SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 2)

Hi Kev and Lani, welcome to the group!

Kev, what half IM are you looking at racing?

Axterra

The half is the FirmMan in Narragansett Rhode Island. Sept 8th, reg is open. Where abouts on PEI are you located?  My mother in law had a house in North Rosticove for several years.

Name:  Felicia

Story:   I am from Eugene OR originally, so running was something that was encouraged. I ran track a little, but not well, in junior high and early high school. I ran for fun after that through the first couple years of college. I didn't run again until graduate school, 30 minutes a day for stress relief, until I became pregnant with my first child. I didn't pick it back up again until almost 2 years ago when I started a C25k program. I am in it for as long as I am able.

I biked a lot recreationally as a teenager. My dad and I did long rides together. It was something he could do after his first open heart surgery. We did a 76 mike ride together in 1976 and a 100 mile ride together the year after. Our dream was to ride from Eugene to Florence (on the coast) over the coast range, but we never managed to get it together. I regret that now.

I am an adult onset swimmer, despite summers of girl scout camp. I suck at swimming. Truly.

I have been doing tris since June 2011. I love working the three disciplines together.

Family Status:  Second marriage. I have 2 boys from my first marriage who are 16 and 12, and we have one glue baby, a boy who is 6. We have two dogs, one ancient and one young, and one cat, who is my princess.

2012 Races:  Various sprint distances. Running races, 10k to 25k. A 20 mile bike ride.

2013 Races:   Hoping to move to Olympic distance. Then either Kansas 5i50 or 70.3. I want to get stronger in the half marathon and run more trail races at longer distances. Try a long bike ride (70-100 miles). Experiment with an open water swim, either in Oklahoma or The Great Salt Lake. 

Weight goals:  5'3" 140. I lost 45 pounds in the first year after my gall bladder surgery, but I have gained almost 10 back. I would like to hit 120-125. I try to eat as clean as I can. No soda or alcohol, but I love coffee and dark chocolate. I use real food for for my race nutrition (for races longer than 90 minutes).

Health: I had my gall bladder removed a little over two years ago. That illness and surgery encouraged me to get healthy and fit. I suffer from allergies, so if I get sick, it's usually upper respiratory. I am susceptible to sinus infections, especially, and am fighting one now. I had pre eclampsia with all three pregnancies. After my third, my blood pressure never recovered. I take Lisinopril daily for high blood pressure.

Name:  Kate

Story:  Family Status:  Married with a 10 year old son.

2012 Races:  3 sprints and one Olympic distance.

2013 Races:  HITS Ocala 70.3  and a few springs/olympic distance to be decided

Weight goals:   Trying to focus on just eating healthy foods with a lot of variety.

Health: I am pretty much healthy, but have struggled with plantar fasciitis a bit this year.

Off-season plans: I haven't had an off season this year because I signed up for a March tri. Right now I am in week 3 of a 16 week BT training plan.

I am mostly looking for motivation to train. And, I really like to read about what everyone else is doing. 

I live in York, North Rustico is about 25kms away - it is very close to one of the places we go for open water swims.

If anyone from this group wants a coupon for two free weeks of Training Peaks premium, just PM me

Great tools for logging, managing training load  and performance analysis.

Arend, I use a headlamp for morning runs. I have a Petzl and a Princeton Tec. Both are the kind that you wear with a head band.I usually put them over a hat to keep them from slipping without being too tight. Wool cap in the winter, ball type cap rest of the year. I can't tell you the difference between the two other than the Petzl battery is dead so I've been wearing the P Tec ;-)  I just bought another P Tec like mine as a xmas gift for my nephew and there were 2 choices at my LRS. One had visibility to 40 ft and a second model to 70+ft. I don't remember the exact prices, but around 35-70 dollars. I have the one with 40 ft vis and it is fine, although I live in a fairly urban area.

What I like about them is that you can adjust the angle up/down to where you need light. They also have an option where the light flashes - haven't really used that. I don't find them distracting or uncomfortable, as long as I'm wearing them on top of a hat/cap. They're also really handy for early morning transition set up. 

Dr Skiba posted this on his twitter

http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2012/12/18/japplphysiol.00652.2012.abstract

Interesting stuff. Probably not what most are led to believe.

Yeah, for me the light in the back is more important then the light in the front.  It is the main reason I don't run in the dark.  I use to mountaineer a lot and so I am fairly use to being out there with very little to no light and just seeing what is in front of me.  I can trip in day light, in reality you don't need to see to far in front of you.  But I am scared to death of what might come up behind me and not see me.  There is a large section I'd have to run through that has no sidewalk and narrow streets

Name: Keri

Story: Got into this crazy sport in 2009 just before turning 40.  This will be my first year out of the Athena category.

Family Status: Married to a great guy I dragged into tri's in 2010 kicking & screaming, he just did IMFL! We have 5 great kids - two boys 17 & 19 and three girls 10, 9 & 5. I homeschool the girls which makes training a bit tricky but my husband is super supportive and the 17 year old helps out when he can.

Current Training: Been in a bit of a funk the last couple of weeks.  Did my first stand alone half marathon 12/9, the weather was warm and I didn't get the race I was hoping for.  That along with everything else going on in our world + holidays have made my training spotty. Will be turning that around this week.

2012 Races:  With the husband going long this year Mama had to go short.  Couple Oly distances including the HyVee 5150 Championship race in Iowa and some sprints.

2013 Races: Starting the season with an Oly swim that kicked my butt last season, boat jump in the gulf - Kemah Oly April 29, lots of bike riding (where I need the most work) a few sprints and the big one IMAZ!

Weightloss: This is something I am working on right now.  I have lost 5 pounds in the last 5 weeks or so and really want to lose 10 more before the Oly.

What will make me a good member of the group:  I really like being part of a MG and missed that a lot this past season.  I am also a manager at a tri store here in Houston so I have quite a bit of product knowledge.

Last year I did the bulk of my winter training at threshold (2x20, 3x12....) and then outdoor mostly tempo. I did not see the improvements I wanted

This year I plan to do more intensity over the winter months. Actually, it's mostly what I have been doing the Nov/Dec and I feel it's helped my FTP

I suspect many self trained athletes don't do enough intensity.

Ok, here is stupid Keri question #1 (many more to follow) What is the difference between threshold and intensity?  Isn't threshold pretty intense?  So you are going more intense than threshold?  ie "more intensity" 

I know I don't go intense enough on the trainer, I just really have a hard time making myself do it.  There is a place here called VR Cycling indoor training class with computrainers and awesome courses I am going to try but it is pricey so it would have to be a once a month thing.

Threshold is a kind of intensity, but what they are talking about in that study is higher intensity than threshold.  (Threshold is typically defined in a way that makes it about what you could hold for an hour.)

Funny you mention that Marc.  Last year most of my bike training in the winter/spring was in the 2-5' interval range and while I did see improvement, it wasn't as much as I hoped either.  So I'm trying to focus a little more on 10-20' efforts this year.  Not completely drop the shorter interval workouts as I do feel they are important...but I was rarely doing anything focused on the 10-20' range.  Maybe about a 50/50 focus for weekday training.

As Shane implied, the sweet spot (which is of course for different people and at different times) is most likely some sort of reasonably balanced mix.  Definitely too bad they didn't try that in the study (in addition to the two extremes), though of course what counts as 'balance' will be different for different people.

I'm very curious to see just how the intensity regions were defined in the study. I can't quite tell and if I'm understanding things correctly, I thought Skiba previously had threshold level work more in the "hard" range, but here it looks like he put it under "moderate". From his books and some postings, he's actually not a big fan of what has been called moderate outside of the study. As in, the intensity under threshold, but noticeably above easy (Zone 3ish). His rationale was that one can make gains by working out there, but over time will be prone to overtraining. Had to do with the muscles not being taxed so hard, making the harder intensity work kind of more self-limiting in that one could only tolerate so much of it before needing to stop. Hope that makes sense.

Having been in a group with many of these folks, I know the rule is : there are no stupid questions.

Just opportunities to share and learn