Gray Guys/Girls Master's Focus Triathlon Mentor Group--CLOSED (Page 24)

I was just thinking about this over the weekend.  Most of my training right now has been focused on getting ready for my HM in May.  I've been doing a modified version of a winter bike maintenance plan and just getting used to swimming again.  But I don't have a specific plan yet for after the HM.  I know I'll be doing a duathlon, a biathlon, a short sprint tri, and a regular sprint tri.  I think my "A" race is going to be the regular sprint - Club Nationals on Sept 12th - so I'll have 19 weeks to prepare.  I need to figure out how to put together some kind of plan for those 19 weeks that works in my other races and helps me with both swimming and biking.  I printed out a couple of the BT training plans and I think I'll go through them this weekend and see what I can work out. 

Janet

Stu - I usually use run/walk for my longer runs and also for the half marathons I've done.  I'd like to be able to run the whole distance but have just never been able to do it.  Run/walk gets me to the finish and I don't feel trashed at the end. 

As for the trail running - I think for me it's better training partly because I enjoy it so much more than roads.  I can run on a trail all day (although I do tend to walk some on the hills) whereas on the road, I'm ready to be done after about 20 minutes.  It's a totally different environment, I'm more relaxed, I feel like I'm more engaged in the run.  It is a little tougher on the ankles and hips when you first start out because of the uneven terrain, but you get used to it - have to remember to pick up your feet though and watch where you're going.  I've only gone down once so far, but had a couple of close calls . 

Janet

Hey Stu,

Last October in Kona Sebastian Kenle went into the Ironman with the intent of Run/Walking the marathon.  There he was on TV in every aid station, drink in one hand, ice in the other - walking.  I guess it served him fairly well, 2:58 for the run (average 6:47/mile), oh, and he won the championship.  Yeah I would say Run/Wallk is a strategy worth considering.

I used to run/walk but had more recently been focusing on just running.  So, today I went out intending to run 5 min/ walk 1 min intervals.  My timing was a bit sloppy but I held to it fairly well and then when I downloaded my Garmin stats I was quite impressed with the results.  My average time today compared to my Wednesday pure run was 5 secs seconds per mile slower than the pure running.  Besides that I posted faster run times today including my fastest interval at 6:25/km which is the fastest I've ever run.  I felt faster, fresher and had less "heavy" legs.  Another surprise to me was I felt like I could have pushed myself more on the running so I'll be experimenting with this in my next few runs as well.  Maybe I can catch up to my pure run pace.

With regards to when to walk try the 5:1 ratio to see if you like it.  When I first started running I was at 2:2 and built up slowly to 10:2 and then to 5:1.  You'll find a race is different from a training run so try and be flexible with your walking.  In reading race reports I noticed that many people walk the AID stations but many also plan to walk up any steep hills which is a fairly big issue in my area.

I don't know how frequent AID stations are in pure runs but in my HIMs they were about 1 mile apart.  

In learning to run the best/first thing I learned was to drop my arms and not hold so much tension in my trapezius muscles while running.  

*** I wish today was our weigh in day because I weighed in at 178 this morning then after my run this afternoon I weighed in at 175.6 lbs!  I know it will all come back but it sure looked good on the scales.

As I read your post I was going to say you had a really good Doctor.  It was lucky you swim with him.  I'm far from an expert and shoulders are so hard to deal with at the best of times but my first thought was how much do you rotate your body?  You might need to make sure you are rotating enough so you don't hyper extend your shoulder.  Just a thought.

Personally, I avoid the Butterfly stroke and the back stroke (I can kick on my back really well but as soon as I use my arms I'm about to "upchuck" so to speak). 

Opps!  Went away for a couple days and forgot how the forum works!  Silly me.

Hey Scott,

Sadly, if you swim freestyle long enough, you will likely have some shoulder issues at one point or another.

Shoulder problems while swimming are typically not so much a matter of shoulder strength and stabilization as they are a result of improper technique.  You need a good deal of body rotation to allow the high elbow recovery.  If you don't have sufficient rotation, you will create shoulder impingement and ultimately that will lead to rotator cuff issues.  That's why butterfly is a problem.  There is no rotation so your shoulders are flat as you try to recover both arms simultaneously.  I will certainly defer to a physician about strengthening and stabilizing your shoulder, however I will recommend a drill you can do that will help technique so you can avoid the problem in the first place.

As you know, I am generally not a fan of drills.  However, I do think they have a  time and place when there is a specific and identifiable issue that the drill can help correct.  This is one of those cases.  I think doing the "Fingertip Drag Drill" will help you improve your body rotation which will help eliminate the shoulder impingement.  Here is a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates doing the drill properly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XITzpum5lxA.  The ONLY way to have a high elbow recovery is to have sufficient body rotation.  If you don't have high elbows, your arms will have to swing out to the side which will introduce a number of other technique deficiencies.  You may have to find a happy medium by compromising between body rotation, high elbow, and wide arm swing.  If you go that route, just remember, the higher the elbow, the faster you will ultimately be.  Your health comes first so take the time to find the recovery position that works best with your shoulder.

Yes and no.

My example when I asked the distance/duration question probably could have been better so I will take another swing at it and pose the question a bit differently.  Imagine you have been training for a HIM.  Your target for the 90km/56mile bike leg is 3:00 which works out to 18.7 MPH and is comfortably at 80% FTP (these are just numbers I came up with and are not necessarily reflective of YOU).  You have consistently trained over several months and the target time, distance and power are no problem in training.  The race bike course is a simple 28 mile flat out and back.  However, you show up on race day and there is a 30 MPH wind blowing that will be a headwind on the way back.  Your 3 hour/18.7 MPH target likely just went out the window.  So I ask again, have you trained for distance or duration?  The answer to that question goes directly towards riding intensity.  The next part to the question is, given the scenario I presented, what do you do on race day?  Do you alter your strategy?  If so, how do you alter your strategy?  The answer to those questions goes directly towards pacing, which goes back to training intensity and how you train - distance/duration.

In this scenario, it likely wouldn't be just the bike that would be impacted.  It would be a safe bet that you would also feel the effect of the wind during your run at some point and if you overcooked your bike split your run would could easily turn into a death march at some point.  Even if you hit your bike split perfectly, if you didn't have the same foresight in training for your run, you may be facing the same death march.

I strongly believe in "nothing new on race day."  My intent here is to get everyone thinking.  If you anticipate a situation and train for that, then come race day, all is good.  You will have been there, done that.

Happy training!

This is exactly my point!  Having a plan, any plan, is far superior to not having a plan.  Don't take that to mean that how your plan is structured and laid out is unimportant.  The more precisely your plan is tailored to you and your goals the better.  Unfortunately, so many age-group triathletes approach their training just as you observed, in an unstructured manner.  They wake up in the morning and think, oh yeah, I have to train today, hmmm, what should I do?

I think you should KNOW what every mile you ride on your bike, every minute you spend running, and every yard you swim is going to do for you and how that fits in to achieving your goals.  The only way you can do that is having a plan.

Yes and no.

My example when I asked the distance/duration question probably could have been better so I will take another swing at it and pose the question a bit differently.  Imagine you have been training for a HIM.  Your target for the 90km/56mile bike leg is 3:00 which works out to 18.7 MPH and is comfortably at 80% FTP (these are just numbers I came up with and are not necessarily reflective of YOU).  You have consistently trained over several months and the target time, distance and power are no problem in training.  The race bike course is a simple 28 mile flat out and back.  However, you show up on race day and there is a 30 MPH wind blowing that will be a headwind on the way back.  Your 3 hour/18.7 MPH target likely just went out the window.  So I ask again, have you trained for distance or duration?  The answer to that question goes directly towards riding intensity.  The next part to the question is, given the scenario I presented, what do you do on race day?  Do you alter your strategy?  If so, how do you alter your strategy?  The answer to those questions goes directly towards pacing, which goes back to training intensity and how you train - distance/duration.

In this scenario, it likely wouldn't be just the bike that would be impacted.  It would be a safe bet that you would also feel the effect of the wind during your run at some point and if you overcooked your bike split your run would could easily turn into a death march at some point.  Even if you hit your bike split perfectly, if you didn't have the same foresight in training for your run, you may be facing the same death march.

I strongly believe in "nothing new on race day."  My intent here is to get everyone thinking.  If you anticipate a situation and train for that, then come race day, all is good.  You will have been there, done that.

Happy training!

Janet,

This is almost a mirror image of what I had to plan for this year.  I have a HM in April ('B' race) and a marathon at the end of May ('A-' race).  Then I have Ironman Louisville in October ('A+' race).  Six weeks between the HM and the marathon, then 19 weeks until the Ironman.  I have a couple Oly's in there along the way as tune-up races that I consider 'C' races.

Like you, I took a couple of the BT plans, pulled a couple online marathon plans, threw them all into a blender and came out with a plan.  Once I had that, I gave them to my coaches for their input.  I could have just let them come up with the plan but I am a control freak and consider myself the ultimate arbiter of my training and I like to fully understand what I am doing and why I am doing it; plus, trying to get a couple coaches to land on the same page can be a challenge

As you formulate a plan, there are the obvious considerations, balancing intensity workouts with distance/endurance workouts and recovery workouts/days, making sure your build rate is realistic so as to avoid injury and provide sufficient volume, etc.  .I think the one piece of advice I can give you that I wish someone had given me when I first started working on a plan is to make sure your plan allows for life.  What I mean is, you are going to miss an occasional workout.  That is a fact of life - deal with it.  If your plan is so structured and inflexible that missing a single workout immediately leads to failure, your plan is not allowing for life.  Make sure your plan is written in such a way that weather, illness, kids, family, etc. isn't going to be the death nail to your plan.

Good luck!

So whats everyone got on tap this weekend?

We have been enjoying pretty nice weather lately, although the weather prognosticators say we might get some rain this evening and tomorrow.  I am planning a bike ride down to the beach and back.  It will be along a multi-use trail so it isn't going to be real intense but I am looking forward to a nice 60+ mile zone 2 ride.