Wurkit_Gurl's Group - CLOSED (sssh...we're training) (Page 18)

Hehe, yeah, once you're used to racing and training regularly, it's easier to race more often - plus, not all of these events are gonna be "A races" - when you plan a season of racing, they can't all be - you generally have A, B and C races - A races are the ones you focus your training on, B races are kinda focused, but really more practice/fun than not, and then C races are usually the season-warm-up/season-ender/do for fun kind of races. And when you only do sprints, the recovery time is a little shorter, so you can do a few more in a season than say, if you only did Half-Irons.

The sprint I might do in June will just be a training race - no real expectations. The Oly that I'm gonna do will be my first race of that distance, so the only goal is to finish! Same with the marathon - my only "real" goal for the marathon, other than to finish, is to finish in under 5 hours.

Yup - racing periodically keeps you fresh and motivated to train more. Otherwise, it's easy to burn out if you just train and train and almost never race.

Yay!

JJackson07 - 2009-05-12 4:15 PM

wurkit_gurl - 2009-05-12 8:32 AM one of my real-life mentees is doing it as her first race and she wants me to come do it with her.

So does that make us fake mentees ?

No, you're my online mentees I have two girl friends that I am helping train for their first - I actually get in the pool with them and correct their stroke, run with them, give them biking tips, etc. Girl #1, I actually trained for her first 10K back in December, ran with her 3x a week and now she trains on her own, though I still run with her occasionally, for recovery. She has been using the stationary bike, b ut she has a bike she is going to get from her parents this weekend, so I can finally get her outside. She's not a very good swimmer, but is persistent and learns fast, and she's got until July to manage 300 meters - it's a lap pool, so worst case scenario, she could stand if she got tired. Girl #2 has done a bunch of 5Ks and 10Ks and even a 10-miler. She also bikes regularly. Her swim is very weak...so we'll see how much she improves. She's doing an OWS triathlon, so I'm a tad worried about her. She can breaststroke, at least.

As long as when you hit the wall to turn, you're not hanging out, that's fine - a quick open turn is okay, since in OWS, you don't have a wall to push off of. Resting every 100 - eh, it depends. Right now, that might be good for you, esp since you can't do freestyle the whole time. Have you ever tried doing longer sets, even 200 or 300? If you can, start doing those and see what happens. Keep doing those. At some point before your race, you will want to swim the full distance non-stop a few times, so you know what it's like. Are you following any set workouts when you get in the pool? Or do you just do 100s over and over?

Yeah, it's fine to do short sets and rest in between. Just do different sized sets, with different goals (drills, stroke counting, etc). Like 2 x 300 with 1 minute rest in between. I also used to do pyramid sets, ie 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100 - you don't have to do quite that much, but you get the idea - you build and then come back down. So you could do 50, 100, 200, 100, 50. And have a set rest interval in between - like 30" or something. Pyramid sets are a good way to stretch the distance, so you're ALMOST doing the full yardage but with minimal rest in between chunks of it.

Perhaps it might be good to focus parts of your workout on drills - that will allow you to streamline your form. It's a bit hard to critique it yourself, but maybe the lifeguard at the pool can give you pointers. A good thing to invest in is a pull buoy - mine was about $10. It will allow you to work on your stroke without worrying about kicking. You shouldn't use the pull buoy for the entire workout, but for sections, it's all right. It's a bit of a "cheat" as it puts you in the correct position, with your hips lifted, which is why it's not good to rely on it as a crutch. But then you can get used to the feel of where you SHOULD be in the water. Then you can work on nice, long, reaching strokes. And if you have too much rotation in your hips, the pull buoy can make it a bit more obvious, as you may feel like you're going to tip over

amkaz - 2009-05-13 10:05 AM Hello all, I tried to spend some time this am reading all the threads.  Sounds like people are healthier, which is good.  I am sorry I have been MIA, but work is stealing all my time   I hope that will change soon.

I am canceling one gym membership today and joining another so that I can keep up the master's swimming so my break and lunch is all booked up again.  I dont usually get online at night, but will try to do so tonight so I can catch up some more on what you all are doing.

Have a great day everyone and keep up the training!

Glad to hear that Masters is working out well! No worries about being busy - I think a lot of folks said that May was gonna be bad for them. The 20-square challenge still stands, though Even if it's a short workout to get the square!

Sounds good - let me know how it goes!

Morning, all. No workouts for me today, cuz I have a friend's birthday dinner tonight. Then helping one of my friends retrieve her bike from her mom's house, since I have a bike rack.

Nice workouts!

No plans for Memorial Day weekend, really. I have to go to a wedding that Sunday. Wasn't gonna be bad but now I've gotten some not so fun news in the wedding-related area (former friend used my friendship to steal a guy from me, continually lied about it, and now they're engaged), and so now I want to have nothing to do with weddings, even though it's a friend from work and the other guys from work will be there, so it should be fun otherwise.

SteveyD - 2009-05-14 11:30 AM ugh
birthday hangover here
got cricket practise later but its abosultely down so may have to pass
and my bed is falling to bits. grrrr
lol

Hows everyone?

You need to get a new bed!! Hope you are able to get some good workouts in this weekend - unless the birthday celebrating spills over

its the cheapness of the bed, i went out and bought a bit of timber to hold it together. Basically, the bed has a support down each side, and then a bar along the middle, however the are meant to be some supports to hold the width, which arn't. This means the slats sometimes fall through which is not a pleasant way to wake up weekend is revision time with workout breaks