Slornow and Wannabefaster's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 2)

Brain I too am a parent of a Type 1 Diabetic, hence the Tour de Cure and Step Out Walk on my 2013 schedule.  My daughter will be training for the 10k in Oct with me.  I am sure it a topic that will resurface from time to time.

JamieS-welcome to the group. Did you go to high school in Virginia Beach?

Randy

Paul-great to have you on board. Living in Cleveland, TN?  That's just down the road from Chattanooga...a great town with some phenomenal places to run and ride. My son was a 4 year boarding student at McCallie School in Chattanooga so we have spent lots of time in Chattanooga and I love it there. Have raced the Chattanooga Olympic race in July the last 3 years. A really fun, but hot, race.

Randy 

Room for 1 more?!    So many great groups to choose from but I pick you guys!

Name: MtnBikerChk/MBC/Randee (that's right, another Randee but mine's with 2 ee's!)

Story: Mountain biker turned road cyclist turned runner (and the stress fracture) turned swimmer.  I've been battling this stress facture (officially diagnosed) since August so I've been limited to road riding and swimming.

I would say I was a couch potato until 1995 ish when I started dating a mountain biker....isn't that typical?  "sure, I'll buy a bike and ride with you..."  Well we broke up shortly thereafter and I've been riding ever since.  I'm heavily involved in the CT chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis society and their bikeMS event (in fact for 2013 I'm the Spokesperson for all of CT).  As I kind of hinted at most of my activities have revolved around biking but in the past few years I've branched out a bit.  I turn 40 this year and figured  "why the heck not?" so here I am.  There is a tri series starting in June near me and the bike portion is off road so it's right up my alley  

I'm a CPA by profession so February to April training is really tough but I'm ready to start!

Status: Married 11 years, 2 greyhounds, 2 cats.  My husband is a golfer turned cyclist turned marathoner.  His activity of choice these days is running but he will ride with me if I ask him too.  Of course I have to wait at the top of the hills

2012 races: a few 5ks and the bike portion of a team relay women's tri and the bike portion of a duathlon with my husband.

2013 races: the off road tri series; the bike portion of the 70.3 ironman Lake George in September and hopefully a half marathon if this stress fracture heals.

Weight loss: when I started running I dropped 10lbs and kept most of it off.  I'd say 5 more lbs and I'd be at idea training weight but I'm not overweight by any means.  5'2" and 128ish?

Overall super excited to get started.  In fact, no more typing, I'm off to the Y to swim today.  

We talked about it -- but sometimes there's such a thing as too much togetherness       (Cue George Costanza -- "worlds colliding")

She's signed up with another mentor group.   We figured there's value in having different perspectives.  But if those other mentors fall down on the job, you may have a new customer!

Sure did, First Colonial.  I also went to many concerts at the Hampton Coliseum!

Paul,

I don't think of slightly weaker on one side of the body as much of a disability for Triathlon.  During Oceanside 70.3 on the bike leg, I kept trading position with a biker and after the 3rd or 4th pass, i noticed one of his arms was in a cup on the handlebars.  Later, I saw this video of him. Then I realized he only had 1/2 of an arm.  I'm pretty sure he beat me on the bike. Probably the run as well. 

I show this video to my students every year and remind them that they don't get to make excuses, they just need to try harder.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUuMCX0zmpg

Mary/Randee-glad to have you!

That gives us 14 members currently. We will likely still have 2-3 more from the old group so maybe a couple more new faces and then we will close. Typically, a group will lose a few members over time and with us having several returning members it will be good to have a larger group.

JamieS-when did you graduate from First Colonial. I went to Hampton High School and knew several guys over there from the tennis team. I graduated HS in 1980 so probably before your time.

I'll post a list of everyone in the group so far later.

Randy  

Yeah, no kidding!! Thanks for sharing!

Hey guys .... I am back for more ... if you have me ... :-)

NAME: d3term1ned/Michael


NICKNAME: determined german

STORY: I was always very active as a kid. Growing up in Germany my number one sport was soccer. I played soccer for over 16 years and was always in good shape. I had soccer practice three times a week in addition to a game, I swam twice a week and practiced Karate twice a week. I started smoking when I was 16 years old (picked that one up from my parents) and joined the German Army for my mandatory time. I would have stayed in the German Army and probably would still be in it if I would not have met my wife.
I moved to the US and made bad choices in regards to food and exercise. I ate bad food and did not exercise at all. I was never able to find a soccer team that was organized and gave up after a while. In 2007 I moved from Chicago to Dallas and in 2009 I decided to continue my martial arts journey. With exercise came more eating and instead of losing weight I gained more.
Fast forward to January of 2011. I competed in a Taekwondo tournament and got whooped by everyone because they were faster, leaner and in shape. At 5.11” and 250 lbs I was the heaviest I had ever been. That day was the day that I decided to turn my life around for me and for my family.
I started running on the treadmill 5 days a week at 4am in the morning before going to work and continued my taekwondo training and lost 50 lbs. I always wanted to finish a triathlon and decided to train for one … needless to say I got hooked … hooked and hooked …

FAMILY STATUS: I have been married for 13 years and have two children. My oldest is 7 and the youngest is 4 (both girls). My wife was an avid runner but stopped running after our first daughter was born. I have been trying to get her back into running but starting something and making it a habit is hard.

CURRENT TRAINING: I try to play racquetball twice a week for 90 mins each. I am a second degree black belt and teach Taekwondo a few days a week. I am trying to squeeze a balanced 3 run, 3 bike, 3 swim training plan into my schedule which works out for me.


PAST YEAR'S RACES:

In 2011 I completed a few races.

3 x 5K’s
2 x 10K’s
3 x Mudruns 5K’s and 10K’s (like Warriordash, Merrell Down & Dirty)
2 x Sprint Triathlons

All races were PR’s ….

2012 was my first full triathlon season.

1 x 5K’s
2 x 10K’s
6 x Sprint Triathlons
2 x Olympic Triathlons
Dallas Half Marathon
Cowtown Marathon
Tough Mudder
Warriordash

2013 RACES:
 
2013 starts my second of many triathlon seasons. My A race this year will be the Ironman 70.3 in Austin. I am already signed up for a whole bunch of Sprint, Olympic and other distance triathlons. 


WEIGHTLOSS: I lost 50 lbs and I am still hovering at 200 lbs. For some reason there is something in my head that tells me to eat more once I hit 199lbs … I love food. I am currently trying a more plant based approach which in no way means I am vegetarian. I love meat way too much.

I hope this will give you some insight in my life.

For me, there are two main things which helped me love running.

1) Aerobic Heart Rate workouts

 I used to only run as hard as I could for as long as I could (which wasn't long because I was running so hard). I would end my runs coughing and huffing and puffing. Basically it made running a miserable experience. I learned about the lower Heart Rate workouts from Jamie. After talking a bit with him, I decided to look into it further online. Basically, you force yourself to slooooow doooown when running to get your body used to burning fat for fuel. Basically, you wear a Heart Rate Monitor and start running. If your heart starts going over your "aerobic" heart rate limit, you slow down until you get it back under control. Here is the link that I used to learn more about it and determine my aerobic heart rate. 

http://www.markallenonline.com/maoArticles.aspx?AID=2

Personally, slowing down that much gave me time to think about stuff and enjoy the scenery while running instead of trying to ignore my burning lungs and aching legs. Although I started out really sluggish, after several months of this sort of training, I got much faster! I'm almost back to being as fast as I was in college! Since it doesn't kill me to run this way, I can do it more often, and now I'm looking forward to my runs instead of dreading them so it's easier to motivate myself to get out there and run!

2) Shortening my stride to help me land midfoot instead of heel strike.

I had always been somewhat of a heel striker in college and had a really awkward gait when I ran. Like I said earlier, I really think the way I ran screwed up my back. There was just too much pain when I ran. 

Now, I concentrate on a short stride with a midfoot strike. I haven't had ANY back pain while running in this manner. So right away I can say running is more fun now than it was then because it doesn't hurt.

Hope this is helpful! I'm sure I could get into really long conversations about this topic so feel free to ask anything else on it!

-Nate

Randy/Jason,

If you guys are still open, I would like to throw my hat in the ring.  Bio to follow if I'm in.....

AV842 (Bennet)

Nate-good advice on the running. Many times people run too fast in their everyday "easy" runs......a recipe for injury. Keep the easy runs easy!

Michael/d3, Bennet-welcome back.

Dave-glad to have you with us.

As of now we have 17. I think we will go ahead and close the group. However, if anyone knows someone that would like to join either now or at some later point encourage them to do so. There are no hard and fast rules about numbers. The important thing is for everyone to have a good experience. We seem to have a good variety of experience level. Those of you that are somewhat new to the sport should not hesitate to ask a question. We are here to help and learn from each other. Above all lets keep the discussion civil. That has never been a problem in any groups I've been involved with but just something to keep in mind.

The group: (let me know if I get something wrong):

Slornow/Randy

Wannabefaster/Jason

Hoos/Scott

Experior/Michael

Catwoman/Rene

leechj/Nate

Stuartap/Stuart

nicoleg/Nicole

pvfd304/Brian

Woodrowcall/Jamie

JamieS/Jamie

Chunga/Mary

MtnBkrchk/Randee

Saint100/Paul

dacuna01/Dave

AV842/Bennet

d3term1ned/Michael

jimmyb/Jim

Couple of other things. I would encourage you to log your training here on BT. Certainly not required but it does make it easier to answer training related questions if we can see what you have been doing. Also, add the members of the group as your "friends". To do this go to the Training Log. Scroll down a bit and to the left is a friends section. Click the + sign and you can update your friends list.

I like to check in  on people's training and see what workouts they are doing. Great place to get ideas about new workouts.

Randy 

Jim-absolutely! Was hoping you would be willing to put up with us again.

Randy