Eliwashere's spring fling mentor group!-Full (Page 2)

FAMILY STATUS: Married 15 years to an amazing woman who is a runner.  She's mainly supportive of my addiction but I have to keep training impact on family life in check.  We have three boys 13, 11, 8.  My 13 year old is doing a sprint with me in June, or at least the kids version!  The 8 year old has Down syndrome so that adds some complexity, though also a lot of joy, to our life.

CURRENT TRAINING: I spent the winter becoming a runner while keeping the bike from going totally away loosely using Jorge's cycling plan.  Swimming hasn't really started yet for me this year.  I plan to run and bike 3 or 4 times a week each.  Swimming will be as often as I can fit it in, and once summer comes I'll do a lot of OWS in the lake where we have a summer cottage.  Unfortunately for me, swimming appears to be my most natural of the three sports.

2009 RACES: I started training in August, and completed the Mainiac sprint tri in Sept.  This is the same race Jennifer wrote her article about.  A perfect set up for my first, and even though I turned a 450 yard swim into 550 yards with some crazy navigation, it was a blast and I'm addicted.

2010 RACES: Great Bay half marathon in April (completed), Eastman and Timerberman sprints, Black Fly Tri International, Pumpkinman HIM in Sept. is the A race.  Maybe another sprint next month so I can have a positive experience after bonking in the half marathon.

WEIGHT LOSS: 215 two years ago, and down to 175-180 now.  Losing weight is not really a target anymore.

trysprintolympic - 2010-04-16 9:26 PM Whoa, wait - I was training for a marathon late last year before I had to stop because I changed jobs and had no time to train for ~3 months but at the time it was the FIRST plan I was following. I got so much crap from BTers about using FIRST for my first marathon that I specifically didn't pick it back up when I started to train again! People were telling me that the paces were way too fast and that I was guaranteed to injure myself. They told me that my first marathon plan should just be to finish and worry about times afterward. I really wanted to finish my first marathon sub-4:00, but I think I have realized that might be unrealistic. I still really want to finish my half sub-2:00 though!

My training plan issues stem from trying to merge a half-mary plan with an OLY tri plan. Then later in the summer that will overlap with a full-mary plan. Maybe I should just stick with running plans and throw in some bike rides or swims wherever I can? I'm a fairly strong cyclist but a pretty crappy swimmer.

There is a huge BT contingent that strongly believes high intensity running leads to injuries.  In general I agree there is more risk of injury with high intensity running, but I think there is also risk in more time running at any speed.  If you can build up running slowly and have plenty of time to build to high volume, that seems the "safest" route.  But getting to required volumes for good marathon running is not necessarily a real possibility (or desire) for most of us with limited time, thus the popularity of plans like FIRST.

I think you may be shooting for two goals, which can lead to optimizing for neither.  Training for marathons and training for triathlon are really not compatible goals, imo.   I would suggest picking one avenue, and focusing on that.  If you want to run tris while you’re really doing marathon training, that’s great but accept that your real focus is running and the tris are for fun.

If you want to run as a first priority, the FIRST plan uses cross training days, so I'd use those for cycling and swimming.  And just accept that the cycling and swimming part of tris will be under trained.  I think most of us are crappy swimmers!