LaurenSU02's group - CLOSED! (Page 35)

Hey guys.  Sorry I have been busy for a bit and haven't been one the forums, or on my own training log for that matter.  Things have gotten in the way and I haven't been able to do that much.  Everything is quieting down now so I should have some more time and I need to since I have a race in a couple weeks.

There are a whole lot of drills that you can do to improve you swimming.  One really simple drill is the fist drill.  On this drill you hold your hands in a fist and swim as normal trying to keep your stroke as much as possible.  This will feel very weird and will be very hard to do for a length of time, but is quite awesome for your stroke.  What this does is it gets you to find a better feel for the water and realize that your entire arm helps to move you forward, not just your hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-x6wft17zw&feature=related

Another drill that I do is called the catchup-reverse drill.  Take three strokes and on the third stroke keep your one hand out front and complete the stroke with the other arm.  This will leave both of your arms out front.  With the arm you just finished the stroke with, reverse the stroke till your arm is down at your side and then complete another three strokes and repeat with the other arm.  This drill sounds really confusing, but it really makes you focus on what your arm is doing at certain parts in the rotation.  It also helps you to get used to being on your side. 

If this drill is too odd then you can just do the catchup part of the drill.  Just keep your hand about 6 inches below the surface of the water to keep your body in the correct orientation. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLbgN80uow

Well I'm back....  Since I just can't seem to ever shut up, maybe the post will start growing faster with all my verbosity.....

Anyway, trip was wonderful.  The scale is showing how much I LOVED all the great food in DC and NY.

I at TONS of NY style pizza and had some of the best Chinese food in China town.  Had to try just about everything a street vendor would sell.  I love street vendor food....

Anyway, back to the healthy diet and training.  The trip really helped me think about my trianing a little more and get re-focused (I hope).

BTW, I were my Polar or Times chest straps and watches during races all the time.  The Garmin chest strap is waterproof too.  For me, it's easiest to put it on under my tri top or suit and just forget about it.....

owl_girl - 2008-05-29 7:58 AM I'm leaving for Boise today!!!!  Talk to you guys soon!!!!  Cheers!!!!

Believe it or not.  I love Boise.  Spent some quality time there for business....  Have a good time and a safe trip!

owl_girl - 2008-05-29 10:58 AM I'm leaving for Boise today!!!!  Talk to you guys soon!!!!  Cheers!!!!

 Good luck and have a great time!!

owl_girl - 2008-05-29 10:58 AM I'm leaving for Boise today!!!!  Talk to you guys soon!!!!  Cheers!!!!

Have fun!! We'll be thinking about you! Good luck

Comments anyone?

I wonder if I take the "wrong" approach to training (which then turns it into kind of a "grind".

I'm SO particular to keeping my plan and keeping exactly to my workout.  IE, if I'm even one minute short on the bike, I feel icky.  I feel bad (but not as much) if I'm one minute over.  If I'm supposed to be in Z2 for the workout, I panic when I drop into Z1 or go too high into Z3.  I make sure I hit all my sets for swimming on the mark, run withing seconds of my desired pace on runs....

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it becomes so analytical and "sterile" that it loses it's fun at times.  It's never a "chore" (thank goodness - otherwise I couldn't keep doing this) but training has lost it's "joy" to a point.

I had such a nice run in DC just checking things out and forgeting the HR, distance, time, etc.  I know you can't do that ALL the time, but maybe more that I do now?  For example, I'm supposed to run 45 mintues tonight, 10' wu, 10x400 at race pace, 10' cd...  I would actually like to run, but not that particular workout.

I guess that's the difference between working out and training and need to HTFU...... 

How do you guys deal with "sticking to the letter of the law" when it comes to plans or just kind of going by "feel"?  Maybe do some cross training like MTN biking instead of strictly road biking?

Maybe I just feel a little burned out and didn't realize it untill I took the week off and had time to think about it.  I was going over my IM plan, and was HAPPY, that the training hours seemed reduced from what I'm used to for the first month or the plan.

Ah, just rambling...

GOOD LUCK TRACY!!! We'll be thinking about you in Potato Land.  Say Hi to Napoleon Dynamite and his llamas!

Those drills are pretty good.  The fist one shows you how valuable it is to have your hands in the right shape which I didn't learn correctly until a few weeks ago.  Makes tremendous difference.  Basically, you point the web of your thumb-forefinger toward the bottom at the first part of the stroke, bring your hand in as you push down and still keep your wrist cocked as you get to the back.  I gain a lot of speed when I focus on that and on pointing the tip of my head forward in the water and lifting my shoulderblades to swim "downhill".  I don't know of a good drill for that, I just think about a killer-whale's shape and imagine a dorsal fin on my back sticking out of the water.

That above was pretty useless.

Aikidoman, I know what you mean on the work-aspect of training.  That's why I didn't get an HRM until I got the Garmin because I just felt like it was too much data.  I don't know training-wise that I can offer advice though.

I just finished my "stress test".  Made it to stage 7.  Basically, the thing elevates 10% grade every 2 minutes and increases in speed at the same time.  So when you get to stage 7, it's going 7.0mph at 25% grade.  I couldn't get my heart rate to exceed 175 though once I reached 5 mph.  I've gotten it up there before, but it wasn't going up for some reason.  It was pretty interesting to see, but again, completely useless for purposes of training.

I looked-up the prediction times and Aikidoman was the closest to the birth time at 8:00pm on the 17th because baby arrived 5 hours, 35 minutes later. 

I just learned for my tri in a week and a half that for the huge bridge on the end of the ride course, we have to ride up and over and then turn-around immediately on the far-side and climb back-up the bridge.  How bad does that suck? Pretty bad considering I live in FL where we get to practice back-to-back climbs about never.  The ride ends at the TA on within 1/2 mile of the bridge and then you run back over the bridge and back again.  UGH!

I'm excited to get back to racing though.  I think I'll do well on this one.  

Ha!  You know it!!!!!  I should be a Vegas bookie and make some real money.....

GOOOD LUCK IN BOISE!!!!!!!  I am looking forward to hearing about how you SQUASHED the course!!!!

I had my big presentation today and it went well, I am very happy.  I am sighing a big sigh of relief, watching "save the last dance" on tv, and going to sleep 12 hours tonight.  tomorrow, i will RUN!!!!  how exciting.

my first tri is on sunday.  YIKES!  i am so undertrained right now. 

congrats Jim on the Big Baby Bet . 

Hey guys. Sorry I have been a no-show lately. The internet went down in the barracks on Monday, and just came back up today. School has been really busy, but it's fun and I'm getting some descent workouts in. I've started updating my logs and will finish them up tomorrow or Sat. Also, my bike showed up today! I'm so excited about that, I have a long ride planned for Sat morning. This area is PERFECT for biking. Lots of hills, good roads, light traffic.

Anyways, good luck to those that are racing this weekend. Hope it goes great. Hope you all are doing good and the training is coming along nicely. Oh, my next race is Jun 14. It's the onbase tri I mentioned earlier. It's a 450m/12mi/2mi. It's a really hilly bike course too, so should be interesting.

For those of you that run in hilly areas, I'm feeling lots of pain in calfs. Is that normal? It doesn't help that walking all over base, you are pretty much walking either up hill or down hill, and it's pretty steep in some areas. Do you think that over the next week or so I'll get more accustomed to it? I'm really hoping so. My last run was so painful. I was hoping to get a long run in on Sat, but at this rate, that "long" run is going to be about 6 miles.

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

I think that's pretty normal.  I had a few friends go to Cornell, which is EXTREMELY hilly, and the running joke on campus is that everyone there has amazing calves.  Cornell Calves they call them....so I think you probably just have to get used to it.

I'm glad everyone is trickling back!  

Welcome back everyone!

Lisa, I think you'll be just fine for your race because you have a good base built-up.  Just get some rest and try to enjoy yourself in the race.

JJ, I knew you'd like the SoCal "hills." When I travel to texas, I get kinda jealous because they have some good rolling hills and some mountains even in the west that I wish I could train-on.  Instead, I'm stuck trying to climb bridges every-so-often during my ride. I don't think the climbing on the hills hurt your calves as bad as the descending (running-wise) if you're talking about the bike, then yes, my calves get smoked on the hills because there's only so-long that I can stay in the saddle and hammer.

Boston, That bike maintenance class sounds like a great idea.  I will be really surprised if I don't have to change a flat during my race in a week and a half.  The course was covered in beer bottles when I ran it on Memorial Day.  That or a stray-bullet.  I'm telling you this tri is through the hood!!!

I tested-out my tri-top today and I don't know that I like it.  Is there a trick to wearing one during the swim? Mine kept feeling like it was filling with water.  The zipper even came-down once.  I'm thinking I'll test-it in the ocean tomorrow and then decide if I'm going to go with it or wear a regular-running singlet that I put-on in T-1 instead.  Thoughts?

Good luck this weekend!!  

Yipes!!  Be careful out there.  Hopefully everyone will still be asleep when you're passing through.  We ran through some interesting sections during a Baltimore race and a few folks were out... they were supportive though

I have a question for the group.. what's the best way to deal with dogs on the bike?  Should you slow down, get off, and try and use the bike as a guard between yourself and the dog or should you try and outride them if they're chasing you? 

I had an encounter with a dog this week.  I was riding in a neighborhood and it came at me.  Luckily, it was behind an invisible fence and stopped right at the edge of the yard, but I realized I have no idea what I'm supposed to do in that situation.  I got attacked by an off leash dog in college so I'm still wary of strange, off leash dogs in the first place!

I think the best thing to do is face them squarly and yell "no" very firmly.  Dog's are a constant problem (never had a run-in myself) and some runners/triathletes carry something like pepper spray for them.

I'm not sure if you can out run one on the bike, so I'm not sure what to do there except yell at them....  I would probably slow down because if the do get you, I would rather not crash going fast IMO.

It's a tough problem.

Squirt it with your water bottle. It's hard, because if you slow down and try to stop, you're putting yourself at greater risk for getting hit by him (or hitting him), and then dealing with him once you're stopped. But, some dogs can run 20+ mph, so they're not always easy to outrun. I've never had a dog chase me for any more than a 100-200 feet or so...

i've been chased by a dog only once...it was only a little dog, but it nearly caught me because i was huffing and puffing up a hill!!!! ack!

i think some people have trouble with big dogs on deserted country roads sometimes, but if it's little dogs in residential neighborhoods probably yelling at them will work, but i don't really know.  hope your next rides are dog free! 

Water Bottle sounds like the best advice.  Dogs respond pretty well when they get that sudden water in the face.  Keep in-mind the type of dog too.  Pit Bulls and Rottweilers were bred to hunt and kill Lions and to bait bulls so they're not intimidated by you stopping and they're pretty fast. 

I got chased by a greyhound on a dirt road in a rental car. How he got the rental car I'll never know. Just kidding.  I was in the car.

But he kept-up for a while.  Finally, I stopped and he just jogged-back-home.  So I don't have a clue what the answer is.  Generally, they're protecting their turf and if you just get away from their turf, they'll leave you be.  If you run though, their herding/chase instinct takes-over.  That sounds like a good question for the open forum.  Or, I can ask my sister, the vet what she thinks.

Hey guys! Just checking in real quick... I have a lot of catch up to do with just about everything! The trip to Alaska was awesome, just got back after travelling since sometime yesterday. Hope all of you are doing well, I have a lot of reading and writing to do but got to get in some zzzzs first!