kelpeng's Group - FULL (Page 3)

Cool that you are registered for Timberman. That's such a popular race; it must be a great one! Any idea which marathon you'll do?

Most definitely! When swimming you should try to keep as steady a breathing cycle as possible. So, exhale when your face is in the water, then inhale when it comes out. If you hold your breath in the water, then you have only that split second when your face is out of the water to both exhale and inhale. If you do that, you're forcing yourself into a panting breathing pattern and putting yourself into oxygen debt much faster.

It took my husband a long time to get the hang of exhaling in the water when he started swimming last year. He had a hard time getting over the natural instinct to hold your breath in the water, but once he did, he found it much easier to swim for longer periods of time.

Since you're in Wisconsin, I think just about every race will be wetsuit-legal unless it's in a really small or shallow lake. Here in MN, I've only been to two or three races in my three seasons where the water was too warm for to be wetsuit legal. And even if a race is not wetsuit legal, you can still wear one if you want to; you just can't qualify to win an award if you do.

Hello everyone. I hope everyones training is going well in the new year.

To Terry and Jay as far as swimming goes, I have to admit it is my least favorite discipline to train for. I like to swim, and I always have a lot of fun in the swim portion of Tris, but I don't really have so much fun training in an indoor pool. If I could train in a lake it would be great.

So Kelly, I checked your race reports and you are obviously a terrific swimmer, I hope you can help me out. First of all, my hips really sink badly. Should I worry about, because in races the wetsuit helps me float which feels great; almost like swimming downhill. There's an article here about drills to help this, but do you have any suggestions? I was thinking of taking a Total Immersion class since they're based only about a half hour from my home, but I'm not sure if I should bother. Second, to help me mentally with my swim training, I was thinking of not even bothering to count laps. I thought I might just swim until I feel like a breather, take a rest, swim some more, and keep on doing that until I've done the total time I want to do. Does that sound dumb?

BTW, when you did the birthday swim the other day and finished with 50 fly, do you mean a 50 meter sprint or 50 meter butterfly? I was wondering because back when I was on a swim team (ummmm, about 35 years ago) I swam butterfly.

Hey, thanks for the swimming compliment. I wouldn't say I'm "terrific," but swimming is definitely my strongest leg of a tri. I often wish the swim was twice as long and the run was only half as long. Anyway, one thing that I find the helps keep my hips up is to make very sure that my head is down, if that makes sense. It's hardnot to look ahead when swimming, but you should actually look down at the bottom of the pool when your face is in the water. I still have to work on that all the time, to be honest. But when I concentrate on keeping my face down, it automatically helps keep my hips up. I see you already saw the article here on BT too. I looked at it and think it's good, so definitely do those drills as well.

It was 50m of butterfly, which I do very seldomly. lol I was happy with that time, though. I used to swim the 200 IM when I was on the high school swim team (about 15 years ago), so I used to swim the fly all the time too, but not anymore!

Hello everyone. I hope everyone is feeling good and having fun training. I  am extremely happy with how my running is going and I'm looking forward to earlier sunrises so I can get out in the morning more.

Jay; I am also signed up for Timberman which will be my first HIM. I've never done one of their races, but I hear that Endorfun puts on a great event. Also, there will be a lot of BT'ers there including ron and marmadaddy, so it should be a blast.

Well, doing the 200 IM explains why you're such a good swimmer; you have swum a whole bunch of laps in your time. I have really got to work pool time into my schedule. I will never be a really good swimmer, so my goal is to not be too slow, but more importantly to get out of the water with my breathing and heart rate in control, and without being dizzy.

Hope your neck gets better soon. This probably has nothing to do with your situation because your symptoms are so intense, but I'm a dentist and I have 2 patients who have neck pain related to clenching and grinding. So, if you are a "grinder", it might be something to think about.

Thanks a gain for the good words.

Anthony

Thanks Lea (and sorry for my slow reply)! I never did get to the doctor, but thankfully things have loosened up now. I had a fabulous massage on Saturday that really helped a lot.

Glad to hear your swimming is coming along so well. I rarely if ever use fins because I'm afraid I'd become too dependent on them. I could probably benefit from using them sometimes though. I wish I could not work and just train! That would rock!

Have a great week!

Hey everyone! It's pretty quiet in this mentoring group. What have you been up to? Nothing very exciting here; just trying to get some motivation to push myself more in training. I tend to get stuck in a comfort zone and not push through it. Anyone else do that?

So, who has the frist tri this year? I have an indoor race on 2/18. Anyone have one before that?

Hi everyone,

I've been keeping up pretty well with my training, although this week my schedule is a bit messed up. For me, having races to do in the winter helps with the motivation. Last year I did my local runners club series of 5K's (4 races in Jan and Feb) and it really helped me keep in shape so that I didn't feel like I was starting over in the Spring. This year, I'll do 3 of those 5K's and also my first half marathon on 3/4. It also helps to know that someone else will be looking at my training logs

No indoor tris around here Kelly, so no tris for me until end of April or beginning of May. I'm still working on my schedule, but I'll probably also do at least 1 du in April.

Ivyhoop, I'm really looking forward to Timberman. I'm hoping my 10 year old will do the kid's tri, and maybe my 19 yo will do the sprint. It can be tough getting in training time when you have a family; I do most of my training while everybody is sleeping. BTW, if you're looking for an early season sprint, on 6/10 there's a pretty good sprint in Harriman State Park, maybe 45 minutes up the Palisades Parkway from the GW Bridge. I should warn you, the hills on the bike can be difficult.

Rungrlrun, 3/4 half mary in Canada sounds like it could get chilly!

Anthony

It's a 30/30/30 format--30 minutes of lap swimming, 30 minutes of stationary biking, and 30 minutes on the treadmill. The person who covers the most distance in that time wins. It nice to have something that's a little different. There is a 10 minute transition between each event, so it's actually 110 minutes total. These transitions are much less crazy than normal, that's for sure! I've done this race twice before and really like it. We've got a whole crew of BT-ers doing it this year. In fact, I think the entire 9:00 am wave is BT-ers. Should be fun!

I'm watching you!!

There are a whole slew of 5k's around here in the winter too. I should really sign up for some!

Good luck with the kids and Timberman. My younger daughter (9 yo) said the other day she wants to do the LIfetime kids tri again this year, so I'll have to watch for that registration to open. My older daughter (14 yo) is not interested. Shocker. (not)

Good morning everyone!

How are you today? I thought I'd get a discussion going about our struggles. Maybe we can bounce ideas off each other and find some solutions. So, what with what aspect of tri training do you struggle the most? What is the one thing that causes you the most frustration/angst?

I have a host of issue that I deal with, but the one that is tops on the list is eating. I *love* to eat, and I don't eat the way I should for someone in training. It's not even that I eat a ton, but I eat the wrong things. I'm working on this every. single. day. but it's so very hard to break old habits.

So what is it for you? Maybe we can help!

Glad to help! Your training has been very impressive! I wish I was as focused as you are.

My husband is sometimes my training partner, but he's concentrating more on lifting this winter and is only racing two sprints this summer, so he's not doing any biking or swimming right now, and only occasional running. So, I'm left to my own devices most of the time, which makes it tough sometimes.