Beer Drinkers Appreciation Society (BDAS) 2023 Mentor Group - ALWAYS OPEN (Page 36)

Yeah! Well done Nicole!

Great job Nicole!!

1:45 run this morning—slow and steady. Did not push it at all, because my HM is on Friday, so I figure two long runs in one week, at least one of them should be super easy.

Off south the the site today for a few days to do some outreach stuff with local kids. Managed to get a hotel room with a pool (long story for why we aren’t saying at our dig house), so the next three days are swim focused…assuming that pool is clean and open. It was when I stayed at this hotel in February, but things change quickly in Egypt.

Nicole—how’d the sprint go?

Did ~40’ in the hotel pool this morning. No idea what the distance was. I was swimming around the pool cleaner and all the stuff they have in the pool (stools, a fountain, etc), so I put my watch on ows mode. It registered 66yds after 40’. I’m slow, but probably not that slow.

LOL, if you were that slow, you'd sink!

11k run yesterday. My running mate could not make it and I can't do long runs on my own, too boring. It was as slow as a long run, so that's something

Rest day today.
Tomorrow, I am doing my first Park run (don't know if you have this over there or if it's a European thing only). It's normally on Saturdays at 9:30 but they have an extra one tomorrow as it's a holiday (Sweden's National day). They're expecting at least 100 people, many from other countries. Should be fun.

After that I'll run 10k with my friend.


edit: I looked it up and park run is also a thing in the US and NZ (but not in Egypt)





Edited by Rollergirl 2023-06-05 5:00 AM

Nat what is a park run? Have not heard of that here.

Hi everyone!
I am SO SORE.
The tris both went well! I will do race reports for them later. Happy I broke 3 hours for the Oly. I also got 2nd in my age group! I cramped up (left leg) a bit on the first half of the run, but it loosened up and I was able to finish strong.

I ended up not getting a place overnight. None of the places seemed worth the money (the one with the pool wasn't available anymore when I went to book)

The sprint went better than I thought it would after Saturday. I felt really strong, and finished around 1:32. I got 4th in my AG so just missed the podium, but I'm still really happy with how it went considering.

I need to do some yoga today. I didn't sleep great and am pretty sore, so today is going to be a long day. My watch says I still need 75 hours of recovery lol. I have round 1 of vball playoffs tonight though so this will be fun!

Park run is a 5k event happening all over the world every Saturday at 9:30 am. You can choose to run fast, run slow, walk, take your dog, take your babies in a stroller, etc

Never took part, because 9:30 on a Saturday is too early for me (I KNOW)) but it's a holiday tomorrow so I can get up later than if I went to work...

Looking forward to reading your reports! I'd love to do that but the oly and sprint are always on the same day over here (at the small races I do anyway), often starting 30 minutes apart.




Edited by Rollergirl 2023-06-05 11:54 AM

Ugh - it’s been eons since I posted. Long story short, Covid kicked my rear end and I lost 4-5 weeks of training.

I did, however, go on with my sprint that was this past weekend! I was not DFL, but I was pretty close. The weather in New England has been awful. Thursday and Friday were in the 90s, but a storm rolled through Friday night and by the start of the race on Saturday morning, it was 48*, but it did get to a balmy 51*!

I did it in 1:53:XX. I got annihilated on the swim and my 2:17/100yd time blew up to about 2:46. I had to backstroke a part of it. While we were standing in the cold watching the prior waves go off, my asthma got the better of me and I forgot to give my wife my spare inhaler. And then when I got about 200yds in, I felt my chest tighten (not because of the wetsuit, but a bronchial spasm) and then it was all downhill. The swim was supposed to be 1/3mi but it ended up being about 125yds longer than that. T1 was a killer because it’s hard taking off a wetsuit while wheezing with chattering teeth, and then putting on bike gear.

Bike was unspectacular which was both good and bad. There was a lot of open road and the scenery itself was gorgeous, but I never recovered from the swim. The run was actually better than I expected at 33:XX, but quite a ways off my 29:30ish target. T2 actually wasn’t bad, but I can probably find some time to save and go under 3 minutes.

BUT (there’s always a but!) it was a BLAST! My BIL has several olys and a 70.3 to his name and he did it with me and was a great coach/friend that kept pushing me. I feel like I had something left in the tank, but I now have a better idea of how to attack each segment. I’m really looking forward to taking this experience into summer training and my next race in late-August!

Cheers!

Jay

Great job on your weekend Nicole.

Breaking 3 hours, and 2nd in your age group is an awesome result. Especially when you had been training for a sprint!
And 4th in your AG the next day? If you hadn't let the internet peer pressure you into doing both you could have been on for a podium there as well.

Looking forward to your race report, recover well.

Re: Park runs. We have a lot in NZ, there's actually 6 available in Auckland alone. I did them for a while when Mr 5 was young, but the timing doesn't really suit my schedule these days so it's been a few years. That said, I highly recommend them. It's not a race, but it kind of can be, they're free, usually located next to a good coffee shop. You get some of the 'race day' experience but not the race day cost. Seeing Nathalie brought them up, I'll probably do a park run 5km as a run fitness test in a few months to help set zones for my 70.3 training plan.

Hunt one down, and if there's one close to you check it out.
https://www.parkrun.us/events/#geo=3.51/38.9/-96.41

@ Gretchen. Sounds like not being able to swim was a blessing in disguise. Hopefully the rest did the trick. Although it's not the ideal schedule 5 days on site isn't the end of the world. Hopefully you can swim as planned, and add some strength and flexibility stuff in your hotel room and it's still some good training. The body will probably appreciate a few days away from the bike and running shoes too.

@Nathalie. How did you like the park run?

@Mike, Probably on your way to Auraba now? Enjoy the time away.

@Jay. Great job finishing your first Triathlon. Sounds like tough conditions so good work powering through. And even better you've got another one planned. Warning, they are addictive.

For myself,
Last week became a rescheduled 'rest week' due to the injured toe.
Swim: x2, 2050m. 1hr
Bike: x5, 5hr 30min
Run: 0
S&M: 0

So, as planned hit the bike pretty hard. If we ignore the week I raced a 70.3 it's the most time I've spent on the bike in a week since March 2021. Great rest week :/ Swimming was tough, I've missed a few weeks and definitely felt like it. 1st swim of the week was terrible. 2nd wasn't great but was much better than the first attempt. Just got to get that frequency back up, get the feel for the water back.

This week, still going to be bike heavy. But I'm planning to try a short east test run on the injured toe towards the end of the week. Dr google says I should be able to run 10-14 days after the incident, so that's Thursday. We will see. Otherwise it's going to be a dificuilt week. Its Mr 5's Birthday on Thursday, mine on Friday, Mr 5s party with his friends Saturday and a get together with the extended family for both of us Sunday. Going to be a tricy week to get it all in. But will try.

Yes, that’s what I meant to say, sounds better than 9:30 am is too early

It was awesome, a lot of people from all over the world (some from New Zealand), probably up to 700 or 800. Great atmosphere, friendly people all of them. Got chatting to a couple from the UK (most of them were from the UK) who were on a Park run tour of Europe, they ran in Denmark yesterday (they had a Monday one for their national day) in Poland on Saturday.

Great fun.

Then after a short break, ran another 10k. A swim later today.

Well done!

Nice work on the bike!

7-800 people is awesome. The times I've been here it's like 150 runners. 800 is a big event. Glad you enjoyed it.

Hi everyone! See below for my race reports!

Oly - https://beginnertriathlete.com/RaceLog/races-edit.asp?raceid=291878

Sprint - https://beginnertriathlete.com/RaceLog/races-edit.asp?raceid=291879

I think I got everything! Overall I'm extremely pleased with my performance, especially considering I tacked on the Oly just a few days before. The event was very well run, with just a few slight adjustments I would recommend.
Definitely need to work on my nutrition for an Oly though! I think this is the first one I finished without any major issues (one I swam too far and the other I got a flat tire).

Strong start to the week,

Monday, 5:30am 90 min zwift ride with 4x7' Sweet Spot intervals
Tuesday, 5:30am 60 min easy ride, 1000m swim at lunch
Wednesday, 5:30am 60 min zwift ride, 6x2.5' @ 105%FTP.

I would like to swim today at lunch, because with all the family stuff over the next 4 days I don't think I'll get a before work opportunity, but looking at my list to get done I don't think it's likely.

Hope everyone else is having a productive start to the week.

Jay great work on the tri! Those conditions sound pretty rough, but you battled through a lot of tough stuff and finished it out. And you had a blast doing it, and learned from it, which is what really matters!

Thanks all!

And @Nicole - wow! Congrats to you too!

Nice race reports Nicole, and again well done.

For improving your nutrition, that's something that I'm also working on. I have always been pretty relaxed about fueling during training as I'm usually trying to lose weight so the less cal consumed the better. But this time around I'm making a conscious effort to fuel workouts properly and sort out the rest of the days calorie budget after that.

To help with that, I've been playing around with the 'saturday morning' app for the last few weeks. And although it's early days in this Ironman project my experience is so far so good.

Essentially you tell the app what you're going to be doing and it tells you what nutrition and hydration is recommended. (for example this morning 60 minute ride, tempo effort, medium sweat, beginning in a fasted state. recommends 70g carbs, 1261mg sodium, 1.35L water) Yes, you can tell it you're using tailwind/gu/etc. The accompanying youtube channel and articles on slowtwitch.com get a bit sciency, fructose/glucose/maltodextrin ratios etc. But it's interesting stuff, it seems to work, but it's early days so we will see.

There is a 2 week free trial so check it out and see what you think.
https://saturdaymorning.fit/

Thanks for taking the time to write these reports. Made me want to race!

Re a faster/aero bike, it looks tempting doesn’t it, but I am not sure it would make a huge difference to be honest. Maybe a few seconds in my case I would say.
I love that they have proper food at the event, here all you get is a banana. Even the bigger events I’ve done.
Yeah, nutrition is important, especially in a longer race,

Well done on smashing both races!

It's 10 days since my toe turned blue, so I tried a 30 minute slow easy jog on the treadmill this morning.
No noticeable pain, will see how it holds up later in the day. But a good start.

Fingers crossed!

Take it slow though, better safe than sorry.

Talking of toes, does anyone else’s toes get a beating while running and are sore / lose a nail or something? Lost the nail on my second toe (the long one) on my right foot a few weeks back and yesterday, Number 3 on the left foot was sore after my intervals training last night (still is this morning)

Wrong shoes or something?

Jay and Nicole—great job in the races!!

Andrew—glad to hear your toe is doing better.

Nathalie—re: toenails…yes, I’ve lost toenails before due to running. Are you wearing shoes slightly larger than you would for walking around? I find that about a half US size up for me keeps me from getting blackened toenails. It helps too to get wide width shoes for my Fred Flintsone feet. As you run longer distances and more, your feet will swell, so you need a bit more room. There are also special ways to lace your shoes to keep the heel from sliding forward and causing impact between your toes and the inside of the shoe you can just google running laces. Lots of ways to lace shoes to deal with different issues.

Mike—I hope Aruba is treating you well!!

As for me…I got to spend the week in lovely middle Egypt, to which I am now apparently allergic! We arrived on Sunday afternoon. I took a quick dip in the pool at swimming lessons time (don’t recommend!). Then Monday and Tuesday mornings I swam, although it was probably ill advised. The water had a distinct film of (hopefully) pollen on it and by Tuesday morning I could feel it in my sinuses. Tuesday and Wednesday I had a faucet for a nose, and still even a bit today. Hoping to be better by tomorrow—half Mary on tap in the 99F heat…probably couldn’t be a worse idea, but I think I’m going to give it a go anyway. Hopefully I’m fully dried up by end of today. I will assess in the morning and see what I feel like. This race isn’t important to me, so I’m not planning to jeopardize training to do it.

Edited by drfoodlove 2023-06-08 5:31 AM