Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 31)

Welcome to New England Matt, I hope you're on the south side of the cape as the water can be pretty chilly on the other side.  We've had a week of what I call drizzerable weather, but it looks like it might break for you.

I did a short run today as continuation on getting the Achilles back into shape.  The plan was 24 minutes at a steady, comfortable pace.  To make it interesting today, I wore the watch but didn't check it at all during the run and just tried to maintain a steady a pace the whole run.  My miles paces were 9:01.3, 9:01.5, 9:00.8 (last .7)!!!  At least there's something I can do well running.

My race is over and I think I did pretty well.  At least I am happy with everything for the most part.  There were only a couple of things I might have done different but overall it was a stellar race today.  Not because of me but because it was extremely fun.  My wife took a million pictures of me, so expect my avatar to change soon.

Check it out here if you like.

Matt, just remember while you are at the ocean that salt water makes you a little more buoyant than fresh water.  You can certainly learn a lot from swimming in the salty environment but it will feel a little different when you get back.

Warren, those are some nice looking miles, paced ridiculously close together.  It looks like a very nice run.  Sometimes running while keeping my eyes off my watch is very relaxing.  I try to do it occasionally but I also haven't done it for a while either.

Assuming one only has to pee, yes. 

That would be very correct.

I considered using the swim start yesterday morning after I waited in line for a few minutes and decided I needed to get my wetsuit on.  I was able to keep from polluting the lake any further.  Once I got into the race I forgot that I thought I needed to pee.

I have no experience with the frame pumps personally but I have heard they are very difficult to get up to pressure.  Possibly because of the short stroke of the pump and the lack of ability to provide a lot of force.  I just bought a couple of CO2 cartridges and an inflator valve, that the ticket for me.

That's the way it is with frame pumps.  You just get enough pressure to finish your ride.  If you want to take a few extra minutes getting an upper body workout you might get as high as 90psi, but you usually hit about 80 and are satisfied.

Hey Dirk, I just saw your posting about qualifying for AG nationals.  That's a speedy race my friend.  Congrats.  Are you planning to go? 

That's up here in our neck of the woods, though it's a long way from where I am.  I have a few friends going, in fact one could be competitive in the 50-54, but I have my A race (Timberman sprint) that same weekend so I can't make it up to Vermont.

I would love to be able to go but the price tag would be to expensive for us to make the trip.  My mom actually said she wished she could "sponsor" me but she had some sudden home repairs that are going to be quite expensive.

I also realize that I don't have a chance at earning a real place with the elite AG'ers because I haven't been involved with the sport long enough, nor do I have all the "tools" for a big race like that.  I hope to be able to afford a TT bike in a couple of years but with the cost of a parochial education for 2 girls, it's not going to be until one of them has graduated.

This weekend's race went well for me.  Perhaps my best performance yet.  However, a ton of the fast guys showed up and my great performance only got me 17th OA.

The 400 yard swim was really around 500 yards based on an analysis of all of the swim times.  A couple of the super swim prodigies turned in a 5:46 and 5:47 respectively.  I did 8:33, but I know that subjectively I swam well by my standards.  There are 3 things that I believe I did better than I usually do.

1) I have been working on and improving my kick-less freestyle.  I had some good practices last week using that technique in which I was able to swim hard and still stay aerobic.

2) I relaxed just like I know how to do in the pool, but this time it was in the lake and in a race.

3) I got a good warm up that included a significant amount of time in the water. 

And the water was cold!  yet no one used a wetsuit because the water is always in the upper 80s this time of year so we all got faked out.

So I got out of the water feeling strong.  Began to run up the boat ramp and kicked the concrete edge and fell over.  Quickly recovered and tried to run up the hill and to my T1.  I was so dizzy that I couldn't immediately get my shoes on and had to pause to steady myself.  All in all a decent 10 seconds of lost time.  Maybe I've got fluid in my inner ears?

This race has a run of 1 mile between the swim and bike.  That first mile is up hill.  Actually about half of it is climbing and half is flat.  By looking at all splits and knowing many of the athletes there it looks like a :45 second handicap from the hill.  I ran it in 7:09 which made me happy.  I was actually able to recover from the swimming exertion while running this pace.  On the flats I was booking.  Only got passed by my friend Tommy on this leg of the race.  He came by on a flat section and passed me in a FULL SPRINT.

Got on the bike really fast, but the course had us climbing a gradual grade for about half a mile, so I waited until then to put my feet in my shoes.  I always try to do this at 20+mph so that I lose less distance while coasting.

Course was slow with long gradual rollers.  12 mile out and back.  I had 4th fastest bike split but never over exerted myself.  Caught my friend Tommy again. 

Had a good T3 and got back out on the course and was glad to find that I could stay aerobic while moving pretty quick.  Took Tommy quite a while to catch me.  He said I was about 200 yards ahead of him coming out of T3 and it took him 3/4 mile? to catch me.    My final 2 mile run was 13:03 I think.  6:30 pace.

I felt good, didn't suck on any portion of the race and felt really great about being so stinking far behind in the finish standings.  Tommy was 3rd.  Last year he won the race and I was 5:00 back.  This year he was 3rd and I was 3:30ish back...and he got 2 minutes of that in the water.

If I had been competitive in the water I would have jumped at least half a dozen people in the standings, perhaps a whole dozen.

So I'm going to keep working that run because I think I can be running 6:00 next year, and the swim because there's so much room for improvement there.

That sounds like an awesome race.  Your swim distance sounds much like mine from this weekend.  The swim times didn't seem to line up right with what I would have expected for myself and the top swimmers in the field.

Your run sounds like it's pretty fast to me.  I would like to be able to hit a 6:30 pace for a couple of miles after mashing the bike.  I didn't have anything else left to push for my run and I think the run was a little longer than advertised.  I am looking t try to get my run time down for next year too.  I think all the extra miles I am running right now and as I lead into another marathon will provide the extra push I need to get faster. 

What is your plan to get faster on your feet?  Are planning to log a lot more running miles sprinkled with a little speed work or will you try to have more than a little speed work?

My plan to get faster in the run is more simple than you'd expect.  It's just to rack up as many 40-50 mile weeks as I can.  Here's the thing that people forget...lots of slow running increases your cardio efficiency as well as your cellular efficiency.

These efficiency gains are available to us at every speed we run.  I noticed this weekend that my 6:30 pace was aerobic.  In fact, I came off the bike and transition breathing kinda hard and actually recovered as I began running. 

I have been training exclusively between 8:30-9:00 pace yet can comfortably run aerobically at 6:30...

But that being said, there is some focused running happening.  At this time of  year I'm racing so frequently that my races themselves become the workouts that I need to add to my slow mileage.  That's really it....1 or 2 short tempo runs per week (which is what my triathlon races amount to) is all it takes.

Of course, all winter the backbone of my run training was my weekend 10mile trail run.  This was wonderful because the 10 miles gave me a longer endurance run and the extreme terrain on the trails gave me interval training on the way up (cardio, not leg speed) and the down hills gave me speed work (leg speed, not cardio).  So in one shot I got leg speed, over threshold, and endurance in one shot.

It’s interesting you say that Jeff.  I am amazed talking to “fast” 5 and 10k guys at how many miles they run.  It’s not unusual to hear a good 5k runner putting in 50+ mpw with a 15 mile long run.

They may do speed work too, but when talking about his training regimen, the winner of the 5k I ran last month asked me if I could run a hundred yards in 15 seconds.  I actually have no clue, but I assume I could.  He said at that pace you’d cover a 5k in less than 14 minutes, so it’s not a question of can I run fast enough, it’s a question of do I have the endurance to run fast enough, far enough. 

I don’t know if I totally buy into that reasoning, but it gives you something to think about.

I have a similar plan as well, just about 40-50 for a couple of months tops.  I am working my way up to 40 right now and I hope to hold that for about a month and then make the jump to 50 mpw for one month before tapering for another marathon.

Now that I found out I didn't register for the  Air Force marathon soon enough I have about one extra month to rack up the high mileage.  I, like you, am hoping that all these miles drive my fitness higher and my paces down for next year's racing season.  I would love to have a run leg in a HIM at 7:00 pace late next season.

The only thing I might see that might be a little different in our plans (and I'm sure your planning in much better) is that you are planning tempo runs once to twice a week, while I plan once a a week or once every other week.  For just a running race I would like to see my 5k around 18:40 (6:00) and a half marathon at 1:25:00 (6:30).  This may take another couple of years but hey, its my dream!

When I was a runner and specializing in 5/10ks I ran 100+mpw in the off season and 70-80 in the early competitive season and down to 50ish by taper time.

When doing 100 miles per week there isn't a lot of tolerance left in the body for intensity.  But I was running quite quickly in races anyway.  I would love someone to take on an experiment...Give me September through March next year and run what seems to you now to be an absurd amount of miles (all easy pace) and it will blow your mind how fast you will run next season.

Well, absurd would be relative of course.  Let me comment about biking...I grew up in Minnesota.  In the fall we would put our bikes away and run and x-c ski until spring.  We would then get the bikes out and within about 3 training rides be back to fall riding fitness.  If you stayed aerobically fit, the only thing that needs to retrain is muscle which adapts very quickly.  And this not only goes for me, but a friend of mine from my x-c ski team who was a national level junior cyclist and spent time at the olympic training center on a regular basis.

How about settling for 2 bike workouts per week this winter?

As for time/mileage commitment--that will depend on you.  There will be some ceiling that we shouldn't cross in terms of mileage that will depend on your body.  But I would ask for 2 workout blocks per day M-F with a 2 hour block Sat/Sun.  We can still accomodate swim/bike too.

We will have until September to develop the best plan that your personal life allows.  Are you game?

http://www.blava.org/images/lake.jpg

So this is the current situation for the swim start and transition area for my race next weekend. They're about another 300 yards down the road from the edge of the water.

The Corp of Engineers expects it to be down by next week, but they have no idea if it will be usable.  It's starting to look like my first triathlon will become a du or cancelled. 

Are you saying that the transition area is under water?  Or is transition behind you in this photo?

Why would high water make it unusable for a swim?

I'm game, and I really have no need to swim.  I'm on a somewhat strange swimming odyssey to test how well I swim in races with close to zero swim training this summer and winter.  As far as biking, if the bike fitness holds up ok through the winter I'd be fine with taking most of the winter off.  Even if I start back in April that would still give me a few months before the season starts.

I could swing something like 2 - 45-60 minute blocks per day and then 2 hours on the weekend days.  I may do some on the treadmill if that's ok.  Even though I don't mind running outside in the winter (I'm in New Hampshire), sometimes it can get dangerous depending on the plowing situation.

I'm older (49) but I know some friends my age who still run crazy miles and my legs have no built up damage from years of running, so I think I could handle it.

Sounds perfect.  You're gonna rock it next year!

Before your last race of this season we will talk about your training routine at that point and speed/fitness going in.  We will identify your training zones and get a plan laid out.  Whenever your last tri is of the year, let's find a 5k after that to get a baseline.

I was going to ask you to do regular treadmill running so that we can do some biofeedback drills and correlate pace/HR/perceived exertion.

As your discussion about all the running is taking place, I am going to plan to use the winter as a bike training season and try to hit 4x a week on the trainer.  My plan (really just thoughts) is to knock my run mileage down to 3x a week and still try to hit around 25 mpw running and try to nail some hard bike workouts.

What are your thoughts on this type of off season training on the bike?  I would like to try to pick up another mph avg for the 2012 racing season and maybe get a little closer to the AG podium and/or higher in the overall standings of some of the larger races.  Also make a nice placement splash in a first HIM for me.  Say top 15% of the overall field?????

That an be a solid plan.  The focus on the bike will pay off on the bike, and the running should hold status quo.  A little exercise I like to do is to look at the splits from a recent triathlon in light of a few metrics. 

One metric is to rank your performance in the swim, bike, run as a percentile against the fastest split in the race for each of the legs. 

Since that can sometimes be skewed by someone who ruined their race for an impressive split, or a single-sport standout an alternative is to rank your 3 disciplines against the race winner.

And something that might be better is to rank your swim against the world record swim for that distance (or extrapolate), then compare your bike against a world record bike, and the same for the run.  If you have reason to believe the advertised distances were wrong then this becomes difficult.  And if there's no recognized world record for a 400 yard swim, there are internet calculators to help translate one effort to another effort.

So in the end you would have something that looks like this:

swim: 18% slower than race winner

bike: 23% slower than race winner

run: 19% slower than race winner

The reason this exercise is helpful is that it allows you to assess how balanced you are.  In your case, you plan a bike focus so it would be helpful to know how much ground you need to gain on the bike to be competitive.

Along with that discussion of training, I wonder if we can talk about your bike?  It's generally accepted that a properly fitted Tri bike is 2mph faster than a road bike.  Depending on your current equipment choice that 1mph may be available today.