Experior and Slornow's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 18)

Sylvain-nice run. Quite an accomplishment in those conditions.

Brian-good luck tomorrow.  Hope all goes well.

I opted for a run today and will head out on the bike tomorrow.  Enjoyed watching the Olympic Marathon Trials.  Some phenomenal athletes.  Did not enjoy watching UNC get crushed by FSU in college basketball....that was ugly.

Randy

Happy weekend, guys! GEAR race was HARD, but we made it through, and we weren't dead last. My partner couldn't run the last running leg, so we walked most of it. Had a great time though!

I'm very grateful for the swim training. At one point we had to swim out to a rock and find out what they had dangling on a rope. Water was deep and choppy, with a big sharp rocks scattered about. I swam with my shoes AND helmet on, lol! I'd say it was about 25-30M out. Felt confident. Before all this swimming I would have said eff it and quit right there if my partner couldn't swim either.

Great training for Xterra. Worked on bike handling on rough terrain and trail running. It was a run/bike/run/bike/run. Crazy fun, but now I feel like I was hit by a truck. Now to clean the bike and take a quick nap before the game.

Blanda-GEAR race sounds like a blast!  Glad it went well....can't believe you are headed out to play soccer.  Have fun...bet you will be sore tomorrow.

Randy

Blanda - great job in the GEAR race... sounds INTENSE!

Brian - rooting for you this morning in your race - you Oregonians (?) are tough, but kind.  We met the nicest people in Oregon when my wife and I biked the coast together 30 years ago.  Plus, my sister lives there and she's nice :-)

Sylvain - WTG on the run - HTFU!

Took down 6 trees at my father in law's yesterday including two pretty good sized ones.  I tell you what, for a 79 year old, he's still as strong and nimble as most people half his age.  He's working his way back to running again... aiming for an 8K in March.  Hope I can do that in 30ish years.  Anyway, I apparently found a few new muscles yesterday... or lack of muscles as the case may be.  Ufff...

Long run planned for today after I shake off the aches and pains from yesterday's tree-scapades.  Coffee first.  Thank goodness you're allowed to drink coffee during training!

Have a great one everyone.  Look forward to the race report, Brian... hope the weather isn't too nasty!

Stu

I've got to hand it to you cold-weather folks!!  Makes up tropical people look like sissies!

Finally got my training plan on my calendar for the HIM - I'm excited!  Got my first swim in on Friday - 2000yds and the pool was heavenly.  Yesterday I had a 1:45 run planned, but the day got away from me and I only got in 1:20 - but I'm OK with that.  This afternoon I have a date with the bike trainer followed by a 30 min treadmill run.  I'm following the HIM plan from "Your Best Triathlon" this year, so I'm at the end of Base 1 right now.  Based on the calendar I should have started base training in December, but I was so preoccupied with marathon training I didn't even think about it.  I'm glad I had a solid fall of running, though.

I've got to up my membership on BT and get my planned training on my logs - I want to take as much advantage of them as I can this year.  It will be an excellent reference.  Also got to get out my Garmin and start watching my heartrate and do some testing.

Weather is clear but we have heavy Kona (south) winds.  Supposed to be stormy tomorrow and Tuesday, but we will see.

Blanda nice race, sounds like fun stuff.

Hope Brian got some nice weather for his race today.

I completed last workout (bike on trainer) for the week giving me 9 of 10 workouts (2S-4B-3R).  Only missed a run, too many conflicts, very happy I got my 4 bikes in. 

Hey Gang-weather was a bit warmer today so I rode outside. Still a bit cool for my taste but nice and sunny.  40 mile bike followed by a quick 2 mile run off the bike.  Looking ahead I've got a bit heavier training schedule with about 10.5 hours for the upcoming week.

Stu-I spent many weekends in my teen years cutting trees and splitting wood.  I remember asking my dad if I could get a gym membership when I was about 15.  He in turn "offered" me the opportunity to cut wood almost every Saturday and spend my free time during the week splitting it.  We had a wood stove we used for most of our heating so it was nothing to have 6-7 cords of wood stacked in the backyard.  I DO NOT miss my "ax man" days.  Good for you though!

Blanda-I love soccer even though I did not grow up playing.  Have played some adult/old man league but spent several years coaching club soccer and following my son around while he played club/ODP.  He was a solid junior player and was fortunate enough to travel to Europe twice with club teams and Mexico once with his ODP team.  I still go out and watch local HS games as many of the boys I coached are HS juniors/seniors now. 

Randy     

Hey everyone.  It's been a tough several days.  Short version:  a colleague has been telling me for months that 'Yes I'm working on it' when in fact he wasn't doing squat.  Well, I'm the chair of my department, so the 'buck' stops here, and I had to accomplish in three days what he failed to do in three months.  I managed to make myself sick getting it done.

I've read through everything that I missed, and cannot reasonably respond to everything, but here are a few thoughts.

You and me both, brother....  As for the calf:  avoid running hills.  When you walk up an down stairs, try to stay flat-footed.  Don't try to force a midfoot or forefoot strike.  Just land where you naturally want to land.  Keep stride length short.

Rene - congrats on the PR!!!  I got home in time on Saturday to see the last 3 or 4 miles of the women's trials.  Great run for them.  I've been at the end of a couple of marathons, and it is just amazing to see the winners coming in after 26 miles at those incredible paces and often looking very relaxed.  Definitely inspiring!

Brian - sorry to hear that the race was rough in several ways.  Hope you are feeling better soon.  Even if the results weren't what you hoped, it's been good to have the race to aim for as a stepping stone to the marathon.  Losing the weight will really make a difference for the marathon.  I've been headed in the wrong direction for several months and I'm definitely feeling the difference in effort necessary to maintain the same pace.  Are you trying the Paleo like the other folks in here?

Randy, we heated our house (cabin at that point) for 15 years solely with the wood stove, so I became quite handy with a chainsaw and maul.  The old warm yourself 3 times approach (cutting it, splitting it, and burning it).  But in all the years of using our woodstove (25 now), I've never had to cut a tree down (of ours) for wood.  Mother nature (usually the passing remnants of a hurricane) would usually drop the trees for me and I just had to clean them up.  I'm really not too fond of dropping trees.

Hang in there Michael.  Been a rough year for Karen too.  Working 60-70 hr weeks and she's "part-time".  Big picture stuff at the state universities isn't looking good.  But, of course, there's always enough money for that indoor football training facility (which, to be fair, is funded separately... but still it is a strange set of messages these days).

Ran 10 yesterday... mid 30s... a great temp... cold enough so that you want to push to stay warm and get home faster, but not so cold that you never get warmed up :-)  Swim today.  Gonna be an interesting week as we get our daughter back to school over the weekend, which involves the full packing of the car, etc.  So, I'll be moving some workouts around a bit to see if I can get it all in.  Probably lose a couple.

Have a great day everyone!

Stu

Michael: Oh, geeze. So sorry to hear that you've gotten yourself sick over a flake at work. Hope you'll get some time to rest and feel better real soon.

Di: I'm stoked to follow your HIM training! I need your experience. Hope the weather cooperated with you to get your training done.

Sylvain: Excellent work completing your workouts. I have a hard time staying on my schedule.

Randy: So cool that your son got so far in his soccer career! You must be so proud. My oldest is attempting to try out for University of North Florida for their next season, which is huge for her. She's a gifted soccer player, but very sensitive, so it's hard for her to take a ton of pressure. She's played for Guam, but playing college level in the states, she'll be facing a lot of competition.

I'm excited to read that you have personal enjoyment for the football! Soccer's been a large and amazing part of my athletic life. It's the reason I'm so late in enjoying the joys of triathlons! It's taken me to some very cool places, I've made some life long friends, and it's given me a tolerance for pain and suffering like no other form of activity... well, besides childbirth, lol!

Catwoman: Be proud of what you've done! That's a fantastic time for a 5k, and you volunteered, which is just as hard, especially when you would like to be out there running.

Brian: Oooh, tough run. Hey, at least you know what you need to do to meet your goals. Get it done, yo! You can do it.

Stu: Sounds like a lovely run.

*****
Today I rested. I am sore. I used my Christmas gift of a massage from my husband, and I now know never to get massages when you're bruised and battered. It hurt like heck!! The muscles felt very relaxed after the painful ministrations, but I certainly dropped a few silent f-bombs and shed a tear or two when she tried to rub out my bruises. The lady has the grip of Spock, oi!

Tomorrow I want to run and either bike or swim. We'll see how I feel. I may be sore from the massage that was meant to make me feel better.

Rene-big congrats on the PR! That is fantastic.

Brian-lots of reasons not to run but you pushed through and got it done.  Sometimes completing those types of races can be especially rewarding.  Sounds like you have a good feel on what you need to do over the next couple of months.  Hang in there...plenty of time

Michael-sometimes the real world steps in and messes things up.  Always frustrating when you are left paying for others mistakes.  Hope you are feeling better and able to have a solid week.

Swim at lunch planned for me with the MS being the dreaded 15x100.  I know I can do it just know I will not enjoy it.....until I climb out of the pool.

Randy

When I'm having a tough time getting through a set, I try to remind myself how good it feels to make it through.  It helps me.  Or if that isn't working, I try to shame myself into finishing it...

We have the 'day off' today.  (So why am I typing this from my office???)  I'm feeling better, and hope to ride today.  No swim -- pools are closed.  But I'll get back to it tomorrow.

Have a great day everyone.  I think I'm out of the woods with work and sleep-deprivation/illness, so I'll be back to my regular check-ins.  I'll try to get to everyone's logs tonight as well.

Well I survived the swim.  Actually went a little better than I expected. Really did not do much swimming prior to the 15 x 100yd main set... just some kick sets and drill work.  So, I was not confident headed into the main set.  I was suppose to "hold pace" throughout the set so decided I would start easy.  Focused on smooth and easy with good body rotation. Figured I would come in around 1:37-1:40. UGH/Surprised myself...1:34.  OK, game on. Decided to mentally break it down into 3 sets of 5 so 15 didn't seem so daunting plus its easier to keep up the count.  All intervals came in at 1:35 or below except one at 1:36.  Last 3 were @ 1:32.  Glad to get that one behind me.  I could almost count it as OWS practice since I had the "aqua-grannies" next to my lane churning things up during their aerobics.  

Two more tough swim workouts this week.....maybe things are not as bleak on the swim horizon as I predicted.

Disclaimer:  I would still rather be running or biking!!!

Randy

This made me laugh! Glad you survived it and did so well. Inspiring.

Great swim set Randy.

Nice job on the swim, Randy.  I also often mentally break things down into smaller chunks.  It does help.  I'll be right there with you tomorrow.  Inspired by the blog post on swimming that I think I linked a while back, I'm trying to stay focused on a big main set with very little, if any, warmup and cool-down.  I'm still doing just 2K per session (up to 2.4K next month...), and I want to get the most from it.

So, friends, let me put a question out there for discussion.  When you've missed some workouts, how to do you approach training?  (This question -- or at least the answer -- requires lots of qualification, but I'll leave it to you all to qualify as you see fit.)

Michael-now that I am using a coach I will leave that up to him.  But, my philosophy on making up workouts has typically depended on the intensity of what was scheduled and where I was in the season. I may try to add an easy swim or bike as a "makeup" workout but would avoid adding anything with much intensity.  This would give me the satisfaction that I was catching up without over stressing my body.  At this time of year with my first race 2+ months out I probably would not worry about making it up.  I would be dissappointed to get off schedule but would try to keep the big picture in mind. 

I'm trying to get in the mindset of doing what my coach schedules.  It has been hard since my bike and run numbers are a good bit lower than what I have been doing.  Swim frequency/intensity on the other hand has increased which I probably would not have done on my own.  After 2 weeks of fairly light runs/rides things pick up this week to add in another ride and some intervals on the run.  

Randy