Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 35)

I purchased my marathon plan through training peaks.  Using the free mobile app I can look at my workout for the day pretty easily.  I know a few coaches that use the site for giving workouts to their athletes and swear by it.

Outside of using it to plug in plans, I haven't explored any other features, but it seems like a great site for tracking your progress.  It's no Strava,but it's solid

Confession:  I haven't tried Strava either.  What do you like about Strava specifically?

I know I've posted that one of my weaknesses that I'm working on is my nutrition and shifting more of my calories to earlier in the day.  I have NEVER been a breakfast eater.  Never.  I actually have a big problem getting anything down before a race.

Eating enough during the day has made the the evenings MUCH easier to control.  Here's a pic of a pretty standard breakfast now:

Eggs, a little warmed sliced, smoked pork, sauteed kale,onions and mushrooms, half an avocado, two slices of 7 grain bread with some jam. It's super awesome.  It's even more awesome that my husband regularly makes it for me :) 

(good breakfast.jpg)

Holy sheeeeeet, invite us over!!!!

I LOVE breakfast. I like cooking it and I LOVE eating it. This looks a lot like the kind of thing I generally make before a Sunday long run. 

Me too?  That beats my sausage mcmuffin

STEVE! You need a McDonalds sponsorship!

Marathon Plan - I bought Matt Fitzgerald's Level 9 marathon plan for $40.  He has plans with levels that range from 0-9 (like I wasn't going to pick the most advanced one...).  

His workouts are based on PZI zones, which I posted about back in the JD thread, which is a more broken down version of VDOT pacing.  So basically the plan only changes when your VDOT/PZI index changes due to a race.  The plan has me running 6 days a week, and he does a pretty good job applying periodization to my run training.  I'm learning a lot through the plan.

Strava - I love all the analysis and graphs I have access to when I upload my workouts.  I can see a breakdown of my time/mileage over time.  I also love the segments for the fun banter it creates with my local racing area.

What have you found to be the most valuable thing you have learned so far?

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by Asalzwed

What are you training for, BTW. A specific race or distance?

That might be a silly question but I honestly don't know.

A number of things are kind of rolling around. Swimming has been a lot more fun, so have been looking at a variety of things involving it or events with a higher percentage of it. So probably getting into a few more swim meets this season. Last year I didn't know about them and wanted to avoid burn-out. Turns out most all the meets are through the winter, so kind of missed out there. Probably another open water swim or two. Of course just doing better in tri. Maybe another bigger aquabike in there. The possibility of Fina Worlds was brought up after the last meet, as it's only in Montreal this year. I'm not fast enough yet, but the gap doesn't seem impossible with the jumps I get at times. Not sure I can afford the trip either, but just making the qualification time would be something.

Then there is just the day-in, day-out fun of being able to push it. And that just might be the biggest motivator. 

This is pretty coo,l Ben.  You're morphing into a real fish right before our eyes   Says a lot about what can happen when somebody really dedicates themselves to figuring out the swim.  I often wonder what kinds of gains people could see if they were able to commit the time and, more imprtantly, the positive mental attitude toward their swim.  I think there are pretty big gains out there for everyone.

This reminded me of a question  I had for you.  I remember you saying before that you had been pretty into weight training and you were  kind of a bigger muscly guy.  How would you define your body's default body type--mesomorph?  As you shifted into tris you've dropped a considerable amount of mass, and I'm assuming quite a bit of that was muscle too, as I'm guessing you were fairly lean before.  Ayway, with all this swimming that you're doing, are you adding muscle to your upper body, and how, if at all, is that impacting your cycling and running?  Do you try to actively manage that at all?

Keep in mind for the swim meet times that I was only around the BB motivational standard. A little over or under depending on the event. Age group placing, 100 back was 4th out of 4, and 100 free was 5th out of 5. So DFL. I think there are big gains there for many if they can figure out how to put in the time and get some direction to it. Swimming volume is sorta comparable to running if you use a factor of 4. If someone were struggling with improving their run, but was putting in 8-11 miles a week we would totally push to up the mileage. There are some other things that complicate this, but that's something many don't seem to realize.

I probably border on ecto & mesomorph, depending who you ask. Haven't put much thought into it. Much of the weight loss happened before getting into tri, just from riding a lot more again, some running, and lifting less often. I was just bigger before, not like a well defined body builder. Swimming hasn't really made a significant difference in upper body size that I can tell. Maybe slightly. There is some more in things like toning, defenition, etc, but not so much size. The training is endurance based as opposed to sprinting. I'm also not training *that* much in relation to what a true swimmer may do. Weight changes have taken place over a long enough period of time that I really can't tell for sure how much it affects the other two. I do feel better where I'm at now than when built up before.

Many think that the swimming will bulk up their upper body, but it's really not going to do much. The pro triathletes tend to be rather fast in the water, and swim quite a bit, but it's rare that they'll have much size. Sure there is Potts and Starykowicz, but they're exceptions. Many would think the large majority of the pro field should gain some weight.

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by Asalzwed

What are you training for, BTW. A specific race or distance?

That might be a silly question but I honestly don't know.

A number of things are kind of rolling around. Swimming has been a lot more fun, so have been looking at a variety of things involving it or events with a higher percentage of it. So probably getting into a few more swim meets this season. Last year I didn't know about them and wanted to avoid burn-out. Turns out most all the meets are through the winter, so kind of missed out there. Probably another open water swim or two. Of course just doing better in tri. Maybe another bigger aquabike in there. The possibility of Fina Worlds was brought up after the last meet, as it's only in Montreal this year. I'm not fast enough yet, but the gap doesn't seem impossible with the jumps I get at times. Not sure I can afford the trip either, but just making the qualification time would be something.

Then there is just the day-in, day-out fun of being able to push it. And that just might be the biggest motivator. 

This is pretty coo,l Ben.  You're morphing into a real fish right before our eyes   Says a lot about what can happen when somebody really dedicates themselves to figuring out the swim.  I often wonder what kinds of gains people could see if they were able to commit the time and, more imprtantly, the positive mental attitude toward their swim.  I think there are pretty big gains out there for everyone.

This reminded me of a question  I had for you.  I remember you saying before that you had been pretty into weight training and you were  kind of a bigger muscly guy.  How would you define your body's default body type--mesomorph?  As you shifted into tris you've dropped a considerable amount of mass, and I'm assuming quite a bit of that was muscle too, as I'm guessing you were fairly lean before.  Ayway, with all this swimming that you're doing, are you adding muscle to your upper body, and how, if at all, is that impacting your cycling and running?  Do you try to actively manage that at all?

Keep in mind for the swim meet times that I was only around the BB motivational standard. A little over or under depending on the event. Age group placing, 100 back was 4th out of 4, and 100 free was 5th out of 5. So DFL. I think there are big gains there for many if they can figure out how to put in the time and get some direction to it. Swimming volume is sorta comparable to running if you use a factor of 4. If someone were struggling with improving their run, but was putting in 8-11 miles a week we would totally push to up the mileage. There are some other things that complicate this, but that's something many don't seem to realize.

 

Many think that the swimming will bulk up their upper body, but it's really not going to do much. The pro triathletes tend to be rather fast in the water, and swim quite a bit, but it's rare that they'll have much size. Sure there is Potts and Starykowicz, but they're exceptions. Many would think the large majority of the pro field should gain some weight.

Yeah, I totally hear you about those swim meets. It's kind of like the "all-comers" track meets around here. Small off the radar events with REALLY competitive athletes. Definitely a check your ego at the door type of thing. Which I think is good for everyone. I'm really glad you are willing to put yourself out there.  Wear that DFL proudly

I don't know about your comment about bulking up. I most definitely did when I was swimming. Of course we are talking going from marathon training which is polar opposite (I get pretty small.)

Next year I'll age up and be with probably our fastest guy, and he likes a bit of pre-race banter. Should be interesting, though he does tend to leave me alone with that.

Could you tell how much you gained and about the composition? I was referring more to the thought of developing a massive torso that seems to be the common sentiment swimmers "have". A little bit up in the torso, sure. Which is probably a matter of perspective as well as where one is starting from. And for some reason swimmers tend to carry a bit higher bf% than other athletes do, so some may be in there. Have seen some thoughts why, but not definite. When looking at an elite runner vs elite triathlete, yeah the triathlete is probably going to have a bigger torso of the two, but is still going to be slender in relation to a more average person. A big guy like Starykowicz still blends into a crowd of everyday people. He's massive in the sense of being an endurance athlete. Does this help at all? Kind of a complex question.

I use TP to look at detailed analysis of my workouts (and to see my estimated TSS for outdoor workouts), Strava also for detailed analysis and to "segment chase", BT for my training plan and the social aspect, AND Trainer Road. 

Yikes.

Yeah. I see what you are saying for sure. I don't believe that a swimmer is automatically huge or anything. I just noticed it in myself.

Like I said, the contrast was 70-80 mpw marathon training into tri where I was doing less run volume on top of the added swimming. I weighed, get this, 7 more pounds when I am tri training vs now. I don't know the exact distribution but I think my bf was a little under 20 (while tri training,  less when running) but the most noticeable thing was that I had to get bigger sports bras. Not for the good reasons, but because of (what I believe anyway) the lats. 

There may be too many variables to pin it on swimming though. It was just something I thought was pretty crazy, considering I only invested 16 weeks in training.

Yeah I didn't even factor Trainer Road.  I have a data addiction!

How to properly execute a recovery week.  Up until now I thought that a recovery week simply meant "don't do a whole lot" instead of actively going through a similar routine with reduced volume.  With that I realized that my workouts had been all build with no real recovery or peaking involved come race season.  

Applying that should make me a much better racer next season.

BTW, damn you and Matt for making me want to check out Strava too--glug glug--I'm drowning! ;)

Steve-- Your hard working body deserves so much better than McDonalds, brotha!

TP estimated TSS using your heart rate (assuming you have HR zones set up there).  It will do it for both cycling (if you don't have a power meter) and running.  It has limits since HR data can be so flaky, but the disclaimer says it's pretty accurate for steady efforts, and less so for harder intervals and such.  I think for the purposes that I'd use it (measuring and tracking training load) it would do fine.

And Elesa, try not to get overwhelmed. You can certainly experiment and settle on what you like and what works for you.

In contrast, I don't use anything except a cheap watch with stopwatch function for track workouts when I am solo but that's it. No watch for racing even. 

It's all personal preference. 

Interestingly, lately my BF is either lower or the muscles from the cycling are making me see vascularity in my legs that I rarely see on women. I've always had it in my arms, but never really in my legs.  It's kinda trippin me out. 

Originally posted by ligersandtions Been MIA for a few days, but I wanted to check back in. I did a Ragnar Trail race over the weekend. I'm a freaking idiot....but I already knew that! I told myself, "cap it to a max of 30 minutes of running per leg" and obviously went out and ran most/all of each of the legs! Good news is that my hamstring did NOT act up (not even once) and my knee held up quite nicely. Even better news (I think?) is that I know I'm an idiot and I won't take for granted that I got lucky that I didn't injure myself running 14 miles (broken up into three legs) over 18 hours. Now that I'm back, I'll scale back down to less than 14 miles this week I also learned something about myself which I think is very interesting and enlightening. The first leg I did was 6 miles, mostly flat. In that time, I didn't pass a single person, and probably 20 people passed me. It was demoralizing.....I was cold, it was dark, I was having a bad time (unrelated issues), and all I wanted was to be done. When the next leg came up, I wasn't looking forward to it too much....it was cold, dark, and drizzly, and the trail was much more technical with a lot of elevation gain and loss. Turns out, even though I'm crazy slow running on the flats, I'm really not much slower when running up a significant grade....which meant I got to pass a ton of people! Had such a great time! Then the third leg was warmer, in the daylight, and very technical....absolutely had a freaking blast! So while I'm not fast, I don't seem to slow down much running up a monster hill....and that makes me happy Will put up an RR later. Sounds like everyone else is making good progress with their weaknesses!

Very good Nicole! And it sounds like you too are a running goat with the affinity for hills

The real question ... did you work your weakness? 

You naughty thing, you! 

JK!!!  :) Nicole, I totally understand getting caught up in the race and running more than the plan--so glad you're feeling good!

Very cool insight on the different legs and how you felt on each.  Sounds like the St. George run will be a good match for you :)

I suppose I could go read the TP site...;P