FancyPants Group- CLOSED (Page 2)

"Happy New Year" fellow "Fancy Pants-ers"

It's 39 degrees in Boise with a cold rain falling...and I'm doing an OWS at 10:00 hours MST.

The Great Polar Bear Challenge raises money for the Idaho Make-A-Wish Foundation.  Last year it was 15 degrees and blowing snow so it should feel like a tropical vacation this year.  I'm even thinking of doing a couple 'laps' before I crawl out of the lake and into a hot tub clutching three (or more) fingers of fine bourbon.  So, what's everyone else doing today?????

I'm going to shoot for 20 miles on the trainer in the basement today before the Penn State game.  I was going to ride outside, but I just checked the temp and it's 20.  I'd run outside today, but not bike.  A bit too much of a wind chill for me.

I think I'm going to go and join the Y tomorrow, so I may be posting some swim workouts soon....

Anne - Take care of those migraines.  The only thing that cures them for me is sleep!

Jeff - I hope you enjoyed your plunge today.

How's everybody else doing?

Matt

on edit - made it 14 trainer miles before boredom and my son's nagging to move the wii to the basement got the better of me....

Brr on the polar bear swim!  How did it go?

Anne, winter is definitely back here in Ohio, I'm not happy with it either.  Ugh..although my 2 youngest daughters are excited we're going skiing/snowboarding on Saturday.  We couldn't go last week because of how warm it was.  It will be fun to get out and get my first time back on the boards this season.

Re Master's swim team - Mine is a very organized group...we have about 4 or 5 lanes with the first lane being the slowest.  As you improve and get faster they move you up to higher lanes.  We have a coach and he writes the workout on a board and then of course is right there to help explain it.  Since I never swam competatively I'm asking asking him what the heck is...a DPS swim or what do you mean descending?  Our coach is great and is always helpful and never makes me feel dumb.  He also alters the work out for our 2 slowest lanes.  So if he has the fastest lanes doing 6 100's he'll have us do 4 100's or 5 100's.  Our group does have competition and several of the people do go to the competations, but several don't.  Some people are just there to learn how to swim and to get the exercise.  Some go to every work out, others just to a few.  They usually have very flexible payment plans because they know they attract those type of people. 

I have thought about joining a gym with a pool, but having the other people to swim with and to "compete" against I think makes me work harder.  I'm really wanting to get out of the slow lane and feel I'm able to hang with the "big boys"

Hope everyone had a happy new year. 

Good morning.  I got up early and hit the treadmill today.  It started ice/sleet on the way back.  I have family coming today and needed to get my workout out of the way before they get here.  It's going to be a tricky week to fit in training as my mother is going to be at my house for a week working on my daughter's wedding dress.  Luckily I usually work out at lunch so that shouldn't really cut into that...although explaining why I have to leave the house at 5 am to go swim might be a little different.

I had an assessment yesterday with a personal trainer at my gym I just joined.  He swears he can help me lose that last 10 lbs that I've been trying to lose for 3 years and also make sure I can run my half in 2 hours or less.  It all sounds really great except for the cost after my 3 free sessions.  As someone who has never spent money on herself for things like this I am already struggling with the guilt of the monthly gym membership and the cost of the Masters team.  I just can't justify spending another 1K.  I'm hoping that I can pick up enough from him during my next 2 sessions to figure out on my own how to do it.

I know I can come up iwht my own training schedule for the 1/2 marathon and I think I can finish in at least 2:15:00  But I'm hoping that by adding strength training (which I've never done much of) I can make sure that I lose that last 10 lbs. 

Anyone had any stories about how a PT helped you or didn't?  Or even if you struggled to lose that last 10 lbs and what changes you made to finally do it? 

Anne - I did read your post above about not looking at the scale, but instead paying attention to how your clothes fit.  I do feel my clothes fit better and look better, but when I get out the measuring tape, I haven't lost an inch.  So I think that may just be wishful thinking for me.   I'm definitely happy with how I look now as opposed to 4 years ago when I was 40 lbs heavier...but I am extremely frustrated with this last 10 that won't go away. 

Okay, I'm not a paid spokesperson for the masters programs, but.....

I spent 10 minutes with the coach this morning after she watched me swim 2 laps.  She gave me a few tips, a few observations and a drill or two to do.  Well, in the next  50 minutes, I needed to rest less, I swam 400 yards farther and didn't feel nearly as fatigued as I did during my swim yesterday.  I'm really glad that I joined the Y, instead of just joining a gym with a pool.  The masters program at my Y was the main incentive to go the Y route, and I'm extremely happy that I did.

I'm really looking forward to a month or two from now when I have a higher level of comfort in the water.  My two most glaring problems were that I wasn't kicking well, and that I was keeping my head too high in the water.  Both of these things were cauing my hips to sink, and that was making my upper body work that much harder to keep myself going.

Matt

I agree the Masters program is awesome.  I was a lifeguard in high school but never swam competively.  I had the same problem my head was too high and I wasn't kicking well.  Probably because when I was swimming I was suppose to be looking for the person in front of me so I could save them...not trying to swim faster than people beside me.

Glad you are getting a lot out of your program

Anne - Give Mike my condolences.  I hurt my shoulder a few years ago and was amazed at how much pain a PT can inflict with a 1 lb weight.  Hope it's nothing serious.

Ginny and Anne - Good luck with those last 10 lbs.  You can do it!  I'm proof.  I'm a weight watchers success.  I never went to any of the meetings or even enrolled in their program, but I did piggy back with my wife while she was going.  I'm not sure what my ideal weight is supposed to be, but as of right now, my BMI (I know that's not a great indicator of weight) is 24.0.  At my absolute heaviest, I was 197 lbs.  Which is A LOT on a 5' 8" frame.  I'm at 157.7 right now, so I'm within a pound of having lost 40.  This was done in two phases.  My first attempt got me down to around 170, then I got lazy and went back up to 180 or so.  This last time, not only did I get much more strict with myself about my diet, but that's when I started running.  I'm thinking that my ideal weight would be somewhere around 150 as I still have 19% body fat, but if I can keep myself between 155 and 160 I'd be thrilled.  The thing that helped me the most with my weight loss was keeping a food journal.  I just use a little spiral notepad - the kind that you used to write your homework assignments in.  Small, easy to keep in a kitchen drawer, and easy to use.  Every day get's it's own page.  Writing down everything really opened my eyes to exactly how much absolute crap I put into my body.

Everyone - I'm not dealing with an injury, but I do have a general question.  I've been running for the last 6 months or so, and have felt like I've been getting stronger and stronger.  I've always ridden my bike as well.  Since I started to think about tri's, I've been riding more seriously, and going for a really good workout instead of just a leisurely pedal.  Since I've started doing the bike more, I've noticed that my runs are more difficult.  I'm just seeming to fatigue sooner that I'm used to on my runs.  I have a garmin, so I keep track of pace/distance/etc.  I'm not running faster than normal, and I am increasing my mileage slowly, but this week is a cut back week and even on a short 3 mile run on Monday and today's 4 mile run, I was pooped.  I'm thinking that I might just be over-doing the legs a bit and maybe I should cut down on the bike a bit for now - at least cut back on the bike intervals and just pedal easy for 30 - 40 minutes.  I don't want to cut down on the run as I'm training for the Broad Street Run in May (10 miles), so getting miles in my Aasics is a priority right now.  I need to build to being able to race a 10 miler.  

Does my thinking seem to be on the right track?

Matt

Hi Mike -

I'm following a smartcoach from runnersworld.com 1/2 marathon plan.  I've modified it a bit just to even out the lengths of some of the runs.  For example on an 18 mile week, they call for an easy run of 2 miles, a 6 mile run with 4 miles of tempo, another 2 mile easy run and a long run of 8 miles.  An example of the change that I made was to change it to 3, 5 /w 3 tempo, 2 and 8.  I leave the long run alone, but just try and balance out the distances of the other runs a little more so that it doesn't seem like I'm doing one long run a week and one almost as long run a week.  This plan started with 13 mile weeks, and it builds up to a max of a 25 mile week two weeks prior to the end of the plan.

I think the problem was that I was overdoing it with the bike.  I was spinning easy for 10 minutes to warm up, then doing 5 minute intervals in a much bigger gear at a much slower tempo.  Now that I'm typing it out, how could my legs NOT be tired?  I'll just stick with the spinning for now until I adjust, then slowly add in harder bike workouts.  With the bike right now, I'm really just trying to build a little bit of a base so that I can go out and not have to start from scratch in the spring.

Matt

A road bike with aerobars, and it hasn't been fitted since I bought it.  Maybe that is in order.  I'll just spin for a while and see that it gets better.

Thanks everyone!

I skipped the bike last night and swam this morning.  I was supposed to run 4 easy miles at lunch today, but it turned into a tempo run.  My problem was overdoing it on the bike.  I didn't feel 100% back to normal, but it was definitely better than the last two runs. 

Have a good weekend everyone!  I'm supposed to get together with high school friends, some of whom I haven't seen in over 20 years.  Hope we don't get snowed out!

Matt