Find the balance and embrace the journey! (Page 2)

Hello! I am 45 years old, living in Atlanta, Georgia and am just starting to train for my first Sprint Triathlon. I am doing this as a way to keep on my path of quitting smoking after many years. I have two months so far and am holding on. I do try to stay fairly fit and work out at the gym at lunch 4 times a week for 35 minutes. Balance sounds obtainable, finally, so hoping I can join the group?

Thank you,
Andrea

Hello Andrea, welcome to the group and congrats on starting a new chapter of your life smoke-free. I give you a lot of credit for quitting and finding a new outlet for your time/energy. We are certainly here to help and provide support, so let us know what you need.

Your schedule is doable, the key will be to make those workouts high quality, since your time is limited. I can relate totally relate to finding that balance, juggling work and home can be overwhelming, but having that goal of a sprint tri will help you make sure that you make time and take care of you.

Tim

Hi there! Is there still room in this group? Your story has similarities to mine: athlete in high school, married with kids, recovering from injuries (I broke my left shoulder in 3 places July 2, 2014 while training for my first triathlon), and I also love in the Midwest, so training in various seasons is going to be a challenge for me!

I try to eat clean (although vegetarian I am NOT! Sorry, Kansas girl here...) but admire trying to do nutrition the natural way...not easy to do nowadays.

I am not a strong swimmer, still working on that, and am in the process of buying my first road bike. I was a sprinter in high school but have run some 5k's in the past. The biggest challenge to my training is that my arm is still healing: I have had two surgeries-first to place 2 screws and the second to remove the screws. I'm slowly gaining back my strength, but really need to focus on my back muscles to keep my head of the humerus in place.

Anyway, if there is room, I would really like to have some support-I habe so many questions and want to do this right.

Welcome to the group and to the triathlon family! There is definitely enough room for another midwesterner .

Wow, how did you break your shoulder training? Bike accident? Sounds like you are recovering, but from experience, it always take much longer then we hope. I can only imagine it has been difficult to keeping training with shoulder rehab.

Feel free to ask any/all questions. I can answer from my experiences and make recommendations for other places that I have found quality information.

I have been triathlon training for almost 10 years, so have tried many of the training tips and tricks found on here and on Slowtwitch. I am fully convinced that eating clean is one of the best places to start, but as you noted, it's not always as easy as I think it should be.

Congrats on the new bike and let me know if there is anything I can do to help you reach your goals.

Thanks,

Tim

Tim: yes, I broke my shoulder in a bike accident. I was 2 days away from my first tri (100m swim, 10k bike, 2 mile run-small but a good starter tri). Anyway, I was finished with my training and just on my way home, took a turn and fell. As I fell, I instinctively out my left arm out and there was a stop sign pile right there. It broke the humerus transversely and "cornflaked" (as the ortho surgeon put it) my shoulder: broke both the greater and lesser tubercle off. Thankfully, there was no rotator cuff injury, just the fractures.

The healing process is so frustrating! I have functional use of my shoulder, but the head of my humerus is still sitting too far forward due to back muscle weakness. It is painstakingly slow-I have reassessed my goals for next season: I will definitely do a couple sprints, and would like to do at least one Olympic. My ultimate goal is a 70.3, but depending on how my shoulder heals and training goes, I may make that a 2016 goal. I am not a strong swimmer, and right now am concentrating on working my breast and back stroke (as they develop posterior shoulder and back muscles more than front crawl). I am going to try to go get my bike either tomorrow or Friday: this weekend is supposed to be nice weather and this way I can get a couple of gentle rides in.

I live in a small town and don't have access to a tri trainer, just a few friends who do them, but I feel like I'm bugging them by asking a lot of questions. I can't think of my questions right now, but I will be back with lots of them! Lol!

Although one I have is about training in the off season: right now, I am weight training 3 days per week and want to add a second "tri" training to this: thinking 2 days swim, 2 days bike and 1-2 days run. (Sounds like a lot but my distances would be low). Is that too much for now or is that what I should be doing?

Thanks for responding to my post, I'm excited to become a triathlete! Amy

Hi Amy,

So sorry to hear about your shoulder, such a complex part of the body and just two days before your race, I give you credit for looking ahead to next season's races. I would concur that waiting until 2016 for a 70.3 is probably the best move, you'd hate to do more damage or get injured trying to push the workload.

Your off-season training schedule sounds good to me. I am a big proponent of strength training, and if your schedule affords it, adding swim/bike/run workouts is even better. The more base mileage that you can log in the winter, the stronger you will be in the spring. This will allow you to focus more on speed and adding in brick workouts as the weather gets nice and you get close to your races.

As I am sure you have read, as a new triathlete, you want to look at your strong vs. weak sports and focus on the weaker sports. That being said, since the swim is the shortest, run next, and bike the longest, I always encourage people to remember that when they train. I typically spend the least amount of time training for the swim. I did spend a lot of time when I started in the pool because I would waste a lot of energy, but once you get it, it stays with you. I strive to be proficient in the water, but not so much that I suffer in the other two areas. Just something to keep in mind as you look for that ideal balance.

Hope that helps and let us know if you need any help,

Tim