Slornow and Wannabefaster's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 25)

Good advice on not checking pace constantly. I should probably remove the pace display on my Garmin when doing HR runs. Whenever I notice I'm running slower than I did the previous week at the same HR I get really downhearted and frustrated. My pace shouldn't be getting WORSE should it?! Anyways, once I get ticked off that I'm worse than last week, I'm guessing this mentality might affect the rest of my run.

And just because I'm on this topic, what factors would affect pace at a set HR? I don't feel like I'm overtrained and I've been pretty diligent about my nutrition. (Although I should probably stop drinking coffee in the afternoon, may that's it...)

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Jason, after I saw Jamie get a rear flat and go through the process of changing it with the CO2, the first thing I did was buy the CO2 cartridge. I still haven't tried changing one yet because I'm afraid I'll never get it back on But you are right, I should start practicing that skill a lot before my HIM in June.

Hope you all have a great weekend! 3 day weekend for me and I'm joining Jamie in a 5k tomorrow in downtown Greenville.

-Nate

Randee-I second what Jason says about calling Cobb. They are known for great customer service.

Nate/Jamie-good luck in the 5k tomorrow.

Knock on wood...I've never had a flat in a race. I did drop my chain one time and it got wedged between the frame and the cassette. Wrestled it out....ended up with some greasy grimey bar tape and  black marks all over my white visor when I got to the run. Some wheel/tire combinations are really easy to change out...others are a workout. Definitely practice.  One thing I do on outside training rides is put some of the stuff in my saddle bag in a cheap latex glove. If I have a rear flat I can change it out without worrying about being greasey for the rest of the ride. It also keeps some of the little items from bouncing around in the saddle bag.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Heading to Birmingham tomorrow for an indoor track meet. My son, Gil, runs for Alabama and will be running the mile and the anchor of the distance medley relay. Birmingham has built a world class indoor track and swim facility and I can't wait to see it. Should be FUN!

Today will be a swim at lunch and then some intervals on the bike. 

Guys good luck on the 5k!

I have been considering a switch in my saddle and this conversation has inspired me to pull the trigger.  I have the one that came on the bike when I got it in Aug.  It's OK for 20 miles or so and then it starts to get uncomfortable.

For my training today, among other things, I rebooted my run program thanks to all the advice here.

I started with 22 minutes on a NuStep; 4 min @ 100 steps/min then 1 min @ 130 steps/min times 4 with a 2 min cool down.  Then a 30 min upper body weight training.

Then my run.  I jumped on the treadmill at 3 mph walk for a few minutes to make sure the legs were ready to go.  Then I set the speed at 5mph (12 min mile) which I thought I could maintain under the guidelines offered yesterday by everyone.

I jogged through the first mile and figured I would see what a reasonable starting benchmark should be.  I got to two miles with some effort but I could have carried on a conversation most of the way.  I wouldn't say I was ready to do it again but my breathing was fully back to normal within 30-40 seconds and after the two minute cool down if you asked me to go another mile I could have done that.

Based on what I read I think I did this right.  If so, I will use the 2 mile mark next week and start the 10% increase the week after.  But I do have a question on that.  Is it just the distance I am increasing?  When do I consider increasing the pace or will I just know?

Thanks again to everyone for thier input.  BTW - if anyone wants any more swimming advice I am happy to return the favor.  The few things I offered up earlier were pretty generic.  If you have specific questions just let me know.

Eveybody have a great weekend!

OK I will do that!  (but probably closer to the time I can ride outside and justify the coin on that bad boy)!

Nate and Jamie-Good luck on the 5k

Randy-Good luck to your son in his track meet

So the last several months haven't gone well for me. I've had the IT band thing and the back injury and been sick a few times and just in general have been exhausted. I've been going to bed almost every night by 7:30 and dragging myself out of bed for work in the morning. My old mentor group would've told me to HTFU but you know what-that's what got me into trouble in the first place. I think I need to listen to my body.

I've come to a decision. I'm overtraining. I'm frustrated because I feel like I should be able to handle the level I'm training at by now but I think the fact that I've had more forced rest days than scheduled (oh wait, I didn't schedule any) for months now due to injury and illness is something I have to pay attention to. I reallly, really wanted to do Jorge's winter bike program this winter. I've been really focused on getting those workouts in and I really felt like they were going well but (it kills me to admit this)-I'm not ready. I could do it if I wasn't also HM training but honestly I'd have to cut back on the running to make it work. As it is-I'm cutting back on everything. So today after a lot of thought and a lot of trying to figure out a way to make it work I've decided the Winter Bike program isn't happening this winter.

That doesn't mean I won't bike-I'm just going to look for something else. I'm too comitted to the HM to do it any other way. It's not just a race-it's a fundraising commitment.

My goal for the weekend is to get out and run-any distance-just get out and go. No pressure other than that. I'm going to focus on running for the next week or so and try to come up with a pared down swim/bike plan.

So that's my big "Duh" moment for the week. My SO and a good friend said they saw this whole overtraining thing coming but I wouldn't listen. They're both right, I really don't.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!! Sorry if this was a little rambling-I'm not always good at organizing my thoughts.

I can only speak to swimming specifically but from what I have expereinced on a bike, the sports are very similar.  I can tell the difference between overtraining and fatigue after a hard workout based on two things:

1. If you are injuring yourself, you are either overtraining or training wrong.  I have learned this the hard way with running.  Multiple injuries over the past 7 months.

2. If you don't fully recover after two days off you are over training.  Event recovery may take longer for an endurance athlete but training to the point that it is several days to recover is a bad training plan.

I accept that I have limited expereince as a triathlete but many years as a competetive swimmer.  Those were the metrics I used.  I hope it helps.

Either way, do what you can do so you want to train every day.  Right now the only days I feel bad are when I don't do something.  On my rest days I do active recovery because I just fell better than completely resting.

Good luck.

Thanks everyone. I joiined this group because I thought it would motivate me to push myself harder but that's not the same as training smart and I have to work with what my body is telling me. I'd rather lighten up the training and train consistantly than constantly have these setbacks. It doesn't matter what the cause is the end result is the same and though I came on here to share my decision I wasn't neccesarily looking for validation. I've just been thinking about it a lot the last few weeks and it doesn't make sense to push myslef to the point of ill health. This is a hobby. I do it for fun and health-so overdoing it is counterproductive. In fact from a health point of view-I'm moving the wrong direction sick, injured and my weightloss plateaued months ago and then I've gained almost 10 lbs. in spite of calorie counting and extreme excersize. Definitely not moving in a healthy direction.

Rene-Thanks so much for your answer. It frustrates me that I can't train at the same level as I think others are but my body is what it is and I have too honor that. I'm not sure why I'm slow or why I don't have the endurance of many who are just getting off the couch in spite of years of training in triathlon and even before that I have always been active but I stay active because I feel worse when I'm not. I don't have anything anyone has been able to diagnose but I seem to struggle with feeling ill more than others for whatever reason. I''m glad you've been able to overcome your Epstein Barr. I hate when medical professionals tell me I can't do stuff too. I think conventional medical wisdom can sometimes be short sighted. I will look back at you blogs. You make a good point about updating more often.

In all honesty, I'm relieved to let go of the Winter Bike thing. Don't get me wrong it was a tough decision that it took me days to even consider that I could let it go but without it I can focus on my race and not always be worrying about my next workout. Now I just need to find some bike workouts I can do without having to adhere to a 3 times per week schedule.

Training for the day is over! I'm so tired. Started out with a 5K in downtown Greenville. I have never run a 5K this fast in my life (21:07). Even when I was in ROTC with the Marine Corps, my best 3 mile run time was probably 22 minutes and that was with youth on my side. Really happy with how I did. 

I'll let Jamie speak for himself, but I think he did an awesome job as well.

After the race we went for a 31 mile route that Jamie found on Strava. Great route! I can't wait to do it again when I haven't run a 5K beforehand

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Nicole you do what you gotta do.  We're here to listen, support, offer advice etc but in the end if you feel you need to back of then we support that too!

Also, if you are looking for some indoor type stuff, I'm a big fan of coach Troy.  He has a competition series but he also has a fitness series.  You can just do them as you please.

http://www.spinervals.com/products/department5.cfm  I also like the iron girl series there.  :D

As for me, my workout sucked today.  Not sure if I ate too much at lunch (which tends to happen on weekends) or if I made myself seasick with the kick drills on my back (which I could totally see happening since I get seasick very easily) or a combination of both.  Either way I blew my workout and just did laps and tried to keep it at my planned total and ignored the pace and rest times.  BLAH.

Tomorrow is another day.

Nate-great job on the 5K...that's fast. What do you think you would have run a 5k in a year ago? Great progress.

Nicole-can't remember who said it....but basically it was that we somethimes need to remember that this is suppose to be fun. We shouldn't be trying to fit our lives around triathlon. Do what you enjoy but get fully healthy first.

Amazing facility in Birmingham. World class banked indoor track and right across the concourse an olympic quality swim facility. I think they can configure the pool for up to 25 lanes of 25 yards. Hundreds of kids warming up, swimming and splashing around.....every one of them a better swimmer than me    

Great job.  Thats faster than I run just 2 miles.

I went on a 22 mile ride that included the entire 16 mile route of my sprint tris coming up.  Unfortunately that includes the only hill I have ever had to get off my bike and walk to the top.  I was feeling really good when I hit the turn to either give the hill a shot or turn for home so I went for it.

It was painful and slow at the top, but I finally beat that damn hill.  I did the tri route part in 55:58 which considering I have 13 weeks to improve on, I am very happy with.

Tomorrow I do my first run of my revised plan outdoors and not on a treadmill.  After the great advice I got from you guys I am feeling much better about being ready to run in April so thanks again.

Weather here is fabulous so I am going to take the dogs for a second walk.  Everybody have a great weekend and keep up the good work!

Yep, quite a day today! The 5K was cold, but clear, and I did much better than expected. I did this race last year, when I was just running, but hadn't been tri-training, and did it in 25'59". So, this year I just wanted to beat that time, and I came in at 23'19". It was just a great run; I really enjoyed it.

Then we had to bike 1h45m, so I tried a new route, and we both really liked it. Rolling hills, but nothing steep, we ended up doing around 31 miles. Man, my legs were just about fried. Overall, I'm really happy though. I feel tired, but nothing specifically hurts. Also, aero felt good pretty much the entire way. 

All in all, a good day!

Nicole, I agree with everyone else that you have to do whatever your life-body needs to get back on track. As much I love triathlon, it's not worth running yourself into the ground! Take time, and get back on track. 

Any advice would be great.  I have only been riding seriously since Aug so I have much to learn.  The prior 3 decades before that was on a mountain bike and if all that totaled 1000 miles I would be surprised.

I pulled this from a spec sheet.  Nothing has been changed on the bike.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Jamie-fantastic job. Always great to surpass your expectations.

Had a fun day in Birmingham. Gil ran well and we got to visit with him a bit. Headed home tomorrow and should be able to get a run done in the afternoon.

Great race Jamie!

I just finished my first day of RRCA training.  The instructor is really quite good, and was at one time extremely speedy (<2:20 marathoner).  A lot of the material is very basic, but there are the occasional nuggets, and the informal discussions with experienced folks are great.

Exhausted!  I'll check back in on Monday.  (Tomorrow is class all day, then drive 7 hours back home.)

Thanks! A year ago, I was about 230 or 240 lbs (I'm 187 now) and definitely out of shape. I'm guessing it would have been 29ish minutes and a lot of huffing and puffing at the end.

Dropping 53 pounds surely helped as well as all the training!