Whizzzzz's Group -- Full! (Page 3)

I'm 38.  I look and feel much older.

Word.

tvwatters - you had a great race last weekend.  You crushed your PR.  Nice job.

You know how in the race report they ask you what limited your ability to perform faster?  Forget that.  I'd like to ask you, and share with the group, what do you feel contributed to your ability to run so fast?  Were there any things that you picked up here or from other resources that helped you either in training beforehand or during the race to do so well?  Was it simply a matter of training more consistently?

Good stuff Todd.  Thanks.

Running hills is something I like talking about and I REALLY enjoy doing it in a race because so few people seem to do it in a way that takes advantage of the descents.  In my half mary I was able to pass and build leads on people during descents that I struggled to keep up with on the flats.  What part of the descent do you still feel like you are working on?  Maybe I've received some advice in the past that would help you. 

Well, if you and goofball Schmize would get over your knee surgeries already I'd have someone to run it with now wouldn't I?  Knee surgery, shmee shmurgery.  Let's get on with it already!

I don't know if this will help but I try to concentrate on a few simple things on a steep downhill.

1.  Don't blow out a knee.  This is important.

2.  Let gravity take over.  Expend no effort on forward motion but expend no effort to slow myself
     down either.  Unless rule #1 becomes a concern.

3.  Keep arms tight to the body and move them in short quick movements.

4. Increase turnover.  It feels like you are taking short steps but they are actually longer than you
    think.  Each step is just a light touch of the ground to keep your body moving in the right
    direction since, you know, we're not actually capable of flight. 

5.  As you said never reach forward with a leg.  It only goes forward enough to tap the ground in
     time to be picked up again. 

I'm not saying this doesn't require any extra energy over normal running, but the return in speed seems worth the investment.  Sure, I'm breathing a little harder after a long steep downhill, but it's nowhere near how hard I would be breathing to run that fast on a flat.  I also believe that as long as you can avoid falling or blowing out a knee it is much less stressful on the body than chugging down a hill the way you were doing it (me too last year).

One final thought, after doing this a few times on really steep downhills you'll find yourself doing it automatically on rolling hills which are much easier to handle.  It soon becomes second nature.  These are the kinds of hills I had in my half mary and it still made a big difference in speed relative to those around me.  I didn't even realize I was doing it until I wondered why I was suddenly passing people I had been running with and behind for the last mile or two.

With your running and swimming background I think you can do this. 

1.  The running is a no brainer.  You'll be more than ready even if all you do is maintenance running after your marathon. 

2.  You have a swimming background.  I'm assuming its an OWS.  If it is, my only question would be your confidence in open water.  Assuming that's fine...

3.  ... there's just the bike to think about.  Well, no matter how slow a person goes you're not likely to get hurt or drown on a bike.  Have you done the distance on a bike before?  If you've done it at least a few times before the race I think you can be pretty confident about this.

If you are just wondering if you can finish, I say yes.  In fact, I think you can do pretty well if you put your mind to it.  After your mary I would go into a bike heavy phase with swimming secondary and running just for maintenance for about 3-4 weeks, depending how long your recovery is after the mary. 

While you are training for the marathon you can probably get some good, quick swim workouts in.  For an Oly swim, with a swim background, I don't think you need to spend huge chunks of time cranking out 2500-3500m swims.  20-30 minute workouts concentrating on speed and form can be very beneficial and have minimal impact on your available running time. 

I'd have to agree... If you look at your logs, your swim base is already where it needs to be for an Olympic Triathlon. You will have run a marathon a couple of months prior, so a 10K should be no problem. In the meanwhile, train the bike, while maintaining a smaller run base, and keeping your swim base. 

Run off the bike. After each bike ride, run. Not the full 10K... but a mile or two or three... just to get your legs accustomed to running after biking.

I can't wait to see how you do! _

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.  Running off the bike is critical.  To me, and to many, it is the single most difficult part of the sport.  Even if you practice it.  Example:  I did a few bricks like this where I would ride about 20 miles and then run a mile or two afterwards and I felt pretty good about it.  Then I did a 40 mi ride and started out on a 4 mi. run.  I began the run fearing how much it might hurt.  Didn't feel too bad.  I got mentally tricked into running normal because I felt so good.  About 1/2 mile in, it hit me.  Cramps seized my legs.  I had to stop for a while while the spasms receded and gradually get going again.  Nobody ever mentioned feeling good and THEN wrecking during a brick in everything I had read about them.  I learned to follow my game plan of running much slower with very good form and short strides no matter how good I feel.  If I hadn't found that out during training I would have found out in a race someday and that might have resulted in a DFL. 

The point is, do bricks so that you are physically trained, but also so that you are mentally prepared for how your body reacts to that stress.  You need to learn how your body deals with it so you can be prepared. 

A T-run is a transition run... running for a bit right off the bike. It's not (it doesn't have to be, at least) a whole "brick" session where you do a full bike ride and then a full 10K or a full run... It can be a mile or two or 15-20 minutes however you prefer to work it.

For example, when we were training for Racine, we did a 15-20 mile bike ride during the week, followed by a 2-4 mile T run every Tuesday. The distances varied according to where we were in our training program. Might have been 20/4, might have been 15/2, just depending. You can take a look back thru my logs. Saturday's long ride was ((nearly)) always followed by some sort of a T run... the hardest one was 70-75 mile bike followed by a 3 or 4 mile T run. I don't remember the exact distance but I remember the date. 8/26. There's plenty of blathering about T runs all throughout my blog. I hate them. They are essential. Too bad for us.

Lori: As far as training 2/2/2... I don't know... it depends on what your base is like, what your weakness is, and how much rest you need. Our program went something like this:

Monday: Run/Lift/Recovery Swim
Tuesday: Bike/T-run
Wednesday: Run/lift/Endurance swim
Thursday: Bike/T-run
Friday: REST
Saturday: Long Bike/T-run
Sunday: Long Run/Medium Swim

I would usually take either Tuesday or Wednesday as a second rest day, varying, so I wasn't missing the same thing each week. But that looks like 3 swims, 3 bikes, and 4 runs, as well as 2 lifting sessions. Yikes. You have to realize I was coming from a very weak base, though...

What will your program specify as far as activities/days? 

Lori -

For my part, I'm not sure what to advise you to do here.  It really is going to come down to your choice but I'll try to help you outline some thoughts.  First, it seems like you're goal (like a lot of us) is to work up to the IM distance as fast as seems safe to do.  It looks like you are thinking OLY and HIM this year and IM next year, or OLY this year and HIM and IM next year.  I think someone with your background who is athletic and has time to train A LOT, and trains properly,  can do either schedule if your only goal is to finish without collapsing.  Being a survivor. 

Let's look at your weaknesses.  No huge base in any one sport.  Nervous about OWS.  Lack of tri experience.

Strengths.  Committed to training properly.  You have experience running longer distances.  Time to train and BT knowledge/support.

FWIW I faced a choice similar to yours last year with similar strengths and weaknesses.  Except I had never run before but had ridden a bit.  I decided to make it a 3 year project.  Sprint and OLY last year.  HIM and Marathon this year.  IM next year.  I know people don't always do a marathon first, but for me, I have to know that my body can take it as a stand alone event.  I picture myself getting off the bike in T2 at IMWI in 2008 exhausted and feeling like I want to die.  Hardly able to move.  At that point, do I want to start a marathon wondering if I can do it or knowing I've done one?  For me that's it.  Maybe you don't need that. 

Logistics:  another thing that's hard about these races is learning all the planning that goes into it.  Nutrition, equipment, what you need when.  It takes practice.  BT knowledge can help a lot in this area.  But if your goal is to do longer races, then when you are doing shorter ones think about how you plan them out and afterwards analyze what worked and what didn't and how you can apply that info to the next distance up. 

OWS.  The HIM swim is not that much different than the OLY.  So doing the HIM this year is really more about the bike and run.  Will you be ready for that combo? 

If you are concerned about being able to be in shape for a HIM this summer, with 7 months to train, you may want to think about if you have the base for an IM next summer.  That may be being overly cautious.

So now I'm back to the original question.  I think IF you can put in the training in the next 4-5 months you should do the OLY and HIM this year.  This will give you the whole offseason next year to focus your training and planning toward the IM.  OTOH, because of the early June timing of Rockman, doing an OLY or two this summer, then Rockman, then IMWI would be a very close second option.  The problem is that you will have to be registered for the IM before you do the HIM.  Doing the HIM this summer means you are certain that you are ready to move up to IM before you shell out the bucks. 

I know I've done a lot of rambling here and some of it is even probably contradictory.  I hope some of it helps.