 1 minute intervals for the knee. Yeah....like that was going to happen. LOL First of all I have a hard time doing that anyway, and second of all over 4,000 people came out to run it (okay, so that's about 10% of our population). If I stopped to walk I would probably get run over and most certainly tick people off behind me. LOL I chugged it out up hill and down. The knee feels pretty good. I started my watch 0.05 miles late so it shows 3.05 on the distance and my time for that was 26:10. The full 5k time was 27:30. Talk about a slow slogging start - what a difference. LOL. All in all it was fun and I'm glad I did it - I haven't run a 5k in many years!! I need to do more of these. They're quick and wham, it's over. Beer time! LOL
Cheers all!!

Whelp, race day came and went. It was fun. Very very tough conditions. We had huge thunderstorms the night before and the buoys were blown away. They had to reset them race morning and the swim course ended up being about 1900 yards, instead of 1500M. The bike had a very strong wind of 25-30MPH. Overall, my race time was a little behind last year, but I think my performance was actually a little better due to the conditions. I finished 17/48 for my AG versus 28/65 last year...so a little better.

Race report is up if anyone is interested in looking.

Hey, nice report and congratulations!! It sounds like it was a bit tough - particularly the swim. I also get frustrated a bit when folks ride left with no clear intention of passing (just like drivers...).
You should be psyched though!!! One under your belt - and congrats to your wife too!! That is so cool you guys both get to enjoy this sport!


So I am officially an owner of a new seat whether I like it or not. I purchased a new seat and my LBS lets me take some rides on it, turn it back in and swap out for a new one, and just keep going until I find the right seat. They are really great about it. I'm on my fourth seat "demo-ing" and this one I have to keep. Why? I don't even know if I love it yet.... well, I rather toppled over on a ride today and there is a bit of a scuff on the side of the saddle. Of course it had to be the most expensive one I've tried - the Cobb 55 JOF. LOL. I'm fine - just some scratches and mild bruising and the bike seems to be okay but when I fell the whole seat torqued sideways too. I don't own a torque wrench (holy cow they're expensive!) so I had to call my husband since I couldn't bang it back over in line. I was only 20 miles into my 42 mile ride. The happy part of the day was that I PR's the Barber Farm Road climb and the Weed Road climb - which I know means nothing to anyone but me but I wasn't even pushing as hard as I could have. I am happy - it tells me my training is working.
Going off the grid for a few days so I'll probably check back in on Monday - Happy Memorial Day! Thankful for our military always and special remembrance for this weekend!

Glad you're ok. I hope the new saddle works out for you. The Cobb saddle "JOF" name always cracks me up.. That's my sophomoric humor. I'm not sure how that works for you....but I hope it's comfy!!

The past few months have been filled with me sorting out logistics for San Francisco. This is the first time flying and taking my bike with me. AFter this is over, I"m sure I'll have some good advice. I bought a bike case (locally, from a guy: $100). I have a buddy that works for a large apparel company who is going to ship if to SF at a super great rate (Less than $40 each way) straight to my hotel. Tomorrow night, I'll disassemble it and pack it. I've never done this before and am pretty nervous. Let's pray that the bike makes it in one piece and that I can pack it well enough that UPS can't do any major damage to it. Tonight, I'll be picking up tons of Styrofoam, pool noodles and extra blankets. Sort of frightening putting a bike like this and race wheels in a box .... we'll see how it goes.

Last week, I struggled through a week of little motivation. Coming off a race week, it was easy to spend some extra time resting. Probably good for the body. Now that school is out, I'm going to get alot more lunch runs in. These are good for me as last summer my increased run frequency allowed me to see some gains. Good luck to all.

I'm hearing a little Beevis and Butthead snickering.....heheheh, you said JOF....heh heh heh heh heh.
i can be just as sophomoric (comes from working 2 feet away from mostly men my whole career...).

Good luck with mailing the bike - that would scare me a little. Will you take it to a LBS when it gets there just to make sure everything is good to go after you rebuild it?


Got back from camping Monday evening - a nice 4 days of back country, off the grid camping complete with snow the first two nights, a moose just outside our campsite that watched us for about 45 minutes, and some nice brook trout fishing. Zero s/b/r workouts but the outhouse was about 200 feet up a very steep hill and after incorporating the buddy system, Mommy got a fair amount of hill climbing in...(moose kind of demanded an adult accompany the children...). I attached a picture of the brook trout I caught from my kayak.
Yesterday my plan called for a short swim - so I did it - and felt like I was learning to swim all over again. Today was supposed to be a 30 minute bike and a 30 minute run. All I got in was the run. The rest of the time I played around with my aerobars, adjusting them and emailing the company and waiting for them to email me back. Tomorrow I will bike - possibly on the trainer due to forecast thunderstorms in the morning.





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Jenn, sounds like a nice few days away. Really cool that you saw a moose out there- I've only seen one a couple of times, and they're impressive animals.

Dave, I used to play in a band (many years ago, and we sucked, but anyway....) and would ship my guitar across the country rather than let the airlines handle it, and it always worked out well. Airlines definitely seem to be harder on everything than FedEx. I'm sure that will work out well, and $40 is a good deal, I'm sure better than you'd get with the airline anyway. Good luck with your race, enjoy it and San Francisco.

I got in some decent runs up in Michigan this last weekend, nice and cool in the mornings. I'm still having trouble with consistency for a number of reasons, so I'm going to try to force the issue with a running program starting Monday (last day of school for wife+kids is tomorrow, which will help a lot). I found a 3 day per week 1/2 marathon program- we'll see if I work my way up to that distance, but there's a 14k run in the fall here sponsored by a brewery as part fo a local "beer series" that would be fun, so I'd like to run that. If it goes well, maybe I'll get ambitious. My work is running a free, chip-timed 5k around our plant in a few weeks too, so I might do that.

My wife has been doing a better job keeping with the running lately, she's starting to get a little bit of a gadget bug. The new garmin 225 with the built in optical HR monitor might be a good fit for her. I have a feeling if she gets something, it won't be good for my self restraint.....

I think FedEx is probably a bit better in terms of handling packages a little nicer - it's their business afterall. Having worked for an airline, I've seen up close how bags get thrown around.

That beer run absolutely sounds like a worthwhile event!! Go for it! I would do that run around your plant too - smaller goals will help keep you on track over the long haul.

Self-restraint....gear purchases....should never be used in the same sentence - or maybe even paragraph...

Okay, panic and self doubt are creeping in. I know one should never compare themselves to others, where they are, how they are training....but I am feeling woefully inadequate right now and a little panicked. So my sis-in-law is coming East to do the Toughman Tupper Lake Tinman with me (of which I am now doing the Aquabike for reasons previously stated). I've been fairly dutifully following my little HIM plan (shy of crashing on my long bike the other day) and this week am feeling fatigued but don't feel like I've put that much time in. I'm dragging. I'm on Strava and following my sis-in-law (who is 8 years my junior) and this past weekend she rode 68 miles and followed with a 2 mile run; the next day ran 16 miles.... I think I would be dead. She is definitely going to do such a great job at the HIM (she also lives in Park City so has altitude training big time working for her - she will drown in oxygen when she gets here!). But man, I rode 20 miles yesterday followed by a 30 minute run and I feel like crap. (might I add she's never raced a half marathon or done any kind of tri race ever before)
I've been tracking my food on my fitness pal to make sure I'm getting the proper amounts of carbs, fats, and protein - though it tells me I need way more calories total. (I physically can't put any more in my stomach. Yesterday I even drank two protein drinks!) I am really getting nervous about this race - and I only have to swim and bike!! The swim I'm not so worried about, the bike has a pretty hilly profile (which I have here to train on) but I've yet to ride over 40 miles! There are two "class 5" climbs in this race and another with a 22% grade only 2 miles into the ride... Today I'm supposed to run for 90 minutes (but can't yet) so I'm thinking about doing a 2 hour bike instead. This weekend is transition work from bike to run (which I don't need) so I'm thinking of doing a 3 hour ride instead. My BT plan really only has one 3 hour ride session which seems slim. The average for the bike on last year's results looks to be around 3 hours to just over 3 hours for women in my age group.
I don't know what I'm looking for from you guys but needed someplace to put my panic. Thanks for that.

Slight edit: I got 3 miles into my ride and had forgotten to start my watch - stopped and fixed that. I felt whipped going up my training hill - cement legs - and just all around spent on any hills so cut it short at 45 minutes and finished with a 2 mile recovery run. As it turns out, I did my second fastest time on the Barber Farm climb (no wonder I felt spent). I also am thinking that with spending some time practicing in aero position for the first real time yesterday, that maybe my legs were being used in a bit of a different way. I don't know. This too shall come to pass and I will be stronger.
(and aerobars are some scary sh#t! That will take some getting used to. LOL

Edited by aviatrix802 2015-06-03 3:10 PM

All areo! All the time!! Ha ha!

I feel your panic. I've been there many times. It's a mistake to compare yourself to others. Really, no one wants to be "last" or have someone beat them, but unless you have a clear set goal time or placement goal, it's sort of a moot point.

Trust the plan. If you're following the plan, trust that it's been implemented before with success. I've done the plans from BT and I have developed a trust in them.

I think you're fine overcompensating the bike by replacing some of the runs. Keep in mind, if you're still riding the trainer a bit...it's harder than riding outside (unless you're going easy). No coasting, no downhill, etc. I *know* that you do feel the fatigue when you get out on the road. I feel it all the time, but for me it seems that as the ride gets longer, my aerobic engine really starts kicking in and I can just pedal and pedal. The initial lactate acid burn hurts a little, and catching my wind takes a bit...but it passes.

Seriously...do you think you're not going to finish? If that is what your mind is telling you, smack it into place. You're a fit athlete that has accomplished many things. If you need to ride 60-70 miles, you're a** is going to do it. So stop doubting yourself.

Keep up the training, forget about your Sister-in-law and keep putting out effort. You'll get there.

I wish I could help with the nutrition thing. I eat too much, so i don't bonk. .


My bags are packed. UPS delivered my bike to my hotel tomorrow. After a quick business trip North of SF tomorrow morning, I'll get into the hotel and assess the situation. My wife is volunteering at Escape. We got in on a special deal sponsored by Triathlete magazine and on Sat morning will get to have breakfast with Andy Potts and Rinnie Carfrae. That should be awesome. There's only 30 people that could register. We'll visit Alcatraz on a tour on Sun afternoon after the event. Super pumped, and only a little nervous.

My Race Log

That. Is. So. Cool!!!!!!!! You guys are going to have a blast!!! (Let me know if you see any sharks...). How far is the swim, I can't remember? I'll look it up! So amazing!! Safe travels to you and your wife! Have fun and I'm so looking forward to how it all goes!!! So cool!! Say hi to Rinnie for me!! ??

I'm alive! It was an amazing event and trip. I'll post a full race recap in the next few days and share everything that happened. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions I'll be happy to share. We had a great time...now unpacking, picking up kids from sitters, etc. Whew. What a week.

Holy cow!!!! I can't wait to read the race report!! I've heard this race is on a lot of people's bucket lists!! I've heard the further away you are from CA, the more likely you are to make it in the lottery....wonder if they'd take a little Vermonter...
But, burning question....did you see any sharks. I would flippin' freak if I saw a shark. Did you?? Jelly fish? Any large marine life? I think the mental piece of being far out in the ocean like that would kill me (physically I'm pretty sure I could do it, but thinking about sharks the whole time might break me). I've snorkeled plenty all over the world...I've seen plenty of barracuda, spotted eagle rays, a sea turtle, but no sharks...not yet.

Oh, and how was it meeting Rinnie??? Is she totally cool? So exciting.
I knew of a few girls on "women for tri" on FB who were going or working there. Very cool.