Experior and Slornow's Spring/Summer Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 36)

Yes.  Both of my IM races turned into vacations.  One HIM as well (Charleston, which is close anyway).  This summer, we are renting an RV and driving to Chattanooga for the Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon (Oly).  It is a really first-rate race.  After the race we're going to do lots of family fun things (caving, visit the aquarium, rock hounding, etc., etc.).

For us, the secret is to try to make the race as early in the vacation as possible.  I really don't want my family vacation to be all about the race (nor do they), and that's what could easily happen if the race were near the end.

Someof the members of my tri club have done REV 3 events and I've heard good things about them.  The one by me is hilly and tough.  I just checked their site and now have to blame you for ruining the plans I just made a few posts ago.  I think I'm going to have to do the Half-Full Oly in Columbia, MD. I have family in the area.  It'll be a birthday present to myself as I'll turn 42 a few days later.

So, I have exactly four months to go from sprint to Oly.  Possible?

Good point about locating the race at the beginning. Sounds like you'll have a fun time this summer. What on earth is 'rock hounding'? Up here we skip, scramble, or boil them for soup :-)

That's what rock hunters/collectors call rock hunting.  Not sure why.  I was introduced to this sub-culture by my then 6 year old son (now 9 and still very much into it), who is fascinated by rocks (and gems and minerals) and rock hunting, and I quickly learned that the cool kids call it 'rock hounding'.  Over the years, we've found some pretty interesting stuff, and occasionally a valuable gemstone.

I am permitted to hound only at select jewelry stores in the tri-state area :-)

I used to geocache with my kids. It's fun and I learned you can basically walk anywhere you want if you have a kid with you.  The only glitch are the deer ticks. They have gotten so bad by me that I was pulling ticks off them every time we'd go out.

-Mark

Michael-I'm planning on doing Chattanooga agian this year as well. Look forward to meeting up again. Whitewater rafting on the Ocoee river just outside of Chattanooga is a blast.  May want to subscribe to Groupon for Chattanooga as they sometimes run good specials to whitewater rafting and other things.. Go to www.chattanoogafun.com/coupons/. for lots of  coupons for restaurants and other attractions.  

Randy

Check out the 16-week Oly Plans that are on here. I just started one, and that would be exactly enough time.

26.16, there were no age group placing. It was a last minute decision as our club was furnishing the clock and finish line arch, and you know who had to take all that stuff there. Need to work on the running for the oly on Labor Day.

I've been out of action for the last 2 days.  Tuesday I had to drive to Detroit to pick up my bike at the shop that works with Tri-Bike transport.  Yesterday I was so tired after work that I went to bed instead of doing my run.  I needed the rest more than I needed to do what likely would have been a lousy run.  I am pleasantly surprised to learn that I have ALL NEXT WEEK OFF!!!!  I did not plan for this!!!  I misread the schedule.  Just assumed I worked.  What to do........

I will catch up on the posts as soon as I can.  Hope everyone is having a good start to the summer.  Thank you to all the school teachers out there, you rock!!!!!!!

Jimmy: Enjoy your week off! Sounds lovely.

Swim team was crazy last night. Continuous IMs with treading tossed in here and there. I drank a lot of pool water and thought of all the nasty pool threads in Tri Talk as I did. I do like knowing I can swim for a long period of time under pressure.

Tried to get in a run, but it was cut short. Our gym on our big Navy installation has cut down it's hours and I didn't know it. Kinda sad because a lot of moms head to the gym after they get dinner cooked and family settled for bed, but then again it is a training facility for the active duty first.

Have the kids all day so probably hit the gym early for a run in the family room then taking them bowling. That'll be our family workout for the day.

Randy - yes, we will have to meet up at some point.  I really enjoyed the 2010 race and am looking forward to this one.  Thanks for the coupon tips -- every little bit helps!

Rene -- no computrainer here, though I've considered it from time to time. But since I can ride outdoors pretty much 12 months a year, it is not high on my list of priorities.  At one time I thought it would be cool to practice on the IMWI 'course', but we've got pretty similar rollers here.    However:  challenging yoursself with workouts that you cannot quite complete sounds like a good thing! On the bike, at least...

On that note:  Jim -- what do to?  bike, bike, bike!  Seriously, the fastest gains I've ever made in fitness have come from a week of massive bike volume.  We can't do it week in, week out, of course.   But that's not the point.  You already have the resilience from IM training and racing, so use it and bike as much as possible.  Go hard and don't be afraid to completely blow up -- there are no real consequences!  And when you feel drained the next day go out and do it again anyway.  Eventually you will have to stop, but in the meantime, you will gain a lot of fitness and learn a lot, and for someone with your background, there is very little downside (i.e., risk of injury).

Blanda -- make noise!  Sure the primary mission is to support training of the troops, but you are SO important to that mission.  Your needs must be taken into account too.

On the note of swimming, I thought I'd share this rather odd experience from the pool today for your amusement (copied from my training log):

Weird experience at the pool today for my second swim.  After about 200 yds into the second 500, I notice that a guy is apparently using me as a rabbit every 3rd 25 -- he takes off with me, swims 25 finishing just a little behind, then stops and takes off again after I've done a lap.  Fine.  This doesn't bother me.  Anybody who can use me as a rabbit on his 25 yd sprints has my complete gratitude.  After a couple of these, I also notice that the water is really boiling right before I turn and he leaves the wall.  What the hell is this guy doing?   I sneak a few peeks as I approach the wall and he is apparently thrashing the water pretty hard prior to 'take-off'.  This goes on for 300 of the second 500 and throughout the entire third 500.  Then I take a break and he switches rabbits to the guy swimming on his other side, which affords me an above-water view of this production.  The thrashing was accompanied by grunting and heavy breathing that, in some circumstances, could merit calling 911, and the subsequent swimming was entirely Tarzan style, with splashing and turbulence as I've never seen before.  It was really very hard to tell whether this performance was a complete joke on his part, or serious.  The fact that he was a large guy with a ginormous beard made the whole thing more interesting.  I was expecting Candid Camera at any moment.  I've seen a lot of weird stuff in the pool but most of it has been easily attributable to ignorance.  This rose to a different level.  It made the day interesting.

LOL!!!

That made me laugh.

Good morning everyone.  What happening this weekend?  

I'm racing Sunday and semi-tapering today and tomorrow.  Later today I'll get the bike ready to race, which is always fun.

Too FUNNY

HAHAHA!!!

Pretty fun weekend so far. Took a rest day as I realized that tomorrow is my master's soccer game. Since I always get tossed out on the wing because I'm the only one that can run, I need to rest my legs.

Tonight the kids and I bowled for four hours! Holy Snickers. Tomorrow is my soccer game and Sunday we were invited to a Family Hash! So excited about that. I don't do hash runs because I'm prudish and worry about inappropriateness, AND they do that stuff at night. Hello?! I have kids I need to return home to, lol! I will do this family one though. So much fun. Since the kids are with, no worries about cancellations../grumble grumble last weekend...

Enjoy the run.  Family hash sounds kinda fun.  The ones around here are not for kids and pretty sophomoric so I don't do them.  I don't have time for it anyway.

Michael-didn't realize that was you in the next lane swimming those smooth 500's   Your story actually made me think about my swim workout for today.  Main set is 80X25 leaving on :30.....very easily could seem that I am pacing off a swimmer in the next lane given the frequent stop/start.  Seems like kind of an odd set but apparently goal with such short distance intervals is to really focus on technique without too much fatigue creeping in.  I suspect I will be a blathering idiot long before I can count to 80.  Regardless, I'll do it.  I think next week I have a set of either 30X75  on 1:30 descending 1-3.  I'm a little more "concerned" about that one.

Weekend-2hour ride with some intervals tomorrow followed by 25 minute run.  Longish 1:20 easy run on Sunday.  Today is swim only and my legs are thankful!

Good luck to all the racers this weekend.  I always look forward to reading the race reports.

Randy 

Yeah, I often find myself and another swimmer 'in sync' for a while, especially when doing shorter intervals and using the pool pace clock.

80x25 actually sounds kinda fun.  I like shorter stuff, which is why I forced myself to do 500s yesterday -- I tend to gravitate towards the more 'fun' sets like 50s and 100s.

Enjoy the ride!

Survived my swim and the 80X25 steady on :30 set. Set was not overly challenging from a physical standpoint but I could feel it in my lats by the end.  Short distance with recovery did allow me to really focus on the stroke. Most intervals were 22-23 seconds.  Mentally, it was not my favorite workout......doing 40 minutes of short intervals got kind of mind numbing. 

Along those lines...does anyone have a favorite or "go to" swim workout?

Randy 

Michael - your bearded swimming friend sounds hilarious. 

Blanda - can't hurt to ask about the evening hours at the gym, right? Maybe they can work something out. 

Jimmy - Enjoy the time off! 

Had a wonderful time in NYC this week, though I completely skipped my workouts. I had two 19 hour days in a row between travel and time at the conference, so it just wasn't worth it to try to squeeze in a run too. One good thing, though: I packed a travel-size body glide to use on my feet with my dress shoes. No blisters! I love being a triathlete. Ha. 

Next week I'm going for a test in the Bod Pod, which measures body composition. It's supposed to be one of the most accurate ways to measure body fat, lean muscle mass, etc.  It will be interesting to see how it compares to the weight watchers scale I have at home that gives weight, BMI, body fat%, and H20% (you program in your gender, height and age). It should be interesting, but it's too bad that I don't have much data from a year ago when I first started running. If there were one thing I would change about what I've done in the past year, it would be taking down all of my measurements and body comp when I started out to have another way to measure my progress.