2015 Clyde/Athena Tri-N-4- Weight Loss Mentor Group - Open (Page 34)

11/30: .46mi, 5:03 (11:04 pace)
12/1: no run due to an attempt at getting a Darwin Award.
12/2: rest day

Glad to see you back! If I could figure out how to post inspires, I'd have been bugging you as well (and bugging Robin back, lol!!)

I would say try the 0dark00 workouts. I try to run at 0500 myself. When I do, I get a boost on my day. Not only does it get the heart-a-pumpin', but there's also that little bit of "I've already gotten something done" that just gets the day started off right.

Well... Ego and Murphy teamed up to get me a meeting with Darwin ... I had to go to another location to put a spare tire on a Suburban. I used the jack that came with the vehicle. Ego piped up and said, "You know what you're doing, so just lift the truck and get it done." So I jacked it up without using the wheel chocks or setting the parking brake (my mistake). When I got the wheel off, I tossed it in the back of the truck, and Murphy decided to push the truck off the jack. Luckily, I saw the truck move, and ducked down a bit. I still got cracked in the head pretty good by the liftgate. Good enough to knock me to my knees. If I had been standing up fully, I would have had much more than a splitting headache... especially with a 10,000 lb vehicle dropping. My wife gave me a couple of percocet left over from her surgery last night to kill the pain.

The worst part? I'm an auto tech by trade... That's why I say Ego got me... I can guarantee I will never make that mistake again!

12/1/2015
1/22 - Strength - 21m
As promised, a strength workout after selling the Concept 2 rower to some fella from Corning. Did 2 sets of the Ironman body weight workout exercises. (You can find it by googling it in Images)

12/2/2015
2/22 - Swim - 32m 47s - 1500.00 yards - 02m 11s /100 yards
Went to the pool after the chiropractor for a nice lazy swim. 500 W/U (3x50, 2x100, 1x150), 500 non-stop distance set, 500 C/D (same).

Somehow I made it through 2 weeks of lazy depression AND Thanksgiving without gaining any weight!

Just registered for the 2016 Peasantman Sprint at Lake Anna in Spotsylvania, VA.

Now I have an actual deadline and money on the line.

After two months of not meeting my training goals I have decided that I am probably going to start getting up and out at 0500 to go to the YMCA. I am looking for advice from those who have a history of doing this regarding how they handle breakfasts and recovery fuels. I'm trying to figure out how to have breakfast, but not interfere with my workout, and then top off the tank as I head out to another day of "herding cats" as a substitute teacher. It will be about 20 minutes or so from leaving the house to starting my workouts. Then I have to be in most schools around 0730.

My first thoughts are to make some Breakfast Egg Muffins to "grab-n-go", wash them down with some orange juice, and have plenty of water while training. Afterwards I was thinking that a Myoplex shake or something similar and a piece of fruit for recovery. It's somewhat lacking in variety however. Was hoping some of you would share favorite grab-n-go ideas/recipes.

3/22 - Bike - 19m 39s - 5.00 miles - 15.27 Mi/hr
Wasn't sure what the Expresso bike would feel like after three weeks away and several chiropractor visits. It actually felt pretty good. Started out with every intention of riding the entire course nice and easy behind the "pacer". And as usual, LCpl Gung-ho got the better of me. Some pixelated rider passed me and I was in pursuit, forget the pacer. Never mind that it was not a real rider, I was all over that.

Quite honestly, I see that as being the biggest obstacle for me in any of my events next summer, racing my own race and ignoring the fact that "some tiny little slip of girl just passed me. Oh HELL no!" And there goes my race strategy out the window.

Congratulations on entering. How far away is your event?

Having something to target. And that you've already paid money to do will make those early morning workouts you've got planned much easier.

How long are these workouts going to be? For myself my morning workouts are always the short one of the day, 20-30 minutes. I just get up, go for my run/swim and then a normal breakfast after that.

For food to go, PB on toast is always a favorite for me, bananas are good, I have a box of muesli bars in the car. I'm also a fan of breakfast egg muffins, like you mentioned, add some ham/chicken a bit of veg and it's a great healthy, low cal option.

Unless your workout is a long one, like 60 minutes or more, I don't think you need any shake, or specific recovery drink/food. Just eat a nice balanced diet and you'll be fine. I genuinely believe that we really over complicate things when it comes to this side of training. Now there are lots of 'sports nutrition' companies that will tell you you need to eat X many gels, and drink whatever their special formula is. But they're out to make a profit, not out to be honest. If it's under an hour, all you need is water. (this helps with weight loss too, no extra calories for a short workout)

Now, if you're doing a 2 hour bike ride or something that's different, yes you need to eat on that, and when you do your HIM, you'll definitely be eating during the race (and need to practice before hand). But I don't think you'll be doing long rides/runs before work.

Calendar wise, it's 6 months out. Driving time is about 5 hours, but I have a friend who lives an hour away that I will be staying with for the weekend. One of the reasons I chose this one over the following week is the extra activities on Saturday. They are having an open water swim clinic and a basic bike maintenance clinic that I would like to attend.

Nope, 1 hour is about the max I'll have time for before work. The more responses I get from this question the more I'm thinking that grabbing 8-12 oz of orange juice out the door and drinking water during the bike or treadmill will suffice. Then have my Breakfast Egg Muffins or oatmeal when I get to school.

I'm with bulfrog and Robin. Plus that's my general practice as well. I get up, run, shower and then eat breakfast. If I'm doing something longer, like the group ride (~32mi), I'll eat first with enough time to let the system work. Then I'll grab a cliff bar, banana, etc after to prevent a crash.

12/3: .37, 5:02 (13:26 pace) <~~ got sick 3:30 into it and that slowed me down a bit...
12/4: .79, 10:01 (12:38 pace) <~~ much better this morning... but cold!

I'm having to work today, again... (3 of the last 5 fridays... my normal day off/swim day) I do have my swim bag with me so I can sneak off about 1300hrs (off the clock of course) and get a good 30mins in the water.

4/22 - Swim - 10m 51s - 500.00 yards - 02m 10s /100 yards
I'm not even sure I should count this as a workout. I went to the YMCA hoping to get a 2000 yd swim in. Instead, I had to stop after only 500 yds because my back simply could not tolerate the twisting. Maybe if the hot tub had been open for my pre-swim soak it would have been loose enough. But they were having a problem with the pH in the tub. I compensated by spending 30 minutes in the sauna after my micro-swim.

5/22 - Walk @ 32°- 35m 23s - 2.01 miles - 17m 36s /Mi
18 Crappy Winter Weather Challenge pts (CWWC)
After yesterday's disappointing swim I decided a light walk was in order. I had seen the Crappy Winter Weather Challenge and thought it sounded interesting. Naturally, as with everything else tri-related, I started with the realization that I would not actually be competitive. I just wanted to do something weird to keep the "fun" in winter training. Besides, I have to train for the Idita-Trail 9.2 on February 22nd.

Edited by leatherneckpa 2015-12-05 9:24 AM

Re: B2B planning. I'm guessing that I should not be training just to the race distances but actually beyond them somewhat. Question is, how far beyond? My first thought is 150%; so aim to swim 2500 yds, aim to bike 75-80 miles, and speedwalk about 18 miles or so. Insert a couple of race distance bricks in the months before and that should mean I'll have enough in the tank to finish. Your thoughts?

MIke:

Speaking as someone who has runs of only 5 minutes as planned training, I can say without hesitation that every little bit you do helps.

12/5: .47mi, 5:03 (10:44 pace)
12/6: .79mi, 10:02 (12:38 pace)

Weight 267

Another mixed bag week, but staying focused on the run. Won't be much longer before I add time.

Agree. Little bits add up. Remember, its about consistency, what we do over months, not what we do on any specific day.

Have a look at some of the online training plans that are out there, and base it on that.

But for my opinion, swimming, some should be longer, but your weekly total is more important. i.e 4 days averaging 2000m beats 2 days averaging 3000m. Bike, yes you should do a few rides over the 90km, biking is nice and easy (compared to running ) on your body, so you can push it here. Run, no at your level you shouldn't need to go over half marathon distance in training. The recovery time from a run that long isn't worth it.

So, I raced another sprint triathlon on the weekend, all in all pretty good. The short version is I'm quite happy with how it went, swim was about where I expected, and biked and ran much faster. The only negative was my transitions were a bit slow, but I well and truly exceeded my expectations this time.

The longer version:

Swim, 500m (524 on the garmin) 9:26
A U shaped course with a beach start, I started on the outside to make sure I was in as clear water as I could get. Got a little bit off course on the first leg out, so lost a little time, unfortunately I arrived at the first corner at the same time as one of the back markers of the Olympic distance, swimming much slower than us. He caused a bit of a bottle neck and fight to get clear, only to have the same thing happen at the 2nd corner with another backmarker. Once round the corner and heading back to be the beach I drifted to the side of the pack looking for clear water and made it back nice and easily. Overall very happy with my time. The only thing i would change is taking the truns a bit wider to avoid the underwater MMA.

T1, 3:34
A short run to the bike, wetsuit off to the waist on the run. Was feeling a little tired after the swim so didn't move with enough urgency, Probably lost a minute here.

Bike, 20km, 41:21
2 loops of a nice flat, smooth waterfront course. There's not a lot to write about the bike, it's a flat, non technical course. It's just a case of head down and push. Which is what I did, whilst riding a bit within myself knowing there was a run to come. Had a sip of water at each of the 4 180 degree turns, otherwise was just pedal pedal pedal... I was expecting 25-27km/hr, so was very happy to see 29km/hr average as I finished the course.

T2, 2:07
I went down the wrong row to rack my bike. So embarrassing. Never done that before in 12 previous triathlons. Still it's a lesson I'm sure to learn from. Moved a bit faster than in T1, but still lost 20-30 secs due to the detour.

Run, 5km, 31:47
An out and back along the waterfront. Nice and flat. It pretty much went to plan here, I ran a nice steady pace, and walked the only water stop at the turn around, as planned. As with my last tri, hit much faster numbers than I do in training. I ran within myself, and was able to slightly up the pace in the last km and ran down a few of the athletes in front of me. Honestly I felt I had a little more to give here, it was all a little bit easy.

Overall very happy. Was a little slower than the last on, but as the run is about 400m longer that's excusable. Felt very good and gives me a lot of confidence looking forwards to Wanaka, now only 75 days away.