Team KiterChick - CLOSED (Page 19)

Hi all! I took yesterday off so I could take my dog to the vet, but then took advantage of the beautiful afternoon weather and went on my first outdoor ride since January 1st. It was a 28M out and back, and I have to admit that the first half was rough. More uphill and with a strong headwind, but that made for a fun ride home! Pace was discouraging, since I've dropped a lot from my peak last fall, but I'm not nearly as slow as the beginning of last season, so hopefully I'll bounce back a lot more quickly this year.

Tyler - Glad you're enjoying running. I'm sure you'll see a lot of gains over the next several months if you keep at it!

Ken - Wow, I checked out your training log, and I have to say that it puts mine to shame. I'll have to try harder to keep up starting next month! Hope your calf is healing up nicely...

Hubbie - I have my fingers crossed for good X-ray results. Hopefully it's just a minor injury that is taking a while to heal since it's in a joint that gets a lot of use.

After a couple of days of lazimess, I finally got back on track with a trainer ride last night and a swim today.  I hope for a short run tonight to loosen my legs up for tomorrow's 10 miler, which is a fairly long distance for me.  I think for tomorrow's long run, I may just aim for a good run as opposed to trying to dial in a specific time (which is easy to say know, but hard to put into practice).

I got my 910 on Tuesday and spent Wednesday night setting-it up.  So far, I just have last nights training ride on it, so no reviews yet.  I'll get in the pool soon though.

Nice bike Hubbie.  I am trying to get a new one myself.  Its has been a tough sell.  

Friday's run was really tough.  My calf is still injured.  I am going to try compression for my 20 mile run tomorrow.  Wish me luck.  

Hubbie- nice bike!

Did my 10 mile run today, went better than last week.  I zoned out a bit on the sidewalk around mile 2, and tripped over an uneven piece of sidewalk.  Did a tumble, got up and kept going the other 8.5 miles.  Once I got home I realized not only did I rip my pants, but both of my gloves, and my knee had bled so much the pants were stuck to my leg.  I am such a klutz.  Still, a good run.

Good luck, be careful, and have a great run!

My run went really well yesterday.  I was really pleased with it.  The compression sleeve worked like a charm.  I felt very little pain and was able to maintain a sub 8:00 pace.  Hoping in 2 weeks I will be able to hold a sub 7:45 pace.  

Training plan called for a 20 minute bike ride, so this afternoon I went out and put 5 miles on my bike, first ride of the year!!!

Hi everyone! I'm now in the month buildup to my first race of the season, so I need to start ramping things up a bit. I know, I should have done that sooner, but I'm not really expecting to take this race too seriously, it will just be fun to get out there again. Swim clinic on Sunday was great, and my coach offered to set me up with some organized drills for the coming month to get me ready for the race. I'm planning on doing the first set tonight. I also went on a 6M run on Sunday. As usual, my hamstring was not cooperating as much as I'd like, although I can still run through it. I may start doing all of my runs with compression tights, and make sure to ice my leg afterward to see if that helps.

In other news, my 910xt ended up shipping earlier than anticipated, and I should be getting it tonight! I won't be going home before my swim, but I'll be sure to start toying with it starting tomorrow. I'm so excited!

Ken - I'm so glad to hear you had a great run, especially with it being a long one!

Tyler - That's great you got an opportunity to get your bike outside. How did it feel?

Hubbie - Sorry you had a rough run yesterday. You are crazy hardcore with the running in shorts when it's cold out. Do you not own any tights, or are you just more comfortable in shorts?

Don't feel too bad about the Spinervals DVD. You probably just went out too fast. If you do it a couple of times, you'll get a better feel of what level you should be doing each workout at in order to have enough energy to push through the entire disc.

As for the aero bar pads, I've admittedly never washed mine. They'll dry, and trust me, mine are absolutely soaked after my trainer sessions. It probably wouldn't hurt to rinse them off, and I should probably consider doing that every now and then, but I think it would be a pain to do it every time.

It was fun!  A lot more chilly then I thought, but it was a good time.  I can't wait to get some more miles on it!

Beginning my taper for my marathon coming up.  So my running miles will decrease over the next couple of weeks.  

I have a question for those who have completed a full marathon.  I have put a lot of pressure on myself to run a certain pace.  My normal run pace.  When it come time for the marathon how much of a dropoff should I expect in the final 1/4 of the race?  

First, let me say that I'd be surprised if you don't ultimately run faster than your normal run pace during the race. The trick is to not run too much faster too early. Of course there are a number of other factors that could come into play as well. Here are a few of my breakdowns for the great, the good and the very ugly (all relative of course) to give you an idea:

The Great: Steamtown Marathon - 18M 2:36:21, Finish 3:46:04 (8:41 pace up to 18M, 8:30 pace 18M-finish) This was my only negative split race!

The Good: Philadelphia Marathon - 30K 2:47:42, Finish 3:58:53 (9:01 pace up to 30K, 9:22 pace 30K-finish) This was still a great finish for me, but my pace was clearly dropping off for the last several miles...

The Ugly: Key Bank VT City Marathon - 13.1M 2:04:21, 20M 3:25:02, Finish 4:31:52 (9:30 pace to the half, 11:40 pace 13.1M-20M and 10:47 pace 20M-finish) This was an extremely disappointing race for me. I felt as though my training had gone well coming into it, but it was somewhat hot and I just fell apart. Just an example that you never know what is going to happen race day...

Hope this was helpful!

Awesome.  That is really encouraging.  Thanks, 

Hi everyone. I finally got my new Garmin 910 yesterday It was pretty easy to customize since I have the 305 and a lot of the options are set in the same way, so this morning is all set and ready to rock. I am taking it to the pool today, and I can't wait! 

Today and tomorrow are swim days, since Saturday morning is my 15k race in the Gasparilla Distance Classic and I want to keep my legs as fresh as possible.

Yesterday was scary, I was doing speed work on the treadmill, and during one of the intervals the fuse or something gave out and the machine suddenly stopped. Luckily I reacted fast and was able to plant my foot down and jump back, or I would have smashed myself into the screen of the treadmill. Getting injured right before Gasparilla would have sucked!

Hope everyone has a great day! 

Sebastian

Hi all! I've now used my new 910xt for a run and a trainer ride over the past two days. Unfortunately, it's clearly having HRM issues. I haven't gotten a chance to upload the data, but it told me I had an average HR of 103 for my 10K run yesterday. That's clearly quite low. I thought it may have been that it wasn't wet enough, since I was running outside in winter, but I used it for my trainer workout this morning, and had some similar issues. My workout involved a 3x10 min LT effort, which I've done before, so I know relatively where I should be from RPE alone. For the first 10 minutes, it read in the ballpark, but I felt as though it should have been a bit higher (~160 instead of my LT of 170). The second set was normal, but partway through the third set, it started dropping a lot. At one point it was at <90. I tried moving it around, but it didn't help. I'll probably try pairing it up with my old HRM tomorrow, but I'd still like to see if I can get the new one to work, since I like that it's a snugger fit. That, and it cost an extra $50 to get it included!

Beth - That feels weird to call you that! I'm with you on mentally still wanting to bike as hard as where I left off in the fall. We'll regain that fitness soon enough though, and in the meantime, just listen to where your body feels it's at now...

Will - You really are a southern guy, aren't you? It didn't even snow that much! Sorry, just ribbing you a bit. I ran in a couple of the blizzards we had last year, and actually like running in the snow, but I know that some people are more sensitive than others. At least you get outside at all in the winter, since some chain themselves to the treadmill for that entire time!

Sebastian - I'm curious to hear how the 910xt is in the pool. I'm hoping to get mine in on Saturday if the gym in my hometown allows day passes. At least I won't have to worry about the HRM there! That's crazy about the treadmill shorting out. I'm impressed you caught yourself too. I'm such a zombie on those things, I'd probably have ran straight through it!

Sarah, sorry you are having trouble with the HRM. Mine has worked fine so far, hope you can resolve the issues soon.

I took my Garmin to the pool today and I loved it. It gave me a wealth of information, and is particularly useful to understand efficiency as well as knowing if the intervals that are supposed to be negative splits truly are so. This has been harder to gauge in the past, since going harder in the second half of an interval not always means going faster.

Anyway, the only issue I had was in the lengths in which I did breast and back, in some cases the Garmin got confused. Not so important, but we'll see how it goes with that in the future. You can look at my log if you are interested in all the details I got from it.

Its funny, but the delayed spring we have up here in New England is the only time of year it really gets to me.  My body tells me that its March and should be in the 60s and 70s right now, so having to put on tights and gloves to go outside and run is depressing.  It doesn't help that all of my friends and family start calling to rub it in as well (although I do the same when we are having a great summer and its to hot for them to even go outside).

Looking back at my log, the first two months of 2012 have been okay.  I am a little behind where I wanted to be, but pretty happy with where I am versus this time last year.  My Half Marathon is in two weeks, and I have my log run scheduled for Saturday (14 miles).  Next week is a speed oriented week, then a light week leading up to the race.

Have a great weekend eveyone.

Will