Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 23)

I've seen others with differences like yours as well, Nicole. No matter how careful one is, it's still off. That care makes it consistent from one workout to the next, which is what you're really after. Then the progress over time can be tracked much better. For what it's worth, the actual powermeters can vary from one to the next as well. Powertap tends to be a little low due to the drivetrain losses. Quarq in the middle. And SRM tends to be a bit high. Not sure where some of the newer ones fit in yet.

Firstly, holy frick!  Nice 500!  And 2500 into the workout?  SO NICE!  Your workout today would have buried me :)

This is your masters' group, right?  How many yds are you swimming in a practice?  I was doing between 3500-4000 pretty regularly last spring, but I'm mentally stuck at 3000 right now :/

I'm guessing my breakout would be similar with PB and paddles being somewhere between PB and swimming alone. I haven't used my paddles or my fins since last spring, but I should probably break them out sometime soon.

I tried doing a strict 2 beat today during my swim at lunch and it was ugly.  Legs too sinky.  I am trying to get hooked up to get some video so I can get some online feedback, but I may just need to work with a coach on this at some point. 

The funny thing is, if I don't think about it, I think I'm doing OK, but when I try to time my kick with a part of my catch or pull or  even just think about it too much, I get all outta whack.  You'd think doing the same thing over and over and over, I'd be able to figure it out. lol, apparently not :)

I've seen some nice progress off 3 quality sessions a week. I have 3 masters sessions, 2 weekday ones about an hour long, so ~2,900-3,200 or so plus whatever cooldown we get in. Then 90 min on Sunday for 4,000-5,000 or so. This one is really fun when the pool changes from scy to scm. The send-off is adjusted, but the sets don't seem to. Swimming more on my own has added definitely helped more improvement come faster.

Trying to work on things that may not fit as neatly into a 2 week block, but can be seen as a weakness. Stopped a trainer ride earlier than planned whereas I may have pushed in the past. Saw that TSS was already nearing 150 before starting a rather big interval and I'd already done just over an hour of work up in Z4 throughout the ride. Have a better sense of what I can do on the 3 bigger/stronger rides of the week and thought this would be enough. More would compromise my swim session today (masters) and Saturday is a better time for me to push much beyond 150 with all I'm trying to do right now. Next time I may try to ride some more after what I did, but at a notably lesser effort than planned. Building up the bike volume and want to keep up the steady progression as I've fallen a bit flat with big jumps in weekly TSS after a week or two. Many do need to learn how to push through workouts, but mine tend to be rather ambitious at times. This one had an IF ~0.87 over ~2 hrs.

Awesome, Ben.

I think that bolded part is SO huge. Great job. 

Last night we had a workout, 2 x 15' tempo with hard surges every 3 minutes. This was prescribed as an "easier" workout since such a large majority of us who do XC had such a hard race just two days before. My coach specifically told me to take er easy. When I was done he congratulated me for making it look effortless and told me I was shaming my training partners because I wasn't breathing hard. What is funny is I totally thought it was hard! Like, REALLY hard.I even sort of considered dropping off on the last rep. I guess I am a good actor, lol!

I feel as though I am STILL recovering from both my cold and the race so I am taking it easy today and even scheduled a massage this evening. I'm even debating just running easy through next Wednesday in hopes that I can "fully" recover. I'll just see how I feel. 

All that said, I think the weakness I am really going to put a lot of focus on (in addition to mental strength) will be safety! It's dark for pretty much all of my workouts and I would rather not get hit by a car. 

Sounds like you're doing quite well with your running.  I've been doing recovery runs with some strides at the end of today's run.  I'm taking it easy now to prepare for my 10K Saturday.

Agreed.  But my bolded part calls that a bad-azz workout!

Think the running discussion helped out with this. I don't like doing the drop down recovery weeks unless I really need it, and the idea of Daniels is to work at a level for a few weeks, and then bump up. Whereas I'd get impatient, trying to match or beat previous things too frequently as opposed to just work at the appropriate level without worrying about a couple watts.

Also thinking FTP may need to bump up a bit. See how another ride goes first.

I'm not sure how to word the question, but I think that sometimes I might be pushing too much or too hard or whatever because I don't want to be "wimping out," and I fear that I have a propensity for that. 

"This is hard," and  "I wanna quit" are just part of doing good quality workouts. The "this doesn't feel good" part is what I analyze. I have a pretty good understanding of my body and am pretty good at distinguishing whether I need to back off or to HTFU.  I believe knowing our bodies REALLY well is something that we, as athletes, should make a priority.

BTW, I built my own stick massager! I'm pretty pleased with my handiwork! 

Duuuuuuuude!  Awesome!

Did you, uh, turn wood for the handles?

Glad you checked in Gretchen! What you've described sounds like a good strategy. You sound very busy.  Good luck with the travel :)

Salty, I  need to do a better job of understanding the "this doesn't feel good moments"  I think I often just put those in the wrong category, and then can put myself in a hole.  It's a quality of "maturity" in an athlete that  I admire quite a bit but many days I am still sorely lacking.

You couldn't help yourself, could you?

You know how I feel about wood! That shyte is faux  

I think a good place to start is doing your easy days REALLY easy. And saving any and all HTFU for the hard days (when they come, you shouldn't be there yet post injury) btw

The VDOT will help guide pretty precisely what paces are hard enough but not too hard, depending on what you are doing.

And then you have to be really honest with yourself. Remove that ego. When something doesn't feel good, you need to really think it it's something structural and something that could set you back if you keep pushing or if you are just being lazy. 

Very nice stick, btw

With running I think I have a better gauge of this than with swimming or cycling.  With swimming I'm so new and so much of the main set is supposed to suck that I really don't have a good internal barometer for that.  It doesn't feel like I'm pushing an injury, but if I'm having trouble making a set pace or a SO does that mean I'm just having a bad day, the set is too hard for my ability, or it really isn't feeling good for some "bigger" reason that I should listen to?  With swimming I don't have a gauge on this AT ALL.

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by drfoodlove

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by jmhpsu93

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by brigby1

I've seen some nice progress off 3 quality sessions a week. I have 3 masters sessions, 2 weekday ones about an hour long, so ~2,900-3,200 or so plus whatever cooldown we get in. Then 90 min on Sunday for 4,000-5,000 or so. This one is really fun when the pool changes from scy to scm. The send-off is adjusted, but the sets don't seem to. Swimming more on my own has added definitely helped more improvement come faster.

Trying to work on things that may not fit as neatly into a 2 week block, but can be seen as a weakness. Stopped a trainer ride earlier than planned whereas I may have pushed in the past. Saw that TSS was already nearing 150 before starting a rather big interval and I'd already done just over an hour of work up in Z4 throughout the ride. Have a better sense of what I can do on the 3 bigger/stronger rides of the week and thought this would be enough. More would compromise my swim session today (masters) and Saturday is a better time for me to push much beyond 150 with all I'm trying to do right now. Next time I may try to ride some more after what I did, but at a notably lesser effort than planned. Building up the bike volume and want to keep up the steady progression as I've fallen a bit flat with big jumps in weekly TSS after a week or two. Many do need to learn how to push through workouts, but mine tend to be rather ambitious at times. This one had an IF ~0.87 over ~2 hrs.

Awesome, Ben.

I think that bolded part is SO huge. Great job. 

Agreed.  But my bolded part calls that a bad-azz workout!

Think the running discussion helped out with this. I don't like doing the drop down recovery weeks unless I really need it, and the idea of Daniels is to work at a level for a few weeks, and then bump up. Whereas I'd get impatient, trying to match or beat previous things too frequently as opposed to just work at the appropriate level without worrying about a couple watts.

Also thinking FTP may need to bump up a bit. See how another ride goes first.

  A question for the group:  how do you all gauge when to back it down like Ben did in his trainer ride (which I'm sure was a good call for him), and when is it the reverse, when you find yourself in a workout and think, "ehhh, this is hard, I wanna quite, it doesn't feel good", but you feel like you're wimping out and need to HTFU?

I'm not sure how to word the question, but I think that sometimes I might be pushing too much or too hard or whatever because I don't want to be "wimping out," and I fear that I have a propensity for that. 

 

I usually make myself go at least 10 more minutes after the first thought of ugh...I don't want to be doing this anymore. After that, I've usually made it past some milestone (whether that be 1mile, 25% of the workout, or whatever--I divide my workouts into several measurable units to give myself something to think about), and I don't want to quit after getting that far. If, after 10 minutes and the next milestone, I still want to quit, I generally think there is something more than just wimping out going on and will consider stopping. Of course, I still gotta get home, so sometimes that isn't really an option! I'm glad you asked this question, because I've often thought the same thing. Sorry I haven't been around much this week. I'm going to a conference starting tomorrow through the weekend for work, and I've been running nearly non-stop to get all of my students prepared for their presentations and re-jigger my schedule to fit in all of my workouts. Little to no time for playing on BT. The upside is that I've also been too busy to graze, so my nutrition goals have been very easy to meet. That will probably go out the window when I spend all weekend traveling with 20-26year olds--cheap and healthy are often at odds.

Glad you checked in Gretchen! What you've described sounds like a good strategy. You sound very busy.  Good luck with the travel

Salty, I  need to do a better job of understanding the "this doesn't feel good moments"  I think I often just put those in the wrong category, and then can put myself in a hole.  It's a quality of "maturity" in an athlete that  I admire quite a bit but many days I am still sorely lacking.

I think a good place to start is doing your easy days REALLY easy. And saving any and all HTFU for the hard days (when they come, you shouldn't be there yet post injury) btw

The VDOT will help guide pretty precisely what paces are hard enough but not too hard, depending on what you are doing.

And then you have to be really honest with yourself. Remove that ego. When something doesn't feel good, you need to really think it it's something structural and something that could set you back if you keep pushing or if you are just being lazy. 

 

No HTFU on the running yet--promise

With running I think I have a better gauge of this than with swimming or cycling.  With swimming I'm so new and so much of the main set is supposed to suck that I really don't have a good internal barometer for that.  It doesn't feel like I'm pushing an injury, but if I'm having trouble making a set pace or a SO does that mean I'm just having a bad day, the set is too hard for my ability, or it really isn't feeling good for some "bigger" reason that I should listen to?  With swimming I don't have a gauge on this AT ALL.

Well, the good news is, you can generally afford to push it a heck of a lot more in swimming and cycling. You might be overly fatigued for your next workout and that is a negative impact, but the risk of injury is much lower. You just need to keep in mind your overall training volume and plan. It's all push and pull, right? 

Dang it,  Nicole, I'm really going to have to read that book too, huh?

That is very interesting, and it would be good for me to have a strict percentage like that.  Was this "just" in respect to cycling, or could this be extrapolated to the other sports as well?

Have you found that you are able to tell "too much" or "feeling bad" with the swim?

I'm glad you're taking care of you:)  You have had a lot going on with work and with racing.  Enjoy your massage.

I think it's hilarious that your coach thought you were totally taking it easy and you thought it was really hard.  Stoic Salty.  Do you play poker?

+1 on the safety.  I am coming up on the 1 year anniversary of being hit by a truck--guy was drunk, but it was dark and I didn't have anything reflective on.  I was totally OK because somehow I managed to jump/roll onto the hood of his truck and he was turning and only going about 15mph. But holy crap, I was scared and so, so pissed.  The next day the only thing that hurt were my wrists from slamming my hands on the hood and glass so hard.  I also ran the fastest mile and half of my life right after. lol. Real nice.

Must by some reflective gear.  What do you do for this?  Where do you get it?