GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 242)

LISA -

Thank you for those data......and maybe I see his/your point! On the plus side, though, you did a GREAT job of pacing through those first nine miles, keeping within 41" variability. Really, not too many people can keep themselves reigned that well, and I think that bodes well for the upcoming races.

What was your actual "goal" pace -- about the 11:50 of the first mile?

And, aside from "mind games at the end", was there anything else you can pinpoint?

Beyond all that, maybe your neighborhood has become a bit sketchy, but your insurance company sure seems to be on the ball. Are premiums really that much higher in Harris County than, say a county 40 miles away? And is that mostly crime-based?

TRACEY -

Thank you for the insight into PIA. As it turns out, my guesses weren't even close!

With all due respects to Denise, it is looking shakey for her Vikings, and unless it gets turned around there he might become more of a PIA.

And Branch is back with the Pats! I can live with that, I think!

You've got a very nice system for your runs that seems to be working extremely well! I think you have every reason to feel good about the 10km, especially as within a couple of weeks you'll be right at that 6.2-mile distance. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Silverman Recon - should be a "fun" course.  It's a lot of hills - no doubt.  I don't think it has as steep a climb as IMSG did, but there are several short, steep pitches around mile 35 that will hurt.  They call them the Three Sisters, and will really require some effort to get over.  I think the biggest challenge will be making sure you are down in gear from the get-go, as they are so steep that if you're in the wrong gear, you're going to risk tipping over.  Fortunately, those pitches are short, so if you can get into them with some momentum, you should be fine.  The real challenge of the bike course is that for some of the first 12 miles, while there are rolling hills, they are the kind of hills you want to attack.  It will be a real game of pacing, as the second half of the course is harder than the first, and a lot of folks, I suspect, will exhaust themselves heading into the three sisters.  I'll be watching my effort for sure.

The run will be quite a challenge.  We drove the bike course, but ran the run course.  It's just a lot of up and down.  Fortunately, it's not as steep (albeit for a few short pitches) as, say, Showdown at Sunset.  But, there is very little that is flat on this course (less than a mile is what I'd call flat). 

So, goal time:
Showdown was 5:45 (ish).  If I can do this in under 6:15, I'd be stoked - its a harder course than Showdown for sure, and I'm not sure my fitness is as good as early this season.  BUT, if the weather is good (read: cold and not too windy), then there MAY be a shot at 6:00. 
35 Swim
3 Transition
3:30 bike
3 Transition
2:00 run

Wind will be a bad thing, as so much of the bike depends on the ability to descend quickly.  Wind will keep us off the aerobars and slow the time.  Pray for still air!!

Now, off the the treadmill for some steady incline.

Thanks for the warm welcome back. I am excited to get back involved, there is so much knowledge and excitment shared.

I have little to report related to racing. Much of the summer had limited training, and I had conflicts on many of the race days. I did only 1 tri - the Albert Lea race with Denise. I've done a couple local 5Ks for fun, not performance. I may run a 5 mile race this weekend at a local conservation area - should be beautiful, but I also have a family reunion later in the day and not sure if I can pull it off w/o too much stress on my wife (who would have to shoulder more of the prep work).

I think my biggest limiter right now is my weight and this is my training focus right now. I am at ~20% body fat and would really like to get down to the 13-15% range (~15 lbs). I haven't found a good training & nutrition program using tri training to help me lose weight, but was able to lose ~45 lbs a few years ago with weight training & interval sets. So, a coworker has the P90X program and I start it this week to see if it will work to to produce the fat/weight loss. I do plan to run 1 day a week as well.

I have many of the same goals for next year, since I did so little this year:
have fun & stay healthy
2 Olymipcs - sub 2:45 in one
3-4 Sprints - improving on past times
April 2011 10K - sub 42 minutes

Mark

Totally loving that Branch is back. He's great!

And I love that "PIA" has now made it into your vocabulary.

Tracey

GANG!

I just got a PM from DWAYNE, who sends regards and thanks to all. he has been following along, all along, but just not posting. He is doing really well, and at some point (maybe when the Rangers win the World Series in a couple of weeks! ) he will return to us.

STEVE -

Ahhhh, the benefits of another well-executed recon!

I had forgotten the Sisters, but you have re-awakened them in my memory. Another thing that was re-awakened was the wind factor, which I remember reading about from one of the first few years of Silverman. I am already trying to marshal global weather patterns so that the winds steer clear of southern Nevada on the weekend of Nov. 6/7!

Goal times look good, very wise and possibly eminently realistic. But if your caveats can be bested, then nice things might happen to you there. Here's hoping for prudent pacing from your wheelhouse!!

MARK -

Thanks for the update - I can now see where you're coming from!

I hear your mild frustration about not getting the races in your had hoped for, but those years happen -- be it injuries or just shifting priorities. But with the on-going explosion of triathlon, there will always be loads of races around, in fact, their numbers are growing.

I went into the '05-'06 off-season with several goals for '06, and then along came my tron meniscus and NONE of my goals were realized. But then came recovery and eventually the '07 season, and voila! -- those goals were still there, ready to be tackled (albeit a year later).

Ahh, the P90X! One of our long-lost members here (was it Linda McVetty?) had a P90X, and when she mentioned it I researched it and actually learned something.......and then shortly afterwards, she split the scene. So I lost all that newly-acquired knowledge, but maybe whatever you say about it will trigger some of the lessons I learned, way back in December or January (yikes!)

Anyhow, your goals look good, and I hope everything conspires so that they are attainable for you. For what it's worth, I am NOT planning to shut down this site/group, so hopefully we will have a good, solid core (corps?) of participants.

I guess as of now it is:
Denise
Anne
Steve
Tracey
Lisa

.....as regulars, and

Shaun
Mandy
Kasia

....as currently lapsed (but I think likely to renew their activity), and

Dwayne (who PMed me earlier)
and you
and me!

Sounds like a group, eh?

GANG!

If it matters.......

My tri season is officially over --- unless I fall off the caryt and yield to temptation and go down to NC for Washington Half-Iron in a couple of weeks.

To avert that, i have signed up for a local half marathon on the 23rd, and have been training diligently (?) for that. Since last Monday I have had runs (in km) of 10.4, 15.5, 19, 16, and 8.7. I think I am ready for it, and to add confusion to my life I am considering doing the half marathon event of the Toronto Marathon this coming Sunday. So, that would be two half marathons six days apart -- the 17th and the 23rd. I am rationalizing Toronto as (1) I would do a long run that day anyhow, and (2) it is a mostly downhill course, excellent for working on foot-speed over 21.1km. Plus, Lynn is going down to Toronto this weekend, so why not tag along and do a half marathon??

I've had my last two OWS of the season. Sunday was 26 minutes in 55F water with 59F air, and that was chilly; it took my feet a couple of hours to feel fully comfortable . Today was 31 minutes in 56F water and 62F air, and that was okay....sort of....but enough is enough. So if I can continue to avoid swimming, and if I can keep to my commitment to do a few stand-alone running races, then I should be able to kiss my tri season good night and tuck it into bed until the spring.

Maybe, then.....
10/17 -- half marathon (?)
10/23 -- half marathon (!)
11/7 --- 10km
11/? --- 10-miler (?)
12/11 -- half marathon

Maybe?




Edited by stevebradley 2010-10-13 7:42 PM

STEVE B, you make me tired just thinking about about your racing schedule ... tri or otherwise.  I think the reason that insurance premiums are so high in Harris County is a combination of theft and the likelihood of an accident driving around the overpopulated city.  And, I would have just needed to maintain a pace of 12:00 to make my 2:00 goal (I know, really slow for most of the group).

STEVE A, when is your race? Sounds like a challenge but I'm sure you will be up to it.  Good luck!

TRACEY, when is your 10K scheduled for?  Good job on the running!

Hope everyone is having a great week! I'm just ready for the weekend.

LISA

LISA -

I make me tired, too!

Granted, I knock off a lot of stuff over the course of a year, but it's not done with impunity. I used to be a fearless road warrior, traveling anywhere at any time to race. But I have grown very weary of those drives, and so that is a real disincentive to Toronto this weekend, as well as the 10-miler on Nov. 21, which is kind of close to Toronto.

I could stay home and do a 10km on Sunday........or I could just stay at home and train for the half marathon next weekend (which I have actually signed up for). I have tried, especially this season, to do races only when they really matter to me, and in that respect neither Toronto nor the kind of local 10km are important -- or anythings I have trained specifically for. I can rationalize racing until the cows come home, but there are not compelling reasons to pay money to do a 10km unless I am really hoping for something meaningful to come out of it. So, we shall see!

No apologies needed for your pace for the 10-miler. That is hardly a "gimme" distance, and you did a very fine job at holding a pace that got you very close to your goal time. Pat yourself on the back a few times!

ANNE -

Your '13-'16 plans are remarkable!

I would love a move back west, but with Jane (NYC) and Peter (Guelph) thisaway, and Lynn's mom in Toronto still hanging in there, we're likely to stay right about where we are now. Oh, well.

We're off for a long weekend so just bopped in for a second.

Mark,
So glad you're back.  I'm working on my schedule for next year and will probably do Albert Lea.  Are you?  After I finished it this year, I thought I would never do that race again but now I'm pretty sure I can do a lot better.  We're going to the Amana Colonies to meet a bunch of old friends this weekend so I will think of you as we zip thru Mason City.

Tracey,
My daughter ran her 1st 10k last week.  She said she looked for someone with gray hair at the start because they're usually smart about pacing and she wanted to make sure she didn't start out too fast and end up walking. haha

Lisa,
Those awful "mind games" - I've been there.  I read something about that once - your mind trying to protect your body so it tells you you can't do something when you absolutely can.

SteveB,
Are you wisely staying home this weekend or off to race?

SteveA,
I have to look up the date for your race

Anne,
Where are you?

Anne,
Just checked your log - you're busy, busy as usual.  What does "carried away in the kitchen" mean?  Have you been cooking all kinds of healthy, nutritious food.  I should do that.  We eat out way too much.
Denise

Denise

I'd offer to have you stop for a quick respite on your way there or back - but I can't seem to make any committments other than family stuff right now. Hope you have a great time and a safe trip.

Yes, I plan to do Albert Lea again. It is so close for me I can't pass it up. Plus it is a really nice intro to the season - challenging but not terrible, and I know the water isn't going to be any colder than that the rest of the year. :-)

Mark

STEVE,   Glad you had a look at our future plans.   It has been on our mind for the past 2-3 years and every time we think we know what we might want, we change our minds so figured we have to get a bit more serious about it or nothing will happen.    We are quite determined now to make Mussleman and Placid happen, and then Ken came up with the Penticton idea.   All his family is in Vancouver, Nainaimo, New West area, and I have some friends in Kelowna. 

I have been working on combining my Evans plan with the Fitz plan and it is working out quite well.   Will stick with the volume/intensity of Evans for base foundation training of 16 weeks when Fitz HIM kicks in.   In that 16 week period our swim, for example, goes from 4600 meters/week and peaks at 7300 (8200 in week 19, if I had continued).  In past years I WOULD continue on and then the volume would decrease a bit with intensity increasing. 

Starting the Fitz, HIM Level 4 on Feb. 28th brings the volumes back to the November 1st level and starts to build again and peaks at 8000 meters.   So I'm thinking this will be kind of cool because it will be like a recovery for us and Fitz' base is just 8 weeks so we should be solid and be ready for the high intensity fast stuff. 

I picked a Fitz plan that basically coincided with the volumes that I knew Ken and I could handle on the S/B/R and really like the schedule.   We actually worked backwards from the IM plans to see if we could find one that would work for us and then tried to get the best HIM plan to prepare us for the increase to IM.  

So we are going to do Level 4 for Musselman, Level 5 for Placid and Level 7 for Pentiction. 

The one thing I noticed that is different between the 2 fellows is that Fitz has his volume continue to grow right up to 3 weeks before race day whereas Evans starts to decrease volume much earlier and Evans has his recovery weeks at almost half the volume of the previous week with no speedwork while Fitz reduces volume only a bit.    But all in all, they are really similar.

Hope you didn't find this boring or confusing.    I do like detail.  

Back soon.

DENISE -

Am I "wisely staying home this weekend, or off to race?", you ask? Good question! I find myself lingering on the "wisely"...........and wonder how much it REALLY applies to me!

The answer is probably, as it looks as if we will not be going to Toronto this weekend. There is, however, a local 10km that I am tempted by, but maybe also Sunday should just be another long run. So, we'll see about that.

Wisely. Hmmm. Well, the wise thing to do is NOT do the Toronto half marathon, just because it is only 6 days out from 9 Run Ruin, which I have already paid for. In a post to Lisa I listed a few reasons to rationalize doing Toronto, but I'm not sure they should carry the day. Since then I have seen that predicted winds on Sunday are 25kmh from the northwest, meaning that the downhillish north-to-south course will even be more user-friendly, with the only challenge being the final 2km or so that is slightly uphill AND heading back to the north. But up until that point -- ZOOMZOOM!

If we go to Toronto, I'm in. If not, then it will be the 10km or nothing (race-wise).

Have a good weekend!

DENISE again -

And tell your daughter that if she really wants wisdom she will eschew the grey-haired ones and follow the guys who have lost significant amounts of hair -- we are wise beyond our lost follicles!!

DENISE once more -

Only slightly tangential to the last post, here is a poem I read last night, by Rebecca Patrascu.



I AM IN LOVE WITH OLD MEN

Not just the idea of old men,
the men themselves: stooped, faded,
mottled skin loose at the elbows like a sweater
I can't throw away. The shorter, the better;
you don't have to tell they once stood tall,
that before they began making bargains with gravity
and solid ground, they strode like Paul Bunyan over the land.

I want to swim in their sunny memories,
Men whose palsied hands once knew seamen's knots,
whittled burls into ducks. Second-guessing death
has worn them down, left them easily confused.
But these were engineers who drew the world
they way they saw it, and only gave up the booze
and cigarettes under duress.

Erstwhile Joves, each one, thundering with passion
for a well-turned calf, undone by love and other
sins. And I love them, with their coughs and canes,
thier rheumy eyes and yellowed teeth. Each nodding man
who waits on a bench for the bus to come -- does he know
how close he is to having me stop for him instead?

All those cowlicked boys, long before I was born, hoarding
tadpoles and algae in paper cups, who once, on a dare,
burned something alive with a glass and the sun.

ANNE -

I fully understand the worry of "or nothing will happen". We have been playing around for several years with the idea of moving.....but nothing happens. Part of that is that we like being near Ottawa and we like living in the country, and by god, that's what we have now! But I hate to think of other places I might like to be, and that at the rate we are going we will just end up here.

Jane and Peter are both in the east, and as long as Lynn's mom is still alive we are likely to stay east as well. I love the west, and fantasize about Alberta or British Columbia. (My perfect world would have me in Oregon, but Lynn has sub-zero interest in moving back to the U.S.) And Lynn was utterly smitten by Newfoundland when she was there is August. So, it's not like we don't have emotional options, but it's just the idea of uprooting and all that is terrifying. I am awful at decisions, and Lynn is not a master of decisiveness herself......so between the two of us we can spend a lot of time spinning our wheels and getting nowhere.

That burst we had in the spring about house-hunting? That was about #9 in an on-going series; stay tuned for future installments!

A key "connecting" road is being paved even as I type, and what this will do is open up a vast extent of great cycling roads for me -- yet another reason to just stay here, in all its imperfections. And Ottawa just really has everything we need, with very few of the headaches of larger cities that might have more.

ANYHOW, your plans sound really nice, and somehow I have the feeling you will pull it all off, however you really want it to happen. And it sure helps that Ken has all those ties to B.C. -- you are soooo lucky for that!!

ANNE again -


Okay, Little Miss Thorough, it will take me a while to figure out what you have figurd out in Fitz vs Evans -- bit it sure sounds like you have a plan! But....would I really expect anything less from you?

ANNE once more -

As for my plans -- slowly brewing away! Not really percolating yet, but froming, morphing, re-forming......the usual way i do things.

I saw the '11 schedule for HSBC, and was initially intrigued by some of the switcheroos and date changes, but I'm still not sure it all works for me. Mostly, I remain a junkie for those USAT points, and I can't see going a season without fussing about them. This year I will come close enough to straight All-American to REALLY want to pursue them -- especially if I just miss!

With that in mind.....

I am hoping to make Musselman the cornerstone of my season, like my "A" race. Short of that, it will be an oly emphasis, but part of my current interest in half marathons is to get strong at those as stand-alones so that i can strategize half-iron runs better. I was okay at this a few years ago when I was doing half-irons more regularly, but I seem to have slipped some. I think.

My Musselman HIM run two years ago was good. MightyMan '09 was okay. HVJ this year was only okayish. And the more I think about HVJ, the more I think that I will want to have at it again next year, wherein I will ride the bike more conservatively and train more seriously for the run....AND hope for a cooler day!

Thanks for the support Steve. It was a mildly frustrating summer re: tri, as it seemed everything (meaning races & family plans) fell on the same weekends. However, in all other ways it was a great summer. We had a beautiful vacation to Rocky Mountain National Forest, I coached my oldest daughter's parks & rec softball team, my wife was hired back at the local community college as a nursing instructor, my oldest daughter turned 16 and can DRIVE HERSELF around, and I regained lost enthusiasm for my job. Couldn't have asked for more - races will always be there.
Mark

MARK -

Well, when viewed through the perspective of so many positives, it sounds like an ideal summer. I can go from one item to the other, and each sounds better than the previous one. If I had to vote, though, I'd say the biggest is you regaining enthusiasm for your job. Going the opposite direction is harrowing at best, so if you've nabbed another few months/years of occupational interest -- SUPERB!