Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 31)

I prefer these types of intervals over hard tempo runs! I think I have a reasonable ability to recover so it reaaaallly helps. Plus there is the mental aspect of "pssssh it's just 3 laps. That's nothin' compared to 4 miles."

The hardest part of this was probably those 12 minutes of "easy" running in the hills because I was fatigued from the 1200s but more or less unable to totally kick back and go into recovery mode because we had 5 hill sprints coming up.

Your shirts are awesome!

Steve, even the lesbian says so, dayum;)

Yep, he's 8.  He's been learning to play the drums and had to pick a song to learn.  "Eighteen"!! 

Yeah, that's gotta be double points or something. 

But I should stop. I'm (we're) embarrassing him and I don't want to discourage the picture posting.  It's way too much fun :)

Sorry Steve, we mean you no harm.

{blushing profusely}

I don't know the sessions ahead of time, not sure the coach always does either, but she won't say. I just figure that they'll be some kind of hard. Don't think I'm at a point yet where it's really that significant. Just watch it the last week or two leading into a race. She knows what my focus is and has been helpful in some basic things for the other workouts I do.

Swimming every day is for both the yardage and feel. I'm doing fine with it so far, and can likely continue for some time. Eventually I'll probably drop a day or two off to make sure I don't burn out. By then I hope to have some of the swims up enough in volume that the weekly total can stay up there. There is enough variation in there to keep things interesting. 3 masters sessions a week. There is a 4th, but it's stroke/IM night and I do a strong bike that day already, so wouldn't be a good idea. On one or two of the other days I'll add in some other stroke work, but fit in better to how I want to do it. It's still swimming and helps to keep things interesting. There is still a good deal of free in there.

In light of the SSS group picking up, feel like clarifying that the work on body position and kick I've been doing is not done at the expense of developing the catch. Everything is done through that and in concert with it. Anyone who reads the book should get that.

And Elesa, it's getting hard to remember who said what in which thread now!

Stacey, I completely lost track too! I think I may be off a week. 

We're starting a new cycle tomorrow;)

Welp, I guess tomorrow is this first day of the new work your weakness. Great timing!

I've got a race tomorrow. My first road race in a while now. After that I need to immediately think ahead to the next 4 weeks leading to Nationals (integrating the fantastic taper advice I have gotten  )

Sooo, I think plan and execution shall be my work your weakness goal.

Well, you certainly are swimming and biking a TON.  I am always amazed by your volume and intensity.  It's really impressive, Ben.

I know it's getting hard to keep track of the who said what where, but it seems like there's a good deal of cross-over with those of us who are trying to sort these technique things out.  That kinda warms my heart :)

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Speaking of which, I have a question for the group as I ponder my next weakness focus:

For the last month I have been biking 2-3 times a week, swimming 4-5x/week and running 4-5x/week.   In my mind, my top priorities are:

1) improving my swimming

2) easing back into running and building my base mileage (no Q workouts, all EZ)

3) maintaining (possibly building) cycling fitness

In a month, I will be leaving to go overseas for a month and I won't be able to bike while I'm there.  I do plan on trying to swim 3x/week and run 5-6x/week while I'm away.  In light of that, should I keep my cycling at 2-3x/week for the next month, bump it up to try to build some fitness knowing I'll lose some for the month, or scrap the cycling and really just focus on the swim and run until I get back mid January?

I hope you'll share your plan with us when you have it figured out :)

Oooh. Interesting question.

Now, this is not my area of expertise, so take this as more my gut feeling. Or educated guess at best.

I personally think that for building fitness, running is your best bet as the time invested is not nearly as much so as the time on the bike. I'd venture to guess any bike specific fitness (not general fitness) you would gain cycling 2-3 times a week in a month would be lost in a total month off (I don't have anything to back that up.)

So, focusing on your run and swim makes the most sense to me.

BUT, you are coming off an injury and the bike is a great way to get intensity without risk of injury. I am not entirely sure where you are with your "recovery" but if you aren't in a position to ramp up a little more run volume, the bike may be your friend.

This cracked me up!

Glad we have a Gretchen sighting! 

Good luck with your riding this weekend.  Isn't the weather just awesome!??

What is it that you don't like about the bike?  Maybe we can try to help :)

I feel like my leg is kinda getting better, but it's still bugging me more than I think it should.  I'm scheduling an MRI today to rule out anything really bad.

Yeah, it seems like the bike specific fitness it the easiest to gain, so maybe it's also the easiest to lose?  IDK :/ 

Have I mentioned I kinda suck at balancing three disciplines? ;P

Considering that your leg is bugging you. It might be good to stay with the cycling, since to me it doesn't seem like a great time to be adding training stress if you aren't fully recovered.

What do you specifically have trouble with in balancing everything? Making time for everything? Or just the overall building of a plan that helps you improve in all three at once?

I think it'll be like this:

Week 1: "normal week" + Race (regional championship)

Week 2: increased volume to "peak" mileage

Week 3: Decrease volume 50%, increase intensity

Week 4: Decrease volume 50%, decrease intensity + Race

*Bawls, that peak week is during thanksgiving. I guess I'll burn off all that food ...

I just wanted to say your username is awesome.  That's all.

Actually, we just keep this thread going.  Please join us in here :)

I think I just have had a really hard time building (and following) a plan that helps me improve in all three at once.  Two seems doable, but with three I can sometimes feel like I'm just spinning my wheels in one or more.  Maybe it's just a problem of not having the base fitness to really have enough good workouts in three sports in a week's time.