Yanti & Salty MAD MANATEES Mentor Group - FULL POD (Page 21)

MY WEEKEND PLANS:

Well it's Greek Easter so lots of food will be consumed!  Tonight while Artemis and Fotis are at church I will be doing a 90min run followed by a 1200m swim.

Saturday - 45min swim, 2hr ride, 30min run - dreading all of that!  If I've energy in the afternoon may do swim squad to loosen up!

Sunday - just a 30min run then hit the Greek BBQ!!!  Yum!  KALO PASCA!

Ahhh, the daipers are for the baby then.

busy busy busy!

i feel so inadequate.

I claim intellectual copyright but will allow use for 5 cents per sale.

Pretty shop design. I always wondered who those talented people were. I realised my interior design skills were useless when i managed to make my living room a look like a beach hut after painting my 'feature wall' in blue and yellow stripes.

OMG - 12km run - now i'm not fast by any stretch and I use the Jeff Galloway method, so I run 2mins and walk 1min - so i did the 6km out in 45mins and the 6km uphill back in 40mins - love those negative splits.  My quads screaming in agony coz I ran too far last night...then I had to jump in the pool and crank out 3x400m - and now my calf muscles have joined the screaming chorus! 

I am absolutely exhausted.

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Yay, me! This is my 40,000th post on BT (boggles the mind ... even more so when I realize BT is SIXTH on my list of priorities ... but that's what a lot of illness in two years will do to your post count!) ...

And I couldn't think of a better place to put it than the Manatee sea; for I think the best Mentor groups (of which the Manatees surely must be one, yes? ) epitomize what triathlon, and particularly the BT spirit of it, is all about.

Thank you all for hopping on this super ride with me.

Busy knee-hurt family-sad but SUPER SUPER SUPER KRISTEN!!!

I'm really sorry the food sucked. We must remedy this right away and have our own Manatee party. What do you like to eat?

I, too, get exhausted ... just reading your posts ... actually, I am a Gallowalker most of the time, too, and it's suited me very well. Make sure you put in a good recovery before your next workout ... one shouldn't affect the next.

And KALO PASCA to the Baxas clan--I feel so special when you post about Fotis and Artemis because I've actually met them!

Allen darling ... BWAH HA HAHA HA HA!

I think I lose weight and build up my trunk stabilizers just reading your posts.

Sorry about the family sadness, but big congrats on your tenure!

That's pretty amazing.  I only have about 3200 posts to go and then we'll be even.

Congrats on the super swim! Yep, swimming is an aerobic sport ... oxygen is good ... most every good/fast distance swimmer breathes every other stroke in training (except perhaps for deliberately very easy efforts) and certainly in racing. The caveat is that all of them also CAN follow nearly any breathing pattern, and it's good to be able to do so because it shows the level at which one is in control of one's stroke and effort.

And in swimming, like life ... it truly is often darkest before dawn. Dread away!

I just came back from a masters swim where we did a boat load of IM kick drills.  We were not allowed to use fins, so I was pretty pathetic.  In fact, there were a few times where I seemed to be kicking like a fool while staying in one spot!  My backstroke  and breaststroke kicks are ok, but the fly and free really stink.  If anyone has any tips, pass them along please!

Tomorrow I will do a test run to see how my hamstring is and then another masters swim.  Sunday is a 2 hour hilly bike ride.

Happy Friday (or Saturday?) all

Dengue, typhoid, and chikungunya ... in just a few protracted dread diseases, you, too, can be BT's top poster!

Congratulations!

1. Good on you for doing it! IM kick is no joke, so I always admire anyone who tries ...

2. No kickboard, either.

3. Point your ankles, so that it SEEMS like you're pointing your toes, but the toes are actually relaxed.

4. Try this one in the deep end: with your arms relaxed in the water, stay vertical using a freestyle kick. The only way to do this is with a proper freestyle kick. Experiment until you find a kicking technique that will keep you upright.

As for dolphin (fly) kick ... that's a whole other can o' worms. I actually prefer to teach it in shallow water using dolphin dives first. (In short--do an S-shaped dive where you dive down, curling your back, and then quickly come back up, arching your back.) Eventually, as you tighten that up and make the S flatter and much shorter, with a kick to initiate the first bend down and another to initiate the second bend up--that is exactly what the butterfly position is.

First I think I will have to move because, thankfully, we don't have those diseases around here (although Dengue has been found in Miami, so it's close).

Yes!  Definitely experiment on your long runs! 

Also, write down exactly what you did and how it worked in your training log and / or race report.   That way if -- or in my case when -- you forget, you can at least refer back to it.

Of course not everyone has the mixing brands problem but it if you plan to do that, try it in training if at all possible. 

Nothing new on race day!

Thanks for the tips.  I don't think I actually know how to point my ankles though! We did have a kickboard, but I realized that my kick was better if I held it out at arms length with my head in the water.  My lower back really felt the dolphin kick - guess I need to work on those muscles.

Ann-Marie makes a good point -- think outside the box.  If Gu does not appeal to you, consider trying something like tootsie roll, starburst, jelly beans, fig newtons, licorice, etc.  Of course you won't be able to depend on them being on course (in case you drop your nutrition or want to live off the course).

It's also interesting that Ann-Marie uses the sports drink on course and not the gels but I am the opposite, I cannot tolerate the sports drink but gels work fine for me.

Tracy,

I was kind of hoping that someone else would respond (Oh Yanti!) because my injuries have been more of the train through them kind.

First question, do you use a coach or are in involved with a tri club that gives you access to one? I'm asking because a few years ago I had major back issues (L5/S1).  I could not feel my left foot.  I had a very hard/painful time driving stick -- both of our cars were manual transmission at the time too!  I had an MRI and I cried because it was painful to lie still in that position for that long.  I'm not sure they had seen that before.  They offered surgery or PT, stating that the five year success rate for both was the same.  I went to PT for 2-3x a week for several months.  I was a pure cyclist at the time (no running, not only no swimming but afraid to put my face in the water!) and I continued riding the whole time but I had a coach and I feel certain that she tailored the plan to keep me in shape without pushing too hard and making it worse. 

So, if you have a coach or have access to one through a club, maybe talk to the coach about your training plan for the next little bit?

I totally understand the neck/back getting super stiff while sleeping.  Last year when I had those issues I had a similar experience.  Maybe ask the PT about any sort of pillow that may help? 

I hope that this resolves itself in short order!

When it comes to RACE NUTRITION, absolutely true. I'll touch on what's already been said and maybe add some of my own stuff.

For the most part, I pay zero attention to the articles on Active.com. Two of my friends work for them, and they agree (scary!) Some of it is a decent starting point for a beginner. Most of it is just fluff, with a fair bit either flat-out wrong, outdated, or second-rate (the best evidence indicates something different, although what was written isn't actually incorrect).

Race hydration/nutrition is SO dependent on your gender, weight, body composition, fitness history/experience/level, specific race and conditions, tolerances/preferences ... as to be almost useless to recommend any blanket starting point, never mind actual plan. You have to arrive at this through personal trial and error.

My own experience and what I've read in the good literature as well as those far more experienced than I:

1) Take any information/research published, sponsored, or funded by any sports or nutrition entity with a handful of salt.
2) In that vein, people almost always need less than what's recommended by them (their objective is to push product).
3) The longer I train (meaning over years), the less I need.

My personal opinion is that, insofar as possible (because people have different tolerances), train like a crocodile. Why? Because (especially the longer the race) it's easier to eat/drink what's offered on course. Races, especially triathlons HIM and up, do publish what they'll be offering. HOWEVER--sponsors change at the last minute. The kid mixing up the barrels of Gatorade at the aid station may not read the directions, and you'll get it double-strength, half-strength, or whoknowswhat. At the last minute, they actually have blue Gatorade, not lemon-lime, and blue Gatorade is GROSS.

Or at mile 18 of a marathon, you realize you need salt, and the only salt they've got is pretzels. And you've never tried eating solid food while running.

This is not going to work for some people. And the sooner you know this, and at what distances/effort it begins to not work, the better you can plan your race nutrition.

As for hydration--I try to stay very well hydrated all the time--the notorious "pee" test (is it clear to very light yellow? Multivitamins mess this up a bit, but you'll learn quickly what the lighter shades of neon yellow look like when you're well hydrated).

Now, JO, since you asked specifically and your race is right around the corner

Try 1 gel or equivalent every hour, since 2+ per hour seems to be way too much for you. That should be enough to prevent a bonk, even if it may not be quite enough to keep you going at optimal levels. Remember that gels/blocks/gummies/etc. should always be taken with plain water. Remember: you can always take more, but the only way to take less is to barf and that costs you on both calories, hydration, comfort, etc. It's just unpleasant!

Ah-ha, I see you've established a plan for your 16-miler ... good ... and definitely stick with it. Gel every 45 minutes sounds fine, although Gatorade in between (depending on how much) would make it essentially the same as taking a gel every 30 minutes, which seemed like too much for you. Keep in mind the caloric equivalents between the different products.