GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 36)

You Canadians are forcing me to finally learn the metric system!

Showdown at Sunset is now on the schedule!  Not sure how I'm going to advise my wife of that fact, but we'll jump off that bridge when it comes.

So, new race schedule is:
Showdown at Sunset - 70.3 - Las Vegas - March 27
Ironman St. George - May 1st
Vineman - 70.3 - July 17
Nautical Malibu OLY - Late Septemberish
Siverman - 140.6 - November (tentative)

Developing a bit of a cough right now.  Slept in this morning instead of riding as per the schedule.  Downing liquids, zinc tablets, vitamins and food like nobody's business with the intention of riding tonight on the trainer.  My schedule calls for interval work (4x Z4 for 5 minutes) on the ride.  depending on how I feel after work, I may just turn it into a Z2 spin and hope that Friday has me feeling better for the weekend long sessions. 

Sorry for being late again answering.
My b-day is in Feb and I'm aging up to the 50-59 AG this year... who would have thought a woman would be happy to be turning 50 !

Tentative race schedule:

May - Ottawa half marathon
June - Smith falls sprint
July - thinking about Peterborough HIM, if not then Carleton Place Oly or sprint and all depends if I can get the time off work
Aug - K-town tri (not sure which course yet, will depend what I do in July)
Sept - Toronto waterfront half marathon
Nov - B2B full

My big goals for the year are:
 1. to break the elusive 2 hour half marathon barrier (PR is 2:04 in Ottawa 2007)
 2. finish happy at B2B

Hope the cough doesn't develop into anything.    Am following your training and like the way you are so sensible, consistent and in tune with your body.    However, DO wish we were able to follow your logs.    I am sure you have scheduled recovery days in there. 

STEVE -

As part of my responsibilities as a Full Service Mentor, I offer myself for sacrifice when a scheduled race is not well received on the home front. So, if it becomes a major, contentious issue, blame it on me. Just one of those sevices I provide!

Ick. Not good about your blossoming cough, but it sounds like you've summoned all of troops to fend it off, and hopefully it will just be a pathetic, irregular, cluck-wheeze by this time tomorrow.

DEE -

Welcome back to the whitelands of Ontario! Sorry to hear about your pestilence, and hope it resolves itself soon. But reading 20 pages here ought to help things a lot. As they say....

"GrooveTime! Good for what ails you!"
-or-
"Nine out of ten doctors recommend GrooveTime! as a first-line remedy for any illness."
-or-
"A steady course of GrooveTime! will provide restorative health benefits in a matter of hours."

Get well soonsoonsoon!

TRACEY -

Congrats to your son for noodling around in the pool, and congrats to you for resisting the urge to swim yourself in favor of watching him. Yes, chlorine addiction is very insidious, isn't it?

You'll know you've really been bitten by the swim bug when after your swims you only have a brief shower, all the better to leave chlorine on you so that for hours and hours after, when no one is watching, you can bring your arm up to your nose and have a next-best-thing pool flashback. I predict you'll be at that point by February 3. Just a hunch.

ANNE -

Are you feeling any better? Two days ago your health was a bit dodgy, but seeing as how you haven't said anything since, I figure you're mostly okay. No news is good news, right?

Belatedly, nice run two (now three? ) days ago! Have there been any follow-ups to it, or is kind of laying low one of the remedies you are trying?

Hang in there!




Edited by stevebradley 2010-01-14 3:13 PM

Hey Anne,

I'll do my best to play with those logs this weekend and see if I can get something up there.  But, yes, I definitely try to take 1 day per week as a recovery day.  Generally Friday, as I like to be rested for the long rides/runs.  I keep reading those are the most critical efforts of the week, so I like to go into them as fresh as possible.  Downside is that my Monday run is always just a bit tougher - but hey, if it were easy, everyone would do it.

The cough is headed downhill fast.  Energy levels plummeting.  (Help me Goose, help me!)  About to shift now to hot tea and honey and a protein bar to keep the energy levels up for the spin tonight.  I fear that intervals are going to be off the table for today, but still feel compelled to do some spinning.  Going to have to take it very easy tonight and rest hard tomorrow, as I have a 4-hour ride and 1.5 hour run this weekend with some more climbing on the agenda for both of them. 

SteveA - I think you should drink the tea and honey and go to bed

Not sure if you missed this post Steve.   What do you think?    Still fighting something - not sure what - but did do a run today and plan for 6km on Sunday but I may have to take some walk intervals because my left shin is tightening up a bit (details in log)

Going to try and swim some fast 200's tomorrow if I can must the courage. 

STEVE -

Ack, ack! I second what Denise says....but in the absence of following our sage wisdom, I hope you manage to sweat that sucker out of your system!

Keep us posted!

ANNE -

Oh, yes, I did miss it. I apologize!

Lynn and I just got back home from dinner and a play in Ottawa, and she is laying claim to the computer, so I've been bumped. But I'll be back to you later tonight, or more likely bright and early tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 8:10 PM

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 8:11 PM

Steve,

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking some of those grades were RIDICULOUS, to say the least. Thanks for following up on that.

Sounds good regarding the training plan. Next week is supposedly a recovery week, so since I've only technically done one week of the training and don't really need the recovery, I may switch up some workouts to work on my bike and run (mostly the run). Other than that, I'll stick to the plan since your suggestion makes sense.

I'll work on the breathing on that hill. Most days I huff and puff pretty regularly and loudly, so I don't think I'm holding it in, although I probably should for the sake of the other bikers and pedestrians around me. I guess that means my breathing is not "measured" as you'd suggested, so I'll work on that.

Lastly, how should I gauge my current fitness to see if I'm on track or if I should switch to sprint? Is it enough to just see if I'm keeping up with the planned workouts and not feeling dog-tired in the end? Or is there another method?

Sorry for all the questions, but this sprint idea is sounding more reasonable by the day. My pride is kind of preventing me from switching right now, but it'd also kind of suck if I couldn't finish the Oly.

Kasia

Steve again,

Here are you birthday presents. Sorry they're not wrapped

(1)
December 3

(2)
All Olympic distances (I hope)

Definite:
Rage in the Sage (Lake Mead, NV) - April 17

Possible:
Lake 2 Lake (Loveland, CO) - June 26
And maybe something else later in the summer/early fall.

ANNE -

Call me stupid, but in prowling through your log pages, I couldn't find the 16-week run plan. However, I did see your comments from yesterday, and those combined with what you wote in your post will get me started.

(1) I think it's a toss-up as to whether or not to start back at the beginning or just call it a 14-week plan and jump in at week 3. Were it not for the issue of the shin pain, I would say to jump in according to your current run progress. And in fact, as far as your psyche is concerned, I'd think you'd feel best by taking the plan from where you are right now. But if the shin continues to be a problem, then it maybe wouldn't hurt to "retreat" a week or two or do the whole 16 weeks of the plan.
(2) As for pace, I'd recommend doing the pace that works for you -- which sounds like the 6:35/km and not the 7:20/km. In prep for longer races, such as marathons and half marathons, the recommendation is often for the long runs to be up to two minutes slower per mile than the planned race pace -- but I can't make that work for me (even a minute per mile feels too weird).
(3) Following on the heels of (2), I guess it's called "Smart Coach" because it is churning out more personalized plans based on factors you have keyed-in for yourself - such at 5km in 29'? If so, there is maybe good method in their madness , and in keeping with the integrity of the plan, perhaps try to slow down some, to a pace between your 6:35 and their 7:20.
(4) Half marathons in November? Are you willing to travel? There is a good one in Philadelphia, around about the 20th. That's the closest November one I KNOW of, but I'm sure there are others a bit closer, and maybe a bit earlier. (I'll search around.) But if you can do the 15km at Muskoka on July 25, you should be more than ready for a HM in November, if not even sooner. If you stay healthy, those extra 6.1 km should come pretty quickly once you get the 15km in place.
(5) As for staying healthy........pay attention to the shin thing! You first said it was tight, and then described it as painful; can you zero in a bit more? And as for the location itself, would you say it is about dime-sized, or maybe more diffuse, spread out over a wider area up and down your shin? At any rate, be very careful about running on icy surfaces as long as this condition is present! Let me know as much about it as you can, okay?
(6) Glad to hear it's likely just a "baby cold" that is affecting you. May it still that unobtrusive!

M -

Stickers too? Oh, sure, why not. After all, I can't be a true Full Service Mentor without having stickers to go accompany the cupcakes, now can I?

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 8:12 PM

KASIA -

I'm still following up on the grades at Rage by comparing them with grades I know at Musselman. But I couldn't get the interactive part to work to work for me, so I'll have to try again. Keep me on task with this!

If you are feeling good, I don't think it will hurt to tweak the recovery week a bit and push yourself a bit more than it calls for.

About the breathing on your to-work hill, if it's a mean one you will be doing some huffing and puffing, so don't push yourself too far into oxygen deprivation if that's what "measured" will mean for you! But one approach might be to kind of coordinate your breathing with your pedal stroke, so that you are exhaling at the same time, say, that your right foot is about to begin its down-push. Keeping breathing measured, or rhythmic, is much better than staggering it, or gasping.

For now, with three months until Rage, keep up with your current plan for the oly -- your overall ability to do so will be your best indicator of fitness. But it is reasonable to expect some dog-tiredness at the end of some of the workouts, so don't be discouraged when that happens! The better indicator that your fitness might be falling behind is if you meet fairly consistent "failure" points, and by that I simply mean that you cannot complete the workout as it has been set. And by "fairly constant", I mean that it's not just one workout, but several. Again, if failure is met at one workout, that is not necessarily cause for discouragement or alarm; off-days happen for all sorts of reasons!

So as an example, let's say the plan calls for a 7km run, and you just can't do it according to how it is set. Well, probably there will be a few other runs that are scheduled between that one and the next long run in the plan, which might be for 7.5km, and it may turn out that the 7.5 run goes quite well. In other words, don't let one bad workout throw you off the game plan. If the 7.5km also doesn't work, then depending on when it falls in the schedule, you might want to take the NEXT long run (say, 8km) and dial it back to 7km. If all of the preceding hypothetical stuff happens a month or more out from Rage, then you will still have time to tinker with the plan, backtrack a bit, and be able to make the mileage before race day rolls around. But if you struggled with the 7km, and the 7.5km, and still struggled with 7km when you substituted it for the prescribed 8km......then that might be enough to cause you to reconsider the oly and bop on over to the sprint. Hopefully, though, oit won't happen that way at all, right?

M -

You're welcome! It's just one of those services I provide!

Are you currently goggleless? If so, definitely go for googles. While having some effects on one's outer beauty (i.e., racoon eyes for several minutes to hours post-swim!), it doesn't harm one's inner beauty at all!

The more the face is in the water, the more horizontal the body will be, and the more horizonatl the body, the less drag there is. Once the head starts poking above the surface, the lower body automatically drops, and suddenly the legs become agents of drag. And drag is a swimmer's speed-bump!

When you mention face masks, are you talking about swim masks? (Go to ww.aquasphere.com and see if what they show there with the "Seal Mask" is what you ae thinking about.) Or is it along the lines of a snorkel mask, something that is bigger and covers more facial area? If so, these are race-legal, and lots of people wear them.

I may be digressing too early here if we aren't talking about the same thing, but the advantages that people find to the larger masks are increased visibility and a much more comfortable fit. But for me, for the latter, I could never get them to really work; that is, their size just didn't work with my relatively long face, so thye leaked too much. But the people who use them love them!

Water in the nose is never nice! Some people get over it and it stops being a problem, but every race will have lots of folks who use nose clips of some kind or other. I don't use them, so I can't tell you at to look for exactly, other than to suggest you pay extra if it's going to guarantee enhanced comfort.

Glub, glub!

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-23 8:12 PM

STEVE,

Didn't mean to confuse you.  I created the plan on the Runner's World site and printed off the 16 week program but can't but it on the BT site, so will have to enter each workout as I do it.   I like it because they have the runs on my normal days of Tues, Thursday and long on Sunday.   I am thinking I WILL go back to the beginning instead of jumping in at week 3.   Definitely can't hurt backing off a bit - first week is 9km, 2nd week is 11km. 

The shin was getting tight on the outside pretty much from half way down leg to ankle bone.   When I stop to massage it, it would generally be OK by 3km.   I have had this problem before when I stop running and start up again.   It doesn't take long for it to stop being a problem.   Yesterday, however, I was feeling tightness on the inside (right side) of the shin bone, from the ankle bone up to maybe half up leg.   It got so tight it started to hurt and I wasn't able to work it out - and I know when something hurts you should stop, so I did.    It is still tight today.  

I will slow down the pace a bit, but I do have a problem with the 7:20 -  just seems too slow and I seem to have less problems when I run at a faster pace.  

Re the half marathon, I am ALWAYS willing to travel, but will depend on Ken's work schedule, cost, distance, etc.   Once Ken is retired, we will be much for flexible about the travelling.  

Not going to run again till Sunday, so since I have decided to start the program next week, I may just run 2-4km, depending on how the shin feels.  

Thanks,