QueenZipp & Dexter's good cop/ bad cop - FULL (Page 20)

We are lemmingly close to getting off the first page, so I'll help out.

Today is Friday.  Scheduled and looking forward to a nice longish run.  1st Beer.  Today is now recovery day!  Planning on doing a 20k bike ride tomorrow morning to make up for it!

Recovery weekend on tap for me.  It seemed like a good idea when I agreed to it, but now I'm having second thoughts. Too late though.  I agreed to go up to Sacramento for the weekend for a 'reunion' of sorts with a group of gals I hung with in high school uh hum 'decades' uh hum, ago.  Haven't seen these ladies since and have only been reunited through the magic of Facebook in the last year or so.  Should be interesting to say the least.  I have a feeling I'm going to take a look at them all and say 'Where did all these middle aged women come from?'  And the scariest part is realizing I might as well be looking in the mirror!  

Needless to say, I'm giving myself a break from my usual Saturday morning run.  I have time before we leave, but I've decided to take Dud's advice and just rest.  There will be plenty of time to put on my shoes or get back on the bike starting on Monday.

Hope everyone has a great training weekend! 

Crazy core work with my trainer today!!

We're going to do boxing this week , he didn't have the stuff with him today to try it.

Going walking between dropping one daughter off for show choir stuff and picking up other daughter from her AP English exam prep day.

Then the joy of another midnight trip to the school to pick up Miss Show Choir.

Sorry to hear that you missed out on a little training. I hope you have a great time playing some soccer.

How was everyone's weekend?  I see that life is getting in the way here and there but there seems to be a lot of good things going on in the group.  Keep it up.

My early mornings are not making it easy to grade papers during my last hour of the workday.  Luckily I've only got 19 or 20 more workdays left, then it's back to mid-morning and mid-day naps with the baby. 

55 more days until IMAUS

Two questions for the group, would love to hear your thoughts.

Flexibility: is it really that important? I was reading in a recent mag about how in an endurance running, flexibility in the legs is actually more of a hindrance than a help in maintaining form and transferring power through the stride. Have you found increased flexibility has helped anything?

Core: My core is ridiculously weak, and it got weaker after chemo as each week some of that chemo was injected with a long needle directly into the base of the spine (if you want to cringe, google lumbar puncture). I know it is to the detriment of my swimming and running especially, so wondering what is the recommendation for a good core workout who has bugger all strength in the area at the moment?

Core work......I have oodles of core work sessions with my trainer in my blog.  Feel free to dig through the past  month or two. I would be happy to expand on the workouts if you have a question.  There is a good link in the articles for core work....

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=486

Oops Judi.  Not a big stretchy kinda guy.  If there is an imbalance then stretch to short one.  I'll do a little stretch to help keep the blood flowing after a hard workout.  There is little proof that stretching does anything at all to stop injury. 

Core work made simple is right here.   I'm gonna try it some day.  No I try to do it three days a week which means once a week whether I need it or not. 

OOPS cause I couldn't get my fingers outta the way to spell!  I am not referring to being Gumby stretchy......but some flexibility is still important. 

No one should force a stretch.  If you feel tension in the muscle that's as far as you go.  If in doubt if the move is going to hurt or help then err on the side of caution and skip it.

Great flexibility advice Dex and Judi.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their week.

I saw the doctor today and had a long conversation about recovery from pneumonia in relation to exercise and training. He gave me the okay to start back to training later this week but take it easy and build over the next month. I haven't done anything physical besides very easy walks for over two weeks and am building from pneumonia. I was excited when I left the doctor but am not sure how I'm going to build. I'm supposed to train by feeling for the first week or two. Is it worth developing or starting a training plan? Ideas?

Haven't seen an incredible amount about flexibility and it's impact on endurance sports performance beyond the bike, but I can tell you that in yoga, too much flexibility is not always a good thing.  The flip side to flexibility is instability--particularly in the joints.  Of course, too much tightness hinders range of motion.  For the run, I would think the key is just the right amount of flexibility, especially in the hip flexors.  It's really hard to run fast efficiently with tight hip flexors.

As to core work...I've noticed a significant difference in endurance by strengthening my core.  This is especially noticeable for me on the bike, and I would imagine that if I ever get my butt back to the pool, it will help there as well.  Been doing a lot of reading on this topic.  Crunches are a small part of the equation.  The focus now seems to be on stability exercises like a 90" plank or repeated Supermans and on doing some heavy deadlifts and squats to strengthen all the muscles of the core.  I still do crunches but I really believe working up to 90" plank was what made the difference.

What a bunch of great info.  I don't have anything constructive to add but here are some things I learned yesterday.

Australians call a bottle cage a bidon.  The prohibited draft zone in Australia is 12 meters (7 bike lengths) not 7 (3 bikes) like the U.S.  You can get vegemite at the aide stations during the run.  Time to load up my men at Work tunes...

told you I had nothing constructive to add

Ok ok Judi, Dud and Michelle, you have convinced me to include some core work into the weekly routine I am sure the pain will be worth it in the end, and after todays swim, I know I need more core strength to keep me streamlined longer than 20m

Jury is still out on the flexibility issue, I have never had great flexibility, even when I was a rep cross country runner in my junior years, says to me perhaps crazy flexibility is not that important for the run side of things.

Jessica, this is something I have some experience with as I had several bouts of pneumonia coming out of treatment as I had no immune system for close to a year and a half. Training by feel is definitely the way to go, I had around 60% lung function for a good 9 months or so but found if you work within your new aerobic capacity, exercise was not too much harder than previously, just the expectations on distance and time needed to be lower for a while. In fact I played a full season of soccer under those conditions.

I actually found it a great way to clear the lungs of the crap that was left in there from the infection, so perhaps avoid the pool for a while unless you don't mind leaving a trail of presents for following swimmers (nicest way I can put it). You may cough up all kinds of things, but the nurses assured me this was a good thing. Before that they used to make me lie down and they beat the buggery out of my ribs to achieve the same thing (sounds like a bad 80's porn flick .... not that I would know .... *cough*). There are some damn strong nurses out there!

Adam great post on getting back after pneumonia.  You certainly have the experience.  I may what to use a HRM here not while I working out but as a record after to see how things are progressing.  

We have to beat my son like that once in a while, certainly does get the crap moving in the lungs. 

Got my first tri of the year, indoor but should be fun.  Just a bag of M&Ms on this one.  Hope the weekend gets here even faster.

do you mean all indoor or just the swim portion?  would be funny to see people swimming in endless pools, biking on stationaries, and running on treadmills!

I couldn't figure out what was happening with the respond to inspire thing, but yes that was my first real attempt on the rollers.  It wasn't too bad, I did it in a hallway and only had one slight heart jumping moment!  I didn't do it for long because I haven't been on a bike for a while, I really need to get back into it.  Might do a baby brick workout this evening.

Off to Hope Town this weekend for some R&R and hopefully will get a long run in!  Or at least a beach run!

Thanks Adam! This info is great. I've been a good girl and took the time off . I did my first workout back today. No coughing, mainly because I kept the HR low for the first ride. Boy did it feel good. I'm looking forward to having my lung capacity back. I have accepted that I am where I am ... and I only have up to go. Today's workout felt good, simply just to move. Having been down 3 weeks I was getting cabin fever, I can only imagine how you felt Adam, you're one tough cookie. Riding by feel (and HR) helped a lot. Thanks again for the advice ... and I'll remember to keep out of the pool until the junk subsides ... though it's always a great way to score a lane to yourself

YAY for the first workout back post pneumonia, Jessica!!!!

I walked so fast on my lunchtime walk that my shinsplints actually hurt.  Mind you, I didn't know I had shin splints until I saw the ortho about the gastrocs and they never hurt before......and really, on a walk?  I find it amusing given my nonexistant run volume.

Catching up on my reading before heading out for a run.  I thought I would pass along an interesting collection of blog posts from DC Rainmaker for your reading enjoyment and education at some point.  If you're not familiar with DC Rainmaker, he's a techie out of the DC area and an accomplished triathlete.  He does a lot of technical product reviews and now has a weekly round up over at Slowtwitch.  Oh, and he's here on BT too.  Anyway, check it out for some great blogs covering
SBR in one easy to read recap:

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/03/15-must-read-posts-for-new-and-vintage.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DcRainmaker+%28DC+Rainmaker%29&utm_content=Google+Reader