Experior's Group - CLOSED (Page 37)

March goals posted in TL.

Goals Posted on TL as well.  Very different than before.  In line with Mike's type of Goals.  I should add a goal about spending more free time with my son.  : )  I sat with him as he took a bath this evening and he shared with me how he was able to get out of doing 2-3 minutes of jump ropes by talking to his PE teacher about his dad doing triathlons and found out the PE teacher's brother also does tri's and has done an Iron Man.  We talked some about how far that really is.  He didn't ask the perverbial question (Are you going to do an Ironman Dad?).  Who knows...if it is in the cards and I can I certainly am game if my body will allow me.  We'll see.  I definitely want to do the 70.3 up in Boise in a year or two.

One thing I do to try to help here is include my kids (especially the two older ones -- 8 and 6) into training sometimes.  I will often run with one of them biking along.  They love it.  I do too.  We get a chance to talk and they get some exercise too.  Last weekend I took both of them to the pool and they splashed around for an hour while I sort of trained.  It wasn't my most intense training swim ever, and part of it was spent just splashing around with them, but it was fun for all of us.

Sorry I've been MIA of late.  I'm in the process of shutting down my consulting company and several business entities that I was a part of, so I've been rather preoccupied.

If anyone needs a guy with a MA in International Relations and int'l project mgmt experience, I'm your man : )

Things are pretty well wrapped up so I hope to be back in the training mix this weekend.

Mike

I haven't figured out any goals yet for March. Maybe I can make some up for swimmin' & bikin' if the darn weather would co-operate.

Been a little freaked out because my BP has been unusually high lately. Saw a cardiologist today and he ordered some tests that I'll get to by the end of the month. Started to freak me out because I don't know what effect it might have on my ability to train and race. Plus it's unexpected given that my BP was pretty normal before I started regular exercise. I made a rant here:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=198394&posts=1#M2707530

The one bit of recent good news is that I think I finally have a race on the schedule: the 70.3 Orlando in May. Close to harm and the kids get to do the parks. Gotta work out the logistics in the next couple days.

Took my bike in to be serviced when I was away last week-end. Turns out I need a new chain and rear cassette. It's gonna cost me a couple shekels, but the positive take away is that I'm changing the rear gearing from the current 11-23 to an 11-21. We're as flat as can be here in SoFla, so I'd rather have a tighter ratio in back to have a little more flexibility in the wind and on group rides.

Okay, March goals are posted back on page 45.  Let me know if you need me to update yours.

WB Mike... I'd love to hear more about your background :-)

I think my stars may finally be aligning.  Good week so far, already passed my bike goal for the week and well on my way to 7 hours with good weather forecast for the weekend... may even be able to try biking to work on Monday!

Thanks Stu. I'm in one of the grids, but not the one that looks like the final draft. Do you mind adding me?
Thanks.
~Heidi

I hope everything's well, Pete.  Don't stress out about it (for the obvious reason and because, well, there are a kajillion things it could be and the vast majority of them aren't that bad).  But good on you for getting it checked out sooner rather than later.  Lots of big problems start with people ignoring little problems.

I should take my own advice!  I was at work stressing until 11pm last night, and didn't sleep much, still lying awake stressing...  I have a swim coaching session today, which will help focus my mind somewhere else, assuming I can stay awake for it.

Have a great day everyone!

Just checking in. Been very busy! Focusing on my running, 1/2 mary 47 days away. I have 11 mile run this weekend. Spinning class tonight. Skinny thoughts have worked, thanks. I'm down to 231. Need to get back in the pool! Sorry for the random-choppy thoughts. Got to go.

Phil

man being sick just sucks and obviously cuts into ones training. hopefully tomorrow off to urgent care to see if i can get some good meds for my throat and sinuses. other than that life is good. have a great weekend everyone.

Hey Phil, I just noticed -- I have a half marathon that same weekend.  We can send each other fast thoughts!  (Well, I'm not really going to race mine, as I have a HIM not long after, but I'm not walking it either!)

Crazy morning this morning.  I ended up taking my 4-year old to three meetings.  She was such an angel the whole time that I cut out of work this afternoon and took her to the park.  Of course, now I have to figure out how to get that work done this weekend, but hey, you gotta do what's right, right?

Hoping to get a bike and run in this afternoon.  And hoping you all are doing well.  Looks like great weekend weather here; I wish the same for you all.

Intervals still suck.

Scout

First brick of the season is planned for Sunday.  Supposed to be around 55*, and DW and DS will be out for the afternoon.  I'm hoping to get a 25-30 mile ride in, then a 5+ mile run. 

Ha ha.  Yep, they do hurt.  I had none this week. 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. I had a 11.1 mile run today. My longest ever. Strong head winds really suck. After running indoors all winter I was not prepared. Miserable time. Good news: I broke into the 220's. Offical weight 229.6 lbs. According to BMI I am no longer "Obese!" Now I'm officially "Overweight!".............I got that goin for me. (Caddyshack reference for all you youngsters.)

Phil

Congrats Phil!  Oh, and I think we're all 'youngsters' here...

Tough 6 + mile run this morning.  I am sure it had something to do with my efforts yesterday on the Bike and a short hard brick.  1.5 hrs on the bike followed by a 10 in. brick run and a pretty fast pace.  Have a swim this evening to finishout the week. 

FINDING BALANCE.....As I told Michael I was having some training complaints from my wife, but got it figured out.  The early morning training has helped out tremendously with the three days that I need to train twice in a day.  She doesn't mind me being gone once, but twice is an issue.  So if I train early in the morning she doesn't notice it as much and is good with it.

Happy Sunday everyone!  I took advantage of DS being at play rehearsal and DW being out to lunch with friends and got my first brick of the season in.  90 minute bike ride on rolling hills, 1:35 of transition time and a 47 minute run.  Took a few miles to get in the groove, but by the end I was good to go.  I'm going to attribute the difficulty to it being my first brick and my first outdoor ride of the year.  On the bike, I felt great on the flats, but I'm way out of shape for the hills.  That will improve with time (and good weather).

Scout

Like Scout, I did along brick today too.  It felt great to get outside -- only one of a handful of outdoor rides this year so far.

I learned that I am in serious need of long-ride fitness.  HIM in 8 weeks, so I've got a mission now...

Hope everyone is doing well on this gorgeous weekend.  Congrats to Brian on finding that elusive balance.  It definitely is not easy, but I'm convinced it is worth trying.

Finished up an excellent week of training (for me) with a 10 mi run today.  Hills are coming along.  Bike has been very slow.  Spin classes / indoor biking just isn't the same as hauling your 200+ butt up Afton mountain.  Like Michael, I'm 8 weeks out from my 1st HIM opportunity.  If I hadn't gotten in a good week this week, I think I would have decided to pass on it, but I'm on track enough to see what next week brings.  Top priority has to be getting in the long bike rides.  Unfortunately, to me a long bike ride always used to mean 25 miles.  Now it needs to mean 40-50.  Haven't gotten my head around that yet.

Brian, I'm lucky, my wife thinks I'm crazy, but couldn't care less how much I train.  Part of that is because our daughter is a senior, so we're all living pretty independent lives at this point.  But we even managed to fit in our first date in I-don't-know-how-long last night.  Anyway, morning is definitely the best time to train.   If I get back before 9am, my family doesn't even know I was gone (they are night owls!).  Still a little too cold for that here though.

Here comes another week of juggling deadlines... hope I can keep the beasts at bay.

I'll try to compile the goal stuff tomorrow morning.

-Stu

Good morning everyone.  Here's hoping we all have a great week.  What do we all have going on?

I'm on 'spring break' this week.  Meaning: I've got a pile of work -- all the jobs for which I said "Oh, I can do that over Spring Break".  Now I actually have to do them!   At least I can work (almost) entirely on my own time, which will make training easier.  Good thing.  My official 8 week "kick Michael's a$$ to be in shape for the HIM" plan starts today!

Gearing on the bike trainer and effort question:

I'll try to word this succinctly:
How do I guage the effort on the trainer in comparrison to road effort?
Yesterday, ,I did an hour on the trainer. After the warmup, my intervals were 4:1. My gearing for the 4 min were 3/5.
On the road, that would be what I'd use on slight downhills, and I'd hit about 18 or 19 mph.
On the trainer, it was hard: "quads were crying like little girls" hard. and I only hit about 16 mph.
Is that difference normal? Am I doing anything wrong?

No, you're doing nothing wrong.  I am consistently much 'slower' on the trainer than on the road.  It all depends on how you have it set up.  You could try to fiddle with the tension, tire pressure, etc., to make them sort of match, but I don't see the point of doing that.  Also, the trainer is just inherently more difficult because there is no coasting, and precious little shifting of your weight around to ease the 'pressure'.  (Actually, I do stand from time to time on the trainer for just this reason.  Still, it is harder than outdoor riding.)

I think it is a very good idea to make your trainer sessions short and hard.  If you have to do long rides on the trainer because of outdoor conditions or a family situation, then OK, but I'd recommend outdoors for long rides whenever possible.

As for your question about gauging effort: this is difficult.  You can use a HRM and that works fairly well, though it can take some time figuring out the numbers, etc., and it doesn't work so well for short intervals because your HR never really catches up to your effort.

I've instead adopted a (pseudo-) power-based model for my trainer riding, where I use MPH on the trainer as a surrogate for a power meter.  As long as the trainer is set up exactly the same way every time and the tire pressure is the same every time, this method works tolerably well.  In fact, I've been quite pleased with it.  I have some notes on how to do it.  I'll post them later today.

Alright, here's a bit of help for those who would like to try the poor person's version of 'power training' on the indoor trainer.  (This does NOT work outdoors!)

First, you have to get your trainer set the way you like it, and leave it that way.  And every time you use it, the tire needs to be pumped up to the same pressure.  (And if you put a new tire on, then you'll have to retest your zones since the rolling resistance will be different.)

Second, your trainer has to do a marginally decent job of simulating outdoor riding conditions.  In other words, as you pedal harder, the resistance needs to go up in more or less the same way it does outdoors.  (Another, perhaps less helpful, way to put this is that there is a linear relationship between velocity on the road and ‘velocity’ on the trainer -- for example, perhaps for you, v_trainer = .9v_road – 1.5. We don’t need to know this relationship; it just has to exist.)  This condition should be satisfied by any decent fluid trainer.  I don't know about others, as I have no knowledge of or experience with them.

Third, you need a way to measure your 'velocity' on the trainer.  A wired bike computer attached to the rear wheel is easy and cheap.

From there, it's as easy as self-torture.  You need to do two tests, a 3 minute all-out effort and a 20 minute all-out effort (on different days, when you are feeling good).  These are all-out, as in, at the beginning you wonder whether you can really make it to the end, and at the end you want to die.  You should hold a fairly steady speed -- if you don't, then guess what?  You get to re-test!  (There are plenty of other models.  I'm basically following Phil Skiba's book The Triathlete's Guide to Training with Power, which is an excellent resource.)  Then plug those numbers into the attached spreadsheet and walla!  You have your training zones on the trainer.

By the way, the CP 'velocity' shown in the spreadsheet is the key number.  It is the velocity on your trainer that corresponds to 'critical power', which is basically the power that you can hold for 'a long-ish time' (like around an hour).

And in case you are curious, the spreadsheet just assumes that linear relationship that I mentioned above, converts everything to 'watts', calculates zones based on watts, then converts back to trainer velocity.  (I put 'watts' in scare-quotes because the wattages calculated have nothing to do with anything.  The beauty here is that it doesn't matter -- so long as that linear relationship exists, we can convert to make-believe watts and back to trainer velocity and everything comes out right!)





Attachments
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bike_zone_calculator.xls (10KB - 8 downloads)

Results for week 1.  As always, if I missed you or added wrong, etc., just let me know and I'll fix asap.  Boy did we have a nice day today... too bad it was wasted on work and an indoor swim.  Have a good one everybody!

	Goal 1	Progress	Goal 2	Progress
Brian	60 miles running	17	80% of bike outdoors	67%
Heidi	Lose 5 lbs	?	Workout 5 days / week	4/5
Mark	Lose 4.5 lbs to 165	04	Sprint training levels	40%
Michael	3x Core / week	3x	Leg strength 2x / week	1x
Mike
Pete
Phil	Weight 225*	229
Scout	Weight 155		Under 24 (23) in 5K
Stu	7 hours / wk, 3+ Bike	7.5 / 3.5	Improved nutrition (esp fruit)	ack
Sylvain	Lose 5 lbs		Swim < 2:00 / 100 for 1000
Will