Jenny (jsnowash)'s Spring Guinea Pig Group - CLOSED (Page 19)

I go back for a check-up on July 20th.  I have some family stuff going on that will eat into training for a week so I'm going to focus on swimming and biking in until I get a go from the doc.  Then I'm going to reset all my run training and see how it goes.  I think it will come back pretty quick if I maintain my aerobic base and cycling.  Going to do a lot of track running (I have a cushioned track 1 mile from home) and also try to run on grass more often.  It is what it is and just have to move forward.

Janette,  ?RELAX.

B?reath in through the nose....out through the mouth.  repeat......

1) ?Seriously, Your race is over a month away-you got PLENTY of time.  You'll get better and better after every OWS practice.  Trust us.  You are going to be FINE.  You just have to wrap your head around the idea that the swim is a bit confusing/scary/disorienting/exciting/spooky/intimidating.  EVERYBODY is feeling it-some of them can just hide it better than others.

2)  See if there is a "Special Needs" table or any accomidations for glasses etc.  You should be able to get your glasses immediately after getting out of the water.  As far as being 'discombobulated"- just slooowwww down when you get out of the water.  I've even seen people go to there hands and knees for a few seconds to get oriented before standing.  Sure and steady usually ends up being pretty fast.  As far as your vision; can you see your hand in the water?  Can you see bubbles?  The water has a little bit of optical correction that should help you see a bit.  If you can see your own hand it might be more comforting.  If you can see bubbles in front of you-FOLLOW THEM.  They're being created by the swimmers in front of you.  Let them do your sighting for you.

3)  Rubber legs are normal and I've not found any way to prevent them.  As others have said, there are some tricks to make them slightly less rubbery, but (IMO) Bricks are the best thing you can do.  They don't make yourmlegs feel better, but they get you USED to the feeling of having rubber legs.  The fear that creeps into my head during races is always the unknown/unfamiliar stuff.  If I can reproduce experiences during training-it's always (mentally) easier during actual races.

YOU CAN DO THIS!  Trust your training and trust your HEART. 

Did 2000ish last night in the pool.  felt blah, stroke wasn't smooth and the whole 2000 felt labored.  Long story short...it was ok timewise, but not comfortable.

Went out running this morning and more of the same blah.  Ran 3 miles at a decent clip, then faded quickly, so I listened to my body and walked home.

This week has been rough with work and my travel schedule.  I probably got 4ish hours of sleep per night (at best) since Monday, so I'm in a huge deficit.  I was hoping to power through a 6-8 mile run this morning, but the lack of sleep probably caught up with me.  No biggie.  I'll goto bed early for the next few night to catch-up.

Hope everyone has a good Friday!

Hey, GP's.  Thanks so much for all your great advice and support.  I read somewhere on here that, "Worry is NOT preparation!"  So.... I ran a bike/run brick this morning and spent the last 5 minutes on the bike stretching my calves and spinning in a higher gear.  Ran through the wobble and cramped calves and felt back to normal by about 8 minutes into the run.  Then I lined up a friend to swim with me on Sunday.  Then I called the eye doctor and made an appointment to get fitted for a single contact for just my distance vision (one eye with an old softball injury can't accomodate a contact, but one eye vision may just work).  Then I sent an email to the RD of my sprint tri to find out about the buoys, the layout of the swim and a "special needs" table.  (Jeff - that made me laugh, because that is my husband's word for me when I am being high maintenance!) Next, I plan to make a new playlist for my pre-race prep and call it, "Chill Pill!"   Thanks for your comments.  So - new quote, "Good luck is the residue of preparation."

Have a great weekend!

Hey all.  

Got some sleep last night and fueled-up better, and I had a good 10 mile run this morning.  I started off at a more measured pace, and tried to maintain it, which I think I did pretty well.  I felt pretty good throughout.  Definitely could have gone farther...felt like i had another 2-3 miles in me...but since yesterday was so rough, i decided to stop at 10.  

Tomorrow morning, my plan is to take a long bike ride.  Hopefully my alarm actually wakes me up this time...

Hope everyone is well. 

Happy Saturday!

Daddy Pigs, is it?!  That is cute.  Happy belated Father's Day to you fellas. 

I did a nice bike ride on Saturday, took Sunday off to pamper my hubby, and a good long run this morning.  I also worked in 18 holes of golf.  The old man and the kids had the cart and I huffed around the course with my pull cart.  I have dumped my entire bag of clubs too many times when I carry them myself that now I resort to the old lady pull gizmo.    Great weekend!

Happy Monday to all!  Great weather here in NY.  

Last night I 'treated' myself to a 1.5 hour ride on my indoor bike.  It was a good ride.  Instead of putting the hammer down (ie. 20-21mph), I read the weekend newspapers (yes, I still receive actual paper copies of them...) and maintained an 18.5ish mph pace.  It was still a good workout nonetheless.  

Hope to get to the pool tonight.  We'll see.  Sort of feel the need to 'redeem' myself from last Thursday's swim.  Last Thursday's swim felt labored.  It wasn't that slow per se, but it wasn't that smooth either.  So hopefully tonight will go better.

First race of the season is probably next Sunday.  It's an oly distance race that I've done two times already.  I haven't signed-up for it yet...I'll make the 'game time' decision sometime on Friday.  I soft circled this race earlier this year, so we'll see.  I'm leading towards yes, but it'll depend on how my body is feeling towards the end of the week.  

BTW, I hope everyone on the DL is healing and getting better fast!

I did a nice Brick this morning.  First, 20 miles on the Bike at Larchmont's Newspaper reading pace - which is decidedly faster than reading pace for me.    Then 2 miles running at GA pace - 2 miles only because that's all I had time for.

To help promote a healthy lifestyle and to encourage some weight loss, my company is sponsoring a Summer walking program, called "Walk 10,000 Steps a Day".  They have given out pedometers that we wear all day long and then we log our daily Steps on an Internet database.  They total up and average out the steps per week and keep track of the stores/districts/offices who are leading and so forth.

For those who are active in other ways, they have an equivalency table:  for example casual biking gets 200 steps per minute biked, moderate biking 250, and strenuous biking 300.  So, from my moderate Biking this morning I got 16,658 steps, plus 3,103 for the 2 mile run (1 step running equals 1 step walking), plus other walking getting ready for work, etc. I already have over 20,000 Steps for today (as of 8:15 AM).

Bill

Hey all.  It's going to be a hot couple of days here in NY.  Heat index upto 100 today and likely a few degrees hotter tomorrow.  With an oly distance race on Sunday, I have to taper a bit anyway, so this "too hot for training" weather is fine with me.

BTW, I've decided to do that oly distance race on Sunday morning.  I'm getting excited about it - first race of the season for me!  Overall, I feel pretty good...a few aches and pains here and there, but I think I'm well prepared for Sunday, other than I need to get some rest.  I'm still behind on sleep from the past few weeks...

Hope everyone is doing well out there.  

Happy Wednesday.

Brian - first day of summer is rolling in the heat it seems.  Good luck with your race this weekend.

I did some hill workouts on my bike this morning for an hour and then transitioned into a half hour run.  Hills always make me humble, but the running felt pretty good.  I had a funny encounter with a wild turkey on one of the hills.  No, not the Wild Turkey from a whiskey bottle - this was a real live gobbler.  For some reason, he darted out of the brush to cross the road right as I was coming up at about 10 mph, breathing hard, and he darted and dashed like he couldn't figure which way I was going.  It was kind of comical watching him.

Happy trails, Turkeys!

Very nice HIM Jenny!  I may try one of those next year.  I could probably hang with you on the Bike and the Run.  But you would sink my sorry behind on the Swim!

I ran a 6 mile Wave Run this morning with miles 3 and 5 at Tempo pace.  I was not at all sure how fast I'd be able to run these - not having run hard(er) in 2 or 3 months - but all in all it went pretty well.  7:50-ish for the Tempos.  But it was definitely too warm and sticky this morning.  Even after showering I was still sweating.  So I sat around in my jean shorts and waited till I cooled down completely before putting on the work clothes.  (I hate sweating in work clothes).

Today is my Last Day of the Decade of the 50's.  Tomorrow I start the 60's.  Hard to believe.  Where do the Years go?  I feel about 45 physically and about 35 mentally.  (My wife would dispute the latter.)

Bill

Bill - Happy pre-birthday!  I turned 44 on Saturday and got id'd going into a bar on Monday evening so the number on the calendar is just a number, right?  I know, what was I doing in a bar on a Monday!!

Jenny - awesome race.  Tell me what you mean by "the power meter" on your bike leg.  I understand the HR zone, but is there another measure of effort?

I ran my steady 6 mile loop this morning.  I am headed to the pool this afternoon.  My recent OWS have been discouraging so I want to do just plain swimming staring at the line on the bottom of the pool to find a zone and see what that feels like again.

Going to a bar on a Monday evening....no explanation needed.  We've all been there.  But getting carded, congrats!  

Probably both.  Heat takes a good two weeks or so to acclimate to if you're not used to it.  Heat is the enemy of running.

And they say it takes about one day per mile raced to fully recovery from a Running Race.  I don't know how that holds up in Triathlon's - 70.3 days is a LONG time to recover.  But still, you gotta be worn out from the HIM.  Take it really easy for a few more days and you'll be good to go.

Bill

Did my pool swimming last night.  Kind of a relief to be in the relative safety of the pool - although I say that hesitantly because now I can see the bottom, I also see exactly what the summer pool swimming kids have left behind by way of debris.  Ewww.....

Just to prove to myself that I could, I swam my race distance twice without stopping at the wall or breaking into a different stroke.  So the gasping freak out in the open water is just in my noggin'.  I think it is helpful for me to know that I can swim that far without stopping or touching bottom.  

Nice bike ride early this morning.  It was kind of cool entering my work outs on the training log to observe that I did all three disciplines each for an hour within a 24 hour period - all with pretty good intensity.  My one day triathlon.  Now to just break down the 10 hour transitions between the 3 into what, say 2 minutes?!  No problem.

Have a great weekend!

Hey all, happy Monday!

Here's a short recap of my oly distance race yesterday.  Overall, it went really well.  I was fairly happy with my time - I set a PR, so that was good.  The swim leg went well.  The temperature of the water was really nice (esp. since I don't swim with a wetsuit), and the start wasn't too chaotic, though I got kicked and hit a few times throughout the race.  I beat last year's time by a minute and a half.  Bike leg went well - beat last year's time.  The last two miles are uphill - not Tour de France style hills, but uphill nonetheless.  I did decently well, but my legs were just about empty by the time I crested the final hill.  The run was ok and was faster than last year's time, though I was hoping to go even faster.  Oh well, I still set a PR, so I can't complain.  

So long story short, it was a good day out.  I got a good test of my fitness with this race.  Let's just say that I will be incorporating more long distance bike/run bricks in my training plan.

I hope everyone is having a good day.  

Brian - great job on your Oly race.  A PR is awesome and improving your time in every leg is something to brag about.  All those late nights on the dreadmill and sweating on your trainer paid off!  You also have the added benefit of catching up on your reading and knowing all the movie titles!

Montana has had several days of wind and very hot weather.  My temperature guage read 109 degrees yesterday afternoon with the wind blowing like crazy - really ugly and dry.  I did early morning runs to try and avoid the heat and not take the brunt of the wind on my bike.  Ugh.

I had an interesting swim on Sunday.  The pool I use has lap swimming for an hour and then open pool for kids for two hours.  I finished my laps with the kids lined up on the edge in goggles and water wings watching me waiting to pounce!  Pretty cute.  My kids came and joined the fun so I stayed in the water another 2 hours, but I put on one of those running belt things to play with the kids.  It certainly wasn't swimming, but I got a little extra workout that's for sure.  Oh, and prune feet and fingers, too!

Stay cool!

Heat must have everyone a little sluggish.  It was a record breaking 111 degrees here yesterday with wildfires burning in the area so hazy and smokey.  I stayed indoors and rode on my trainer with my fan.  Hey, that's kind of like resistance, right?!  I am going to tackle another OWS sometime this week, but just waiting to get enough time together.

Happy training.

@Janette - Thanks.  It was a great day out, and you're right, anytime you can set a PR, it's a very good day.  

BTW, our group seems really quiet, doesn't it?  Hope everyone is doing well.

As for me, I've taken a couple of days off after my race...but tonight it's time to get back in the saddle, figuratively and literally.  Planning for a 1.5 hr - 2hr indoor bike ride tonight.  Movie selection, probably "Fast Five", the latest installment of the "Fast and Furious" series.  

Next race is less than 3 weeks away, and it's a HIM.  Game on!