GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 23)

Hey there SAquavia!

What I get from the above is either:

1) You're already done with base training and are already training for a specific race?
OR
2) You don't believe in base training and do interval training all through the year?
OR
3) I have no clue and you have an altogether different and diabolical plan for world domination?

Now which one is it???

Arthur

ARTHUR,
Yes, kind of, and me neither.  LOL. 

Yes: I'm definitely in the build phase of my training sessions. I'm starting week 14 of a 30-week plan for Ironman St. George, so this is the 3rd build week.  I'm actually a bit behind on the swim portion (should be doing 3x @ 3,000 meters), but I've had that pool being closed problem, so I'm easing back into it to make sure I don't tweak a shoulder. 

Kind of:  I really find base work boring - I really prefer breaking up a training session with some intervals or some other acute suffering.

My schedule this year fortunately plays into that, since I am essentially doing one base then rebuilding/peaking from there all summer long:
IM St. George:  May 1st.
Scheduled Hospital recovery May 2nd - 10th
Rebuild/Peak for Vineman 70.3 on July 17th
Scheduled Convalesce at home until July 25th
Rebuild/Peak for Malibu Oly in late September with an eye toward IM Silverman in November
Seek psychiatric help
Rebuild/Peak for IM Silverman if therapy is unsuccessful

SAquavia!

That is an impressive schedule indeed, although our mentor Steve's schedule from last year sounded even more deranged to me. Tell us Steve, is that what is expected in the end? That we all end our days in a mental institution? I'm in!

I too find base work extremely boring, but this week it's finally seeming to be paying off in terms of running pace at aerobic HR...so I'm sticking to it religiously for the moment.

Also you reminded me, I really need to sort out my schedule!

On a more serious note, what's the absolute minimum amount of weeks with speed work / intervals in them I should do before a sprint or OLY in your opinions?

Arthur

STEVE,

My legs are feeling pretty good tonight after a days rest from my little 3 km run.   When I left the yoga class at 6:30 tonight, I felt like I was walking on air with really light legs, so hope it carries over to tomorrow.

I was thinking of doing 5km tomorrow with a 10' run, 1' walk routine, still keeping a slow pace.    Also plan to swim after the run doing mostly drills along with maybe 5 x 100 and 3 x 200 easy sets.  

I have an osteo appt tomorrow afternoon so that will give me some good feedback as to how everything is behaving.   I don't think my right hip flexor and glute are firing properly.  

I want to do 2 more runs this week - on Thursday and Saturday - can you give me some guidelines for those.    I would like to have my weekly mileage back up to 20 km by the end of next week (the 17th).   

Thanks,

Anne

GROOVERS AND SHAKERS -

It's been a lost evening for me, as far as being here is concerned. Lynn had to wait for a long conference call to happen with her sibs, and as we're on dial-up, my needs were taken hostage.

So, again. I've been "dropped". Is that TWICE today? You folks are relentless!

So, I'll make a feeble start now, and return tomorrow morning.

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 7:52 PM

SHAUN -

TWELVE days, it's been?!? No wonder I as worried!

I'm glad the food coma is wearing off. Mine seemingly wore off about a week ago.....but the resulting poundage has not. I was hovering at 175 this morning, and suspecting he nedged up a bit during the day. Urp?

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 7:53 PM

ANNE -

Five tomorrow sounds reasonable, but just keeping lopin' along. Well, not loping so much as "running pretty". Think how that would like and try to mirror it -- but don't do anything radical. Like, if you think the high-schoolers you saw running recently, with every back-stride bringing their heel to their tokhis, looked to be running pretty, then it's good for them with their youthful flexibility, but maybe not so good for us. And Paula Radcliffe, waggling her head for all 26.2 miles of every marathon? Maybe ytou think THAT looks pretty, but all it will give you is a raging headache!

Seriously, think about where your arms are, and keep your upper body "quiet". That should be good enough!

And if the app't says that all is well, sure, runs on Thursday and Saturday will be fine. that's putting you about 48 hours between recent runs, and that should be plenty safe at this stage of the off-season, and this stage of your return to running. Just remember the 10% rule, nd that should probably be for the week for you.

Enjoy the swim, and good luck with the osteo!

M -

Ankle still turning out, as in rolling to the outside? If that is the case, then the Tangent might not be the best bet, as the dual-density midsole on the medial side will prevent your foot from rolling inward ---- which you want it to do to some degree, especially if an ankle is rolling OUT.

I will try to remember to google running stores in Omaha and see who does video analysis. Your case is very tricky, given that you were an overpronating child who was prescribed radical exercises to get you to reverse that footfall.

If you order from www.roadrunnersports.com, they have a very generous return policy if a shoe doesn't work. It used to be 60 days, but they might have modified it some since then. But if you do your trial runs on the treadmill, then they will have no complaints about returned shoes, as they will be clean and not overworn on the soles.

Getting back to the Tangent, it is not heavily-posted on the medial side, so that is still worth a shot, I think. But if you have the money to put down for two pairs, knowing you'll return at least one of them, then you could partner the Tangent with the Ride (both are Saucony), or going with Asics, the DS Trainer with the Cumulus. (Tangent and DS are similar, as are Ride and Cumulus)

Finally, be careful with using walking shoes for running. I really think they don't give enough support, or even the right support in the right places. I know I'm pretty dogmatic about this point, but........

STEVE A and ARTHUR -

Your dialogue was too brilliant for words! I will get back to both of you tomorrow -- well after my ribs stops aching from giggling away here for the past ten minutes.

The reason is that I needed your memberid to insert in the table which I get by visiting your log which needs to be public or me be your friend, of course I may have missed visiting it too. Anyhoo, the table is static, just friending me does not make it work, it then needs to be edited. I note on your log that you have one of the first versions of my table, in this one I think EVERYONE's WORKS.

I know it is a hassle to keep copying into your log but it really makes it easier to keep track of everyone over the next 4 months or longer.

------start copy after this----

GrooveTime Group Steve
CathyD BigDH ShunShun DeputyDawg Lufferly Latestarter lmcvetty SAquavia Dwayne FoxfireTX	thall0672 midlifeinsanity hooslisa smarx Hepeoc LadyNorth TriD64 rcotter ThatGirl Augeremt
link to the forum pg1

-----end copy before this------

HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING!!!!!


Steve A's post on the previous page, 12th from the top. The key nuggets are his plans for post-race recovery after St.George, Vineman, and Malibu. These plans are at the bottom of the post.


ENJOY!

GANG!

Well, it's a relief to wake up in the wee hours (it's 3:25am now), with the thought of getting caught up here, and finding that there have been no new posts since my last one a few hours ago. Ahh, bliss!

So, I think generally I'm okay for a few more hours.......but Arthur should be stirring in Portugal along about now, so I'd better watch out for an attack from the east!

ARTHUR -

And seeing as how I just sort of took your name in vain, I'll start with you.

You asked one of those all-important questions, about Base training and how pure it should be, and I will say more about that shortly (day or two?) in response to Mark's general question about Periodization. But for now I can give you some very broad thoughts about Base.

You got one answer from Steve A with his comment that (I'm paraphrasing some) pure Base training for him is just boring, and he likes adding some speedwork here and there. But he also pointed out that what he is doing now is his Build for St.George IM, so his workout schedule is going to be very skewed in relation to any of the rest of us.

For you, I think you will beneift most from a pure Base - aerobic endurance, muscular strength, and sport-specific skills. If you throw in the odd gentle speed session, that won't hurt a thing, but at this stage of the season it will have minimal benefits.

Base is designed to develop the most basic elements of fitness, which are covered in the preceding paragraph. If you spend 4 to 16 weeks working on those, then you will be in great shape by March and April to begin to actually train. Base is sometimes referred to as "training to train", and it is largely done without any specific or soon-to-happen race goals in mind. Once you have some races in your sights, then you'll start actually training for them; for now, it's all about general preparation.

Sixteen weeks may seem like a long time, but the recommendation for most triathletes is to have a fairly long base. I'd say that eight is a minimum, ten is good, and twelve is better. Sixteen will be phenomenal for someone who is (a) completely new to this stuff, (b) has no races planned until June or July, and (c) is extremely patient. I suspect you are definitely (b) and (c), and the qualifier for (a) is, of course, your swimming background.

My first season in tri was '00, coming from a run background. I couldn't run until March or so due to an injury, so I spent time learning to swim seriously, did a fw spin classes, got a bike in late April, and was off. But as I didn't have my first tri until mid August, I spent many months in Base. I didn't know that was what I was doing at the time, but my focus was on skill-building and aerobic endurance. Period. I was dedicated, but had no training plan and really didn't even have that first race planned until about two weks out from it. So, I, like a lot of new people, trained haphazardly, and while I developed a decent Base that way, I did not Build or Peak specifically for that race (or any other race for about my first three seasons; it was all just really a proloooonged Base! ).

Nowadays, my Base periods are mostly pure - at least for the swim and the run. With swimming it's STILL tons of slow, skills-based work, while for the run it's LSD -- long slow distance. The exception to that is fartleks and tempo runs, with the latter being pretty common for me at all seasons. Because I do a lot of riding on the trainer and CompuTrainer, I tend to mix in a lot of work at higher intensities; I'm not sure my Base is pure in that regard!

Summation for you:
Base of 10-16 weeks, with some speedwork by March. Your swim mechanics should be fine, but for running work on an economically running technique, and for biking focus on pedaling efficiency and, when you get outside, handling skills. I think you are still looking for a bike? If so, in the meantime even getting on a stationary bike or a spinning bike will allow you to work on pedaling efficiently - in "circles", no "dead-spots"!

Finally, are you eyeing any specific races yet?

DIANE -

First, thank you for the photo. It's great to have a face to attach to your name!

Second, your bike questions from two days ago! They are all excellent ones, and together they cover the basic aspects of Tri Biking 101.

In a sense, I answered some of them in my just-posted post to rthur, in talking about Base. That is where you are at right now, and when you say that you have nine months of training ahead, that means you have a lot of time to work on the three main components of Base --- aerobic endurance, muscular strength, and sport-specific skills development. Perfect!

If you read my entire answer to Arthur, you'll see that my first tri season was close to the timeline of '10 for you, in that I didn't have my first-ever triathlon until something like August 16, 2000. And while I was in good shape from running, I was learning serious swimming anew, and I had not owned a bike in over 20 years. I did those few spin classes which convinced me that I could be happy perched on a bike at that age (51 at the time), and then had to decide on a bike. So, let's go to your last question first.

For starters - but with hopes/plans of doing this stuff for a while and racing a couple times a year - a decent entry-level road bike would be best. The geometry of a road bike will fall partly between that of a true triathlon or time-trial bike, and a hybrid or mountain bike. A road bike will also be lighter, which has its obvious advantages. A road bike will "take" various tri-specific add-ons, such as clip-on aerobars, much more readily than hybrids or mountain bike. Finally, with something like aerobars (if you decide to go that route, even) you can place yourself in a more advantageous riding position - again, if you decide to go that route.

The downside to a road bike is that it might not be as comfortable, or as inherently safe as, as a bike that is a bit lower and in which the rider is more upright --- and which has wider tires. Road bikes usually have skinny tires, but overall - even for sprints - that is preferable by far. But there's no denying that sprints feature just about any kind of bike imaginable, short of pennyfarthings, I guess, so thousands of people make do with their basic recreational clunker! One of my other group was new to triathlon last season, and had bought a hybrid -- and in her two tris was very unhappy with it! She never envisioned herself as tearing up a course, but she at least wanted that capability, and found that it was impossible on her hybrid. One of her posted photos showed her being very upright on the bike, and just looking at it I could see that there just wasn't any latitude for a more "aggressive" position. I think she hates her bike.

My first one, in '00, was a road bike that I had "retro-fitted" with aerobars and a seat that had an angled post tha allowed me to ride more forward, or more aggressively. Those are very easy feature to add to a road bike, but can't work very well at all with hynrids or mountain bikes.

Questions?

Second, and still working backward through your questions, your speed/pace will develop mostly from aerobic conditioning and some increased leg strength. The role of coordination is not quite so clear, however. If coordination is involved in more steady or confident bike-handling, which in effect will allow you to take some risks (or at least not be held back so much by fear), then it will have a role in increased speed and pace.

As for leg strength and aerobic conditioning, however, those will be your go-to strategies -- with the big nod towards aerobic conditioning. In essence, the more you can get out and ride, the more everything else will fall into place. The relative discomfort and perceived slowness you experience during the first month will give way to an overall feeling of general comfort and a better pace, plain and simple. Your legs will be working pretty hard throughout this process, and while some people would say that you should augment this on-the-job strength-building with work in the gym, I'd say that unless you enjoy the gym, just focus on building leg strength through increased cycling and running. Just find the prettiest palces you can to ride, wiat for the nuicest weather, and go out and satrt logging those miles. You are very fortunate to be in Texas, where you can start getting outside comfortably very soon. That is such a colossal bonus!

For your final question, about reasonable speed/pace for you specifically at this stage of your tri "career" ------ let's put that one on the shelf for a couple of months, okay? For now, I wouldn't even think about your speed or pace; just do what you can, and with which you feel most comfortable at. Treat it as if you have blinders on with regards to speed or pace -- you're just riding at a rate that works best for you on any given day.

This may strike you as crazy, but I did my first three triathlon seasons without a bike computer, which meant that all of those hundreds of serious rides I did.......I had no idea of my speed or pace. All I knew was RELATIVELY how fast I was going compared to any other previous rides I could remember, and - most importantly - I "knew" my RPE, or Rating of Perceived Exertion. There will be more about this topic later, I am 100% certain, but for now I will just say that in a tri-world that is a-swarm with heart rate monitors and Garmins and other sophisticated electronic devices that can tell you everything about everything, there is still a,lot of benefit that comes from working on he basis of RPE.

For you, for now, you can get a sense of speed and pace by paying attention to your RPE. You won't have numbers (beats per minute, miles per hour, and so on) to analyze and all, but you will have a sense of your intensity, which will improve the longer you work at this stuff, and which will ineveitably lead to an improvement in speed and pace.

Please let me know what you think about what I've said here - maybe most especially the thoughts on bikes. What do you have now (anything?) and what are you leaning towards?

Finally.......how did your swim go? Did you make it to the pool yesterday (Monday)?

DIANE -

First, thank you for the photo. It's great to have a face to attach to your name!

Second, your bike questions from two days ago! They are all excellent ones, and together they cover the basic aspects of Tri Biking 101.

In a sense, I answered some of them in my just-posted post to rthur, in talking about Base. That is where you are at right now, and when you say that you have nine months of training ahead, that means you have a lot of time to work on the three main components of Base --- aerobic endurance, muscular strength, and sport-specific skills development. Perfect!

If you read my entire answer to Arthur, you'll see that my first tri season was close to the timeline of '10 for you, in that I didn't have my first-ever triathlon until something like August 16, 2000. And while I was in good shape from running, I was learning serious swimming anew, and I had not owned a bike in over 20 years. I did those few spin classes which convinced me that I could be happy perched on a bike at that age (51 at the time), and then had to decide on a bike. So, let's go to your last question first.

For starters - but with hopes/plans of doing this stuff for a while and racing a couple times a year - a decent entry-level road bike would be best. The geometry of a road bike will fall partly between that of a true triathlon or time-trial bike, and a hybrid or mountain bike. A road bike will also be lighter, which has its obvious advantages. A road bike will "take" various tri-specific add-ons, such as clip-on aerobars, much more readily than hybrids or mountain bike. Finally, with something like aerobars (if you decide to go that route, even) you can place yourself in a more advantageous riding position - again, if you decide to go that route.

The downside to a road bike is that it might not be as comfortable, or as inherently safe as, as a bike that is a bit lower and in which the rider is more upright --- and which has wider tires. Road bikes usually have skinny tires, but overall - even for sprints - that is preferable by far. But there's no denying that sprints feature just about any kind of bike imaginable, short of pennyfarthings, I guess, so thousands of people make do with their basic recreational clunker! One of my other group was new to triathlon last season, and had bought a hybrid -- and in her two tris was very unhappy with it! She never envisioned herself as tearing up a course, but she at least wanted that capability, and found that it was impossible on her hybrid. One of her posted photos showed her being very upright on the bike, and just looking at it I could see that there just wasn't any latitude for a more "aggressive" position. I think she hates her bike.

My first one, in '00, was a road bike that I had "retro-fitted" with aerobars and a seat that had an angled post tha allowed me to ride more forward, or more aggressively. Those are very easy feature to add to a road bike, but can't work very well at all with hynrids or mountain bikes.

Questions?

Second, and still working backward through your questions, your speed/pace will develop mostly from aerobic conditioning and some increased leg strength. The role of coordination is not quite so clear, however. If coordination is involved in more steady or confident bike-handling, which in effect will allow you to take some risks (or at least not be held back so much by fear), then it will have a role in increased speed and pace.

As for leg strength and aerobic conditioning, however, those will be your go-to strategies -- with the big nod towards aerobic conditioning. In essence, the more you can get out and ride, the more everything else will fall into place. The relative discomfort and perceived slowness you experience during the first month will give way to an overall feeling of general comfort and a better pace, plain and simple. Your legs will be working pretty hard throughout this process, and while some people would say that you should augment this on-the-job strength-building with work in the gym, I'd say that unless you enjoy the gym, just focus on building leg strength through increased cycling and running. Just find the prettiest palces you can to ride, wiat for the nuicest weather, and go out and satrt logging those miles. You are very fortunate to be in Texas, where you can start getting outside comfortably very soon. That is such a colossal bonus!

For your final question, about reasonable speed/pace for you specifically at this stage of your tri "career" ------ let's put that one on the shelf for a couple of months, okay? For now, I wouldn't even think about your speed or pace; just do what you can, and with which you feel most comfortable at. Treat it as if you have blinders on with regards to speed or pace -- you're just riding at a rate that works best for you on any given day.

This may strike you as crazy, but I did my first three triathlon seasons without a bike computer, which meant that all of those hundreds of serious rides I did.......I had no idea of my speed or pace. All I knew was RELATIVELY how fast I was going compared to any other previous rides I could remember, and - most importantly - I "knew" my RPE, or Rating of Perceived Exertion. There will be more about this topic later, I am 100% certain, but for now I will just say that in a tri-world that is a-swarm with heart rate monitors and Garmins and other sophisticated electronic devices that can tell you everything about everything, there is still a,lot of benefit that comes from working on he basis of RPE.

For you, for now, you can get a sense of speed and pace by paying attention to your RPE. You won't have numbers (beats per minute, miles per hour, and so on) to analyze and all, but you will have a sense of your intensity, which will improve the longer you work at this stuff, and which will ineveitably lead to an improvement in speed and pace.

Please let me know what you think about what I've said here - maybe most especially the thoughts on bikes. What do you have now (anything?) and what are you leaning towards?

Finally.......how did your swim go? Did you make it to the pool yesterday (Monday)?

Good grief! It just took me 5:08 to delete the third copy of my long post to Diane. My technique was "static backspacing", with index finger pressed down for the duration "(Hold that pose!"). Is this a "dynamic" way to delete a post??

Maybe later I will clear out the other one, practicing what I preached endlessly to my students -- clear up your own messes!










Edited by stevebradley 2010-01-05 3:25 PM

OOPS!
OOPS!
OOPS!

Sorry about the triplication! I kept getting a "This Screen Cannot Be Displayed" message, and was advised to try again. So I kept trying! The result? Three identical posts. I thought about deleting them by using my backspace button, but after over a minute I was still a long ways from deleting even the third one of the trio, so I figured we all can live with three identical posts.

And on that note, it's 5:20 and I'm going back to bed!

This week my biggest goal is to get 3 runs completed.   My training plan (which has a REALLY long 20 week base) usually starts Nov 1 and I would be at 23km/week by now but since I haven't been running, have to build back up to where I should be.   If I keep my current plan for the season I guess that means I will have a 12 week base prep, followed by a 6 week base transition, so I should be OK.   I also include speedwork all year, although a very small % of overall mileage, during the base prep phase.

4 x Bike -   104 km  (long 34km)
3 x Swim -  6400 meters  (long 1200 meters)
3 x Run -  15 km -  (no long)
3 x Yoga
1 x strength

Anne

DIANE -

Oh, yeah! Your breathing post! I had forgotten it, but as I'm still sifting around for things I've missed recently, I would've found it sooner or later -- I think......

In an earlier post elsewhere here (probably to Tracey) I told her that I was a lifelong left-side breather until '00 when I decided to jump-start my embryonic triathlon "career" with some one-on-one swim lessons at a local Y. The young woman who worked with me watched me do my time-honored freestyle, breathing only to the left. And then, for some reason, she had me breathe to the right, and quickly concluded that that looked like my best side. I was kind of shocked, as I had seldom breathed there before -- maybe 30 breaths to that side in all those years, and those would've been just goofin' around.

I was too raw at those lessons to ask her all the questions I have since thought of, with the basic one being -- what is it you are seeing that makes you so quick to recommend a sea-change in my breathing pattern?? I'm sure she was seeing balance, because shortly after when I started working through TI myself, it was clear to me that right-side up (in those sweet-spot drills), with my head resting on my left arm, was more "natural" than the other way - the way that would accompany left-side breathing.

Sooooo, that's a long story to say that you juts might want to experiment with breathing on the right side and see how it compares after a few sessions. It's so odd that for me the change became complete almost immediately, and even now I still cannot breathe 100% perfectly on the left side. I work endlessly, it seems, on bilateral breathing, and can make it work for a while, but then I just get winded before too long. But right-side breathing -- I can do that forever and a day.

And as with you and your cycling concerns, well, here again you see the benefits of having a long time to get ready for your first race. There will be nothing lost by experimenting with your breathing, and you too might make a Eureka! discovery about which side works best!

The math on the breathing is pretty compelling. If you breathe only to one side, every stroke cycle, you are breathing every other stroke. (That is, for a left-side breather, every time the left arm is pulling back underwater and the right is recovering above the water before its entry, a breath is taken.) Bilateral has you breathing every third stroke, and for those who breathes to one side, but do it every other stroke, their breaths are happeneing every fourth stroke. So, the optimal amount of oxygen happens with a one-side only breather who breathes on every stroke cycle.

The only downside to one-sided breathing is that it upsets the perfect balance of a stroke; that is, most people do not roll the same amount to their non-breathing as they do when they need to reach that extra bit to grab the air. That makes sense, but it can be worked on by just focusing on a full(er) body roll to the other side when the breath is not being taken.

Did you see the earlier discussions (Arthur, tracey, me) about one-goggle-out and "Popeye" breathing? If not, tell me and I will summarize them.

Glub, glub!

DARREN -

I too am envious of those miles of yours!

This week's plan looks good, and without going back I think it's building nicely on previous weeks; yes? What I don't know is if the week will be those three runs only , or when you say "I want 3 key workouts", does that mean there will be one or two non-key runs as well? Just curious!

ANNE -

Yup! A 12-week Base plus a 6-week Base Prep should definitely be OK. Perfectly prudent and patient planning!

You know, for someone who initially billed herself as almost manic-compulsive about this stuff, you are proving to be a model of wise planning and careful execution. You're kind of a Dr.Jeckyll/Mr.Hyde ----- but I see no evidence of the latter other than your earlier comments.

So today is run day and ortho day, right? Good luck on both -- and no Radcliffeian head-wagging, you hear?

lol, yeah, there will be more than 3 runs, hopefully 6. The rest will be just slow recovery runs. I am giving your fatrlik idea a try by throwing in those 10 strides, today hopefully.