Athena/ Clydesdale Official Mentor Group (Page 21)

Walk/Trot - 3.7 miles - 59m 02s - 16 min/mi - AHR 140 - MHR 159

ARGH!!  Was trying to save my workout info and "walk-it-off" at the same time.  Wound up deleting the data.  All values are now "as near as I can remember".   Should have just stopped and paid attention to what I was doing.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that I started incorporating more trotting into the workout.  I use telephone poles to gauge myself; walk for four, trot for one.  It worked great.  I completed my first mile (the all uphill one) in 15m 49s.  I was at exactly 31m as I made the turn at the bottom of the hill for the 2 mile mark.  I slowed my pace on THE hill.  That took me 7 minutes to climb today instead of the usual 6.  But I still completed my 3 miles in 48m and my 3.1 race distance in 49 something.  I know it was under 50m.  I let gravity take over for the last .7 miles and did what I call "The Gravity Shuffle".  My speed becomes commensurate with the slope down which I am descending.  I stepped into the driveway at precisely 59m, but it took 2s to stop the chrono.  And then I erased it all.  ARGH!!(again)

So, all that effort and all that jarring on the knees netted me a 13 second improvement overall.  Was it worth it?  Ask me tomorrow, after I see how I feel climbing out of bed.

I do the same thing with mailboxes.  Pick up the pace for 1, stop for 1 or 2, so on and so forth.  It's nice because I can never remember the EXACT ones that I stop and start at, so every time it's different.

Just caught up with this great thread after a long week of training and tons of work too. 

The great news is that both me and my body survived my evil peak-training week using my BT Olympic plan (which I can highly recommend by the way). I even aced my 6.4 miles long run, which is the furthest I've ever run before in my life!  It's amazing to think that 2 years ago, I could barely jog quarter of a mile without my legs looking like large rubber bands and my lungs feeling like they were going to implode!  And yet here I am getting ready for my first oly distant tri on 23rd September (jonD81 I'll be thinking of you in your first tri on that day - good luck and have fun, and yes those wetsuits are supposed to be t-i-g-h-t!).

calluna - my mere 6.4 miles pales into comparison to your 11 miles, wow!  Do I think you're ready for a HM, hell yes!!!!!  Go get it and have fun! 

FlyBoy172 - exercise + healthy eating = weight loss.  It's a wonderfully simple equation and it works too; keep up the great work, and I'm sure you're dog is loving it too!

Leatherneck - I just knew you would absolutely "kill those hills" one day, and you haven't let me down   On the asthma front though, it's worth getting checked out as it's amazing how much the inhalers can help.  I've had asthma since I was 19 (and probably had it earlier too), and I know so well those feelings of coughing up a lung (or two) during/after workouts...

alburyscott - sweet group ride (pictures of your newly acquired/borrowed bike please!!!!) and 30 km, wow!

melbo55 - I'm also interested in trying out Fisherman76's post about "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" at some stage, but I don't have enough time at the moment with my Oly training plan keeping me fully occupied.  It's something I may try out over the winter though as I'd dearly like to get faster at this running stuff.  I have recently shifted to running 10 minutes/walking 1 minute, and I do find this works wonders for me.  I can keep up a 9.50/10.10 minute mile pace with absolutely no problems for 6 miles, and even knocked out a 9 minute/mile pace for the last 0.4 mile (i.e., my equivalent of a sprint)  

Kent2233 -  it could be many things, but the only times I've had side cramps during running was when I ate something within 1-2 hours my run.  It was only a light snack, but I've now found that it's best if I eat absolutely nothing for about 3-4 hours before I run.  Hydrate of course, but don't eat anything.

UpstateNYYeti - know forever know as YETISEATBREAKER!!!!!  I have to tell you that that post of yours really made me laugh.  I hope you've found a wonderful new seat for your bike?

my $0.02: stick to the plan, you'll break the barrier soon enough!

wartho: thanks for the advice, I had a cliff bar about an hour before the race, was probably my problem. It was at 11:15 which I think is an awkward time to do a run, in the future I will avoid eating couple hours before and hopefully I won't have the same problems.  Next race for me is HM on Oct 14th that will probably destroy me but I've decided to Galloway it and I am excited to see how that goes.

kent, I was a good boy and stuck to  my plan.  Question ,,,, what does "Galloway it" mean?  The only Galloway I know is the flute player, James Galloway, and I'm betting he had nothing to do with what you mean.

BTW folks, FWIW, Joe Friel writes in both the books I have that you should not eat any later than 2 hours before a race/workout.  Then if it's longer than an hour event eat something (Gu, fruit, whatever) as needed.  I can find more specific info if anyone needs it.

Swim - 1500 yds - 17m 30s - 1:10/100 yds avg

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html

doing a planned run/walk rather than running until tired and walking for a bit.

Wow, leatherneck, you are a freaking speedy fish!!  Those are some great averages for the 100M!  Nice swim.

Galloway refers to the Galloway method of doing planned running/walking intervals during training and racing, say run 4 minutes, walk 1.  Repeat. And repeat. 

Different color starts mean how many times and how frequently you post, and I believe that's also how your 'veteran' (or other.  Mine says 'expert' and I'm no expert.  I may know a thing or 2, though ) status appears, by number of posts.  I know I saw the detailed explanation and breakdown somewhere on the site but I can't find it right now.  Maybe someone else has the link...or if you go into your own profile and hover over each of the little stars it will show a number which they represent.  My blue star = 500 posts, pink = 100, green = 25.  Beyond that, I don't know!

Keep up the good work with training.

kent, re: the Galloway method, I guess I'm already using it.  I walk for 3 telephone poles and then trot for 1, repeat as often as I can (except up that killer hill!)

melbo thanks for the explanations, you're always so helpful.  As I was telling my mother today, my cool-down times are within a few seconds of my warm-up times.  I've never been able to slow down in the water.  Gave my college coach fits.

Wow, just wow.,,,,, leatherneck, you are doing amazing!!!!

Careful though, at this rate you'll end up a Shetland pony rather than a Percheron

Bike - 5.25 miles - 32m 27s - avg 9.7 mph - AHR 142 - MHR 168

It doesn't look like much of a workout.  I had planned on doing this route four times today and could only manage two times.  Sounds even less impressive, huh?

I compared my usual walk/trot course to Blueman and discovered that both my hills are  longer and steeper than what I will face at Blueman.  Great!  So here's the course.  1 mile up at 3%, then coast down 1/2 mile, climb 1/2 mile at 4%, a steep descent for .3 miles, and a slight climb for .3 miles back to the start.  Like I said, planned four laps, only did two.

Thank goodness for my HRM.  Thanks to that I can see that I really was working as hard as I thought, and that I probably made the right call not trying to go a third time around.  I spent the overwhelming majority of the time somewhere between 140 and 160 bpm, hitting 168 at the top of my last climb.  So once again, this was an upper zone 4, lower zone 5, with two peaks that are off the chart.

You know what?  I can live with a 33m workout of that intensity, for this week.  Next week I WILL get three laps!

Awesome, awesome, awesome!!  Keep up the good work!

Looking like I won't have it before my tri, so I'll be going into it with my MB.  Scott is kind of slow on the turnaround for sending a new frame and since it's free (technically it shouldn't be because I'm the 2nd owner of the bike so all warranties go out the window on that) I'm being patient and figure I'll get it back whenever.  So I'm kind of throwing expectations out the window for this one.  I had a finish time in my head before but now it's a lot different due to the bike.  Oh well, it will make it that much easier to PR next year.

I'm sure you'll do fine!  You have become dedicated to getting your workouts done, and now it is a matter of working them into a new routine. 

Heading to California for the Malibu Tri this weekend.  Short race, but training has gone well this summer.  I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do, and if I have gotten over my ocean swim issues. 

Walk (no trotting) - 4.69 miles - 1h 19m 48s - 17 min/mi - AHR 126 - MHR 160

Well, I didn't let work stop me.  I wore my boots to school today and stayed in them all day.  Big mistake, I have to go back to wearing sneakers once I get to school.  By the end of the day, the foot that got crushed by the forklift last November was giving me absolute fits.  There was no way I could trot on it.  What should I do?

I decided to not worry about speed and to just walk.  But to create some sort of overload I chose to up the distance.  Instead of turning downhill at the last corner I headed uphill, thus adding an extra mile to the course.  I have proven to myself several times that I still have the mental fortitude to tough it out and go hard.  The fortitude I seem to lack is the ability to rein myself in and ease up.  I was quite pleased to see that I was under a 17:30 pace at the first mile, and drove it down to 17:02 at the end of the first 2 miles.  That bugger of a hill slowed me down to a 17:20 pace.  But then I got it back down to 17:00 by the time I got finished with the course.

Looking at the data, I actually managed to stay at a nice even zone 3 workout, well except for that hill where I peaked at 160 despite the fact that I didn't think I was attacking all that hard.  I wish I had earlier data to compare it to because it felt great, and not really too strenuous.

Well done leather, good job. I went to the snow for a few hours yesterday with she who must be obeyed (my 4 year old), so I called it a workout. The last bit of snow is slippery, and hard to walk up!

Today I did my own version of a brick, 40 mins on the indoor trainer, and then 20 mins on a treadmill.  Miss was asleep, and my wife was away, so indoor it had to be. At least I did it.

Leather, that's some great distance.  I fully believe that once you do the distance and move on to 4 miles or more then it will be that much easier on race day to get it done and you'll have the mental edge of already conquering that distance.

Did a trail run today, 4 miles, 36 mins, my right quad is still really sore even though I took 3 days off.  Tri is a week from tomorrow so I think I have to take it easy this week so I can go at it on Sunday.  Not very happy with it but I can't do anything about it really.

Looks like my bike won't be covered either for a new frame.  I posted something over in the main forum about it but totally got beat up over it, oh well, is what it is, I'm just kind of ticked off at everything in general.  Have to go patch the flat in my mountain bike so I can get a ride in tomorrow at least.  Probably a good time to go lift weights right now the way I feel.  Sorry for the rant session.

4 miles, 9 mins each, that's fantastic!  My advice; rest the thigh, fix the flat, and give it hell.

Marine Corps philosophy for your situation is "Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome".  You've got the spirit for it.  You'll be fine.

Well its been an easy week for me. The pool I swim at is closed til November, my bike seat is broke. So I decided to just run on my run days and go light.

So today Sunday I ran an hour but I ran further in that hour than I have ever run in an hour. I hope I can get the infamous 4 miles in an hour. I ran til I almost puked when I got home. If I puked would that have been proof of Yeti's because I left Yeti Spaghetti behind. Well maybe next time.

Wish me luck on the four when I go back and check it with my car.

Oh and my Cobb Cycling Max Saddle came in, so with my Tri shorts and a new saddle maybe I can get to 16 mph. I tried the standing up and spinning at 90 rpms for two hours it just aint happening!! 

Hope everybody that had a long session this weekend or race had a great one!!