BE the BALL Group - OPEN (Page 2)

Scott,

I agree with Chris and here are my n=1 thoughts. I breath only to one side and I breath every stroke on that side. When I was younger I could bilateral breath. I have worked on it a couple of times lately but never to extent that I would be able to use it in a race. It is something that I have been wanting to work on but just never have made the time to do it. Given that, I stick to races in small lakes or rivers. These tend to have less problems with choppy water. All that said, I think that it is a good idea to work on bilateral breathing as much as you can, especially if your races are in larger lakes or the ocean. It will give you something to go to if it is choppy. If you really want to work on it, I would continue to work in some laps of bilateral breathing every time you swim. If things are going well continue to up the distance you can go and just see how you do. I wouldn't worry so much about times right now when bilateral breathing. You can work on your speed in other laps while not practicing the breathing. In the end, it is what you are comfortable with and what you can learn to be comfortable with. Good luck and let us know how things go.



Edited by billeckert 2018-01-23 8:35 AM

So here is what the mentor in my original group posted on consistency. It is long but well worth the read. There is a summary with the take-home message is in a short paragraph at the end.

Feel free to share your own point of view!


Consistency in Endurance Training

We hear it said all the time: consistency is key in endurance training. But what exactly does 'consistency' mean, and why is it so important? And how can we maintain it?

What is Consistency?

First, let's be clear about what 'consistency' does not mean (at least not here). It does not mean that we do the same workout every time we step out the door (or hop on the bike, or jump in the pool, or walk into the gym). Nor does it mean that we do the same type of training year round. Nor does it mean that we never take a break. It is important to vary our workouts over the course of a week, to vary our overall training regimen of the course of the year, and to get some rest from time to time to let the inevitable little aches and pains heal up.

Consistency means getting sufficiently many well-designed training sessions in per week, reasonably spaced throughout the week, to achieve our fitness goals. Those goals will be different at different times of the year, and different for different people. After an Ironman race, fitness will inevitably decline -- mere mortals cannot maintain peak Ironman fitness indefinitely. So we train less. Our goal is not to improve fitness, or even to maintain it. Our goal is to recover and not lose too much fitness. On the flip side, during the build portion of a training plan, our goal is to, well, build (fitness). At other times, we may be interested in just maintaining, or building a very specific type of fitness (for example, 5K speed, or endurance for a century ride).

Because we have so many different goals, our definition of 'consistency' is necessarily vague. How do we fill in the details? There is no magic formula, but there are a few guidelines.

First, there is a minimum number of training sessions per week that we will need to do in order to maintain or improve. And while this number will depend on a lot of individual factors, it is not equal to 1, and it is probably not equal to 2. (For some very fit individuals, 1 or 2 might be enough to maintain for a short while, but not long-term. For individuals who are coming off the couch, 1 or 2 will provide some gains short term, but eventually 1 or 2 will not be enough.) There are wildly different training methodologies out there -- some advocate high volume, low intensity, while others advocate lower volume and high intensity, and there are plenty of points between those extremes, but I am not aware of any successful training plan that, as a matter of general course, would have anybody training swim bike or run just once per week. As I mentioned above, many beginner plans will have one doing each twice per week, and for beginners this frequency will get you to the starting line (and more important, across the finish line). However, it will not take long before twice a week is not enough to make further gains.

Second, these sessions need to be reasonably well 'designed'. I'm not talking about fancy sets of intervals or complicated progression runs or the like. There is a place for that stuff, but the bottom line is that we are best served by there not being too large of an imbalance from one session to the next. Running 2 miles 2 times a week, and 15 miles once a week is a good way to get injured. Yes, it is OK to make some sessions longer or harder -- indeed, race-specific preparation normally demands that we do so. But do so within reason. That 19 miles of running would be better split up as (for example) 5-7-7, or even better as 4-4-4-7. The same goes (though to a lesser extent) with biking and swimming. Two 30 minute rides during the week followed by a century on the weekend is a poor use of your training time.

Third and finally, we are better off spacing our workouts relatively evenly throughout the week, and keeping the harder efforts apart from each other if possible. It is all too common (I'm guilty!) for endurance athletes to miss a few workouts during the week and then load up on the weekend to 'make up for lost time'. (This desire to 'make up for lost time' often leads to the kind of imbalances I mentioned above.) The result is more likely than not to be an injury. If you're lucky, you won't get injured, just so tired and sore that you take Monday through Wednesday off, and then the vicious cycle has begun.


Why Does it Matter?

Speaking metaphorically, training for endurance sport is all about tearing the body down so that it can rebuild itself stronger ("better, stronger, faster" for those who watched American TV in the 70s). Less metaphorically, and focusing just on the muscles for the moment, exercise causes some damage to your muscles. This is especially true of exercise that involves eccentric contractions, meaning that the muscle is contracting at the same time that it is lengthening because of some load. (Running involves a lot of eccentric contraction which is one reason it is so easy to hurt yourself running.) The precise nature of this damage is not completely understood, and it varies with the intensity of the exercise, but it appears to include damage to connective tissue, the tissues that surround muscle fibers ('fascia'), and perhaps even the fibers themselves, or the parts of them that are responsible for contraction.
In any case, whatever the nature of the damage, when you are done exercising, your body goes to work cleaning up the mess. It sends in the troops (largely in the form of white blood cells, specifically macrophages and neutrophils, which is why muscles can swell up after hard exercise) to eat up the damaged proteins, and the reinforcements (largely in the form of new proteins). For reasons that are, to my knowledge, not well understood, the rebuilt muscle tissue is, well, better, stronger, and faster. In fact, physiologists call this process of rebuilding 'remodeling' and that's a good name inasmuch as the new muscle is improved over the old. They call the fact that remodeling produces improvements the 'repeated bout effect'.
The best theory going about why intense exercise makes us sore is that there are pain receptors in and around the muscles that are triggered by the byproducts of the process described above. This is why (according to the theory) it takes a while for muscle soreness to set in. (In any case, the old 'lactic acid' theory of soreness is debunked -- lactic acid clears from your muscle in less than 2 hours in the worst cases.) However -- and this is important -- don't think that you need to be sore in order to get the benefits of the repeated bout effect. In fact, 99.9% of the time you do not want to train to the point of being sore the next day. (OK, those of you who are just starting out can ignore that last statement -- it is very difficult to avoid soreness when you are just starting out. Don't worry; this will go away quickly (in weeks, not months) -- because of the repeated bout effect!) You get remodeled muscles even when you exercise more moderately. And you get the added benefit of being able to do it again the next day, and the next, and the next, and this consistency is much better for you than the slash and burn method of slaying yourself and then being laid up for 4 days before you can train again. You get far more remodels this way.
Exercise has other physiological benefits of course. The major one is that your body gets more efficient at getting energy to the place it is needed (your muscles). It also becomes able to deliver more energy (more precisely, it supplies more of what your muscles need to make energy, and your muscles become better equipped to use this additional supply). This increase in efficiency and volume is achieved in several ways. Your heart gets bigger and stronger. Some muscle fibers are converted from anaerobic but powerful types (Type IIb, 'fast twitch') to aerobically efficient, fatigue-resistant, types (Type IIa, and possibly Type I, 'slow twitch'). Your capillaries expand in size and number, enhancing the flow of oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, and the flow of waste out of them. Your number of mitochondria (the cells largely responsible for the production of energy) increases. And we could go on...
Every time you train, you make little improvements on all of these fronts. If you train big one day, then rest 4 days, you get one session of improvement, followed by 4 days where your body says "you know, we didn't really need to do that now did we?". In other words, your body pretty quickly reverses the small improvements you get from a single bout of exercise. It quickly adapts to what it is told that it needs. You have to continually convince your body that yes, you do need those little improvements. The only way to do that is to exercise. Consistently.


How Do I Do It?

OK, so I hope now you're convinced that consistency is key. How do we achieve it? There are really two issues here. (1) How can we be sure that our bodies can handle a consistent training regimen? (2) How can we get out the door (onto the bike, into the pool, into the gym) on a consistent basis with everything else going on in our lives?
The answer to (1) is easy: don't train too hard. In running, this means running easy (conversation is possible) most of the time. As a general guideline, keep the really intense running to around 5% of your total running per week. And don't go hard if your body is telling you not to. In biking, we can handle more intensity (because there is less impact and less eccentric contraction going on). Again as a very general guideline (these numbers are very much ballpark and will vary based on a lot of things, but they'll give you an idea), maybe 25% of your biking can be very hard, 50% moderate, and 25% relatively easy. (By 'relatively easy' I don't mean soft-pedaling. This isn't a Sunday, stop and smell the flowers, cruise pace, but it is one where holding a conversation is not a problem.) Swimming is even lower impact, and you can afford to put some very intense swimming into just about every, if not every, training session. The main thing to watch out for is shoulder injury, which can be more of a problem for those (such as myself...) with form issues. Going very hard with poor form can lead to injury. Overuse is also possible. Listen to your body.
The answer to (2) is hard. The first thing to say here is that once you get sufficiently involved in triathlon, you will want to train most days. It won't be a struggle -- you will desire to train. That still leaves us with two problems: what do you do when you don't want to train, and how do you make the time to train?
Here I think that the number of answers is just about equal to the number of people. I'll tell you what works for me, and what I've heard working for others. Maybe something here will work for you.
As for lack of desire, one thing that works for me is remembering that at the end of any training session, I am almost always glad that I did it, even if I'm not super thrilled about getting started. I try to remember that feeling of satisfaction that I get from getting it done on days when the fire isn't in the belly. Often just remembering what that feels like is enough to get me jump-started. Another is having training partners. So you told your friend that you'd meet up for the group ride Saturday morning at 6am. It's 5:30am and your bed really is comfy and warm. But no way are you going to leave your friend sitting out there in the cold. So you go. That's what friend's are for! Finally, committing to a goal, and making that goal known to others, is a great way to maintain motivation.
As for lack of time, it's a problem most of us face. Two things that help are to commit each day to a time to train, and to be prepared to take advantage of unexpected opportunities to train.
Don't just say "Sometime today I'm going to go for a run". Say "At noon today, I'm going to go for a run." Treat it as you would an appointment with a work colleague; you wouldn't cancel or move that appointment without a good reason. The same goes for your training 'appointment'. Second, be ready to take advantage of unplanned training time. Was that meeting at 4:00 just canceled? Well, what are you waiting for, get over to the pool and go for a swim! The thing is, for this to work, you have to be ready. Your swim bag (or a spare one) lives in your car. A pair of running shoes and gear lives in your office. Your bike is always ready to roll on a moment's notice. You might be surprised how much training time you can find just by being ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself.
Combining sessions, or combining training with other activities can sometimes be useful. One of my favorite workouts is to run to the pool, swim, then run home. Commuting to work or other places by running or biking can also be a very efficient use of time. Finally, while none of us wants to lose perspective on what's important, do be prepared to make some sacrifices. The life of an endurance athlete (at least, one who is employed and has a family) is probably not compatible with 4 hours of TV a night, for example. Something has to give. Ask yourself what you want to look back on 10 years from now -- 15,000 hours of television or a long-term commitment to a healthy lifestyle and the memory of crossing the finish line feeling strong and looking good? The answer is clear!

The Take-Home
• Try to train at least twice a week in each discipline, 3 times if you are not a pure beginner.
• Make sure that each session leaves you ready to do the next one. Go easier the day before and the day after your really hard sessions.
• You get better physiological adaptations from several sessions of varying intensity than from just a very few mega-sessions.
• Find a way to stay motivated.
• Commit each training day to a specific session at a specific time, but also be prepared to take advantage of unexpected opportunities to train.

Good stuff! Thanks BIll. Work is constantly throwing curveballs at me. Today, had I not got home and jumped immediately on the treadmill I would have likely missed out on my run. I got called back to work (on-call) and by the time I got home I would not have wanted to run. Other days, I swing and miss. I have been alot better the last 7-8 weeks. Swimming is by far the hardest to get to. Next time I can swim per my work schedule is Sunday and I'll make the best of it

Scott

Hi, Bill, looking to join the group is it's still open. I was in a group in the past with both Chris and Scott and am looking to reconnect with them as well as making some new connections.

NAME: rjchilds8 / Randy

STORY: I got started with triathlon in 2014. My younger brother told me he had wanted to do this local triathlon race for about 20 years and would I join him. I had to ask, "what is a triathlon?"! LOL He explained it and, not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, I said yes. It probably took less than 2 months of my training (still 5 months away from my first sprint tri) and I was already hooked! I loved the variety of training for 3 sports instead of just running all of the time. Since then, I've done 15 or so tris, moving from sprint to Olympic and then finally to my first HIM this past year.

FAMILY STATUS: I am married to a very supportive woman and we have three great kids together, ages 8, 6, and 4 months!

CURRENT TRAINING: I've started to get back into a rhythm with my training. I'm currently training 4-5 days a week and I would expect that to be my usual rate through the season. Ideally, I'd like to train 5-6 days a week, but between work, being a parent to 3 small kids, and responsibilities as a home owner, that isn't likely to happen on a regular basis. :-)

THIS YEAR'S RACES: In 2017, I limited my racing in order to to minimize interruptions in my training as I attempted to complete my first HIM. I did one sprint in June, one Oly in July, and then my HIM in September. Long story short, I had to make 2 attempts at the 70.3 distance. I was about 41 miles into the bike of my first attempt when they cancelled the race! A hard rain and temperatures in the 50-52 degree range resulted in far too many competitors suffering borderline hypothermia. I signed up for another HIM a week later and I accomplished my goal!

UPCOMING YEAR'S RACES: I mostly have my season mapped out. I've decided this year will be devoted to getting faster at the shorter distances. I plan on doing 3 sprints and 1 Oly. I have bold goals of setting a PR at both distances as well as in a stand alone 5K.

WEIGHTLOSS: In 2017, I managed to get my weight down to levels I hadn't seen in probably 15 years! Time off from training, the holidays (sure, I'll have another piece of pie!), not to mention the addition of a new baby, and I had put about 11-12 pounds back on. I'd like to at least take those 11-12 pounds back off and maybe even go a little lower than last year.

WHAT WILL MAKE ME A GOOD MENTEE: I'm now entering my 5th year as a triathlete, but I still have lots to learn. I know some of the things I'm going to need to do in my training to get faster will be things I've never done before. There are still plenty of times I feel like a newbie. But I've also learned some things in the 4 years that I've been at it and have some experience to share with others that may have questions. The newbie days aren't so far behind me that I don't remember the early struggles and I think I can draw on those experiences to help others.

I'm sure we're all in agreement that consistency is hard to come by. Sometimes things come up at work and I have to stay late. Sometimes it's unexpected work around the house/yard. Sometimes it's something that comes up unexpectedly with the kids (why didn't you tell me you were going to be sick?! LOL). You just never know. I work from home and have the luxury of being able to squeeze in some of my workouts during the lunch hour while the kids are at school. But it also seems like people at my company LOVE to schedule meetings over that 12-1 lunch time, so that isn't always possible. If I don't get my workout done at lunch, then it's most likely I won't have free time again until after the kids are in bed, which typically means not getting started until close to 9:00. It can be tough dragging my butt down to the treadmill or trainer that late at night. I'm NOT a morning person, so don't even suggest getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 to workout because it just ain't happening. :-)

Sorry for my limited connection the past couple of days. Work, home, and training have kept me busy. Also, feeling a little tired lately. I think it is accumulated fatigue, especially on the run. I was supposed to bike and run today but moved the run to tomorrow and just did a bike. Kept the ride fairly easy just to get some blood flowing and put in some time.

@Randy - Glad to have you!

I will be looking over the latest posts either tonight or tomorrow.

Welcome to the group Randy!

I'm hoping to make it to the pool on Sunday. Something I've noticed is that my feet sink. Any ideas on how to get them to float? I really noticed this the last time I swam trying the different different stroke/breathing combinations. Ran on the treadmill today and my garmin was way off. It was close to a mile ahead compared to the treadmill. It felt like I was running as fast as the watch claimed I was but I tend to trust the treadmill over garmin in most cases. Although, I find my HR is lower at a faster pace outside than it is on the treadmill at a slower pace. If that makes sense?

Scott

Hey Everyone,
Sorry I've been MIA. I'm a nanny and had the kids while the parents were out of town for a week. I finally got my training started yesterday. I went on a two mile run and then today I did some strength training. I'm going to look over the tri plans this weekend and make a plan for the upcoming weeks. It feels good to finally get back in the game.

Bill- I enjoyed the consistency piece. Once I have a plan in place, I'm pretty good about sticking to it. I just have to figure out what to do with the kids in the next coupe of months when I have them for a few weeks.

I need to sign up for a few 5k's. There's one in March that basically starts at my front door, so there's no excuses. I've been looking at a few smaller sprints before Chattanooga so I'm really prepared for the OWS.

Thanks, Scott!

Re: the treadmill, I get the same thing. I'd say that my Garmin says I'm at a mile when I'm in the 0.8-0.85 range according to the treadmill. For that kind of running, I never trust the Garmin! It will have me running a full minute/mile faster than my typical running speed, so I know it can't be accurate. I have found that the pace I run according to the treadmill very closely resembles what I do outside, so I'm very much inclined to believe what the treadmill is telling me. I'm not sure what to make of your HR data. I seem to be the opposite of you. I find that my HR on the treadmill is lower than what I experience outside. I'm not sure how hilly your running routes are, but living in New England means I can't go anywhere without encountering hills. I can only assume that the hills have to do with the increased HR over the treadmill.

Re: your swimming, I'd defer to Chris on what it might take to prevent your feet from sinking. I will say that I would think in general that you're pace would be faster if you were bilateral breathing. At least, from a logical standpoint. Breathing every 3rd stroke instead of every 2nd would mean fewer times you were breaking your form to breathe. In theory, that would mean you were staying in a better body position longer, thus being able to maintain a better speed for longer. But like Chris said, if you're breathing every other stroke, you're taking in the oxygen you need to push harder. When I race, I bilateral breathe for as long as I can. When I start getting to the finish and I'm pushing my pace, I will typically start taking a breath every other stroke. As a general rule, I'd say it's good to be able to breathe bilaterally. Whether it's choppy water, another swimmer on your shoulder splashing water into your mouth as you're trying to breathe, or just the fact that you never know which side the buoys will be on, there are a multitude of reasons why you might need to breathe on one side or the other of your body. Best to be prepared.

The strange thing is that garmin had been relatively close up until the other. It’d be within .2 miles not an entire mile off. I know the watch did do an update and suspect that might be what’s causing the huge discrepancy.

Scott

Do you use a foot pod or something? When I tell my Garmin that it is an "Indoor Run", that's when I'm on the treadmill and it is never even close. But I only use GPS for my Garmin. I did a 5.5 mile run the other day and I think Garmin said it was more like 6.4. However, pre-Garmin, I had a NIke+ watch that used a foot pod and that watch would very closely match the distance on my treadmill. But my GPS based watch is never even close!

Emily,

You may want to look at the Go Race Productions Tall Pines Sprint at Clarks Hill on May13th. It's a 500m swim in a fairly protected cove of the lake. Could be a good open water opportunity before Chattanooga for you. Bike ride has some good hills too, which I imagine Chattanooga will have.

Edited by Dominion 2018-01-26 5:04 PM

Great to hear from you Emily and glad you are back at it. Let us know what your plan is when you get it figured out. If you need any help, let us know what plans you are looking at and I am sure we can give you some feedback. Good Luck!

My Garmin does great outside and has always given me good distances. On the treadmill I have the same experience. I and usually about .05-.10 ahead of the treadmill. I think this is because when the Garmin does not have GPS it uses your stide length. I think it uses a stride length based on an average over your runs or you can set it to a fixed amount. I have been trying to get this adjusted but cannot seem to always find that setting. On the treadmill, I just usually run until I make it to the mileage I want on the treadmill which makes my run a little longer on the Garmin. My latest runs I did about 4.3 miles on the Garmin to get 4.0 on the treadmill.

I use my Garmin on my treadmill runs only to record the fact that I did a workout. I know I'm going to have to go in and edit the recorded distance after the fact. I wish there was a way to calibrate it for the treadmill specifically.

Yeah, I'm going to have a busy year of racing. My running club is running a grand prix series and I'm going to try to make some of those races, but I don't know the full schedule yet and don't know how many I'll actually do.

Feb: 10th, running club grand prix 5K
Mar: 11th, Celtic 5K
Apr: 18th, Jay Lyons Memorial 5K
May: 5th, Grafton Gazebo 5-miler, 13th, Spartan Sprint OCR (3-5 miles, courses vary)
Jun: 3rd, Worcester Firefighters 6K,15th, Summer Solstice Sprint Tri, 23rd, Tough Mudder Full OCR (~10 miles)
Jul: 7th, Mass State Olympic Tri
Aug: 12th, Vermont Sun Sprint Tri
Sep: 29 Rugged Maniac OCR, trying to decide between Lake George Oly Tri on the 1st or TDD Sprint Tri on the 15th
Oct: Possible half marathon of my wife's choosing

I may possibly add my running club's grand prix 5K in July. But I figured I need to leave some time open for family vacation time and, you know, actually spending some time with the kids. ;-)

Yeah, there are just so many more running races to choose from than tris. At least that are local to me. This will be my second Tough Mudder. I did one back in 2014. I remember it now because I did my very first sprint in August that year up in Vermont. When I got back home, I realized there was a sprint tri the following weekend that was less than 30 minutes from my house, so I signed up for that. Then, the very next weekend was when I did my first TM. My wife thought I was crazy. ;-)

Hope everyone is doing well and had a good week last week. Got in 101.5 miles on the bike and 18 miles running. I backed off my mileage a little this week. I was feeling very fatigued on Wednesday and my run just did not go well at all. I shortened up my distance Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It really seemed to help. I think I probably made too big of a jump going from averaging 3 miles per run to 4 miles per run. It seemed okay at first but it caught up to me. Going to dial back to 3.0 to 3.5 miles per run and keep the run frequency at 5 days per week and see how things go this week. Weekly miles will still be 15-17.5 miles which is still better than I have consistently done in the past. I will stay there for a few weeks and if things go well will start to slowly increase distance per run.

@Chris, @Randy, @Scott - Training logs looked pretty good last week. I see a lot of work going on. Keep it up. You all seem to be finding ways to get those workouts in when you can.

@Emily - Keep on logging those workouts. You are doing great getting back into the swing of things. I hope you found a plan that works for you. I was thinking that the beginner sprint or basic sprint might be something to look at.

We are missing @strombo1. I will try to each out and make sure everything is okay.

PLANS FOR THE WEEK
This week I am bringing the swim back in to the training. Planning on 3 swims and going to keep it short and simple and plan on just doing some easy laps to get back into it. I also have 5 runs and 4 bikes planned. All of that along with a busy work schedule this week will prove to be a challenge.

What does everyone else have planned for the week?

Good luck with this week everyone.

Looks like a good schedule. Good Luck!

I am doing 70.3 Augusta 9/23/18 if you are interested in that one. Bike has some hills but mostly rollers. It is net down hill for about the last 16 miles. The run is awesome. It is flat and goes back and forth on the streets in downtown. Makes for some great spectator opportunities and the crowd support is crazy great.

Edited by billeckert 2018-01-29 12:00 PM

Wow. Looks pretty busy but doable. Good luck!