Fast Twitch Tri-FULL (Page 24)

PATTI again -

Yes, for sure -- three times a week will definitely improve your bike fitness over the winter.  That's about what i aim for nowadays (these past coupla years, that is), although if I'm feeling either frisky or motivated, i will go for a fourth session.  For me, from Nov-Apr, it is guaranteed to be indoors, in my basement, on 90% trainer and 10% rollers.  It's what comes from living up here --- although every Mar/Apr there are a few days in which there is the tickle of spring and I can get outside and feel that all is right with the world again!

Congrats on taking that tumble!  It's kind of a rite of passage.........and if you do it just once, you'll be amongst the chosen few!

Having no fear of OWS is enormously important, and over your "career" that should come in handy several times.  i am the same, and so when conditions are sketchy or dicey, I feel at a psychological advantage in that i am pretty much unfazed by anything.  And with the swim, and competing well at it ---- I need every advantage I can get!

134 at 5'7" sounds ideal for you on a day-to-day basis, although i understand your thoughts on viewing it from a competitive standpoint.   That's about where I am, wallowing around right now at a pretty-much okay weight for my age and height....but should be about 5-8 pounds lighter in the absolute peak of my race season.

As for "holiday sweets" ------ in terms of sweets and me.................everyday is a holiday???

Steve/Donto,

I use a CycleOps stackable climbing block.  Is that the preferred way to ride?

Excellent resources here for training programs, thanks Steve.  My second question is how do you set your resistance?  Do you get into a certain gear and turn the trainer resistance knob to feel like easy, or flat road, or hard?  I guess, how do I know how to control the load?  Basic questions, I know, but I have literally only rode on a trainer 2 or 3 times ever 

Donto,

It's a cycleops fluid trainer from about six years ago.  I'm not sure the model.  As for plans, I'm starting coaching soon and she'll give me the official off season plan.  For now, yes, just time in the saddle is what I'm after.  In general, I want to be a faster sprinter.  I max out around 19ish for a course with some hills in a sprint and would like to get that closer to 21 mph at least.

That makes sense regarding not being static in the seat when you're outside.  That's kind of what I was thinking was the culprit.

Amy,

That stack/riser is fine, start out on the highest setting and go from there.

A fluid trainers resistance is progressive and depends on the speed you are at. Each make has their own curve, for example below is the curve for the Kurt Kinetics fluid trainer.  The CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer is similar (they don't publish there curve formula but in general the website pix looks the same). Note if you have an original Fluid the curve was supposedly significantly different. Each manufacturer has their suggested setup, such as the "2-5 turns" KK states once the roller makes contact with the wheel.  I always setup my trainer the same way; 100 psi in my trainer tire, 5 half turns, then spin it up to 20mph and check how long it take to spin down to make sure it is consistent.  One time when I was still changing the tires out (before I bought a dedicated wheel for the trainer) I bumped the brake and it was rubbing, made for one heck of a workout!

GANG!

Everyone get enough to eat yesterday?  Up here, T-day is around Oct 8, and although i have lived in Canada friom '74-'81, and then '87-now, I still cannot get used to anything other than good old American Thanksgiving.  Growing up in Massachusetts it was a big deal, what with the Pilgrims and all.  It was all kind of cool, having that particular block of history RIGHT THERE!

Speaking of Massachusetts...........gee, i sure hope there aren't any Jets fans in the group.  Yeah, yeah, i know I shouldn't gloat, and maybe I won't once that Rex Ryan completely stops running his mouth.  Anyhow, I sure had fun watching that one last night!

AMY -

Mine is a Kurt Kinetic, from about '03, and it's all I have ever owned, so I'm hoping yours is similar.

I am pretty consistent with setting my resistance, although it's not exactly science.  I turn the wheel until the resistance-roller just nudges the rear heel, and then I give it about three or four quick turns -- maybe 1/3-1/2 turn each time?  (I haven't set it up yet this off-season, so I'm not 100% sure of waht I do -- even though I have done it several hundred times!)  That's usually enough so that it doesn't slip, even when doing standing grinds, and provides enough resistance so that those efforts require a decent amount of work.

I will try to set it up today, and get back to you later with more specific recoms.

DONTO -

Nifty chart, made even better by the fact that it applies to a Kurt Kinetic.  Halleloo!  (Of course, now i have to study it and try to make sense from it.......)

I seldom check tire pressure, other than sporadically enough to re-pump. 

As for a dedicated wheel, I have one but it still has a 12-27 cassette on it -- makes for an easier-than-desired workout, to be sure, so i try not to use that wheel.  You ask why I don't take it to my LBS and have them switch out the cassette?  Good question!!

DONTO again -

Is today the run day?  If so, and if you go, best of luck.  I hope the calf behaves for you!

I have never DNFed due to a calf problem, but there have been two DNS because of it.  Money well-wasted!  But back in maybe '06 or '07, I went through a season in which several races were marred (albeit temporarily) by getting a wicked cramp in my left gastrocs --- the kind where it gets all mishapen and spasms like there's no tomorrow.  Thos required stopping pedaling and standing up with lft foot low, and placing all my weight on that foot on the skinny pedal.  it worked, maybe costing me 30-60 seconds in total bike time.........and for some reason the problme hasn't surfaced since then.  WHEW!!!!

MATT -

And congrats on your new shoe purchase as well!  I will also be listening for words from KATE, as one of "medical support persons" recommended one of the Brooks Pure models -- I think it was the Connect.  If so, i'll be happy to let Kate be the guinea-pig!

I've been in Newtons since '07, although in early '09 I gave a half-hearted try at a few models of Saucony, mostly as an economy thing (Newtons are pricey).  I liked a couple of them, although came back to Newtons just because they worked so well for me.

With your flat feet, get some more input before you try Newtons -- although you may be sold on the Saucony ones you have now!  I say that because even though the Motion model of Newton has medial posting, it is quite soft -- much softer than most postings I have caressed in my days.  Some are hard as rocks and you can see how they would prevent the foot from over-pronating, but with the Newton Motion it's not that clear.  Now, they may have hardened it up some in the past year or so since I last poked and prodded Newtons, but if not then it might not give you enough support.

For the record, I have high arches and under-pronate, so the Newton I am in is the Distance.  sometimes I have run in their Gravity, but over the years I have become very loyal to the Distance.  Fabulous customer service with Newton, too!

Back when, Saucony had an outlet near Peabody, just off 128.  You might want to look into that and see if it's still there.  In '98-'00 or so, i was mostly Saucony, and as I was down in MA lots, I bought lots of shoes there.  Good prices!

Keep working on running cadence.  of the three disciplines, it has the best chance to produce the best (i.e., faster) results.  that is, not all people can get into the bike groove of 90+, nd some actually thrive at low- to mid-80s.  And with teh swim, well, as we have seen here, most people cannot continue to swim efficiently when their arm turnover increases too much.  BUT, most runners can reap benefits by systematically and tenaciously working at running close to 90 footstrikes/minute. 

More on all that real soon (so he says yet again........), but for now just keep plugging away at it.  Fatrleks are a great way to do it, meaning that if during a run you just want to increase your footspeed for a bit, do it for however long (or short) it feels good.  That could be 30s, or from one lamppost to the next, or whatever roughly arbitrary "unit" you use to set the boundaries of the fartlek effort.  It's so randomly and non-pressuredly ideal!

MATT again -

Ah, Walden Pond!  Back in maybe '58 or '59, I was doing Red Cross swimming lessons there.  At the time they had a H-shaped dock, and I dove off the middle part.  It was probably a great dive -- except I really hit my hairline hard on the bottom.  WHONK!!  I surfaced, and sensed something dark obscuring my vision as I looked across the pond to a train on the far side.  I felt a bit dazed but climbed back on the dock -- and when one of the instructors saw me, she freaked.  Post-birth, that was my next visit to Emerson -- stitches for a nice slice upside the forehead.  So much for safety in Red Cross swimming lessons, eh?

I was really proficient at concussing myself as a kid, suffering it about four times.  I never had a broken bone, however; that was the m.o. of my best friend.  He suffered broken arms, collarbones, even a leg once --- but he never got a concussion.  Between the two of us, we pretty much covered the Stupid Kid Tricks bases -- within infringing on the "bragging rights" of the other!

DENNIS -

74/76 is fine for a lopey-type run, and it gives you a baseline from which to pitter-patter onwards.  And the fact that you do remember a higher cadence in the past bodes well for getting there probably quicker than someone who has never hit a higher footspeed. 

I find that when I take a lengthy break from running, the footspeed comes back quite quickly -- as in just one or two runs.  And part of that is me making a conscious effort to "feather" back into my training, so I aiming to be modest with no goals other than to get back into decent run-training without hurting myself. 

Right now i have gone about 31 days without running, and I know that when I start it up again within a week or so (if not sooner) I will have to be a good boy with both distance and speed, with fast cadence being a subset of speed.  We'll see just how disciplined I can be!

Ran the 10k Turkey Trot yesterday (race report is up) and well, teh calf is very tight today, slightly painful to the touch and rolling it is a no go!  Its affecting the Achilles after all the black Friday shopping. Sadly I'm going to be a big boy and DNS the HM.  I'll go and support my wife all the way to her new PR.  Ran well yesterday too, nice and consistent, only later in the day did it start becoming tight and this AM was worst.

SAMANTHA -

Yes!  I'll open the floor for KATE or some other fish to correct me, but when i do fist swimming I am looking to maximize the feel of the water on my forearms.  I see the goal of this as learning how to add the forearms as an effective surface area when I pull.  While I'm not at all too clear as to why I have never been any better than a mediocre swimmer, I suspect a big part of it is that during the pull I default to a path-of-least-resistance "attack" -- which in terms of propulsion/speed is no attack at all.

Fist-swimming clarifies things for me --- and then the problem becomes one of instilling the tactile sense I have just experienced into my everystrokeeveryday swimming; so far.......uh-uh.  I can incorporate it for a few lengths, and then it goes away.  Whoosh!  Very ephemeral indeed!

Two more thoughts on how to approach fist-swimming:

1. Think not at all about speed.   This is slow and mindful swimming, devoted solely to feeling the water on your forearms.
2. Take it 25m (or y) at a time.  Stop FULLY at the end of each length and think about what you just felt -- and try to "plan" how to access your arms more fully on the next 25 so you feel more water on your forearms.
3. Don't go overboard with it at any one swim session.  That is, do maybe 150 yards at most (again, stopping after each 25), and then return to regular swimming.  If what you did seemed to bear some fruit, then have another go at f-s, maybe just 100 yards.  Fist-swimming is all about moderation, slowness, midfulness, and exquisite patience.

I mention forarms, because the other sidelight of fist-swimming is that it can help one get away from having a dropped elbow, which results in a pull that is too deep.  When that happens, the entire arm can be viewed as adding more surface area by including the upper arm in the mix, but hydrophysics says that that's not the case -- right, KATE??  But when it is working really well, the best result of f-s is that it becomes clear that yoru forearm is serving as the major propulsive force. 

Finally, a nifty thing about f-s is that when you are done with a few lengths, your hands feel about three times larger than normal.  Sadly, though, the feeling goes away fairly quickly, and really -- it is just a sensation afterall.  (True confession:  I ahve tried fist-swimming in my immediate pre-race swim warm-up, hoping that it would confer some when-the-horn-goes advanatge, but alas and woe, no.)

Finally-finally, some people have trouble keeping their fist closed, and if that's you, try tennis balls.  For a while when i first started f-s I had a couple of pairs of "official" fist-gloves, but these became a hassle to get on and off, so I then tried tennis balls for a while before finally getting my hands to behave asd perfectly closed fists.  Halleloo!

Good luck with this!  It's a really good drill, glad to hear you're attempting it!

DONTO -

I'm not gonna call you "Gary", as I'm impresssed that you did so well with a calf that cannot be "rolled" (or probably even blown upon) at this point post-race.  Wise decision about DNS the bigger one, and I'm sorry it came to that.  (Mama said there'd be days like this, right?)

Let me know how the Achilles is doing.  Hopefully it's just a gnarly little by-product of the calf issues and will go away in a day or two.  Most of my own Achilles issues work that way -- it hurts, it scares the bejeesus out of me, I figure I'll never-ever run again........and then two days later it's all better.  (Whew!  Dodged another one!)

KATE -

Thanks for the update on the Brooks.  It may lesd me into temptation, but...........

I think your response to them backs up what DAVE said -- wasn't he saying that they run narrow in the forefoot?  (I have to go back and check that.)

I can run in most anything as well, excepting motion-control shoes, and maybe some that are more-than-moderately medially posted.  It's a pretty good situation to be in, although i mostly try to err on the side of keeping to bonafide "neutral" shoes, as opposed to anything that is about "stability".   That said, I ran happily for years in Asics in DS Trainers, which have minor medial-posting, but since going to Newtons and playing around a bit with Saucony, I am best in shoes with no posting at all. 

I should also add that true minimal shoes scare me, and I haven't tried them.  i ahve had trouble with neuromas (neuromae?) before, to the point of having one surgically removed, so I worry about having nothing much between my feet and the ground.

Where are you now, anyhow?  Ocean swimming sounds oh-so-sweet!

KATE again -

Also....

Please look at my reply to SAMANTHA, a few above this one.  I said some things about fist-swimming........and hope I have at least half of it right!

Merci beaucoup!

Gang,

I ran a 4 mile race on Thanksgiving and tried out calf sleeves for the first time. I had been having calf soreness after runs and it continued after buying new shoes so calf sleeves were the next purchase. I bought CEP which are "medical grade" I am told. They worked like a charm. No soreness during or after the race or the next day. I wore them for about an hour and a half after the race.

Well, by measurement, I don't have a wide foot, but I like a wide shoe. Toe splay, maybe. In the New Balance Minimus, I have wides, and I really like the Altra last, Skechers Go Run is about as narrow as I like, and they're saved by the flexibility of the upper (the Go Bionic has more forefoot room).

It's not that the Brooks Pure line is particularly narrow (they may be, I don't know), it's just that they're too narrow for me. YMMV.

DOUG -

Mighty fine news on the CEPs!  I hope DONTO sees your post as his shins are yowling at him. 

I have tried a few -- 2XU, Zensah, DeSoto -- but never while actually working-out.  I have heard very good things about CEP, though, and as I am not thrilled with any I have tried (although DeSoto is the best of the three), I will look into the CEP.

The key thing is getting them to fit right, and for me it came down to actually measuring my calves.  Maybe it was ego, maybe it was misperception............but I estimated my calves to be bigger (i.e.., "muscular"??) than they actually are, and had to go down to the smallest ones when I got the Zensahs.  Bah.

Aside from thr success with the calf sleeves, how was the race for you?   And more importantly, did you open up a dauntingly unsurmountable lead over the other Doug (Doug the Lesser?) in those race standings?

DONTO -

Did you see DOUG'S ("hoosierman") post, two above?  You may well be beyond the point at the moment where calf sleeves will help, but in the future it might be a path worth following. 

And we may have had this discussion before, or it's been somewhere in these pages, and if so -- forgive me for the (periodic?) addledness of my (occasionally?) wayward mind!

Overall, how is the claf/Achilles continuum feeling this morning?  AND BEST OF RUNNING FORTUNES FOR YOUR WIFE IN QUEST OF A PR!!!!!!!!  (fFor you -- cheer vigorously, no pouting allowed!)

DAVE -

I am not hip enought to know what YMMV means, so I googled it and came up with "Your mileage may vary" and "You make me vomit".   I want to think you meant the first one.....but am insecure enough to worry about the second one!

I am like you in the shoe preferences, with feet that don't measure wide but mostly clambor for width -- especially in the forefoot.  With my history of neuromas, though, that makes sense -- no, it DEMANDS sense! -- and having a pesky bunion alongside my left big toes doesn't help things in narrowish shoes.  So, thanks for the insight into the Go Bionic (although I am still devoted to my Newtons).  (But that doesn't stop me from looking.)  (Kind of like someone who may be happily married or attached....but still eyes others on occasion.)  (Not that I do that.)  (I've just heard about it.)  (Honest!!)

Was definitely the former!

Steve,

I bought the sleeves at the local running shop so the guy measured my calves for me so I got an accurate measurement. I don't know what size I ended up with come to think of it.

As far as the turkey trot, I actually won my age group for the second race in a row. The race results are not posted yet. but I averaged 7:16 for 4 miles and dropped my time about 1:30 from last year. I think I finished about 18th overall.  My nephew also ran in his first event and took 6th overall. This time I had some competition in 40-44, but not from Doug the Lesser. His wife was there and said he was afraid he had a serious enough knee problem to have it looked at. There are two more races left in the season and I am in third place with an eight point lead over the others. I am doing the last race on the schedule so I think I am going to be able to keep third place in age group for the season.