Penn State's mentor group - CLOSED! (Page 35)

Thanks for all the support. I guess this is why this is a "support" group. I'm really not down on myself and actually am looking forward to what I have coming up. I'm a person that can be a quiter and an excuse maker and I don't want to do that with triathlons. I actually want to rid myself of that trait. All I can do is work hard and train for what I have coming up in the furture. It has been great to have a sounding board for what I am experiencing in my training. Thanks.

You and I need to talk.

One thing I did when I first started was took 3days/week off,  as my body adapted I then started making it 2-3 days off/week, then 1-2/week.  Now I'm working on making that 0.5-1 day/week off (I'm still not there though).  It's great that you've identified places in your training to improve on, without that we don't improve as much as we otherwise could.  But at the same time it takes time to be able to workout 6-7days/week with the quality of workouts you want.  If you tried to do that when you first started you'd probably have lacked a lot of energy most days, burned yourself out, and/or risked injury from doing too much too soon.  So definitely make a plan to cut down on those days off like you want to, but don't feel you have to jump into it and start off with a full training schedule as of today, work towards that goal in a safe way.

Just wanted to pop on and say hi before I head down to Wildflower for the weekend! I'm leaving bright and early tomorrow morning with another teammate so that we can get a good camping spot with the rest of our tri club before the mass influx of people starts. Plan is to camp, cheer on the long course racers and stay out of the sun on Saturday and then race on Sunday! I promise to return with pictures and a race report. Hope everyone had a great weekend of training and racing!

Good luck and have a great time. Is this one a Oly for you or 1/2 IM?

This kind of scares me. Am I in trouble?

I'm guessing that running faster and walking less might work. I haven't tried that yet

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Have a great time!  We look forward to hearing how the race went. Good luck!

Thanks guys. I woke up with a couple and it definetely put a big smile on my face. Thank you to everone that has been so supportive in this short amount of time and that has helped me prepare for this HIM tomorrow!

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I will be watching and tracking!

Thanks for the input. I know in 3 weeks that my increases will be minimal and what I hope to achieve and the reality of the situation are probably not the same. My plan is just to increase my frequency of running.

This week I want to get in at least 10 miles and then add a 5th day for the next week and then probably 3 days race week. I had been running maybe 1-2 days a week for the past month and that just isn't enough to get noticeable results. I have done a good job of keeping injuries from happening over te past 3 months. I really haven't been overdoing it.

I am getting the idea that it is going to take me a long time to get my physical fitness better and to decrease my time. I really do understand this but being a person who is not that patient, those tend to collide in my head. It is just frustrating that everything is going very well for starting out except my run. I'm just going to go run focused for the next few months.

Once I get through my next sprint, everything will be geared toward my 1/2 IM. Still need to find a good program for that.

There's no doubt that smart training involves patience.  It also involves PERSPECTIVE.  In a year, you will most likely be MUCH faster through the patient/consistent approach than you will be if you hammer for the short term.  IMHO if it feels like you aren't training hard enough, that's the perfect amount with respect to running.  As long as the yellow on your graph keeps getting just a little bit bigger (I'm glad your plan is to do it through frequency not crazy long runs that comprise too much of your weekly mileage), you're working hard enough.

Lack of perspective has been one of the biggest hurdles to my training over the years.  I just took a look at the bio I posted near the beginning of this thread, and you could basically summarize my athletic carrer with that phrase.  I was motivated, but lacked perspective.

 Just like Josh said the gains you make in 3 weeks will be from the work you did this past week and part of this upcoming week.  As you get closer to your 5k, the work you are doing as you continue to train starts actually making your performance worse for that specific race because of fatigue, BUT you have to look at the long term.  It's not too early to focus yourself on that HIM, so you need to know that no matter how this 5k goes, that 5k and the training over the next 3 weeks is actually training for the HIM.  Consider picking out a 5k race 3 weeks before your HIM as one last 'speed workout' before you begin to taper, you'll definitely do much better then than you will in 3 weeks.  I'd personally forget about dropping my training back the week of the 5k and just train right through it.  Use the 5k as a higher intensity run for the week.  I'm betting you'll be much happier with having that HIM go better than expected than having this 5k go well an sacrificing a week+ of training that could focus towards that HIM.




Yes, it takes time and consistency.  In 2003 it had been 4 years since I had trained for running and since I had run a running race, but I had stayed active playing rugby those 4 years, so not all was lost obviously.  I did a half mary in 2:04, I was pretty happy with that since I had never run more than an 8k before that and didn't train for it at all.
I didn't do ANY endurance sports for the next 6 years, smoked a pack a day, and went towards sports like rock climbing, snowboarding, skiing, and surfing... definitely not endurance sports.  When I finally got back to running in July '09, I couldn't run a mile without having to walk near the end.  I built up over the next 2 1/2 months and did a HIM (I had been swimming for 10 months and biking for 7 months by the time the race came around).  My half mary time during that HIM was 2:16 (my goal was to do a 2:04 split and match my 2003 time, but obviously wasn't near it).
I decided to focus on my running after that HIM in mid-September and started building my mileage up... no speed work, just got out there and ran and got consistent with it.  In mid-November  I did a half mary again to see what I could do, I ran a 1:43!!!!  I was soooo excited!  I continued to build my mileage all through the winter, putting up with 0 degrees and snow in the face more than just a handful of times.  I just wanted to stay consistent.  Then, I did my first marathon in early February on a really hilly course... goal was to "take it easy" and get 4hours, I got 4:02.  Then, on April 11th I did a half marathon again (My first two were both in New Jersey at sea-level, but this one was in Denver at ~5280ft, no altitude advantage this time).  I crushed my 1:43 by 7 minutes! with a 1:36!  

The point is... you WILL see gains, but you have to look towards the future races that are farther out than 3 weeks.  Get consistent, build the mileage and in 3 months you'll have be absolutely amazed at how far you will have come.  You don't need speedwork yet, you need to build your mileage and get a good foundation so you can do speedwork later and not have it effect your consistency with needing two days off after a hard workout.  I'm in between the 30-40mile/week range now (remember, less than a year ago I couldn't run a mile), I did my first mary, crushed my half mary PR each time I ran one, did a 50mile ultra without getting injured... without a single day of speedwork.  I still don't plan on doing speedwork until at least next year, I'm still building my mileage and making sure my foundation is solid.

Speedwork is like someone telling you they own their own company and only work 10hours/week and make $250k/year.... sure that might be what they do NOW, but I bet they had to work 60-80hr weeks for a few years to make that company that successful.  You need to put that time in to start with so that foundation is there later... whether that's with company or your fitness.

We are all 100% behind you.  We just don't want to see you hurt yourself.

Live coverage of IMSG here:

http://www.universalsports.com/video/live/newsid=470834.html

Chris is out of the water in 1:55:22. A lot of time to be in that cold water. A 2:55/100 yd pace and he was 1786 out of the water.

GO Chris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited by phxphotog 2010-05-01 11:23 AM

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Edited by PennState 2010-05-01 11:50 AM

Thanks for the advice. I also am looking to make this a long term lifestyle and don't want to burn out or get injured. Being a journalist I come from a competitive environment and even played competitive xbox for a few years. Yes, there is competitive xbox (Call of Duty series to be exact). I just always need an outlet for my a type personality and exercise was always that for many years until I got my 1st job in tv news. Now that my career is on auto pilot, I need to get back to the exercise thing and I enjoy tri's because they are a challenge.

I have not been disappointed in my swim or bike times so far. Been a little disappointed in transition and run times though and I will work on those over the next couple of months. As soon as Tempe Int'l is over in 2 weeks then I'll seriously start to look at 1/2 IM training programs. So far I don't have any close friends that have committed to doing the SOMA 1/2 IM in Oct but I keep working on them.

Going for a 20 mile bike ride and then finish up with a 5k run. My goal this month is 6 rest days.

Hope everyone is having a great training weekend.

Just got back from my morning run and breakfast with my Saturday running group.  Didn't think I'd have much left in me after this past week since I was at 40miles for the week already, but turned out I felt great after a mile.  Started off with an 8:35 for the first mile, but then started dropping it by 20seconds/mile after that as I started to feel better and better.  Caught back up to the fast guys and we continued to push the pace faster and faster trying to drop each other.  Didn't go into today expecting a speed workout, but considering I won't be running the next two days I figured I might as well go with them and see what I had.  The last mile of the 5miles ended up being a 6:59 and I still felt like I could have continued that pace for another couple miles.  The other guys even commented about how they couldn't even hear me breathing while they were huffing and puffing.  I can't believe how solid I felt!  It's nice when you have those days in training where you realize that the last few months of solid training are really paying off, it reinforces why you get yourself out there everyday.

 I checked on Chris and the race clock is at 6:48, I'm guessing the 66mile point on the bike should be coming up soon for an update on him.  It's too bad there's not a way to have athlete's carrying a tracking device that also allows for audio recordings that get wirelessly uploaded to a web site automatically during the event.  It would be fun to know what he's thinking at different points.

We're cheering for you Chris!  Keep it up!

 

Go Chris Go!!