Chaderbox and aquagirl's group ! CLOSED (Page 18)

Went out for my first run since the half marathon today.  Just a slow 1.2 mile run to help break in new shoes and feel the difference in said shoes. 

Chad, I paid much more attention to keeping my shoulders down, and tried to focus on smooth movement and keeping my ponytail from moving too much.  I'll get there, I didn't do too badly with it today, but I know it will take a lot more focus on longer runs.

Planning on getting in the pool tomorrow.

signed up for a clinic this Friday.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I also an running a 5K on Sat morning.

Great work all, keep it up.

If you want to upload your swim video to youtube, and then link it (especially in Tri Talk) you'll get some really great advice from some amazingly helpful and knowledgable people.

Corey, be sure you get enough sleep.  <6 hours isn't optimal, and can really hinder your recovery from hard workouts, as well as weight loss.

One week from today I am participating in a "mini-tri" at my gym.  It is a 300 yd swim, 12.25 mile bike, and a 5k.  I am excited/nervous, specifically about the run.  Running is going so much better with little to no pain from my previous injury, but 2 miles is the most I have done so far, so I am concerned about re-injury. 

The reason for my post is actually around the bike though.  It has occurred to me (after a few squint-ty rides) that I need some sort of sporty sunglasses, and I am not sure my cute sunglasses would suffice.  I am not one to pay a ton of money on sunglasses, so I am just wondering what I should look for in some, and what to expect to pay?  Our local Tri store has two options, both over $175....not really my budget. Thanks!! I'll check the gear forum too....

One more question, and it is a dumb one.  I am looking at other training logs and I see on the bottom the "calories out" note, and I am wondering how people come up with the calories out from lifestyle?  I am sure it is some sort of gadget, right?  I would love to know that number, so I can be more exact with weight loss, ect.  Thanks!

Try Sports Authority for cheap sunglasses.  I saw racks of "Ironman" glasses in all shapes and sizes for men and women.  They were made for funtion (over form) -- extremely light, wrap-around design with all of the required UV protection.  All for about $30-40.  I plan to pick some up before my first next race.

Good luck with your sprint tri this weekend.  You'll do great!!!

As to the concern about re-injury going for a 5K when the longest run so far is 2 miles, I think you'll be ok.  The thing to remember is that you don't want to run at your normal 5K pace.  Take a little off, and that should help keep you from both pushing your leg too hard, and able to do the same race next year and crush your old time. 

Seriously though, run easy and smooth, there isn't that big of a difference in 2 miles and 3 miles, and your excitement should easily carry you.  Just don't go crazy with the running and you should be ok.  If it gets sore, back off a tad.  You don't get any different award for running as fast as you can the whole time.

On the sunglasses front, that's really up to you.  Out of the 6 tri's I've done, I only wore sunglasses for one of them.  They have all been on pretty nice sunny days, but generally are early enough in the morning that the sun isn't too glaring yet.  For a sprint, sunglasses are nice but not a necessity.  For an olympic distance, they are very, very helpful, and for HIM or IM, I'd say they're mandatory.  Really, the best part about the sunglasses is that they help keep the wind off of your eyes on the bike.  At least, for me that's the best part.  If you wear contacts (like I do when I race) it's nice not to need to worry about your eyes getting dry.

So I went to a swim clinic last Friday and here is the analysis:

Things I need to improve on:

Slow down on the "recovery" part of my stroke, apparently I snap my arm forward too quickly which makes the entire movement less fuild and is wasted effort since its out of the water anyway.

Stop making an "S" with my hand on the "pull" part of my stroke.  Me and everyone else that learned how to swim in the late 80's were taught this incorrectly. 

Also, in the "catch" my arm is too close to the surface and is parallel.  Both need to change.  There should be more of an angle so that I'm pulling myself forward and not up.  And not so close to the surface.

Lastly I need to keep my head down.  Just need to let it relax nothing too drastic.

What I do right: 

I have a good kick and I roll from one side to the next pretty efficiently.

And now for my non-professional rebuttal.

The recovery portion of the stroke, while being smooth, should also be fairly quick.  The more time you spend in recovery, the less time you spend getting propulsion.  Gary Hall, Sr (Olympic silver medalist in 1972, and former World Record Holder in the 200m butterfly) has contributed some very interesting swimming advice right here on BT.  One of his recommendations for distance swimmers is to have an AMAZINGLY high stroke rate.  The theory being that you get the majority of your propulsion from the early to mid part of the pull, and that once you get that part over, get your arm back out of the water and ready to pull again.  This, mind you, is a very simple explanation of his point.  However, the point is, the speed of the recovery isn't a problem so long as it doens't disrupt your balance, and that your pull with the other arm keeps up with it appropriately so you're not "windmill-ing" (where one arm is coming out of the water when the other is going in, because that shortens the length of the body in the water thus increasing drag).

Yes, teaching the S-curve pull is outdated, and the new thought is that we should have a C-curve.  It's not so much that you were taught "wrong" as much as it is that the style has evolved and you just didn't know.  There's nothing wrong with the S-curve really, but the C is considered more efficient.  As I understand, the S as it's curving in 2 directions, has more of a chance to get your arm out of its early vertical position.  Think about it, you're pulling first towards your body, then away from your body, then towards your body again.  With the C, it's more of a big long arc.  Really, we should be trying, during the pull, to pull ourself through the water.  The picture in your mind should be like there is a ladder under your body, and you're reaching in front of you to grab a rung, then pulling your body over the top of the ladder.  You want to pull yourself through the water, not so much push the water behind you.  The C (which really is just more of a " ( " than a " C " shape, is just a bit less of side to side motion.  Or, at least that's my take on it. 

The catch shouldn't be at the surface, that's true, and you can't really catch while your arm is parallel to the surface.  I think this one is right on.  If you try to pull from the surface, you do pull up instead of forward (up being towards the surface, as opposed to the end of the pool.)

Head position is very important too.  While you don't want it too high, being too low is also a problem.  Really, you're looking for your head to be weightless in the water.  I personally can have problems with my head too low, and that can make it a bit more tricky to breathe, as well as potentially unbalancing my front half.  That being said, I use my head as a counter-weight for my hips.  When I'm swimming slow, my hips are more prone to sink, so I counter that with keeping my chest (and head) deeper in the water.  As I swim faster, I don't have time to sink, so I don't need to be so deep up front.  For me, the harder and faster I swim, the more my form comes together.  I just can't hold that pace for nearly as long.  So head position is important, but it's also something that you can tinker with depending on what you're doing, to a degree.  As a rule, you should be looking down, not forward in the pool.

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Corey, you can do the same type of workout back to back usually.  The exception is you don't want to do long runs back to back, or if you have a very intense day, you don't want to do another hard day right after that.  If you go out and have a major hill run or bike, the next day you can run or bike again, but make it more of a recovery day.

This is more important with running than biking, and swimming can pretty much be hammered every day.

Ok everyone, just so you know, the mentor season for the beginning of the year has ended.

What that really means for us.

We can keep the group going here in the Archive section. 

We can totally disband.

We can do a combination.

I'll keep checking in as long as there are other people that are interested.  So feel free to keep plugging away in here, that's why they keep the archive for the mentor groups available.

As long as other people are still posting in here, I will continue as well.  But if it ends up just Chad and I, I'll go back to calling every couple of days with questions instead.

Took my bike in yesterday for a tune up, bought a new helmet, and am now anxious to get out and start riding.

Today, I managed to add a small hill to my run, and maintained my pace at about 10:30 a mile!  Usually I am scared of hills and will completely avoid them when I can, so this was a pretty big deal for me.  I'm going to make sure i keep that hill in my normal loop until I get fairly comfortable with it, then move on to bigger ones.  Any advice on running hills?

The thing to remember about running hills is that you want your cadence to stay very similar.  So in order to keep your stride rate high, you will usually need to shorten your stride just a touch.  If it's a small hill, it's not a big deal, but on a long hill, or a steep grade, it's more important.  It's like going to an easier gear on the bike to keep your cadence up.  You can also benefit from a slight lean forward, but don't go overboard. 

Then you need to think about the downhill part, if you're going down a steep/long hill.  Keep in mind that if you attack downhill, you will take more out of your legs because you're landing on them harder.  A run course like the Boston Marathon is hard not because of all the uphill, but the downhill pounding wears you out for the uphill stuff.  Well, that's what I hear from people that have actually ran there.  So to run downhill, you'll want to feel in control and not pounding on your legs.  Be aware of how you're landing, and try to keep it soft.

Being comfortable both going up and coming down hills will be a great asset in racing.  There isn't much that's more of a killer to your psyche than when someone attacks you on a hill and just drops you.  You want to be the person that's able to attack.  Any joker can sprint down a hill and blow up later, but you want to break them going up so that they thrash their legs trying to catch up, and then totally blow them up on the downhill.  Then they won't be able to hold on, and there goes one more competitor that is now both physically and mentally out of it.

I'm still here...

I completed my first indoor tri on Saturday: 10 min swim; 30 min spin; 20 min tradmill.  It was a lot of fun and I achieved the goals I set for my self.

Goal 1: Warm-up before the event... check!!

Goal 2: Slow and steady out fo the gate in the swim portion.  I saw at lease two other swimmers who overdid it early and bonked.  I managed 18 laps (goal) with a smile.

Goal 3: I had no goal for except to finish, so I guess I got that goal also.

Goal 4: 2.1 mile run.  Achieved 2.2 miles.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with my results and efforts.  Came in 18th out of 77.

Next race is a hilly 15K at the end of this month.  I can't run out my door without having to tackle a hill so every run is a challenge.  As i approach a hill, I try to stretch my arms, shourders and neck in preparation for the inevitable tightening that is coming.  I try to actually go slow into the hill, and work up to normal pace.  I mentally mark where it is when I kicked into high gear --and I try to hit that mark faster than that the last time.  I find that hills are getting easier -- and when you back over what you just climbed, there's definitely a "Rocky" moment.

One last note -- If you find yourself really winded, SLOW DOWN!!  Breathe in through your nose AND mouth.  You can even stop if you ned to

Good luck and keep us informed on how hills come along.

Good luck

First, great job on the indoor race.  They can be rather fun, and a nice change from the outdoor races.

Now the nitpick.  It's pretty much impossible to bonk on a swim.  The term "bonk" refers to the state when one has depleted the glycogen stores from the liver, which is the last place the body looks for extra glycogen to burn.  Once this starts happening, one gets confused, physically unable to continue (opposed to just being tired and not wanting to), generally they get sick feeilng, and will usually lie down and not really be able to do much excepting try to get down some food.  After food/drink it usually can take around 45-60 minutes to recover and be able to limp home.

We can compare that to "blowing up" where you just go too fast, and can't maintain.  That will be where you cramp up, or just have to slow down and catch your breath.

It really doesn't matter to me what you call it, however, if you poke around in some other areas of this site, you may find a little bit of a pile on effect of people telling you you're wrong.  And that's never fun. 

I would like to keep the group going as well.  I have definitely learned alot so far and look forward to learning even more.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this has always made me laugh, and your post made me think of it.

Anyhow, I'll keep checking in and seeing how we're all doing.  Feel free to keep up with the asking, and updating.

ha, hyperbole and a half is an awesome blog. 

I am getting ready for the first event of the season this Saturday! Miami University (of Ohio) triathlon.  It has an 400m indoor swim,a short 13 mile bike and a 5k run.  Hope the weather holds out and is not raining.  I am really looking forward to this one, last year the first tri I did,made me a bit anxious.  I was sure I could get across the finish I just wasn't sure how long it would take me.  Now that I have spent a lot more time training, I feel comfortable with the distances.

I'll let you know how it goes

I know.  I make that mistake too often. Sorry.

Thanks for the explanation.  You're right -- getting piled upon is never fun.

Good luck.  Let us know how well you do.