GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 28)

ANNE -

You do Route Manager, eh? I'm impressed! That's another thing thatvis way beyond my capabilities!

(Heck, I can't even figure out how to use the full-range-of-emotion yellow smilies! )

HRM SURVEY (preliminary results):

Garmin 305 -- 4
Sportline -- 1
Polar F6 -- 1
Polar RS100 -- 1
Polar F7 -- 1

Edited by stevebradley 2010-01-08 6:42 PM

GROOVETIME! for LISA ----



USA FIT HALF MARATHON

Sunday the 10th!
Sugar Land, TX
(University of Houston)
7am start
www.usafitmarathon.com


Major mojo coming your way, Lisa!

WETSUIT snippet -

Thinking about recent, and spuured by Denise saying she needs to go shopping soon.

Buy tight! When you try one on, it should NOT go on and come off easily. Also, it should feel somewhat constrictive around the chest. However, check for range of motion of your arms, if you are buying a "full" suit (with sleeves); you do not want to have your stroke compromised by a suit that dramatically limits the reach of your stroke.

The advantages to tight are two-fold: less bagginesss and subsequent drag, and better warmth through a tightly-confined layer of water between your body and the suit.



That's a start!

Yeah - I probably spend WAY too much time plotting -  can you guess that I want it as accurate as possible.     But we do a lot of the same routes so it is good.     You should see my 'custom' nutrition meals.     

NO, not gone for the weekend.   Just an early 'happy weekend' wish.   

Plans are to swim this afternoon; ride long tomorrow; and run 6km on Sunday with a long swim in the 50 meter pool, afterwards.  

What are you up to?  

Rita!

I've just bought an RS100 from Polar and am very happy with it. It is simple but sufficient for my needs. I think you should be able to get that for about $80. 

Steve!

If we're not done discussing shoes, could you please let me know what you think of the ones I posted about on page 28? Have you seen them "in the flesh" anywhere?

Arthur

ANNE -

Good! Glad you're not gone!

You customize your meals? Like, with an actual plan? You must be the most "compartmentalized" person east of the Wawa goose!

As for me this weekend:
swim - Tomorrow
run - Hopefully today. I've been babying Achilles concerns, haven't run in about a week, plan to test it today. If not today, then tomorrow.
bike - Trainer this evening. CompuTrainer sometime tomorrow. Rollers tomorrow.

I need to return some stuff to a Chapters tomorrow, and then will sit in a Starbucks and feel the pulse of humanity around me -- make me feel a quasi-functional memebr of humanity (it's lonely here in the sticks..... ). Lynn is off to Toronto until latelate tomorrow evening, so it's just me and Luna. And, oh yeah, I'm going down to Cornwall shortly and visiting my old school - another dose of human contact!

I have the Garmin 305. Not cheap. Only heart rate monitor I have used. Doesn't impress me. Seems to lose contact but I think quite a few people like them I don't use it. Just use the GPS functions.

Re: training using HR, I think one should have a history of training prior to using a HR monitor to train. Consider the advantage of using Perceived effort. I bought the Garmin, after having my 205 stolen, which lacks the HR Monitor, because I thought it was essential but found that at my level of fitness and training it was really useless.

my 2 cents.

Steve,

Thanks for the information on protein supplement use. Anyone else use post-workout supplements?

As for HRM's, I do not use one currently. I'm intrigued by the Polar S725x for biking, all around use and fitness testing to define HR / RPE zones. I have no idea what my HR is, but am interested. I'm a numbers/tech geek (engineer) so this sort of device does intrigue me. Another reason I've leaned towards Polar units is for use while swimming.

It's hard to keep up with this group !! Lots of discussion on lots of subjects, I'll add my 2 cents to some of them.

Shoes - I ran for the last few years in Asics Gel Nimbus, a nice cushiony neutral shoe that I love but don't love the price of them so I decided to try a cheaper shoe this fall.  Bought a pair of mid priced Brooks and mid priced NB (I ran in NB for the first few years of my running life), one pair $120, the other $130.   Neither comes close to the comfort of the Nimbus ($189 here in southern ontario) but both are adequate.  In the spring when my mileage increases again I'll go back to the Nimbus I think.

Wetsuit - I'm also short and heavier (5'3, 140 lbs) and tried on a few different brands of wetsuit - found most to be made for long skinny people.  I ended up buying a Nineteen, not sure of the model but not the higher end suit.  For the person looking at the cold water race who is thinking of renting... go to stores now and try on every brand you can find to see which fits you best.  You may find a good deal on last years suits now, or you'll at least know if a rental suit is going to work for you.   Also be sure to swim in one before race day as it can take a bit of practice to get used to.

HRM - I have a Garmin 305 but don't train by HR.  Unlike a lot of competitive type triathletes I have no problem going easy.. I have more of a problem when I try to push myself.  When I have done speedwork in the past I like using pace/RPE.  If I ever get serious about this sport I may use HR but for now RPE works for me.

Weight training - In the past when I've tried to fit strength training into my week in addition to S/B/R I've found I wasnt' sufficiently recovered from the strength sessions and it negatively affected my other workouts, so I don't do any strength training at present.

Now a question for Steve - In the past at up to HIM distance I've just trained whatever I felt like doing each day, building up the long runs/rides to what I thought would get me through the race and it worked.  I finished although a lot of them were not pretty.   As I am comtemplating doing a full iron distance race this year I know I need to follow a more structured training plan.  In the past I have tried to tweak the generic BT plans to fit my life but it is hard to fit it all in.
I need a plan that fits around my 9 day ( 4 work, 5 off) work/ life schedule instead of one written for a 7 day week (5 work, 2 off)  In that 9 day period which would include one each long run and ride what other workouts would you suggest I do, with the goal being IM distance in Nov?   

Hey Steve,

Just kind of joking around a bit.  I figured if my running speed was being capped so I'd not go over 155 BPM, and I can actually go fast enough to get up to 160 or 161 BPM, then that just means I need (can) run faster and harder than I already am.  Just the lazy side of me coming out!  I will beat it back! 

Co-worker just talked me into signing up for warrior dash on 5/1/10.This is the first time it has been in Texas. Has anyone done one or heard of these?Sounds like a blast and she just wants the hat. If you haven't heard of these you can check out warriordash.com

My two cents - get the suit, especially if you're talking about an OLY distance.  62-65 degrees would make you comfortable with the sleeveless suit, so that'd largely take care of the arm constriction issues.  And with some practice, you can get that thing off in no time.  Literally, we're talking 15 seconds in transition (you likely have your torso out of the suit by the time you get to your bike, and then just muscle the sucker off!).  I think you'd make up more than that 15 seconds in the water with the flotation and the suit material making you slippery in the water. 

I use a real simple Polar HRMhttp://www.polarusa.com/us-en/products/get_active/fitness_crosstraining/F7.  Waterproof so I use it in my open water swims under the wetsuit.  Easy to read, and calculates total calories, average HR for the session and Max HR for that session. 

$129 on their site, but you can find them under $100 on Amazon or other discount sites.

I got Muscle Milk in powdered form (big buckets of it) - to keep it cheaper.  I think protein is critical!  I find that the more work I do, the more my body craves carbs, but I try to get as much protein (up to a gram per pound of body weight) per day to make sure I keep the lean muscle.

Anybody - Below are the temps for my spring tri - can I get by with a sleeveless wetsuit??

Mark - you've done this tri - what do you think?

It's a sprint

Water Temperatures

Year	Water Temperature
2009	59 deg
2008	63 deg
2007	60 deg
2006	65 deg
2005	54 deg

Denise

Steve,

(Yes, 5 posts in a row - as you can tell, I'm on my lunch break!) 

Getting back to gearing on the bike.  the Felt comes stock with an Ultegra 53/39T crankset, and a 12-25T cassette.

What do you think?  I'm assuming the 12-27 gives me more options on a bailout gear.  I think on the 12-27, I'd give up the 23 and 25 for a 24 and 27.   I guess that doesn't impact my speeds on flats and downhills, because I'd never be in those bottom two gears unless I'm in the small ring up front and climbing. 

On my ride this past weekend, on the steeper grades when things got nasty, I was standing up on the 23 and 25.  I was on a 8-9% grade at the time.  Do you think the 12-27 would enable me to stay in the saddle at those grades and steeper? 

Part of me wants to keep what I have for now and see if I can develop the power to handle those pitches more easily with what I have.  If I can't make progress by March, then I can look at swapping something out.

Thoughts?

Anne, haha, I am indeed a girl. Unconventional name and non-gender specific posts kinda hide that, so no worries. Good to hear that they do make suits for us full-figured women. I was kind of worried from the height and weight charts most companies put out, since they're geared towards smaller people.

How much in advance do most rental places rent their suits out? Is it enough to practice in them a bit?

-Kasia

STEVE -

Here's the link to the race I'll be doing:
http://bbsctri.com/rage/olympic-distance/

When I was looking through their pictures, I did see some non-wetsuit clad people, but I'm pretty sure those pics are from some of their races, and not just the April one since there's grass in them. And I'm pretty sure there's no green grass in Vegas.

The air temperature shouldn't be too cold, but not too warm either (54 - 78) so I guess coming out of the water freezing is not the way to go. I have swam in those temps for that amount of time before (quite often, actually), but I've never had to bike a considerable distance and run after that either. So I see your point

I recently bought a swim cap since I've started increasing my time at the pool, so the next thing on the list is Body Glide/PAM. But like you said, that can wait.

-Kasia

I guess I should have noted that even though I have two different heart rate monitors, I don't really train by heart rate, other than to note my average and max heart rate after my runs ... and to go back and look at my pace during my runs compared with how I was feeling during the runs.  I got tired of using Map My Run to figure out the distances, so love that about my Garmin. Ha, I don't even know if I could read my heart rate on my Garmin when I was running, although I definitely can on my Polar.  It's a joke with my 11 year old when I come in after each of my runs and ask him to read the calories burned on my Garmin, hard to read even with the glasses on!

That looks crazy! Ha, too bad I don't like mud. 

Lisa

STEVE -

Thanks for the response. I figured you'd be ok talking about shoes again, which is why I asked

I don't quite remember when I got these particular shoes, and if I'd used them for running before (I'm pretty sure I have, but not positive) since it's been a while. They were my go-to shoes over the summer for work and since then I've used them for just about any sport for which I don't have sport-specific shoes: indoor soccer, racquetball, kickball, and the list goes on. My Achilles are the most sore after racquetball (which makes sense with the torque that you mentioned) but I only noticed that after we started running a mile or two before practice on an indoor track. Before that, when we just had regular practice and no separate conditioning they were fine, I think. Again, I can't be sure.

So that's why I figured it was from straight running. My ankles are also pretty messed up from many years of soccer, and rugby just finished them off, so that could also be the case. But I've also never had problems with Achilles, just lateral ligaments, so I have no idea where that's coming from. Maybe it's my not doing any physical exercise over the summer and now going back into it full-throttle was too much. That was the downfall of my shoulders, but that's a whole other story.

In short, it may not be the shoes but rather me not starting off slow and steady and instead, getting involved in things too fast, too soon. On that note, I know you're supposed to increase distance by 10% every week. But where do you start that first week?

And yes, I'm in Boulder and I've seen a few running stores around that have treadmills and video cameras and such so I may check them out and try to find a free assessment. I checked out a link from the previous discussion we had about shoes and found that I have a medium arch and am an under-pronator. Does that help any?

I'm rambling, so that's it for now.
-Kasia

Kasia, that looks like a great race. I love Colorado. Actually did the Komen Race for the Cure in Aspen this summer. It was beautiful.

That looks awesome! I noticed there's one in the Rockies in August, so I'm kind of tempted to do it with a group of friends. This kind of reminds me of Tough Guy in the UK, although much tamer:
http://www.toughguy.co.uk/
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=toughguy2007