Mad Manatee Mentors 2013: CLOSED (exc/ Pop Tart bribes) (Page 225)

Cute new avi!

That looks like a good set.  Couple questions.

1) If you race a couple of different distances, do you pick your fastest "race pace"?

2) When you go to fins, are you still with paddles, or do you drop the paddles?

Paddles are awesome, they almost feel too good.

I'll have to try this in a pool set up for LCM.  It will make the 75s a PITA, but it takes me so long to turn in fins it would defeat the set.  Do you just stop mid pool on the 75s or do you swim an easy rest back to the wall, and then start then next set there?

My geography sucks-- I should have checked your altitude.

That is so awesome!  I bet when you come down to sea level you feel invincible as you smoke all us suckas

1) - I'm training for HIM so that was my ball park pace (I actually only have one pace - forward)

2) Drop the paddles.  And when putting on paddles/fins - you only take the 20secs or whatever the rest time is, no dilly dallying.

75's I stopped mid pool.  I liked doing that - it was empty coz of the weather I had eight lanes to myself.  Felt sorry for the life guard, she looked freezing.

Macca says do this set weekly and watch the times come down.  So we shall see.  I don't do flip turns so I'm even slower!

OK, I'm intrigued.  I'm gonna give it a try next week.  I rarely use my toys cause I don't have a good set for them.  Thanks!

And if Macca says it...

That is faching disgusting and I LOVE IT. Will sneak that one into my catalog! Some of the ones in Crowie's book are badazz, too.

Kingsley was all happy to do the Sheila T workouts with me until he saw the one that was 4500 with 1400 fly ... he turned his nose up at it and said, "I'm on vacation!"

You're a sick, sick woman.

I'm not familiar with her workouts--do they all require that you can swim fly? 

I try and incorporate fly into my warm up.  I wear fins for the warm up do free, back, breast and then attempt a 50m fly now and again.  Gets the lungs working! I also do a couple of catch up drills then good to hit the main set.

1400 fly - would be a hypoxic underwater set for me...after 25m I'm practically hugging the floor of the pool.

Yeah, the cost is where some of the other companies could be nice. Still not cheap, but a few hundred less is rather noticeable. I'm not big on the crowds either. Makes it hard to go at my own pace for awhile into it. So another requirement for me would be getting my swimming up fast enough to clear the heaviest sections.

'Kay, I am going to break into the convo here and bring it TOTALLY off track....cause I can....

Today I want to introduce Mr. Smooth Fronted Dwarf Caiman (aka Yacare)

Ours

Full grown other one.

Mr. Yacare is about 3.5 feet long....he will grow to a whopping 5  to 7 feet long. He is well trained to swim (or walk) to a target, and to "station" on a chosen location for feeding (usually a board on the land part of the exhibit). He also likes to meet me DIRECTLY at the door of his exhibit....and yesterday, I also learned that he can jump almost 3 feet out of the water...when he did and nearly connected with my arm. Needless to say, we are considering turning the door into his exhibit from a standard solid door into a divided door, where we can open the top half for training, etc...and perhaps make his "jumping" into part of a show for visitors or something. It is impressive.

These guys live in South America, eat anything they can (with a special love for fishies), and generally try to survive as little tiny crocodilians do. They (as Yacare has shown) are also incredibly intelligent.

Back to the scheduled conversation....

Very nice!

Pretty sure I'd be under 1:05 and might be able to hit an hour. I'd like to be a bit stronger to make sure I was out of the crowd more. Especially for the start as I'm not really much for contact and prefer to ease into things instead of the mad rush so many do. I'm also a LOT faster in the in the water now than last year, but that's mostly pool. I'd want to make sure I'm translating that to open water better. I'm faster in open water now, but need some more practice to get all of the pool increases to show up there too.

The other reason, and maybe just as much so, is for the bike. I'm noticeably stronger than the last couple Mdot events and felt rather crowded there for quite awhile. Near 5 hrs flat is realistic on a number of courses, and could go under that on the fastest ones. How crowded a course seems can vary from one person to the next for a few reasons not always thought of. One is where they come out of the swim. Once ahead there, even average on the bike won't see as much traffic. Then for bike speed, it looks a lot different to a more average biker than to a FOP one. Instead of having 50 people to go around there are now 800-1300 or more. Or at a local sprint I was in the last wave. An average rider may have gone around say 20 people. I might go around 150 or more in less than 12 miles. Kind of wish I had put the GoPro on for that one to show how different it looks. Kind of like being in a driving video game and hitting the turbo boost or nitrous. Trying to run when there are a number of walkers on the path might work as well, but doesn't quite have the same edge.

The wave starts can help with the swim in spreading things out, but the issue would still remain with the bike. It can help spread things out a bit to lessen it some, but also introduces luck of the draw in where ones wave is at in the line.

Just a quick drive by to say Hi and good luck to all the racing manatee's this weekend. 

Also - thanks for all the inspires. I really like seeing those.  

Quick update:  the training has been going great, now that I decided to finally do it.  Still not swimming as much  as I should, but that is a conscious choice as my focus right now is on bike and run fitness.  

This past week was great - I felt like a fricking BEAST on my 20 mile ride/ 9 mile run (longest run in a long time) brick I did on Wed... then Thursday's 30 mile ride / 4 mile run almost killed me!  Well, at least the run did.    

I have also been reading Joe Friels "The Triathletes Training Bible" and am loving it.  Learning so much.  

Also - back to working with my friend Kim - she really wants to finish a 5K and is also running to lose weight.  I started her at a 30 second run, 1 min walk.  We ran 2 days last week, and she has her "homework" to get out there and run this weekend.  Sure hope she does it.    It has been inspirational to work with Kim.  That girl works harder to run a 15 min mile than I do to run an 8 min mile.  Amazing how quickly her heart rate spikes, and she is sweating and breathing hard.  But she keeps going, and that is motivation for me.  I told her that if she sticks with it, I will be at the finish line rooting her on.  

My son had his second swim meet.  It was outdoors.  He did great and I got sunburned!    Really hoping it doesn't peal..might turn into a nice tan and "blend" my cyclist tan in nicely with my chest.    

Have a great weekend everyone.  I'm off for my 50 mile ride / 6 mile run day today.  

Oh yeah - almost forgot - I have some awesome video's from my ride yesterda.  Going to edit them a bit, then will post a link when I'm done.  

That's so awesome!!!!

Race (er...fun is more like it....) Report:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=495744&posts=1&page=1

Now that's a way to spend a Saturday!

Have you posted any pics of it since you've been riding it?