Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 30)

As a noob this confuses and scares me.

Everything  Most of what I read says no more than every other day running to allow some recovery...

Tim, it's a subject of much debate.  But I know running better than most, so here is my response to that.

Triathletes will typically run 3-4 times per week since they have 7 days and 3 sports to train for.  Many assume that this cross training and the replacing of running with non-impact cardio (versus being a daily runner) will help with injury prevention.  The problem is that we see the same or probably actually a greater incidence of running injuries in triathletes. 

Another factor leading to this phenomenon is the current fad of the HIIT movement.  The idea is that runners (or triathletes) can benefit equally from less time spent running (training) harder versus more time spent training at lower intensity.

I would like to say that it's analogous to turning your oven to 650 to cook your Thanksgiving Turkey in 1/4 the time....they aren't equivalent.

Many people can make it work for non-impact sports (the swimming and cycling can respond well to this type of training within reason).  But it doesn't work for running precisely because of the damaging nature of the impact.

If you are someone who's body can handle 15 miles per week, can you handle 3x5mile runs?  Can you handle 1x15mile?  How about 7x2mile?  I'm not speaking in proper physiological terms here, but if you provide the body with an isolated stress, then the body 'heals' from it.  If you provide the body with a repeated stress, then the body 'adapts' to it.  Now healing and adaptation are pretty much one in the same response by the body, but my point is that the adaptation happens only when the stress is repeated on a regular basis.

There is something about doing a run 3x per week or less that provides your body with more damage, yet less adaptation than when you do the same miles with more frequency.

So if you are a novice runner/triathlete you might be on a program of about 10 miles per week.  If your body is tolerating 3x3mile runs alright and you become a 7 day-a-week runner at 7x3 miles, you have just more than doubled your weekly mileage.  That would be hard on your body.  Instead, the right way to do this is to 7x1.5 to start. 

As for rest and recovery...well over 24 hours the body won't have any trouble recovering from 1.5 miles.  As you increase your fitness, the distance can increase and your body's ability to recover keeps pace.  An elite runner can do an easy 10 mile run at 8:00/mile and that stress is sufficiently small enough for him to allow for recovery. 

You only need an entire day completely off for recovery if the day before your demands on your body went all the way to the limit.  That can be the case the day after you race a marathon for instance....but it won't be the case when the day before was a typical training day.

Makes perfect sense.  I agree with your reasoning.  Bike first, run second, swim third.  The caveats are that running seems to help biking more than biking helps running....so working the run can often get you some indirect improvement on the bike whereas I'm not sure it works the other way.

I feel like I've checked the bike off the list and now need the run.  Then will come the swim.  The good news is that I've not had to neglect the swim to achieve my run focus of this past year.  I didn't knock any training off my calendar, I just added.

There is also the fact that your improvement in a sport will be relative to how far behind  your potential you currently are.  If you have talent in a sport your potential is greater.  If you are pretty much new or untrained in a sport your room for improvement is greater.  So it's possible that a few extra hours a week devoted to running could get you to the finish line faster than a few extra hours a week on the bike...but only if you are closer to your bike potential than your run potential.  Hope that makes sense.  But generally, I do think it's best to improve the bike first.

I went for a swim today and payed close attention to the tension and low and behold I realized my throat was ready to cramp up because of the tension.  If I slow down, actually way down I can relax and take actually deep breathes to get enough oxygen.  BUt at this point the pace is more of a stroke with a long glide and not much movement.  Everytime I increased the speed and effort the tension instantly came back.  Would it be better to do laps at the low pace to keep the tension down or is there another way to relax?  Today I basically did 200m intervals going back and forth between the low pace/no tension and high pace/high tension.

Thanks to everyone for the encourgement in the Triathlon, All of you have given great advice to get through the learning process of the Triathlon

Matt

Matt, I'm not sure which way is the best.  They both may work.  One of the ways that I've made progress in this area isn't very pleasant.  I go to practice and I suffer through the intervals the team is doing and when I get to the point that I think I'm going to black out, well, necessity is a Mother...I have to relax because the alternative is more and more pain.

One of the things I've always suspected would be helpful would be if I stepped up on my own outside Master's practice where everything is intervals based on pool races (short distances) and did some 1 mile continuous swim workouts with no thought toward pace, but just good form and relaxation.  It's almost impossible to swim that long without relaxing, even if it's inadvertently relaxing.

Maybe Jonathan can add some wisdom here.

A little trick I found that helped significantly was to breath in through my nose and mouth simultaneously.   When I actually do this, my throat relaxes for some reason and my breathing is quicker and free-er.  It makes a big difference because I don't need a super long exagerated stroke to give me enough time to get my air.

A long glide is actually part of the stroke.  There is obviously a balance between gliding and the stroke, but there should be a glide.  The long part should be during the portion of the stroke where you are reaching out in front of you before the pull takes place.  You need to allow your body to get long.....VERY LONG, prior to your pulling begins.  Something to try would be to touch your check with your should while allowing your arm to straighten completely out.  This is definitely going to slow your arm speed down but arm speed isn't the most important part of your technique. 

I would argue that fast arms will ruin your stroke and speed as well as wear you out in the process.  I have seen some really  gross exaggerations in arm movement and flailing arm speed that wore some swimmers out (and probably done some flailing of my own).  I think it would really benefit you to slow your stroke way down and REALLY stretch LONG and go slow during your workouts and hang on and be surprised by how fast you can be while "moving" slow.

Matt, another thing about the swimming.  It is very hard to know what’s really going on by your own feel.  Something I did early on which I really think helped me was I had a real coach review my form.  I was lucky in that a good friend happens to be an ex great D1 swimmer who now coaches at the high school level.

He videotaped a few laps and gave me a few critical pointers.  Even a cheap underwater camera and a friend taping can help show you what’s going on underwater – I still occasionally have my son tape me in the lake using a waterproof Olympus we picked up to check my form.

One thing which really jumped out at me was that what I was doing in the water and what I thought I was doing were two totally different things.  It can run a few bucks but if you have the resources I think it’s a great use of tri money.  I could tell you the pointers my friend gave me, but that may not help since you likely have different issues. 

For me, I was not gliding enough which was wasn’t allowing for a finished stroke and caused a weak and hurried catch, and my hands and feet were acting as brakes in the water with my feet not streamlined and my hands pointing up at the beginning of each stroke.  I also was way over-rotating and not breathing out completely underwater (these last two things continue to be tough for me).

But in general swimming is all about form and relaxation, and a good coach can really point you in the right direction.  A few form fixes go a long way to better pace and more relaxation.  More swim time ingraining bad habits wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing.

First off....I guess I get your point here.   Here's my stupid issue with this....okay, I have two stupid issues.  The first is that my coach doesn't agree with my idea of running more than I am now and being that I'm a "newer" athlete in comparison, I feel bad arguing the point.  The second thing is that I'm running less than 15 miles a week at MAX right now.  Are you saying to run those miles over the course of 5-6 days?  I'm not even sure I'd be warmed up if I'm only running a mile or whatever.  I'm not saying it's a bad idea, because I obviously don't know crap about running....still.

Secondly....about your swim:  You are doing all right, but what you describe sort of tells me that it's a lot of mental stuff going on during your swim.  You need to relax your mind during your race.  This is, obviously, extremely hard to do for some people, especially when it's the beginning of the event and there is bumping and splashing and chaos all around.  The only way you are going to be able to pull those long, strong and efficient strokes is if you can relax and let the muscle memory that you have developed take over.  This is exactly what happened to me in my last race.  I had a plan and as soon as it went wrong, I was ALL SORTS OF MESSED UP IN THE HEAD.  I couldn't get anything right after that.  This is a problem you can't fix by swimming more or more often. 

Now....about your speed issue.  This is more of a two part thing...well, at least my novice brain thinks so.  The first part obviously includes swimming more.  That's obvious.  To get better, you have to practice.  The second part, and the thing that brought my 1:45/100 down to 1:30/100 in the pool, is to swim smart.  I think there is a lot to say for swim technique and the basis and fundamentals of swim lessons hold true, BUT you have to adapt those fundamentals for YOU.  I'm not so sure this would apply if we were all 18 yrs old or younger where your body adapts well to the given work load, changes etc.  The way I went about "adapting" the fundamentals for me was going by "feel".  I say "feel" because you have to connect your brain to your body and the way it "feels" going through the water.  I know this sounds a bit abstract and maybe it's tough to visualize.  The only thing resisting you is the water, so spend time thinking about where the water is resisting your movement.  You know it's your head because you can feel the water pushing against it, but is it also the top of your hand when entering the water?  Do you feel pressure against the sides of your legs.  These are all very small pressures and are hard to notice until you really concentrate on them.  I spent some time identifying where this was happening and made small corrections in my movement to get those pressures to go away....then just repeat a million times until your body does it by itself.  There's a lot to be said for being one with the water.

I hope I'm explaining this so that someone could actually understand it and maybe apply it for themselves.

Jonathan, I think I know exactly what you were trying to convey.  In fact, I've been doing a lot of this over the last few months and feel like I cleaned up my technique quite a bit (and did see a corresponding improvement in pace).

When feeling for the resistance I found it really helped to swim with my eyes closed because that helped me to focus on what I was feeling.  Also, I found the sensation that I was looking for with my arm entry and reach to be best described as "finding the hole".  When the arm was in the perfect position it felt like there was nothing to 'grab' on to...because there was no pressure from the water on any of my arm's surfaces.

And something that greatly helps in this is to swim with fins because the greater speed accentuates the pressure the water puts on me.

Thanks for your advice.

First off....I guess I get your point here.   Here's my stupid issue with this....okay, I have two stupid issues.  The first is that my coach doesn't agree with my idea of running more than I am now and being that I'm a "newer" athlete in comparison, I feel bad arguing the point.  The second thing is that I'm running less than 15 miles a week at MAX right now.  Are you saying to run those miles over the course of 5-6 days?  I'm not even sure I'd be warmed up if I'm only running a mile or whatever.  I'm not saying it's a bad idea, because I obviously don't know crap about running....still.

I understand.  You need to listen to your coach.  With a coach you need to be either all in or out.  If I were your coach I'd be willing to flex a lot with your schedule and priorities, but wouldn't appreciate you following other people's training advice against my own.

But to elaborate on your question anyway...if you are running 15 miles max right now, that's probably in the form of 3x5miles?

If I were talking more than theory...specifically developing a recommendation for YOU, then I would start by interviewing you to find out how close I think you are to an injury threshold.  I would ask about past injuries, how you are feeling now, your last injury...how far and how fast you run and other stuff.  If I thought you were safe, the most aggressive way to turn you in to a daily runner would be to leave your current run training untouched and add just 1 mile to the current non-running days and increasing those 1 mile runs gradually over time.

But if you are feeling aches and pains and/or have a recent history of injury on your current training load, I would start you with something very, very conservative.  Either 6x3 or perhaps 7x2 initially. 

But then ramp it up from there as quickly as your body allows.  Determining how fast requires repeated 'interviews' like the one above that keeps a close eye on how you feel.

If you feel good and perhaps we find your current training pace is too fast, then there is room to ramp you up quickly with a corresponding decrease in training pace.  If you have 3 runs of 5 miles at 7:00/mile pace and feel good in the legs, I would probably have you try doing 6x5 at 8:30 pace to see how you feel.  Stopping immediately if you feel issues...or taking every other day down to 2 or 3.

Yup, I sort of tried to hit on this in my last post and I completely agree.  When I first started swimming a couple years ago I was swimming with a guy that was significantly faster than me and had a couple years of swimming experience.  I would just grind through the workouts and be out of breath and have a sore neck and throat after every practice.  It took me about a year to realize that when I started swimming hard, trying to swim fast, I would tense up and my stroke became all sorts of jerky from side to side and I would wip my head to breathe. 

One thing I found helpful for me was to practice a floppy head.  You can learn a ton by what happens when you push off the wall and just glide.  Try this a few times in a row.  Push off the wall face down with your heads straight above your shoulders.  When you push off the wall, just glide.  Let your neck relax.  For the first time, if your head just falls, let it go.  The second time you do it, realize the effort it requires to bring your head back so you are looking straight down at the bottom of the pool.  Do this over a few times.  Memorize the effort it requires to hold your head steady.  Do this in the mirror first.  Holding your hands above your shoulders, let your head drop so your chin is down.  Now raise your head so you are looking straight ahead into the mirror.  Memorize the tiny bit of effort...this effort is even SMALLER in the pool.  The idea of this exercise is to teach your brain that it doesn't need to use your neck to swim.  Memorize in your head what it means to be reaching as high as you can with your hands in front of your shoulders....not crossing over....not over your head.

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I second what Dirk is saying here, for the most part.  A nice long and efficient stroke will be the fastest and most economical way to move through the water.  Practicing being "long" is a smart idea.  The only thing I would suggest is practicing being long without reaching over in front of your body.  When I get tired, I personally have a tendency to try to reach too long in the water and because I don't have gravity playing its usual part, I tend to bend by body in a big "C" from reaching over in an attempt to be "long" in the water.  So again, practice this out of the pool.  Practice going up on your toes and reaching as high as you can without bending.

I could not agree more with Warren here.  Within a couple months of starting swimming my swim coach/instructor was VERY happy with how I looked from the pool side, but I was still slow as death.  So she hooked up the camera and POW...I looked like CRAP under the water.  I really had no idea.  I hadn't done enough evaluation on what was going ton at all and man did it ever show!

I am starting to do the same thing with running as well.  Although not as technique oriented as swimming, I believe there are things to make you a more efficient runner.  My tight hip flexors are the same idea as Warren's hands and feet were...just putting the brakes on.

YES, ABSOLUTELY!  Well, looks like you are already there...but that info. you just posted is very important.  The eyes closed thing is exactly what I do.  Makes a huge difference.

Okay, sounds good.  My run schedule has been more like a 3, 4, and 7 mile runs.  The couple weeks that I added a couple 1-2 miles in there, I definitely felt better.  I even responded in my training that more frequency seemed to help and she still didn't add it into my schedule, so like you said, I do what she says. 

My last injury was my PF from last august and finally went away a couple months ago and I was running happy and injury free (besides the occassional sore knee/ankle, watever) until last week.  I raced on Sunday, went for an easy run on Friday, like 30 minutes, and then a longer easy run on Saturday, like an hour.  Since then my right foot has been aching on and off.  I haven't run since Saturday.  I didn't want to exacerbate the issue at all.  I also haven't had time this week to workout besides one swim.  Not sure what to do at this point.  I obviously don't want to make it worse.  I have been icing and massaging it out every day.  I think if it feels better while we are on vacation next week, I will try a couple short 1-2 mile easy runs and go from there.  It's frustrating for sure.

I second Jonathons second.  (Does that make it a third?)  Over reaching can be done another way (sort of) by reaching across your body, rather than to far in front.  Make sure you reach directly over your shoulders, not over your head.  You're not really looking to make an "arrow" point here, just make sure your arms are directly over your shoulders.  Many times I will see, and I am sure I do this myself, swimmer reach aross the top of their head toward the opposite side of the body.  This is incorrect form and causes undo stress on the joint slowing the swimmer and increasing the risk of injury.

Who races in a trisuit?  If not, why?

I have found a trisuit for a pretty good price but I am not sure about racing in one.  They look like they might be kind of uncomfortable. 

On a couple of training notes.  I am skipping any training tonight and tomorrow.  I had a bike scheduled for tonight but when I got home the wind was 20mph gusting to 33mph and I wasn't going to deal with that.  It wasn't supposed to be this windy tonight so I guess the weathermen got it way wrong this time.  My usual Friday off has disappeared and I have to work all day then I plan on driving to the race venue to pick up my race packet for Saturday.  I am not worried about anything from a training perspective.  I think I am trained up for a sprint distance race.

Last night I ran 10 miles with all but 1 mile at an easy pace.  I ran a mile at what I would love to be my race pace on Saturday.  I wanted to run 1 mile as fast as I thought I might be able to go, after 8 miles, to try to feel a fair amount of fatigue in my legs (and still be able to make it back to my truck).  I ran that mile at 6:18.32.  By far the fastest mile I have ever run....EVER!  I have never tried to run 1 mile fast before so I am kind of liking that pace.  I just wish I could run those for Saturday's race.

I tried on a couple trisuits this year.  VERY comfortable to tell you the truth.  I would totally buy one.  The only downside is if you need to use the bathroom.  No worries about the top riding up either...kind of nice if you ask me.  This sounds stupid, but I feel like don't have the speed to justify wearing one and they are expensive as all hell!

Secondly...that is a SUPER fast mile!  I'm impressed. The only time I see that pace is when I cross streets in front of traffic!

I've run in a tri suit and it's awesome.  Kind of like when you first wear a bib on the bike.  Everything stays in place perfectly.  Why don't I use one - $$$$.  I finally have a race outfit but it was given to me as part of a team.

Incredible mile Dirk - the only time I see that pace is on my bike.

Isn't that what the swim start is for?

Jeff your explanation of running everyday makes sense. I might try it after my sprint next month (30 days eek!).

On a side note I finally got my co2 inflater (ultraflate) and tried it out yesterday...freaking awesome.

Now if I can just figure out how to change a tire I will be set. I have a tire tool but can't get the dang tube off the rim.

Here is a video that may help with the tire replacement or repairs.  changing a tube isn't something you want to learn how to do after you're 15 miles from home so it might warrant a look sooner rather than later.  I have to say the first little bit of getting the tire of can be difficult.  The guy in the video uses 1 tire lever, I have to use 2...........because I'm a weeny. (Not to be confused with Anthony Wiener.)

Here's a good tutorial on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlt2xog9-9Q

During step 2, you don't need to take both sides of the tire off the rim.  For road-side tube replacement you can leave one side of the tire on the rim.  the tube can be removed this way.  Just takes a little extra effort at the valve stem to get it out.  I push the remaining tire bead to the opposite side of the rim right there to allow the tube's valve to lift up and out of the hole.

The inspection step (step 3) must still be done even on road side repairs...otherwise you will just flat your new tube. The first flat was probably caused by something.  feel with fingers on the inside of the tire, feel the insde of the rim, feel the rim strip to ensure all spoke holes are perfectly covered.