MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 183)

Dave,

Looks like you have a pretty good stroke. The video is a little choppy so it's hard to tell how fast your arm turnover is. I like how you finish the pull all the way. The only thing I could see that I would nitpick about is it looks from the front view like you rotate from your right shoulder pretty well, but not as much from the left. This may be because of your breathing pattern. It's really not that bad but you probably leave a little power on the table. If you rotate the shoulder a little more, you can reach farther and pull more water. Obviously your swimming times are good as is so you are fine to keep doing what you're doing.

DAVE -

I'm still not geting those files, but will keep trying.  I know others have succeeeded, so I guess it's all me and our equipment here.  I think Lynn has Google Chrome on her laptop; might it help if I had it?  I think I'm just Internet Explorer; how luddite of me, eh?

GEORGE -

Nope, not hallucinating at all.  Rather, it's a likley combination of increased and improved training, and the cooling of the days.  It is alarming, though, to think of leaves turning........although a quick glance at the calendar (and the school buses on the roads) suggests that summer is about over.  Ack!

12 bikes without riders -- never a good sign.  It used to be that when a horse returned to the barn sans rider, well, something bad musta happened, but nowadays it's bikes.  Hmmm.

How dide the recon of Summerside go?

JOHANNE -

Have a ball at Disney --- and I look forward to all the photos!

You can thumb your nose at the Angels' dugout, though, as they just swept the Red Sox in that stadium.  Grr.  Worse still, they swept the season series against the Sox, so it obviously wasn't just the fault of the stadium.  Grrr.

Is Disney Sat or Sun?

GANG!

So JOHANNE is doing Disney h-m this weekend, and......

ANNE is doing The Canadian Half-Iron, in Ottawa, tomorrow.  they arrived last night, and I did a brief OWS with her and Ken (doing the full iron) early this morning, then went to a restaurant for post-swim breakfast.  Her swimming form looked great, and aside from the usaul garden-variety worries of "going long", she is quite optimistic and on top of stuff.  Weather is forecast to be exceptional, maybe high of about 75 and no threat of precipitation.  Perfect?  We hope!

The only drawback is that Ken's race begins at 6:30, and ANNE'S not until 9:00, so opnce on-site she has a lot of wating-around to do.  She's hoping to head back to the van and sleep while Ken is plyng the waters of the Rideau River. 

I'm waking at about 2 a.m. to drive to a bit SW of Syracuse for Skinnyman Triathlon, a sprint.  (It's got that name because it is in Skaneateles, with the "skan" part pronounced like "skin".)  I start at 7:30ish and hope to finish by 8:45, then be on the road again by 9:30 at the latest.  that'll get me into ottawa before 1, and I will head over to ANNE'S race and watch until she is finished.  I will also kick around for a few hours and keep her company while Ken is on-course, but at some point i will have to leave and return home to rescue our dog, who will've been tied up since about 2:30.

My knees are not feeling great, but I think they can handle an 11-mile bike and 3-mile run.  (They'd better!!!)   It'll be wetsuit-legal, though, making the 800m swim a bit easier than it could be sans wetsuits.

Anyone else toeing a starting line this weekend?

Good luck to all participants tomorrow. I'm not doing anything until a 5K in two weekends. I'll do a sprint tri in early October. Tomorrow is going to be a 10-12 mile run unless the remnants of hurricane Isaac rain us out.

DOUG -

Outrun Isaac!  Outrun Isaac!  Outrun Isaac!

Disney is Sunday....5:45 start. They want us out of the parks by opening!

Have a great race yourself.

Anne,

Hope you have a great HIM. You will do great! Hope Ken has a good day too

My day trip to Summerland went pretty nicely yesterday.  I rode the bike route and then I ran the 5K route.  I ran on two consecutive days which I don't normally do but I was pleased to find my run time was about 2 minutes faster for my second run.  The Sprint is through a fairly picturesque area along the water front with lots of shade trees.  The route is low rolling hills so almost flat.  I'm quite looking forward to the race.

Tomorrow I have to go back to Summerland for package trip.

I think I need to keep pushing myself on the run.  I feel like I should be able to go faster and further (I'm planning to work on my running this winter).

Went swimming in Okanagan again today and my time keeps coming down slowly.  Today (my 21st OWS) , I swam 1800m in :40:42 which is quite a bit faster than when I first started and I'm pretty confident that I could swim further I just haven't tried to go beyond the 1800m.  But, I hope I'll be able to actually swim this time.

I didn't even get wet believe it or not. The storm is missing us for the most part. The run felt slow, but I am not really sure of the distance because it was a trail and we didn't finish the whole thing so could just be the distance was wrong. I don't use a Garmin.

George,

That's a pretty good swim for open water.

GEORGE -

"Dirty Laundry Vineyard"???

You've done some good training for this one, and I hope you have a great day -- fine weather, no "mechanicals", and a body ready to rock.  You've got several overlong swims under your belt, and maybe tomorrow you can play some with speed in the knowledge that the swim is just 750m.  Or, you can just cruise along ad enjoy it ---- although your recent swim times go a bit beyond a mere "cruise" pace.

Really well done on being more aggressive with the runs, and I don't think I'm hearing you talking about not being a runner or not liking to run.  Cool beans!

Overall, you spent a few months being a bike guy, doing all those long rides and the various GFs.  At one point I was starting to view you as maybe one of those in these groups who settles on one discipline only; I've had a few of that ilk in my five or six groups.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that..........but I have been very pleased for you that you have found both swim AND bike mojo.  Ain't it nice to feel diversified? 

Looking forward to your race reflections!!!

DOUG -

I don't use a Garmin, either, but I'm enough of a fiend about keeping track of mileage that I choose routes that I can drive and do a proper mileage check. 

Actually, I don't necessarily keep track of mileage by way of accumulating totals and all.  Rather, I pay attention to it by way of assessing my paces, and I feel sort of empty when I've done a run and can't come up with an accurate pace.  When that happens, it's kind of like what you said about "the run felt slow" --- just inexact feelings, is all.

Ages ago I read that mileage accumulation is far less important than time.  That is, keeping track of miles is pointless and basing runs on set distances is only slightly better, with the best thing being to set a goal time for each run and stick to it.  I hear that....but I'm still a junkie for wanting to know how ar I ran so I can determine my pace!

JOHANNE -

5:45 start -- how rude!

Although, I was up at 1:45 this morning to make it down to my race SW of Syracuse, so with that type of wake-up I would've been all primed for Disney.  Have a good one there, and given my ragards to Pluto and Goofy!

Brief notes on my race today, the Skinnyman Triathlon in Skaneateles, NY:

1:13:00

1/15 in M60-64

• SW:  14:43 (1:58/100) - 2nd in a.g., 153/561 overall
• T1:      1:29  - 3rd in a.g., 142 overall
• BK:   31:06  (21.3mph) - 1st in a.g., 43rd overall
• T2:      1:11  - 8th in a.g., 218 overall
• RN:   23:31 (7:50/mile)  - 1st in a.g., 112 overall

Thrilled with the bike, mostly okay with swim (seldom in top 30%), mostly okay with the run.  The bike course was quite challenging and I nailed it....but then found the even more challenging run, um, a challenge!  Transition times were not where I want them to be, especially that pesky T2, where I continue to diddel with my speed laces so they are at my preferred tiightness.  It turns out it cost me nothing in the a.g. placement, as not only did I beat the #2 guy by about 2:45, but also had faster transitions than he did.  And FWIW, he was the only a.g. guy who had a faster swim, and it was by 3:43, I think!!!  He was 11-something, so I had some catching-up to do, but nabbed him in T2 (ironically) and then expanded it on the run.

Beautiful town and great race -- and for having to dig hard to get a replacement for the replacement bike course, they came up with a really nice one.  So, hats off to them for putting on a superb race.

More later, as I'm tired now (up at 1:45 so as to leave the house by 2:30 for a 3.5-hour drive to the race site0.  So, seven hours of driving for 73 minutes of racing.  DOH?

DAVE -

Yeah, it was a good one, given all the msiery I have had reecently.  I wnet down with an icepack on one of the knees, and that hardly did a thing...........but the knees were not an issue during the race.  i could feel them not feeling great, but that didn't affect a thing -- I think.

Stellarize your 5km tomorrow!

JOHANNE  and GEORGE and DAVE !!!!!

May you all have mighty mojo circulating all around you tomorrow. 

(Hmmm.  One eastern time zone race, and two pacific ones --- J and G, you will keep us all in suspense!

Doug - My swim time for me was pretty good - and a nice surprise.  Especially since it was a bit choppy yesterday.  I'm still pretty slow compared to some of the fast swimmers we have here in our group but I intend to just keep shaving time off.

Steve - as Dave says your times were pretty awesome today.  I'll be trying to not think about them tomorrow morning. 

I picked up my package today and found out Dirty Laundry Vineyard is the major sponsor for the  Sprint.  I'll have to try their wine sometime.  I hear it is pretty good.  The race shirt is considerably nicer than the Apple shirt I got two weeks ago.  The day starts early tomorrow getting the bike into transition, body marking and timing chips then we get to watch a series of Kids of Steel races from 6 to 16 yrs of age before our race starts at 10:05-ish.

Running is still ponderous but I do feel as though there is some improvement and I do feel more diversified.

PR at the Steelers 5K this morning. :20:35 (6:45 / mile avg.)

Disappointed not to break :20, but I'm happy with the time. Really need to do some longer speedwork intervals to develop some more endurance at faster speeds.

Splits were: 6:28, 6:41, 7:10, 0:15.

Hope everyone else has successful races. So glad to be off tomorrow for Labor Day.

DAVE -

Fabulous 5km PR, and it really is just a matter of time before you go sub-20.  Any speedwork will hasten the process, with longer intervals being especially useful (and that's for 10km, too....and maybe even longer). The splits maybe coulda been a bit tighter, but they aren't at all bad -- or at all unusual -- for a hard effort at a short(er) distance.

I've never hard that term, "clowning" someone.  I like the sound of it, and now have to figure out what exactly it means.  Could it just be making a fool of someone?

My "career" has been spent catching "the fish" once out of the water, but yesterday was extreme.  He (#2) is an unuauslly strong swimmer for this age, and I can't remember the last time someone has gained so many minutes on me in a sprint swim; probably never.  I will go back and see just where he placed overall in the swim segement, and also exactly how much he bested me.  I think it was about 3:20-40.

I didn't know he was "out there", as racking was random and there was no way of knowing who was where.  So, in this case what I did was "blind" -- just me pushing myself with no sense of needing to gain ground, or keep strong paces to stay ahead of a certain some one or two who were behind me.  

However, had I known he was ahead of me by so much coming out of the water, I would've freaked and gone right into desperation mode.    I was almost there, anyhow, just in terms of being "angry" about how my race season has progressed in fits and starts, and I was quite committed to "burying myself" on the bike --- or coming in just this side of burying myself.  That's how it turned out (just this side of!!)....but it could've been uglier if I knew where he was at after the swim.  Ignorance IS bliss, I guess!

SI picked the Steelers to finish 3rd in their division -- ahead only of my Browns.  Is there a bit of gloom about the Steelers this season?  I figured they'd be battling for 1st with Baltimore, but SI sees it differently.  Huh.

DAVE again -

He (Bruce Gianniny) was 15th overall in the swim.  His time was 11:56, mine was 15:43 -- good for a 3:47 thrashing!

The best was 9:43, and owned by a 50-54 guy!

DAVE -

Interesting post from you!

1. Had I known he was in front of me on the swim........nothing would've changed - much.  I do not have a top-end swim speed, so i would've had to let him forge ahead.  I have been in several situations where I knew someone I "cared" about was swimming away from me, and I just kind of had to let it happen.
2. When I said in my previous post that I would've freaked and would've had to get desperate and risk burying myself on the bike, well, that's as dire as it would've gotten.  So, in a sense, it was good that I didn't know anything about him, or knew his number and color of gear.....and so it's kind of good that he had such a huge lead on me!
3. At Mightyman Montauk half-iron in '09, Ian Dargin (in my a.g.) passed me a bit over haslfway through the bike.  I had only met him at the tracks that day, so didn't know his relative strengths and weaknesses.  I hung with him for about 6-8 miles, maybe, and then let him go ahead without me.  I knew I was really at my limits to ride hard and then turn in a decent run (on a very tough course), so i backed off and held my doable pace -- and trusted that I could get him on the run.  At about mile 4 I saw him on an out-and-back, and knew I was only a few minutes behind him.  And sure enough, about 7 or 8 minutes later I caught him, and that was that.  So, that was one of those days in which I heeded my warning signals on the bike and trusted my abilities on the run --- and gambled that Ian was going so hard that he would fall apart on the run -- and it mostly turned out that way.  In talking with him afterwards, and then looking at some of his results, he is almost always a powerful cyclist but a none-too-strong runner, so now I know that f I go up against him again, I will just let him do his thing and then I can probably reel him in on the run.

I lost a post earlier today, so i will submit this now and continue in a while.

DAVE again -

To continue:

1. No, I didn't know when I passed him, as it happened in T2 -- barely.  My math tells me (I'm almost embarrassed to admit to I put this much thought into these things.....)  that I finished 2:47 ahead of him (1:13:00 vs 1:15:47), and that my run was 2:37 better than his (23:31 vs 26:08), so I left T2 10 seconds ahead of him.  That maybe explains why he told me after the awards that he thought about throwing a block on me during the out-and-back part of the run, because he was close enough to me for a short while coming out of T2 to see my age on my leg.  So, he was "stalking" me at that point ---- and I had no idea!
2. You say that the mental stuff bakes your noodle.....but somehow I think you will learn to love it and revel in it.  Call it a hunch!  Mostly, i love it, but.............
3. Starting maybe in '09, I began to really tire of "putting on my game face" late in the season.  By this I mean it got tough to be/feel so competitive, and paying attention to my worthy opponents and fussing about them at the exclusion of just going out and having fun racing.  If there were on-line participant lists, I would scour them to see who would be a challenge for me, and barring that, i would hope for lists to be posted at packet pick-up.  That's how I learned at Lake George Tri a couple years ago that one Win Thomas was in the race, and in his heyday he was superb -- I couldn't've beaten him in a month of Sundays.  So, i fussed quite a bit about what i would need to do to beat him, and carreid that angst into and through the race, but I had a super race that day and he didn't,  so i beat him by about 10 minutes.  But did I have fun in the process.  nope.  Not at all.  I was out of the water before him (his bike was near mine in transition)........and spent the rest of the race figuratively looking back over my shoulder --- which is no way to have fun in a race. 
4. The past couple of seasons have seen me go into, say, September feeling pretty much at ease from race to race to race, but then those late ones just seemed laden with preformance and placement pressures.  That was part of the reason why i was late starting the current season, cuz I thought that if I started late I might run out of races before the pressures hit me.  (And that's probably no way to run a season!)
5. The irony of my various wonks and niggles is that they have taken some of the pressures away from me, in that I'm never sure how my body will peform in terms of injury or "breakdown".  So, the last two races have been done while NOT in peak form, and that has succeeded in removing some of the self-inflicted pressure that comes from not having any "excuses" to do less than my absolute best.  I thought I had a good one yesterday......but I was thrilled to see the posted results with  "1/19"* under the age-group-placement column.  I just wasn't at all sure in the couple of days pre-race that my body would deliver like it did!  (* Later changed to 15, due to four guys either not showing, or not finishing).

I'll post again and return for one more.