Menglo's Mentoring Group - Closed (Page 2)

when i first started riding seriously i went on a group ride with a local triathlon club.  remember i'm a former Marine so i can do anything and bullets bounce off of me and all that cool stuff.  so i decided i would keep up with the "A" group who were doing about 50 miles.  well i got dropped but eventually i was able to catch up to a girl.  so i thought this might not be too bad.  plus, all women love Marines because we are awesome!!!  anyway, we pull up to a stop sign and i unclip my right foot.  the only problem was my bike decided to lean to the left and i went down.  the girl then says, "it's ok......nobody saw you."  and i haven't seen her since haha. 

moral of the story.........a bullet will not bounce off me, not all women love Marines, and even though you unclip one foot the bike might decide to go the other way. 

tipping over happens to everybody.  just laugh and realize it will probably happen again.

We've all been there... Whenever it happens to me I pick myself up, dust off, and say, "ouch... my pride"  9 times out of 10 I'm relatively unscathed luckily enough.  Most of my experiences falling over while clipped in were while mountain biking, which isn't as bad, the animals don't talk too much (as far as I know).  I'm fortunate enough that where I did most of my riding I didn't have to stop much....  So its happened very little on the road bike. 

I've got a Sprint in a month, another in two months and an Olympic in 3 months.  I've just been building a base for the last 3 months hoping that I'll make the Sprint with this base.  I think I should get a program for the Oly.  I checked out the 20 week Oly plan on the BT site.  Since I only have 13 weeks until the Oly, I'm thinking of jumping into the program now (@13 weeks from the end).  The minutes required are already within my range of training. What about using mileage instead of minutes?  Your thoughts?

Really, its a personal preference.  I like biking by mileage, because of wind, it can be hard to gauge how much time you really have to ride into the wind.  So I have a tendancy to ride too short or too long, usually too hard at very least.  Go with whichever you feel works best for you.  

I think going with the Oly plan is a great idea.  I'm a huge advocate of speed through volume.

Running is my weakest of all three. Is there anything i can do now, so i can run better. like right now, i die after running for 15 minutes.

A few tips, first of all, stick with it!  Running can be tough to get, but once you get it, it just comes.

There is a saying here on BT that goes thusly: "run lots, mostly slow, sometimes fast"

Try to hold your pace at conversational.  You should be able to hold a conversation with someone relatively comfortable while running.  This may mean running VERY slow, but its the most assured way to stay injury free.

Form, try to maintain proper form.  This is a VERY personalized thing because everyone is comfortable with something different.  I would suggest trying to stay to a "mid-foot strike".  The best way to achieve this is to make sure that your feet are striking the ground under your center of gravity (hips).  Try to imagine that your upper body is "floating" all your movements should be to push you forward, not up and down (which tends to be the tendency with a lot of beginner runners).  I usually use the noise my feet are making as an indicator of how my form is.  If they seem to be hitting the ground really hard, chances are I'm overstriding.  I have little to no noise while running on (relatively) flat ground when I maintain good form.

This will feel very awkward at first but you'll get used to it.  I changed my form last august and shaved 20 sec/mile off my pace alone.

Also, try to keep your arms at your sides, relaxed upper body, and a LIGHT arm swing.

This is a lot of information but really focus on proper form and the speed will eventually come, I promise.  Like I said before, I'm a HUGE advocate of speed through volume training. 

I was in the same boat with my running and that caused me to hate running with a passion.

As Menglo said, I think the key is to slow down.  I ended up buying a heart rate monitor to train for my first 5K a couple of years ago and found out that I was running WAY to hard for a training run.  Once I slowed down to a pace where my HR wasn't in the 180s running became, dare I say it, enjoyable...

to stir up some conversation about triathlon and so we can share some knowledge I'm going to try and ask a question every couple of days.  If you don't know what we're talking about, speak up.  We can learn a lot from each other!  So question for discussion:

What do you drink for recovery after a workout?


I'm a chocolate milk guy (sometimes I think its the only reason I get out of bed so early to workout!).  If I'm swimming in the afternoon and had a particularly hard workout in the morning,  I'll nurse some Gatorade during the day.

It really all depends on how hard I work out. If persay, i was running and when i was done, i could taste the salt dripping off my lips; i would drink something with electrolytes. Or I biked 60km (when i solely used to do cycling).

But for the most part I drink water. Still in the weight loss process.

Someone once told me that if you mix a little bit of salt in your water and just drink that, then that works too.... but that just sounds nasty! I have not tried it yet. (i would imagine you would not put like a lot of salt in the water - maybe enough just to get it to change taste a little).

You can really get most of the sodium you need through food.  But if you look at the label on Gatorade it has quite a bit of sodium in it.  I think its along the same premise, its just a lot less expensive to put a pinch of salt in water!

Yesh much cheaper. and me being on student budget - that is goood

i don't pay enough attention to nutrition as i should.  lately it's been harder to get out of bed and do my morning workout.  i don't think that it's a case of over training.  so chocolate milk is a good recovery drink?  i was going to go to my LBS and check out some of the recovery drink mixes they sell but chocolate milk sounds a little cheaper.

usually for recovery i'll drink water or gatorade and eat a banana or a multigrain bar.

hmmm what i would not do for a chocolate milk right now....

....stupid apple

I normally just drink a whole lot of water because there isn't much else to drink in the house.  I could drink milk but I find that makes my throat all phlegmy after a run.

I always make sure to eat something to make up for the lack of nutrients in my drink.  Usually some form of dairy (low fat cheese or yogurt) and a piece of fruit or two.

I'm still experimenting: I mix it up depending upon outside temperature and level of exertion.  During cooldown, immediately after the bike or run, I'll drink some sportsdrink (there are many to choose from).  When my heart rate comes down and I cool off, I may take in some solid food: banana, Larabar, etc.  I try to drink chocolate soy milk within 30 minutes of completing my workout.
One thing that DOES NOT work for me is stopping at my grandaughter's lemonade stand immediately after finishing a 5.5 mile run...yes, I had two of the free cookies along with the strawberry lemonade...
One cheaper option for sports drink / electrolyte replenishment is lemon-lime flavored Electro Mix (made by Alacer Corp).  It is a powder and comes in small packets.  It's dye free, sodium free, calorie free and sugar free with 100 mg of potassium, 25 mg of calcium, 30 mg of magnesium.  I mix it with water or add some lime juice.  One packet makes 1 liter of drink.  Better and cheaper than Gatorade and you decide how strong you want to make the mix.  I think one packet cost about 50 cents...I think a box has 24 or 36 packets and I get it at the health food store.  If you keep some packets handy you can always produce a sports drink if you can find water.

Edited by jdseymour 2010-04-19 3:03 PM

Yup, I LOVE chocolate milk for recovery!  Still no science for pre-mixed vs. syrup in regular milk.  It helps me get through the mornings, Chocolates high in sugar so it gives you that spike in energy, and the milk itself is lower, with good fats and vitamins to keep you going.

Nothing too fancy... but I made up a link list so everyone can visit your fellow mentee's training logs!

Menglo's Mentoring Group

Menglo - Ryan
Whiz Bonker - AJ 
lanceho - Lance
amillers - Alisa
dboy25 - Joe 
Sucrizzle - Brad
jdseymour - Jeff  

To get it into your logs click quote on this post and copy the links, paste them into your logs!

All right, time to get to know each other a bit!  Post a picture from your life/of your life!

Ryan,

your link takes us to an amazon page.  thought you should know.

Oops!  Sorry bout that!  I'll fix that

Menglo's Mentoring Group

Menglo - Ryan
Whiz Bonker - AJ 
lanceho - Lance
amillers - Alisa
dboy25 - Joe 
Sucrizzle - Brad
jdseymour - Jeff  


Here's the fixed copy, sorry about that!

Hey everyone! Kinda fell off the wagon last week had some ugly GI bug and had a theory paper to write plan on running in the morning after work and have a 5k this saturday. Hope I don't die doing this need to ramp the training back up about three weeks to my first sprint with class over maybe I can get the training schedule More regular.

Better to be healthy than risk serious injury from being sick!  Keep with it, hopefully you'll be stronger than before for the rest.

Ok, here is a question...

When i was cycling a lot back in highschool, I bought these sunglasses that had headphones attached to them. and every since then i used them kind of every where i need them... running outside, hiking with friends (so i dont have to hear them whine about the steep hills - lol), most definately out cycling...

Am first off allowed to use these because of traffic regulations...like being able to hear the road and cars coming up behind you... and also because these are my only pair of good sunglasses (ones that dont fall off while me out running or cycling), can i use them when i race?

i don't think there are any laws about listening to music while riding a bike but i personally wouldn't wear them.  i like to hear what is going on a round me so that i can react.  as far as racing, i've only done 1 but they said no ipods or stuff like that for safety reasons.

Most races I've looked at or have done don't allow Ipods.  PERSONALLY I think it takes a lot away from the race.  There is a certain atmosphere that you just miss out on if you are listening to music.  Also, you can't hear other athletes.

For training, its ultimately up to you, again, personally I don't train with headphones.  ESPECIALLY on the bike, I had a friend that didn't hear a deer coming out of the woods and the deer hit him and wrecked him and his bike....  Scary stuff, cars can be pretty scary as well.  If you don't want to listen, do it on a very low volume so you can focus on your ride and whats going on around you.

For running again, personally I don't train with it, but I don't have near the reservations against it.  Running can get rather boring at times.  Just keep it low so you can hear other runners/bikers coming up behind you.  I run past people that I can CLEARLY hear what they are listening to a good 10 ft away from them.  Then they get started as I pass them.

Whatever will keep you training (safely) is most important!