kenj triathletes in training - IM and HIM focused - Closed (Page 36)

Originally posted by CyborgQueen Looks like I'm going to have some trainer love this week. July 4th ride has tentative been cancelled...it still gets to 104-109 degrees at night. Mainly because the asphalt gets extremely hot during the day, and it takes forever for it to cool down. I did a FTP test yesterday, and I've improved 20 watts since January 1st. Is that good? In fact, I haven't used TrainerRoad in a couple months, and when I started up again, the ride felt too easy for it's sets, so I bumped up the FTP line and left it there and told myself that I probably need to do another test to get better numbers. What did you know...I had it set at the exact FTP that the test recommended me to do. LOL! The last 2 min was a little painful, but I think I took it too easy the first 3 minutes into the test, and I'm wondering if that's throwing off my numbers a little. I will continue to use the FTP that I set it for, but whenever I do the easy/rest sets, my virtual watts is a bit higher than what is called for (I suspect that it has to do with low cadence, harder gear). I'm learning to speed up a little bit on my cadence, and allow my legs to spin and maintain a good HR. In case if anyone is wondering, cadence on the bike is a strange thing...some people do very well with low cadence (75-85) with somewhat harder gear, other people do well doing higher cadence (85-95+) with easier gear and spin. There's no right or wrong, and I firmly believe that 90 cadence is NOT *the* perfect cadence to reach. It's what YOU are comfortable with. I fall with the low cadence because if I tried to go 90+ or so on a 1% grade road, my HR just goes pretty high, and I can feel like I'm working too hard. Yet, if I go one or two harder gear, and keep my cadence low - and speed is the same, my HR drops. However, it does put a little bit more load on my quads. Since I'm not really training for anything, except probably a 60 miler ride on tandem in October, and Pedal to the Medal (for Special Olympics and includes the infamous 9 mile 2.5% grade avg climb on Mt. Potosi which I want to try to get under an hour). So, I can use the time now, especially with the heat, to try to increase my cadence with easier gear while training my HR to stay on the lower side. I figure that if I can get my sweet spot cadence up just a little bit (mine is 84-86, and 60's on the hills and 90+ on descents) on the hills, I will be better on the hills, which translate into being faster. Hope I'm going the right direction, and if anyone wants to give me tips to do otherwise, lmk! :-) I have July, August, September to work on hill specific workouts. When the weather gets cooler or so, I will do a weekly hill intervals on the road. It IS dangerous to go hard on hill intervals in the heat like this, so I'm playing it safe for now. Meanwhile, I have a ride on Sunday with a friend who just finished her first Ironman and she needs a rabbit to chase after. :D

Originally posted by ramiedd

Plenty of time Eddie!  Make it count!!

Originally posted by bdenehy Great to read about everyone's training. It all sounds great. Welcome back Ali! Good job on the PR Adam. I have that "what am I doing here?" feeling most race mornings. It almost always goes away a few minutes into the bike leg, half way through the swim if i'm lucky. on the rare occasion that it doesnt pass, then I just try to treat the whole show as a training day and settle down. Do you ever race with friends? I find having familiar faces at the starting line can help some. This week has been a total bust for me, but maybe can salvage the weekend.... Nothing physically wrong, just hit a slump. I think part of it is coming from the fact that my next running race in 3 weeks would take me a year to be properly trained for :-)

Originally posted by RunningJoke I am back to thinking about signing up for a HIM again. Looking at the 70.3 in Austin October 27th. It's a 12 hour drive from here, but if my friend signs up we could drive together, and train together. Anybody done it? It would be our first HIM, so I would be looking to complete it while enjoying the experience, as opposed to racing it. Going round and round trying to make up my mind! Jaime

Originally posted by RunningJoke

I am back to thinking about signing up for a HIM again. Looking at the 70.3 in Austin October 27th. It's a 12 hour drive from here, but if my friend signs up we could drive together, and train together. Anybody done it? It would be our first HIM, so I would be looking to complete it while enjoying the experience, as opposed to racing it. Going round and round trying to make up my mind!

Jaime

Originally posted by Omahabritt

Hey everyone, gone for a bit & back again. The 2 weeks after Kansas, I did a bit of soul searching, ignored BT, missed 2 weekends worth of long workouts (one for no reason at all & one due to my Mom's celebration of life ceremony.). I seriously considered dropping out of IMWI. Luckily, my cousin & his wife came into town, & talked some sense into me. (They have both done IMWI several times.)

So last week, I decided to switch training plans (I've never felt fully on board with Fink-& affected my HIM), & got back in the groove. Finished "bike week", where I had 5 rides total (11hours, 174miles total), lots of hills, hill repeats etc. Not including another 1 1/2hr ride this am (my quads were finally crying "uncle"). I'm feeling much better & looking forward to the next 10 weeks of training before IMWI.

DJ-The weather in Vegas is crazy! In the paper they were worried about the concrete burning the feet of people & pets! Yikes!

Brian--now your back ?!? When are you going to catch a break? Sorry about your wife & her issues as well. It's got to be hard having to deal with something so uncommon. Glad Desoto was able to help you out. My trisuit was Desoto & I loved it. (I say was, because we forgot the plastic transition bag at the hotel in KS. I thought it only had my googles & IM swim cap. A couple days later, when doing laundry, & realized the trisuit was in there as well! , we had already called & there was no sign of it)

Sounds like everyone has had some good races!!

Originally posted by trei Go For it Jaime! I am heading down to Madison again this Sunday. I wasn't planning on it at first, but got invited to ride with a friend, so it took some mental "stuff" to get my head around the fact that I'll be doing those hills again after last weekend. I'm off on vacation (fishing trip to Canada, eh?) beginning next Wednesday, so it will be a training void for 10 days and the day after I get home is my HIM, so another 87+ miles can't hurt right? Except I haven't received my Desoto shorts yet, so maybe it will be a pain in the a**! Sounds like some good training is goin on amongst the group. Keep it up!

Originally posted by robingray_260 You will do great Jamie! I have family in OK and friends in the Austin area, so definitely interested in this as a future race - if you decide on this one I would love your thoughts on the course! Just finished my long run for the week - 11 miles. Only in week 4 in marathon training and getting really close to my longest training runs ever! Unfortunately, haven't been on my road bike since FL in May I hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend!

Originally posted by Kath2163 Ali, I am so glad you have decided to stick with your plan to do IMWI. I am counting on seeing you there! Are you still doing the training weekend? I have decided to rent a bike vs ship my bike there. I just can't see spending all the money to get the bike packed, shipped, assembled and then back home when I can rent a trek road bike for $75.00 and not have to worry about all the logistics. If I was staying for a week, it would be one thing, but riding the course one day will be fine with a bike that isn't mine. Not having aero bars will be a drag but since it is such a technical course I might not miss it as much. I have to say, I am a bit nervous about next weekend but will be so glad I did it. Just keeping my fingers crossed that I am not walking up any hills Please let me know if you are going as I would love the company! I just came back from a short trip to Iowa to visit my grandmother who is 100 years old. She really is amazing and has a better memory then the rest of her family.. including me I took a few days off of training to do this and I can't think of a better reason to do so. Would someone direct me to the page with the list of everyone's races? I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Originally posted by DeVinci13

I just got back from a 4 hour training ride (117 km). The elevation gain was 69 meters.

I need to get away from the prairies for some training, otherwise Ironman Wisconsin is going to kill me. What we lack in elevation gain, we make up for with the wind though.

I have a relatively hard training week coming up, with no taper for the half iron distance Morden tri which is 7 days away. Temperatures are also supposed to be in the high 80's, low 90's next week as well. Should make for an interesting race.

Originally posted by DeVinci13 I just got back from a 4 hour training ride (117 km). The elevation gain was 69 meters. I need to get away from the prairies for some training, otherwise Ironman Wisconsin is going to kill me. What we lack in elevation gain, we make up for with the wind though. I have a relatively hard training week coming up, with no taper for the half iron distance Morden tri which is 7 days away. Temperatures are also supposed to be in the high 80's, low 90's next week as well. Should make for an interesting race.

Originally posted by CyborgQueen Hope everyone's Fourth of July weekend is going well! FINALLY after such a heatwave (it's 109 degrees at night...yes, THAT hot), it has cooled down somewhat, but still hot. I missed the fireworks from the Strip (I can see them from my house as I live a mile from the Strip. :D), due to a trainer ride and keeping an eye on my dog. Since it's legal to shoot off fireworks here, some people around the neighborhood has been taking advantage of that. Two years ago, she was so freaked out by the fireworks that she REFUSES to go potty in her normal spot for over a week. This year, she got scared, but no problem going potty in her normal spots, so I'm grateful for that. It's also crazy around here as well because we cannot go to Mt. Charleston to have a cool bike ride due to the fires going on there. I can see the smoke from my house (well, technically the sky, but I do know some friends that live in Northwest LV that can pretty much see it). Sad sight. It's gonna "smell" for a long while. So any Cold Creek rides or Deer Creek Rides is out for a while. :-( Have a great weekend everyone!

Originally posted by kenj

They were talking about the temps in LV on the weather channel yesterday and the number of days over 110 falling 1 day short of a record.  I like it warm, but that is over the top!  I hope they get the fires under control, that is scary!!

My dog doesn't like loud noised either, we had her at the HIM in Florida and Connie wound up having to leave her at her mom and dad's because they fired off a canon for the pro start and she about dragged Connie back to the car. 

Great trainer work DJ!!

Originally posted by kenj

TGIF!!

Other than Karen racing a running race yesterday, (how did that go Karen?) it doesn't look like anyone is racing this weekend.  Next weekend has a lot of us racing though!

TGIF and train well this weekend!!

Originally posted by DeVinci13

I just got back from a 4 hour training ride (117 km). The elevation gain was 69 meters.

I need to get away from the prairies for some training, otherwise Ironman Wisconsin is going to kill me. What we lack in elevation gain, we make up for with the wind though.

I have a relatively hard training week coming up, with no taper for the half iron distance Morden tri which is 7 days away. Temperatures are also supposed to be in the high 80's, low 90's next week as well. Should make for an interesting race.

Originally posted by gadgetlaw My 5k was okay. We got rain at the track the night before which held things up there. We didn't get home until just after 3am. Morning came too quickly! I was rather tired and it was already ridiculously humid! Not my fastest race! And yes, I got passed by the lady with the jogging stroller on a down hill, but I passed her back on the next uphill! I ran 8.5 miles on Saturday. I woke up early and planned on getting up to run, but once the thought of staying in bed for a few more minutes hit me, I was back asleep. An hour and a half later when I headed out it was sooo humid again. I think it was my slowest run in a long time. When I got home, I took off my sports bra and literally rung the sweat out of it!! My husband was shocked by how much sweat I got out of it! P.S. What kind of cars did you race?? And yes, it does make triathlon look like cheap!!