SBR Utopia ---- Permanently OPEN!! (Page 25)

2014 finally has begun...  ran our superbowl Sunday 10K yesterday.  Just ran mostly easy and steady with one of my friends, 54:56, not bad (for me) for hardly any training and considering my previous long run/walk was 4.3 miles....

Later in the afternoon went and swam 3600, during the warmdown was doing some easy kicking and both my hammies totally seized, ouch!  no way to stretch, so just waited a bit and they finally let go.  Wow that hurt

Nice work!  I agree that you might have been able to squeak a few more watts out of it if you had started a little bit higher and been more evenly paced but a great effort!  Getting the pacing on those right is a bit of an art.

Great job Ryan.  Riding 6 days per week is obviously paying off.

I was playing around with that BestBikeSplit website.  That website is awesome.

They have my two A races already programmed in there.  I input all of my data (bike setup and FTP) and was pleasantly surprised the split that it kicked out for riding at an IF=0.80.  If I can ride the time it kicked out I will be extremely happy!!

It really is impressive.  Once I got the details of my bike setup right (or at least what it thinks would be right) then it got scary close for me.  For Miami 70.3 it's about 27 seconds, Mont Tremblant was just under 2 mins and I bet if I had been more diligent about staying in aero that day it would have been much closer.  Even for a local 19KM TT here, it estimated my time from last year to within 2 seconds!

bah.   spoke too soon.  Same foot issue started rearing their head last night.  10 weeks off, coming back slowly elliptical to walk/run, all of that didn't work.   Didn't walk any of the 10K, but no idea if that caused this.  For all I know, it was caused by having to walk 3 miles home after (poor planning).

So now I need to decide, take more time off and lose a significant chunk of this season (even though 10 weeks wasn't enough...) or do my best to just train through it.

I do this as a hobby, and I already have at least $2K invested in the season (entries and travel) that will be at risk by taking another large chunk of time off.  I have already thrown performance goals out the window for 2014.  This was supposed to be about doing fun and different (and hard to get into races) Escape, SOS, and Silverman in october with a very large group of local folks that I started all this training with years ago.

I did Canada and Miami with it, didn't hurt when I raced.

Maybe it's just something chronic I'll have to deal with.  Maybe it's just a shoe issue.  I do NOT do well with taking time off, especially during the season, and tend to get depressed and withdrawn.

I am leaning towards just living with it, race to race, and managing it best I can.  Does not hurt while running, but running exacerbates it.  It's a soft tissue injury, in the muscles between the metatarsals, so I do not believe it is doing long term damage, it's just more inflammation.  But maybe that's just denial.

as I said.  Bah

That sucks Chris, sorry to hear it's back.

I'm pretty sure I'd be thinking along the same lines as you, train and race with it and see how it goes.  Meanwhile keep trying to figure out what's going on.

Dang Chris - that really stinks. Very sorry that it's come back.

I, too, would be approaching it the same way, and I totally get the withdrawn/grumpy attitude when unable to train.  See what the season gives you (and hope it's just inflammation - but do pay attention… you don't want to make it even longer lasting).  

Hope you can figure it out and nail down a cause and correction.

Matt

Dang, that sucks, Chris.  FWIW, I took the "train through it and see if it gets worse or stays the same" approach with my knee starting back in August / September.  It hasn't gotten worse (it also hasn't gotten better, but after more than a year off, I wasn't expecting that to happen). 

You got into some cool races that are hard to get into -- if I were in your position, I'd probably be doing the same thing you're thinking of doing.

Did you change shoes recently?  Do certain shoes bother it worse than others?  Any chance it's due to tying laces too tight, or hitting pressure points that maybe skipping a loop on the lace might help?

Sorry to hear Chris.  I'm not sure what I would do if I were in your position, but I do like to think that things happen for a reason, and that there are other doors that may open because of this.  I hope it all works out.

So it looks like there's a new bike race coming up locally.  Very short, just 7.2 miles but includes a long 4 mile climb at around 3.5% (point to point uphill, no descent).  Should be around a 25-30 minute race, so it might get crazy with early attacks...and often.  Should be really fun as it will make 3 consecutive weeks of racing.  Two 20k-ish TTs, then this road race From Feb 23rd to March 9th.

yeah, i am pretty sure it won't just go away on its own, and racing the season with it, maybe makes it harder to go away.... i will go see the pt who recommended 10 weeks off, to see what he says now, but unless he says it's something critical and needs an MRI or something (had an xray rule out stress fx, givent hat the xray was long after it started, and it does not present as a stress fx).

Ordered a pair of hokas.  what the hell, maybe the cushioning will make a difference.  Been wearing the same type of shoes for the last 4 or 5 years so probably ready for something different anyway

I've had the laces too tight syndrome before and it's not that.

Question for you fishies....

One of my masters coaches has been pushing (encouraging?) me to do swim meets and learn different strokes.  I know a ton of people seem to say that learning different strokes is beneficial to triathletes, but I'm curious what makes it beneficial.  I guarantee I'd never do another stroke in a race, but I feel like butterfly might be good from stressing anaerobic systems and back stroke might be good in terms of stretching out and opening up the chest muscles....but I don't really know if those are the reasons people cite that working other strokes is beneficial to triathletes.  I'm pretty sure breast stroke is jut a worthless stroke, but maybe you can convice me otherwise.  FWIW, I never get "bored" doing freestyle, so that can't be a reason other strokes are good!

He's also been encouraging me to do swim meets, which I've been resisting.  I feel like I'm an okay swimmer, but nothing special....and I'm about as incompetent as they come when it comes to diving in off the blocks.  But he thinks that National qualifying times are within reach, so I guess I'm getting somewhat interested.  Plus, I've kind of plateaued recently, and maybe a new swim-specific challenge is what I need.

Nicole...for me, learning, or at least being competent (my backstroke is still horrific) in all strokes allowed me to keep up with my lane in masters class.  That in turn meant that I got a good workout no matter what.  When I sucked at all other strokes, whenever the class would do alternate strokes, I had to skip a few reps, or cut the reps short to avoid getting lapped.  This meant I wasn't getting as good a workout as everyone else.

As for the physiological benefits, I have no idea if alternate stokes actually help.  I do think it has helped me with my overall feel for the water though.  

I just noticed you asked for the fishes to answer your question, so feel free to disregard everything I just said...LOL.

Personally, I think the bolded would be the biggest benefit.  It would just raise your general awareness of feel and body position in the water.

Nicole, you'd do fine at a meet! I think you're at least as fast as a number of people I swim with who love going to them. Go try for one. You'll put in a seed time, a guess of what you'll swim. So you're swimming around people of similar speed. These are the times for Spring Nationals. Those are in scy, not scm. A lot of them seem to be about a 1A to 2A per motivational times. Takes some work, but is do-able.

The other strokes can help with the feel of the water and for engagement of different areas. You learn different motions and can pick up better control that way while also developing other areas. Think of more balance in shoulder development. I've also picked up better core control with the fly rhythm.

It actually might have been a more appropriate question for triathletes who bothered to learn other strokes actually!

My masters group is very tri-centric, so we are rarely asked to do other strokes.  Two of the three coaches were collegiate swimmers, so I think they'd like to see us do more stroke work, but a lot of people (myself included) have been resistant to the idea.  I think I'm starting to come around....mostly because I seem to have hit a plateau of sorts and would like to break through and I'm wondering if this will do it for me.

Sorry to hear about the continued issues Chris - I really hope the Hokas (or anything for that matter) help get you through this.

I'm hurt... that was where I was competitive

I think people underestimate breaststroke because they think it's all about the kick.  Far from it.  To do it properly you need to coordinate head / shoulder / body position, streamlining, proper catch and recovery.  Is it going to suddenly turn you into a freestyle fish?  No.  But it's still an important part of good water feel and timing.  And it works your core in a different way - which will make you better at keeping your hips high and legs level with the water.

That's my perhaps slightly biased opinion.

Just curious, how soon do you have to post an official time to qualify for this?  And is it strictly time based or do you have to win at your local meet or anything like that?  I timed myself off the blocks last year (100 breaststroke) and would've made it based on that list.

I've been looking at masters swimming near where I work, since they train during lunchtime.  But I know nothing about the meets or qualifying structure.

Me too, I shed a little tear when I read that but I've finally managed to get past it...   

Haha, I might be a little bitter toward that stroke....the timing of everything is just so unnatural and awkward for me.  Plus, too many people have taken a breast stroke kick to the ribs or face and I'm of the opinion that anyone doing that in a tri should be DQ'ed.

I actually think learning the pulling motion of breast stroke would be helpful for anyone doing surf entries.  There is some beauty and artistry to being able to dive under waves and continue to make forward progress.  I haven't had to worry about it since I moved from CA, but it would have been useful back then....and only for that brief moment of the race

The underwater pull you do off a dive and each turn is ideal for that actually!

You don't actually have to make the qualifying times to register for up to 3 events. More than that and you have to make the qual time for the additional ones. They did that so people who aren't as fast can still participate, but the meet isn't overloaded with swimmers. I'm not sure if registration is open yet, though it's supposed to be. I'm not going, but others in the team I'm on are. Sounds like hotels could be filling quick, but not entirely sure of the price range that was looked at.