Jeff's Group - CLOSED (Page 4)

Jeff-  I would like to join this group if possible.

I am under 40 years old...for a little while longer.  I have done mini tri's about 5 years back.  I usually try to do some 5k races.  6 years ago when I first wanted to do a tri I took some master swim classes at 5am each morning with people who were training for the ironman competition. I began to out swim the men and impress my coach who was assistant coach for the state university.  

Unfortunatley another child and very stressful work situations later I am overweight and wanting to do some races again.  I did a century bike ride 2 years ago and did well even though I was undertrained but I had lost weight about 15 lbs.  This summer I want the full ride...Well Trained and appropriate weight.

I've signed up for the Olympic 3X balanced program here on the site and added strength training 3X a week. I look forward to eating clean and reaching my goals.  I am a very goal oriented person and I think with advice and accountability to someone other than my hubby I can overachieve my goal.   I hope we can work together.

Thanks

Hi Kirsten. The TI footage looks very impressive but I've not invested anything in the products so I can't vouch for them. I know the Navy SEALS train with TI techniques in mind, at least from what I've read, so I know there's something to it. 14 drills are a lot of drills, and I bet you're suppose to pick one or two per training session. These are the drills I personally use: one arm swim down other arm swim back. Closed fist swim, and three I picked up from a Dave Scott Youtube video. For the first one you pause at the top of your arm stroke, keeping your elbow high then pull with the other arm, like hesitate-pull, hesitate-pull. The second is Quick Catch in which at the furthest point of your reach you flex your wrist so your fingers semi-point toward the pool bottom, then flex at the elbow so your forearm acts like a paddle. Third is High Swingers where your stroke arm comes out high and almost like a straight-arm. It's meant to get your body to rotate more and involve your lats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUULNJEdKU8

This is the link to those drills. I think a person needs to incorporate drills to fix weakness, obviously, and those drills should be ones you'll stick with. Sometimes too many choices become overwhelming and cause me not to do any. Just my thoughts

Jeff

Hello Cheryl,

Congratulations, you're the grand prize winner, as in the last person to join the group. I would love to help you reach your goals in any way I can, so feel free to ask. If you add me to your friends you can access this forum directly through my page (it's a little quicker.) Also, if you want to keep your own page private you can, but allowing others to view your workouts and send you inspires is beneficial to your training and motivational attitude. Up to you.

Jeff

 Thanks for letting me join....

Name: Gaiaserver/Jim

Story: Been lurking around BT for several years....periods of good training habits, periods of awful training habits.  I am a solo trainer so if I dont feel like doing it I convince myself not to.  Tired of being so wishy-washy....actually what I am tired of is paying all the damn money for race registrations and then not doing them.  I start with best intentions and then fade away.  Looking for some consistency and support.

Completed several sprint and super sprint distances over the past few years.  Want to do more with the ultimate goal of doing IMKY 2010 as a 50th birthday present to myself.

Had my annual physical about 3 weeks ago.  Have you ever had your doctor yell at you?  Me neither until recently.  I have had the same doc since I was 12 (36 years and counting) and he is really pissed at me.  In 1993, I weighed 163 pounds....in December 2008 I weighed 215.  I think he said something about me eating myself to death.  Love my doc but I am guessing he is trying to tell me something.

So I am beginning again.  Fat, out-of-shape, and frankly, a bit afraid.  Afraid to fail.

Family Status: Divorced with two children; Hayley (15) and Sarah (11).  One dog Tallulah (3).  One cat Princess (7).  One ginuea (sp?) pig Pepper (4).  Two county fair goldfish (5).

Current Training: Starting very slow.  Past attempts have ended in injury or burnout and I think I was just going out of the gate too fast.  Starting on Monday, I will be following a plan put together by Tiathlon Geek for 12-week Sprint training, followed by the 12-week Oly training, followed by the 18-week HIM training.  The plan is to make the Longhorn HIM in October.

2009 Races: Signed up for the Longhorn HIM as my A race.  Contemplating a few other short ones as training races.

Weightloss Goals: One pound a week minimum.

You're right on there. Just use the few that you need right now and add if you need or want to. Sometimes, as you make progress, you find that you kind of go beyond certain drills, but at the same time some drills will always form the foundation of your training.

Jeff

 There are a few hills in the area, though probably not so high compared what other people call hills. My biggest challenge is finding somewhere I can ride a distance without having to stop for traffic lights.

 I used to do a bit of hill drills when I was running so I know the benefits they can bring. 

Re my question about bike/swim sessions or run/swim sessions, I understand the benefits of upper and lower body training but I was wondering why I've seen a lot of run and swim sessions together on training plans but not as many bike/swim sessions...   ETA <- ignore this question. I've just seen a lot of plans with bike and swim on the same day.
 

Thanks, Jeff!  I do ice my knees and I have been taking more rest days per week. I started running seriously again (and biking) this summer and have gradually increased mileage since then. I think the 20K was too ambitious for my first year back. I have scrapped that plan and did my annual training plan focusing on an August sprint and a September sprint as my peak.  This puts me in a six week "prep" period right now, which I am using to rest, heal my knees, and work on my core and nutrition.  I will be seeing a sports nutrtionist soon to work on a plan to get a little leaner while training.

I live in a rural area and am 1 hour each way from a pool, so I will swim seasonally, starting in March with a Masters group.  I love swimming the best, so I am looking forward to that. Biking is my weakest sport, so I will focus on learning more about it and improving it this year.  My running has really improved (from about a 38 minute 5K this summer to just under 30 minutes) and I think it will continue to get better.

Thanks for being a resource!

Stacy

It sounds like you have things lined up Stacy, or are getting that way, and that's great. Six weeks to get in shape to get in shape should be enough time to do so. I live about 10-15 minutes from rural farmland. It's great biking country. Is it possible for you to ride to the pool and back when the weather improves? Is that too lofty a goal? If you got to that point and think you could say your biking had improved.

 Lara, these two drills were taken from trinewbies.com. There are, I believe, six drills total but I chose the two that could best be incorporated on a stationary bike.

Jeff could you give a little more detail about the work interval?

thanks,

 Dirk

Hey Dirk,

The work in the Pyramid Interval is that portion of each set when you go the hardest. Example: 1 minute hard/ 30 seconds rest, 2 minutes hard/ 30 seconds rest, etc.

In The Burner it's the same thing: 4-6 repeats of 5 minutes hard/2minutes recovery.

If you use a HRM on a regular basis your bpm is suppose to be 5-10 bpm above your upper limit. When ever I've done this I was focused more on the time then HR because I wanted it to end already.

Also, the idea is to try and keep the same effort throughout each work portion of the set, as opposed to fading down the stretch.

Thanks Jeff. Much appreciated.  What kind of RPM would you say I should be looking at?

I've just been looking at the 2008 results for the first sprint tri I've entered. Bad bad move. I'm not a fast person anyhow but I could claim last place quite easily. The second sprint is a lot more beginner friendly so I'll be safer in that one. Anyhow, I know there's no point wibbling about that because I can only do my best, someone has to come last blah blah blah

Whenever you see ' after a number, as in 10' that means ten minutes. When you see" it means seconds. So, your workout is 6 x 50 on 15" or ffifteen seconds rest between 50's.

 The idea behind swim golf is to figure out your most productive stroke rate. So you count arm strokes down and back and check you time. Do the math, as you did above, to get your score, and play around with more or fewer strokes to get the lowest score.  For me, I vary between 17-22 strokes per 25 yds. My time can vary from 40" to 50" per lap. What your looking for of course is the fastest time, and swim golf is one way to be consistent with you stroke. When you arrive at your seemingly best rate/fastest time, then it's a matter of counting your strokes every few laps to keep yourself in line. Yes, you can count just the 25 yds instead of the whole fifty, and in fact, if you do it that way then count the last 25 of a lap when you're fatigued to help keep yourself from slacking off. But of course, when you do a lake swim in a triathlon the whole golf thing goes out the window.

Redbirdrunner - 2009-01-18 8:23 PM Good Evening Jeff, Hope your week is going well. After months of preparations and 1000's of dollars, my training plan is complete. I can appreciate how busy you are, but any chance you can take a look at it?? Cheers, Jim

Hey Jim. I'd love to see your plan. You can send me a private message or even post it here, whatever you feel more comfortable doing.

Hi Lara. I shoot for 92-95 rpm in something like a race pace. If you can find an rpm in that area that doen't feel like it's taxing your quads you'll find it's a good turnover rate.

So from there, if you're doing one of the drills, you could be in a stiffer gear for the hard part of the drill and your rpm would be less, like maybe 70-80, or stay in the same gear and just hammer it. When the hard stage is over and you're recovering you'd then be spinning in the 92-95 rpm area.

There's also a drill where you would be in your rpm zone and then shift down two to three gears, or whatever it takes, to hit 110-120 rpm for 30 seconds. You then return to normal to catch your breath, or if you use a HRM to a specified HR, and then hit it again. This is good to do toward the end of your training ride when you're about to cool down. The reason for it is to activate your fast twitch muscles. This can, believe it or not, actually help you run faster too.

Good Morning Group!

I don't really have any questions now, I just thought I would check in after my first full week of training.   Here are my results:

1 hr 45 min strength, 1 hr 5 min run (6.04 miles), 1 hr 30 min bike (11.43 miles + what I did in 30 min that was not measured), 1 hr 32 min swim (1848.64 m)

I am posting here because you guys are holding me accountable and I am sure require weekly postings of my progress .    I am most impressed with the swimming because on the first day I did not think I was going to make a lap without stoping.   Yesterday,  i did 4.   Now, I only swam 4 times but I think what people have been telling me is true, that you progress quicker in swiming than running.    I have enjoyed it but do plan on taking a lesson or two.   I am sure my stroke could use some work.

Thanks for the inspirations.   Last night I was actually thinking (as I was looking to see what was on today's agenda) if it was going to be possible to maintain this pace throughout.   I worked out on a regular basis before but this is definitly more than normal.    It was great to see a comment.

WEEK 2 - DAY 1....HERE I COME.   I am off to CrossFit!

Emily

Well done Emily. Great start! 

#1 The pyramid
Warm up 5-10 miles, do the following repeats: 1 minute hard/30 seconds rest, 2 minutes hard/30 seconds rest, 3 minutes hard/30 seconds rest, 4 minute hard/30 seconds rest, 5 minutes hard/30seconds rest, 4 minutes hard/30 seconds rest, 3 minutes hard/30 seconds rest, 2 minutes hard/30 seconds rest, 1 minute hard/30seconds rest, cool down 5-10 miles.Work interval should be 5-10 bpm above upper limit, recovery at or below lower limit.Too hard? Recover for 1 minute instead of 30 seconds. If on the trainer, your warm-up and warm-down can be 110-20 minutes.

#3 The Burner

 Warm up 5-10 miles; do 4-6 repeats of 5 minutes hard/2minutes recovery. Best done with a buddy leaving 15 seconds apart (remember these Hazen J). Work interval 5-10 bpm above upper limit, recovery at or below lower limit. Cool down 5-10 miles. Those with less cycling base may want to start with 3 minutes hard/2 minutes easy. 

Hey Emily, look at you. Those are great totals for your first week.