Destination MoP is FULL (of motivation!) (Page 34)

Good luck Stu!  Glad you finally made a decision and hopefully you'll enjoy it.  Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

Stu,

You had asked about a strength training program specific to triathlon;  This is a good starting article http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Incorporate_strength_training_into_your_regimen.htm I follow this and have had some positive results.  Getting stronger and I started Phase II last week which is kicking my butt!

Hope the marathon was a great success!

Cynthia

So I am not hitting every training session each week and I am really trying not to beat myself up about it.  Quality vs. Quanity is the goal these next few months.  I did manage a good run last week and I have been keeping up with the strength training which is my main goal.  Seems like one night a week I am exhausted...but then the guilt creeps into my train of thought.  I struggle with finding the balance of listening to my body and continuing to desire, invision and focus on the results I want to see by spring.  

Saw the doc the other day but since its a new doc we did not make any changes...however he is sending me to an endocrinoligist since my blood sugar creeped up .03 points in the last three months.  With the diabeties he wants to make sure I have no other underlining issues that can be fixed before putting me on insulin.  Should be interesting. 

The GI issues have been much better this week. Sample day, small, small meals, a bran muffin and water first thing in the am, about 5:30, followed by greek yogurt and grape nuts at 8, greens and lunch, fruit for snack at about 4.  I eat a bit of carbs before lifting and that seems to have helped.  Then I do not need anything when I get home at 9 pm which gives my food a lot of time to digest before adding more food on top.  But my husband did say that I should have my protein drink immediately following my workout.

Unfortunately, last night we went out to a buffet..have not done that in years and it was an effort not to over eat.  I did include salad had lots of veggies...the rest...oh my I guess I will find out by tonight!  

Side note...yesterday for Veteran's day I was honored to participate as a reader for the National Roll Call.  This is a national event in which one university in every state reads the names of all the soldiers that have fallen since 9/11/01.  The focus was on the names, no grand speeches from politicos or fan fair...just read each name.  The most heart wrenching part was when we had to add several names by the end of the day.  I just want to thank any of you who have served and let you know how much you are appreciated and a special thanks to the families and friends that support you too.  THANK YOU !

Thanks everyone for the well wishes and support.  I really wavered about doing the marathon, but so glad I decided to go ahead with it.  While I wasn't quite a prepared I should have been, it wasn't as bad as I expected (probably thanks in part to some PERFECT weather).  Great course and great support from Richmond.

Well done Stu!  That's awesome.  I'd be pleased with that time even with good training.  Sounds like it took some serious effort to finish, but you stuck with it.  Congratulations and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Hope you start feeling better soon.  I know that feeling of the joints hurting the next day.  It's not nice, but hopefully won't last long. 

Nice job Stu!  Looks like you met all your goals.

You passed all my in-laws on your day.  My better half and sister-in-law did the Half Mary in Richmond, Brother-in-law and father-in-law were at the UVA game.

-Steve

I decided to run the 5k at the Charlotte Marathon this weekend to experience a larger run crowd.

Finished in 32:37 by my watch (they didn't chip time the 5k for some reason).  I'm pretty happy with the result.  Something finally clicked for me and running, went from 14min/miles to 11min/miles in training.

Have one more 5k scheduled on 12/10.

-Steve

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks for the link on the strength training.  After you posted that, I also noticed there was a discussion on the main forum page about it as well (here).

Glad to hear that the GI issues seemed to be a bit better this week with better planning (other than the buffet). 

You've brought up that difficult question about guilt when you don't hit your training goals for the week.  My sister had mentioned that to me a few weeks ago as well.  Pretty common issue.  She wanted to use it as extra motivation for the following week.  I imagine it is all very individual.  Any thoughts on how best to handle it?  I've always been a fresh start each week kind of person.  I might try to make up a particular workout during the same week, but if I have a really bad week I just try to leave it in the past and start fresh... but what do you all do?  Certainly something we all struggle with at times.

Stu

Steve - that is too funny about how your family and I shadowed each other around on Saturday.  How did your crew do in the half?  Did they enjoy it?

Super breakthrough with the 5K!!!!  That's an awesome result.  Running seems to be a long ramp for improvement, but the good thing is that you can keep setting PBs!  How did you like being in a big event?

Stu

This was the girls second time running the Richmond Half.  This is their big race for the year and motivation for training.  My wife was a bit worried going into the race, she fell and banged up her knee the week before and also felt her training was a little below par (for her).  She ended up posting a 1:48 compared to a 1:52 last year (her PR is 1:47 run at OBX in april).  She was smiling so it couldn't be bad .  Yes, she is much faster than I am (for now, lol).

I'm really glad I entered the 5k and enjoyed the experience.  My training has been going well and it was nice to put it to the test in a race.

-Steve

Steve, you were my ispiration the other night...granted I was on the tredmill but I improved my run...2.5 miles in 24:16!  Thanks for the boost!

I am with you on the guilt thing...I made my choice right or wrong about a missed workout and I do not attempt to make it up. 

I vistied the discussion on strength training...veiws are mixed and passionate about the benefits, if any, come from strength training.  I can only go my limited experince so far and have found that I needed a base...coming from a seditary life style previously before beginning training I feel it has helped me to ST.  We will see the final results in the Spring.

Also, for me, it has been a nice change to add something to the training and the change in my physique is encouraging.  So if I am not any faster in the spring at least I will look better than last year! 

Guilt --- I almost never try to make up a workout if I miss it on it's scheduled day.  Mainly because some sort of workout is planned for every day (or so it seems).  Monday - swim, Tuesday - run, Wednesday - strength, Thursday - run, Friday - swim, Saturday - off or a long bike ride, Sunday - run.   I try to be pretty flexible.  For example, I didn't get my strength training in on Wednesday so will skip the swim today and do strength. 

Strength --- I'm a big proponent of strength training.  Keeps our muscles and bones strong.  I didn't do any over the racing season but started again in October.  I already notice a difference in muscle tone and strength.  It's likely I will try to keep it up during next racing season.  I just see no down-sides.  My strength training routine is only about 35 minutes with 2 sets of each exercises at 15-20 reps but seems to do the trick.

For me? I think ST will make me faster since I really need to build those muscles so I can lose fat and train better, stronger, faster.  

I'm struggling with this a lot since I started my rather intense training plan.  Up till now I've been very good at accepting that I've missed a workout and moving on, and it's certainly the advice that I've given other people.  But I plan my weeks very flexibly because I have to to fit around work, so often I could just rearrange things like when to have my rest day and figure it out.  Now that my plan involves multiple sessions most days and especially as I'm trying to follow Jorge's bike plan I'm finding that some missed sessions are really bothering me.  But I'm also missing more because there are so many more sessions...  As an example, this weekend I've been doing my coaching course.  That means that yesterday I spent 2 hours being a participant while other people coached sessions on the bike (as well as coaching a short session myself).  Today was the same thing on the run.  I haven't fit in a session from my own plan as the days were long and tiring.  On the one hand I have spent quite a while being active in tri sports.  On the other hand I haven't done the specific sessions that are on my plan...  I have to keep reminding myself that it still counts and not to beat myself up about it ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone.  Hope everyone is recovering nicely from your feasting.

I got in a very, very nice bike ride this morning on some Delaware farm roads.  I saw about 7 cars over the course of 23 miles.  Quite a treat.

Was a good session on the new bike.  In aero the whole time.  Figuring out the handling, etc.  Didn't have to clip out once!

Overall was a nice laid-back week with respect to any training.  Got in two bike commutes, swam once, and biked today.

Will try to get in three solid weeks of exercise before the holidays.

How about everyone else?

Happy Thanksgiving to you too (although we don't do it over here...)

Hope everyone's had a nice week.

I've got absolutely no excuses, but I've had an awful week of training.  I've managed to get some runs and bike sessions in, but nothing else.  So I'm cutting my losses and starting again from today.  It was meant to be a rest week anyway.  I guess it was just more restful than I intended ;-)

Up till then everything was going really well, so hopefully I can just pick it all up again.  I've been looking at my totals for the year and I'm really pleased with how much I've achieved.  I've cycled more than 1000 miles, and I'm within spitting distance of running 500 miles and swimming 100,000m.  That's more than I could ever have imagined...

Hi All,

Happy belated Thanksgiving (even Rach).  We're on to turkey soup now here.  Might be able to stretch things out one more day :-)  Gotta love hosting the Thanksgiving meal! 

Quite the whirlwind week for me starting with driving back from Florida which, along with driving down 4 days earlier, seems like another marathon!  But had a good pre-Thanksgiving visit with my Mom and time away with my daughter, which is always a treat.  Didn't get much training in while I was down there though.  Legs were still sore and weak.  Helped by all the driving, no doubt.  Anyway, will attempt to get back to a more normal routine this coming week, especially getting back in the pool at least 2x this week, hopefully 3x.  The focus on the run really left my bike legs and swimming back a few levels.

Melanie - that Delaware ride sounds awesome.  Especially the traffic!  I received a note today from my IronMan brother in law who suggested that we bike the Blue Ridge Parkway next summer.  I'm really tempted if I can find the time.   Might have to leave it at just the Virginia section though :-)

Rach - in looking at your training, I wouldn't sweat it.  Looks like your body was just in need of rest.  No worries.  It is kind of fun to see the year-to-date totals piling up.  I was really hoping to hit 1000 miles of running this year, but still a big improvement over last year.  Next year I need to spend more time in the saddle.  I have a friend who would bike about 6000 miles/year and he was 56 or so when he did it.  He also ran 20 marathons in his life - scary dude!

Okay... home stretch for 2011.  I'm thankful for all of you in MoP - here's to new horizons in 2012!

Stu

I traveled to VA to visit my brother and niece for Thanksgiving.  I took the time off from training.  The weather was very nice so we did some yard work and walking, but no SBR.

Prior to Halloween I was very consistent with my training.  Then we had a storm and lost power for 5 days.  I lost some of my momentum with the lack of showers, etc.  I did restart running, but missed some bike trainer sessions and a few runs in Nov.  I did get back to the pool a few times.

Now that I'm back home, I'm refocusing (yes, again).  I've decided to not up my running time/distance this month, as I feel I missed too much last month.  I will stick with my planned runs, trainer rides, ex class and swim weekly for December.  I am tracking my food and trying to make a bigger dent in my weight again. 

Looks like everyone had a nice long weekend...nice to know I am not alone on the missed training boat and the re-start ...yes again for me too!

Thanksgiving was amazing...we hit the road early afternoon and had to eat out as we were headed to Ashland OR.  I did not over eat and did not have any GI issues all week! Once in Ashland I got to visit with my daughter who attends school in FL and watch her play basketball in a four day tournament.  This may not seem too big of a deal but what this kid has been through and how she got herself back to school made it something to be very grateful for this year. 

Ashland is very beautiful with many running trails...however, I did not run there.  Apparently a person was recently murdered on a running trail there and almost behead and the murderer was still at large...sooooo that was it for me.  But we did walk in Lithia Park and explored, found a new favorite beer, chocolate coconut porter that was amazing and just had an all around great four days. My husband has not been on a mini vacation for sometime and he really enjoyed himself just being away and doing something different.

Good luck everyone on the refocus..I really did not miss too much training because I knew I would play it by ear last week. This way when I did train it was a bonus...I just never took anything off my planned training log....Kinda glass half full/empty thing I guess.

Cynthia