Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 38)

Good luck to all racing this weekend. 

I'm on vacation this week and mostly offline.  I am lucky that our place up north is right near the site of my last tri of the year - Timberman - so I plan to ride the course this week and get in some other nice hilly rides up in the lakes region.

Below is the race report. This was a tough race and threw out most of what I thought about mountain biking out the window. Not sure I will do any mountain bike races after this but it was definately a new challenge.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=264032

Can't wait to read other race reports from the weekend...

My race report is up now.  I had it completed yesterday but I wanted to try to figure out some of the other details before posting but I am to impatient.  Here it is......RR

It wasn't as good a race as I would it to have been but it wasn't a DNF or a "bad" race either.  I just think I wasn't rested well and mentally into the race.  There was a lot of driving and other activities that I wouldn't normally do around an A race.  I still placed well and improved all of the disciplines from last years race.

Note to self:  If I reach 22mph on the bike that means the wind is pushing.  If I am going away from the starting point I will need to go back into the wind to get home!!  22mph on the way out, 14mph on the way back!!  Good times 

It did feel good to cruise;  Especially with new forerunner showing me the speed and minimal effort it was taking!!

I planned on getting some running in this week but I am not sure how everything will work out.  I planned a one day total rest period and then hit some lighter running but last night as I was packing for Georgia, I had to do a couple things for work to help my crew before I headed south.  It seems a fairly small storm cell dropped 15 of our poles through a field.  I spent some time on the phone organizing the initial effort and getting things set up for today.

......Anyway, I was unable to get a 5 mile run in because of the work and packing and now I am uncertain about how I will handle the rest of the week.  I hope to get about 5 miles a day running while in Ga. but I don't know the area so mapping and a little recon will be needed.

I am headed to Ga. to see my nephew graduate from a power lineman's program in Trenton.  My brother and I are lineman, my grandfather was a lineman after WWII and my cousin was a lineman, so I like seeing the family tradition going strong and I want to support him, especially in the beginning.  So I'll be absent until Sunday when I hope to get back to my normal routine.

Looks like you'll get a nice recovery week Dirk. I'm still pretty beat up but after 2 days of sitting around, I need to move. I'm planning on picking up my training. Only 18 more days till my final triathlon this year.

On another note, I finished reading a book by Lance Armstrong yesterday and noticed a common theme in his training. When he was getting back into shape after cancer he went on a 10 day camp where he biked every day for hours. I've seen advice on having a two week period where you have an intensive swim routine to increase your swim fitness too. Has anybody tried this? Also wondering how should I incorporate intensive training sessions for the run, bike, and swim in my training year. (should I do it early in the season, during base building, mid training...) For now it looks like it would be best to do the bike during base building or the beginning of the year.

You can do it really in any way you set your mind to.  But most of us can't just unplug from life for 2 weeks on any regular basis for a training focus.

I think the most convenient way is to work the seasons.  Over the winter months it's hard to ride the bike, at least mentally if not physically too (snow belt).  So the first thing that comes to mind when focusing on the running is to do that over the winter months.

I find that I re-acclimate to cycling in literally just a couple of weeks with notable ride durations.  This works though because I will enter the focus already cardio-fit.  So the Month of March and/or April is perfect to focus the cycling.

Swimming is an all weather sport due to indoor pools so you can focus the swim any time you want.

If you ARE lucky enough to get 1-2 weeks off work and on a training vacation then you can actually focus on an intensive program of 2 sports if one is swimming.

I may have done serious damage to my shoulder yesterday in the weight room.  It was nothing stupid.  I was warming up for a chest workout doing light dumbell presses and the shoulder wasn't feeling good (AC joint, well known issue for me) so I decided I was going to bail on the presses altogether.  I relaxed to set the dumbells on the ground beside me and my shoulder SCREAMED at me.  I had to sit there moaning for a minute before I stood up. 

Well, it was bad enough to make it hard to sleep.  And I'm having to become left-handed.  BTW, the injury doesn't seem to have any relationship to the known issue I've had in that shoulder.  It's something in the front delt area: bicep tendon, front delt, rotator cuff.  It's not in the shoulder structure itself (not in the joint, the cartilage or ligaments). 

I went to swim practice this morning because I can always kick and practice one-arm drills.  Plus I needed to know if I was going to be able to swim my tri this weekend.  I timed myself kicking on my back (3:00/100), doing one-armed backstroke (2:30/100), one armed freestyle (2:15/100).  But I found I could do freestyle.  I first just moved my arm through the motions very carefully but found that with each stroke the pain was diminishing.  The freestyle stroke doesn't really activate the muscles in the front of the shoulder.  The pull and recovery allow me to keep my elbow behind me which doesn't use the affected part of the arm. 

Running hurt really bad for the first mile, but it eased up too.

Now I just need to see if I can place my weight on my elbow pads on the bike.

I was very worried until this morning that this may take me out of triathlon for a while.

Bad luck Jeff. That sucks. I've only injured my shoulder playing football and don't have any good advice for you. If I could give you any sort of prep talk it would be that the only limitations we have are the ones we put on ourselves. I practice one arm stroke swim technique and its not all that bad if you really need to baby it. Good luck healing fast.

Well, it's progressing quite well.  Today I can do most movements, like shaking hands.  Still won't push anything with that arm, but I am pretty sure at this point that it will be no issue for my triathlon training/racing.

I'll probably have to change up my weight routines for a few months...and I will need to evaluate it over time to decide if it warrants a trip to the Dr. and perhaps an MRI.  But today I feel much relief over the way it's improved.  As usual the vast majority of the pain was inflammation.

Thanks.

Jeff, it sounds like that shoulder could be an issue.  That's to bad.  Hopefully things will look a little better in a week or so but it might be best to rest it for that time frame.  As I am sure you know, shoulders can be pretty sticky to heal properly and their not the easiest to rest.

I did get a little more recovery this week than I would like to have had.  I have only run 18.5 miles this week and I would like to have around 25 right now.  I am planning to run tomorrow about another 7 miles to bring my 25.5 for the week.  I am now going to be hitting the run hard for the rest of this month and all of next month.  I am planning a base building up to 50 mpw for September and then taper for only 2 weeks leading  into Oct 16 mary.  I am going to drop a swim and try to hold the bike to 3 per week.  Once the marathon is over I plan to drop to 3 runs a week and add a bike.  I want to really focus on the bike this winter and try to pick up some speed since the bike is my week point in the sport.  I would really like to be able to hit 23mph for my olympic average next season.

Jeff, what kind of suggestions do have for 3 runs a week?  I was thinking about 7, 7, 10 or 12 over the winter.  Do you think that would be a decent maintenance schedule?

I've been MIA from my training for a while now. between traveling for work and getting ready to start the new semester at school been very hectic.

On the plus side my wife ran her first 5k yesterday and won her age group. I paced her the whole way and couldn't be prouder of her.

Next race is Sept. 24 and I need to get busy and get back in the swing of training.

Any advice on practicing transitions? should I just run through them in the driveway or actually setup a real world scenario where I swim , bike and run to simulate them?

I had a good race Saturday, here's my race report.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/training/races-edit.asp?raceid=200668

Since you are planning a bike focus, all you should expect out of your running plan is maintenance.  So will 3 runs per week be OK for maintenance?  I think so.  I only think that 3 runs is advisable for someone like you who is already well conditioned for the run.  I don't worry about your legs having issues with the less frequent, longer duration runs coming off of your marathon prep, so start with your plan and we can see how it goes.

Throw in some winter time 5k or 10k races to keep an eye on how well your maintenance is really maintaining.

Hey all, I'm back after my unplugged week.  It was a great vacation, but I couldn't hold off on the waterskiiing and tweaked my Achilles pretty good at the start of the week.  It didn't seem like anything bad, but the rest of the week it was pretty sore.  I tried running Sat and it was pretty painful about 100 yards in so I called it off.  I did get in some water running, it was a little weird because I'm in the lake, but it worked out.

Wow, that's a monster race Jeff.  Congrats on the AG win.  That bike split is insane.  Second out of almost 800 people, good grief!!!!

The only "planned" race I have for the winter session is on Thanksgiving day.  It's a 4 mile race that I try to PR every year.  There are a few other that I can try to get in at other time too.  Probably my biggest concern would be running moderate distances and leaving nothing short.  Last season I ran a schedule of 5, 5, 8-9 for the whole winter.

That Thanksgiving race is a perfect test since you get to compare your performance to previous years.

When would you start your bike focus?  If it starts significantly before Thanksgiving then its valid as a test of how well your routine is maintaining your run.
5ks are easy to come by so if you could hit a 5k about 2 weeks after your marathon it can be your baseline.  Then you can run one of those every 6 weeks or so.  There should be one around Halloween time, there should be a Christmas or New Year's 5k and you can find something Feb/March.

"my biggest concern would be running moderate distances and leaving nothing short"

What is your concern specifically?  That you'd be doing nothing fast/intense?

I'm old enough to know I should check out the elevation profiles before I register for races on the basis that it is near my parents which means free babysitting.  So this is the bad news about my sprint triathlon on Saturday.

Well Brian,

The swim course should be pretty flat!

That looks like a tough course for sure!  I can't even imagine having a race that would look like that.  Of course it is pancake flat around here so as long as I stay local I won't have to worry.

I guess I wonder if I should have a run that is shorter in distance.  I am not worried about speed work because I figure I should be able to maintain what speed I do have simply running 10-15 mpw.  Once the warmer weather comes I would plan on picking up some speed work to get ready for race season.