kalalau's Group - FULL for now (Page 4)

Light poles are a great idea

Wow the HAT run would be AWESOME!  I love that park.  I have been holding out on 50ks because I believe my first ultra should be JFK, and I'm not sure I'll want to do another ultra after that one. :-)  Have you thought about doing JFK this year?

Which podcasts do you listen to?  I loved Tri Talk, but now he's pretty much abandoned that podcast.  There's still good episodes out there though.  And then there's Ironman Talk / IMTalk, which is my favorite.  Which led me into Forever Fitness, which is more general talk about fitness and training then the other two.

OK I have to be honest hear... I never heard of fartleks before. So I googled it. LOL. Do you think it will really help for my 5K?

I had a great run yesterday at the gym. Not sure if it is the new cross training or not running as often as I was that made the difference.  I didn't shave a lot of time off my usual 4 miles but I felt fantastic while I was running. I easily could have pushed myself harder then I did. It was an easier run for me then usual.

I have been enjoying the biking also. I think my main focus needs to go toward the swimming and biking. I still need a lot of work on both. And needless to say...I have been looking around at information and reviews on road bikes..after your comment...i won't win on my mountain bike! Did I mention i am EXTREMELY  competitive? heehee

It's ok to not know what fartleks are; they aren't very well known outside of the racing community, even to runners.  I haven't done a study myself, but everything I read says yes it will make you faster.  My only study is that I haven't been doing any speedwork at all for the past year, and I am definitely slower.

The idea is that the more you train at near your VO2Max (body's ability to process oxygen and get it to the muscles), the better will increase its VO2Max.  At the same time, these workouts really tax the body and increase your chance for injury.  It seems accepted that you really only need to "run fast" for about 10% of your training in order to help your body.

Super serious athletes go and get their VO2Max tested.  I mean serious folks, or people that don't care about money. :-)  I think it's around $100 for the test.  From that number, you can then set your pace for all your tempo runs, interval training, etc.  It would be cool to get myself tested, but there's better things I can spend my money on.  I'll spend money on that right before I spend money on having my air resistance measured in a wind tunnel (yes people do that too :-)).

One of your options for a bike is to rent one for the day; even in Hawaii when I did my first half, a rental of the best tri bike in the shop was only $35.  Nonetheless, I still got the cheapo $25 bike. :-)

It is not a foreign idea that someone could come out of nowhere and actually win an event.  It happens in marathons.  And, the most famous person in the triathlete community to do this is Chrissie Wellington.  She crushes the field and is still a newbie.  In the Ironman World Championships, she got a flat and didn't even know how to use her CO2 bike pump.  That cost her 20 minutes I think, yet she still crushed everyone else.

That said, she's quite the athlete, and that's really unusual.

Hi Abbie, 

You're not a pest!  I'm pretty sure answering questions is what this site/mentor group is for!  Dave can comment if he disagrees, but here's my take on your question.  Muscle soreness is due to little micro-tears that are created when you stress your muscles.  When this "damage" heals, that's what makes your muscles stronger.  If you do the same or similar workouts all the time, your muscles get used to the exercise and it doesn't stress them anymore.  You are still burning calories and getting cardiovascular benefit, but you aren't necessarily increasing your muscle strength.  That's why when I do a sprint workout, or fartleks, I get sore.  My slow twitch muscles are used to working up a storm, but I don't typically employ the fast twitch ones as much.  When I do work them out, they aren't used to it, damage is done, and soreness occurs.  You may not commonly feel soreness or "wiped out" because your body is used to the work out you are giving it because you've done it for a while.  If you vary your workout by going longer, or faster, or more hills, it may do the trick!  

I'm not saying you always want to be sore, but if you never are, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough.  Keep in mind that there's a difference between soreness and acute pain/injury, so be careful!!

LOL, wow Becky answers way better than I would ever come up with! :-)

I love it when you ask questions!

What is the context of these people who are complaining of getting beat up?  They are probably challenging their bodies in ways that it is not used to.  It could be the killer long run they just did.  Or maybe they've been running a lot more than their body is used to, and their legs are getting beat up.  It could also be that they are doing fartleks for the first time. ;-)  Or, they ran a really hard race.

Your running routine has been pretty steady, that's why you don't get sore.  And you are a fast runner.  I have no problem with where you are in your running right now.  If you went out and did a great 5k race though, I bet you'd be sore.  In fact, that happened to me on New Year's Day, it had been a long time since I did a 5k race.

You don't want to go out and start smacking all of your runs though.  You don't want to drive your body into the ground.  When you get sore, than means your body needs recovery.  That's ok for something like speedwork, or a long run once a week, but not for all your runs.  Since you are already at your longest run distance for your goal, they only thing you should really get sore on is if you added some speedwork.

You may just not get sore more than others because you've been running a lot longer than they have.

If you really want to get sore, try running really hard when those hills come up on the treadmill.

Yes - I do get sore after my strength day...I am not Wonder Woman! LOL (yet) Especially when I don't do squats and lunges for a while. I just never really experienced it after running. I still plan on running some 5Ks and would love to improve my time. I will definitely do the Lincoln Tunnel Run in April. I ran it for the 1st time last year but I was injured. (attack by a dog) So I will have no problem beating my previous time. 26:26. It was an interesting run though. I will try working in some sprints and see how it feels.

Thanks for the advice! 

Don't feel like you are not progressing if you don't get sore after running.  You are doing great.  In fact, based on your paces so far (if I can use them from a treadmill), I'm pretty sure you could qualify for the Boston Marathon if you got the idea to go for it one day.  Becky and I can tell you,  that's quite a dream to even be able to say you make make a push for it. :-)

The Lincoln Tunnel Run looks awesome!  I always wondered what it would be like to have a running race in the Baltimore tunnels.  I imagine it could be pretty humid.

Thanks Steve - 50K Thats impressive! Good luck...how long have you been running?

As far as plans go... i am working on 7 to 9 month plan for my first triathlon...LOL and i may need that long to be able to get this swimming perfected! UGH! 

Just keep at it, Abbie, and it will come.  Look at June 26, 2008 of my logs...it was pretty pathetic.  I think I'm lucky the lifeguard didn't jump in to save me.    I didn't really swim that much in the fall due to marathon training, but since that first swim, I've cut off 2 minutes/100m!  I go three times a week now, and since I am still slow compared to those that can actually swim well (including the 8 year old girls in the lane next to me last night) the progress is measurable.  Just in the last couple of weeks, I've cut off around 7 seconds/100.  The TI drills help, as does some tips/imagery that I got on here from BigFuzzyDoug.  If I can find them, I'll repost.  You can do it!

I think it would be more accurate to say I was "drowning in a forward motion."  I took lots of breaks... I guess the difference is that I have an endurance background (slow as it may be), so as long as I could take in some air instead of water, i could make forward progress.  It really does get easier, I promise.  :-)

I can relate to swimming issues.
I've been doing TI since November, and am still struggling.  I think this is going to prevent me from competing in the spring.  I have improved, but not enough.

I have learned "Front Quadrant Swimming", and to swim on my side, looking down.  This has helped a lot.  I'm still confused about kicking (TI video wasn't clear to me) and breathing (yummy - pool water!).

What's worse is that I've been neglecting my running and biking in order to focus on swimming technique.

Hopefully I'll have it together by summer...

Thanks for the 10 tip, Becky.  That was definitely helpful.

Thanks for the podcasts, I will check them out.  I had listened to Zen once, and it was a guy who was trying to talk to me while running, and I got disinterested real quick.  I can't remember what I thought about SimplyStu, will try that again.  Listened to Get Your Geek On tonight and there was a lot of non-tri talk, but after a couple of shows I might like it a bit.  They don't seem to have shows very often.

Bummer about your friends not being ready.  I had that happen at Disney with one friend.  The Baltimore Road Runners Club usually has a crowd of people doing it, if you want to run with some folks who are doing it.

 Running clubs are a good idea in general.  Nice, cheap races to get faster.  BRRC is only $2 per race for club members, and the Annapolis Striders has a year long series where you pay $20 for around 8 races.  In the early days I didn't do club races very much because of intimidation.  But it's really not like that at all.  They're pretty supportive.

Whenever I read about Becky and swimming I can't help but think "wow how does she do 15 strokes to get across the pool?"  I try and try and I don't come close.  It's amazing how those things happen.

I love the swimming link!!  Great stuff.

Your "9 year old" comment reminded me of the coach on my podcast this week.  He did a 2.4 mile swim in an Ironman relay, and was overtaken by a 14 year old girl.  Here's a guy who is an Ironman coach, who is a pro Ironman as well, getting beaten by a 14 year old!  Swimming is a funny sport.  

Here's a nice article about "Runner's kick" and how to correct it.  I know a bunch of us here have this.  I used to actually swim backwards if I got the kickboard out.  I'm not tremendously better now.  I don't have a deep water pool to practice in.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=77

BTW Becky, you can do a link by typing some text, then highlighting it (I just do the URL most of the time), and then the little link icon will light up, which you can click and put the URL into the link URL field.

 Dave, how do you know my stroke count?  I don't think I've ever said anything about it...do you have a spy-cam at my pool?? :-)  Actually, I've never counted before.  I'll try it tonight and see, and report back.  15 sounds like a pretty low number...

Ah, you got me.  it's MOONEY who has the 15 stroke length!  In his first post he says he went from 36 to 15.  

I think I did 20 or 21 in the pool the other night.  I may have done 17 or 18 at some point.