Slornow and Wannabefaster's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 33)

Due to an impossible work day…no training today.

Good work out there.  Mine wasn't what I would have liked but I feel like I am on track now. Here are my monthly totals:

Bike: 16h 4m 34s – 280.25 miles

Run: 2h 55m 10 s – 15.61 miles

Swim: 32m 32 s – 2500 yards

Strength: 4h 0m 0s

Cardio: 2h 4m

Walking the dogs: 53.36 miles

Since I like to have a goal in mind - Targets for Feb:

Bike       – 400 miles  (20 mile/day ave x 20 days)

Run        – 35 miles (running every other day 2.25 – 2.75 miles per run)

Swim     – 20,000 yards (two swims a week @ 2500 yards each)

Let's make Feb better than Jan!

Best month ever (by a nose).   Particularly impressive given that January was incredibly busy at work.

By far my best run month ever (thanks to regularly hitting 4x runs / week) but the swim slipped -- swimming is harder to fit into my work schedule.

The bike is AWOL once again -- waiting for spring!!

Scott.

 This was more of a "do whatever I feel" month.  No plan, just maintain my base and focus heavier on swimming. 

I did not get any training done at all over the last 4 days.  Between 13 hour work days, showing the house, business meetings, family, car issues and on and on.....  Finally I just need to get though today and I have the whole weekend off!!!!  Going to get back into biking.  Last month was my lowest biking volume in years. 

One of these days I'm going to beat Jason, Randy and Rene's impressive Jan swim volumes!  Of course, this is a mentor group but I just can't help that competitive part of me!  Forgive me....

Jimmy I feel like you in two respects.  The last few days have left little time to train.  I get cabin fever if I go a few days without doing something.  My wife says to me this morning 'You ARE going for a ride today'.  She knows the look.

Also "Of course, this is a mentor group but I just can't help that competitive part of me!  Forgive me...."  I could not have said it better.  Nobody's run number is in jeopardy from me, ever, and likely the swim as well because I won't realistically put that much time in.  The bike however...

You can smile knowing you will always beat me

You'll all have to wait until I get home tonight to see my totals - I have to make sure I got the last few days in correctly.

This am was another spin morning.  I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.  Well, at least until 530 when the dog decides it's time for breakfast.  

Hope you're all having a good day.

I've been using a pretty cool iphone app over the last month or two. Its a free app and is basically a digital pace clock. The pools I use have regular pace clocks but I like this better for certain workouts...like today was 10X100 on 10 sec. rest for best average. I usually put my workouts on a piece of paper in a ziplock and will stick the phone in there as well so I can use this app when it is easier than the regular pace clock. Today it was so much easier to see a specific number and know exactly when I needed to leave for the next interval. Then it was easy to calculate my swim intervals. Total time 15:56=956 seconds minus 90 seconds of rest intervals=866 seconds (stopped the clock after I finished my 10th swim interval so there was no 10th rest interval)...so 1:26.6 was the swim average 100.  Hope someone finds it useful.  Here is the info:

The Pace Clock app

What: Very few things in life are free and the very nice Pace Clock app from Peter deWeese is thankfully among them. But we would most likely not mind paying $1 for something as helpful. The Pace Clock turns your phone into a simple green on black MM:SS digital interval clock just like the ones you might be familiar with at your pool, but in this case you won't have to crane your neck to see it. Plus depending where you go to swim you might only have an old analog version anyway.
MSRP: Free
Website: itunes.apple.com

Randee-how's the return to running coming along. Any residual problems from the stress fracture?

Moved tomorrow's swim to today and it is DONE! WooHoo swimming done for the week. Another easy run tonight, an easy ride tomorrow and then some long intervals on the bike on Sunday followed by a 4 mile brick run. Glad the weekend is almost here.

I've actually decided to give it a little more time.  I still have some achiness (which ortho said was normal) so I'm waiting a few more weeks.  He also said to keep using the bone stimulator so I'm going at that full force.

Thanks for asking

After missing two beautiful days to ride this week I could not let another go by.  When I rolled out about 11:30 it was 65 degrees and just a 2 mph breeze.  I did my ride that includes the 16 mile loop for my upcoming tri, 23.65 miles total ride.

I decided to really attack the run up to the hills and keep the bike in one or two gears higher on the hills.  It was tougher than normal but the added propulsion of the higher gear really shortened the hills.  As for 'the hill' that has been my nemesis I can assume I attacked it as well as I could given by the time I reached the top I was about five seconds from puking.

I managed to turn the 16 mile tri ride in 51:25 so getting closer to my goal of 45:00.  One big gear selection mistake did cost me some time (I will never make that mistake again).  Overall I averaged 19.3 mph for the whole ride which is good for me.  Great start to Feb.

ok here are my january totals!

The run is actually snowshoeing.  This is the first time I've ever kept track (in detail) so this is my PR and totals to beat!

Very nice!  Strava KOM segments tend to make me do the same (not lately...).  Oh the petty things that sometimes make us go hard.  (Jim, it's OK to want to beat Randy!)  But it's good to have them.

I'm feeling good about not having to go to work tomorrow.  I'll have to get work done, but on my own time.  And I WILL ride that bike!  Tomorrow morning early I join a friend (sorry to any vegetarians among us) to slaughter and butcher a pig that we've been paying a farmer to raise for us.  It has become a tradition -- I don't eat meat anymore unless I know the person who slaughtered and butchered it.  And our freezer is nearly bare! 

Stuart-nice job on the ride. You will get to your raceday goal. There's just something about racing that gives us the ability to perform better than we expect (assuming you have prepared well )

It's great to see everyone with such good numbers for January. Lets keep it up through Feb. I'd be fine with everyone having more swim yardage than me . I'm tired of smelling like chlorine!

Nate/Jamie-might be trying to get with ya'll for a run in Greenville this Fall. My daughter found out today that she was accepted to Furman. It's her top choice....she will be there this Fall assuming we can figure out how we will pay for it. 

Furman is a good school.  They look after their students.  Obviously not every good school works out for everybody, but if it's her top choice for good reasons and you can figure out how to pay for it (non-trivial!) then I think you should feel comfortable with that choice.

And here's a fun fact.  The SC Governor's School for the Arts is located there.  As a result, I lived for some time on the Furman campus spending 6-8 hours a day playing (French) horn in a 36 sq ft practice cubicle.  I have some really fond memories of that place.

Michael I hope your Strave KOM rides don't include blowing through red lights and assorted and sundry dangerous things.  I've only seen one and some of those people are just plain stupid or crazy or both.  I enjoy riding fast but I like to get home safe even more.

If you are concerned about who is slaughtering your meat you might want to find a kosher butcher.  They operate by very strict standards.  No pork though!

Ok, very odd question.  If you are riding hills does the speed of the down hills make up for the slow uphills?  In other words, if doing a hilly course are you overall faster, slower or the same as the same distance on a flat course?

Any thoughts?

If you can ride consistently on a flat course I would think you'd do better on the flats.  It takes you longer to go up a hill than it does to go down the other side. If it's a big hill, significantly longer.

I was actually just talking to Nate the other day about this. I've always thought that speed came from hammering up the hills and then catching your breath on the way down, but now, after reading and riding more, I think it depends a lot on the race distance. If it's a short race, and you're comfortable with the distance, I think you can afford to "burn some matches" on the hills. However, as I'm training for the HIM/IM distance, everything I've read says to stay in aero, and just go through the gears while keeping your cadence up on the uphill. Then you can easily shift back into a bigger gear and accelerate from the crest of the hill on down. If you hammer up, then you have to recover at the top, and then lose speed on the way down. And there is only so many times your legs can do that.

Again, I think it depends on your level of training and the race distance, but in triathlon you always have a run coming up after the bike, so if you burn all your matches on the bike, then you'll pay for it on the run.

Stuart, that's a very complex question I've pondered over and over again especially the times I am climbing a long uphill climb at a roaring 7.5 miles per hour.  Jamie brings up some very good points.  For me, whether I'm faster or not on hilly courses seems to be best correlated with how frequently I do them, in other words, the more hill training I do, the better I get.  In training I have some challenging hills that I practice hammering up over and over and over again.  In races however,  I will often use the hills as a chance to get a break on the downhill, stretch my legs, drink, even pee (easier to do when relaxed). 

Just got back from the pool, 3750 yards this morning!  Jim

Hi all,

I'm bouncing back from a recent case of flu, so I've been out of commission since Thursday unfortunately. I'm pretty bummed since I had been sticking to my training plan religiously for the entire month of January.

I feel MUCH better today, but Dr. Fiance says I need to keep rested, so it looks like I'll be back in the saddle on Monday. Luckily, I started the 30 week training plan for IM several weeks early, so I have time to make up the lost days

Here are my Jan Stats:

 Hope everyone has a good weekend! I'll be getting plenty of rest and food

I was just thinking about something. What are your suggestions on "Making Up" missed training sessions? I was thinking of splitting up the time I missed and adding them to the ends of my workouts next week, but then I thought, does that mess up the whole 10% increase per week rule?

Just thought I'd get your thoughts on how I should proceed. 

Thanks!

Nate