Experior's Group - CLOSED (Page 4)

Well, I couldn't blame anybody for getting on board with aquagirl.  I mean, I'm tempted myself!

[hops on hobby horse] OK, folks, I don't know who's seen the 'Mouthpiece article' thread (here), but it prompts me to remind us all (myself included) that there are no magic bullets.  Or rather, there IS a magic bullet, only it isn't so 'magical' and it travels at the speed of cold molasses, not speeding bullets.  It's called "consistent training".  That's what will get us all to the finish line, however we define 'finish line', whether it means 'lose 10 pounds by summer' or 'finish my first sprint' or 'sub 5hrs HIM', or whatever.  Leave the snake oil to others, and take the only REAL road to success -- train!
[/ hops off horse -- it was a good ride]

Have a good one everybody.  I'll check back in in the morning.

I gather that means you're not Saint Phil (oh... there's an L in there... ic... LOL)

Saint pretty much of the time. The avatar is a little distracting though.

Had a GREAT RUN tonight. For me anyways. Short run 3 miles.

12:01
12:21
12:43

Outdoors. Fastest splits since starting to run in August. Never thought I would be any faster than 14:00 mile. I think the treadmill has actually helped. I can speed up the pace and force myself to extend my strides. Despite the foot problem it looks like a 10:00 mile is possible. That was really my goal when I started running. With my physical limitations and all I will never be a 20:00 5ker.

Nicely done, Phil.  And you kept your pace well too.  You'll make that 10mi/pace... and boy does it feel good when you get there!  P.S.  The darn thing about AG is she seems really nice too.

Pete (Spleen)... how did you like the Miami International?  Since my Mom lives in FL, I was thinking about trying to get down there for some more intensive bike training and/or a tri... I was originally thinking about a Sprint, but the Miami one looks pretty cool. 
-Stu

Nice run Phil!  I know I sound like a broken record, but consistency is the way to get faster.  Keep running (safely) and I PROMISE you will get faster!  All of us have loads of speed to find.   None of us is remotely close to finding his or her genetic potential.  The question is not 'can we be faster?'.  We can.  All of us.  The question is "can we do the time to get faster?"  I say we can!

OK, so at least I've motivated myself to try (again...) to get to the pool.

Have a good one everyone.

Yeah, fortunately its only a few times a month!!

Thanks, I was looking for some dry land excercises as well.

Thanks, The bikes in really good condition(I bought it when i was 15) and I love the look of the old Shimano 600EX components.

That pool of yours sounds like a party!!

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions, found a school near me that is fairly reasonable, only problem is it's only once a week. I'll try and couple that with the dry land suggestion Michael made.

Interesting workout today. I added a running day, but I am sort on time so I ran 2 miles right after a 700m swim instead of splitting it up AM and PM. Here's what I learned:

1) Swallowing pool water is not the same as drinking water! Need to hydrate after swim.
2) I was spent after the run. I AM NOT ready for my first sprint!
3) Co-Workers really give you a funny look when you show up at work in tights

Nice Run progress Phil. You're definitely gonna keep improving if you keep running. Building run fitness takes a long time. When I took up running a couple years ago it took me 9 months just to get to the point where I could run 3 miles comfortably. I'm a Clyde with bad feet and I really struggle on the run, but it's getting better.

Case in point was today. I haven't run much since my last race but I got in my first hour + run in months today. Ended up being in crazy winds and rain but for some reason I felt strong throughout, maybe because the conditions were keeping me cool. Anyway, feeling so good afterwards makes me feel like running more.

Here's a question for all of you: how do you time your runs? I haven't worn a watch in 12 years, so I just run and use 10 minute miles for all my runs. I'm such a beginning runner I figure just getting out there and covering distance trumps knowing exactly how fast that last mile was. That said, I'm getting to the point where I want to challenge myself to get faster. My bike computer helps me stay honest on my rides, so I think I should start truly timing my runs. Do any of you use a stopwatch, a pedometer or a GPS? I started listening to music on runs lately and saw that Nike has a neat pedometer thingie that syncs with an iPod (http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/en_US/). I wear Nikes anyway so maybe I can do the music/timing thing with one device. Thoughts?

Edited by Spleen 2009-12-18 10:58 AM

i a may be in the minority here but i focus more on the overall time spent running than the distance. before i couldnt run to the corner to save my life. so when i first started training i would focus on walking\running for 45 minutes, and it has carried over. i use mapmyrun.com for some routes, i have also cruised the route in my car for distances too. that works for me.

sorry that i was gone for work yesterday and i actually had to work. my knee is feeling better i ran back to back days yesterday and today. i do a lot of stretching and yoga to add to the overall flexability of my knee\legs. i actually had a great seim this morning-1750 yds. it felt good and i actually had the time for a nice long swim.

have a fantastic friday everyone.

I use Nike Plus w/o using Nike Shoes and it works great. I purchased the Nathan sensor pocket which has worked out find. Nike + allows me to monitor my current pace and helps w/ monitoring and working on negative splits on my mid-weeky runs. At the end it will provide you with an average pace, total time, and calories burned.

It's really a great race, and it was my first Oli too. It's very well organized and the course layout is pretty good. The swim is nice for someone new to the distance because it's salt water, but being in a marine "arena" it's completely protected. It'll be wetsuit legal too, so you'll be extra buoyant, but in calm water. The expo was really good last year and after the race they had great raffle items (like a set of Zipp wheels!) and a good lunch with a free Miller Lite stand.

The one thing to keep in mind is that it is a very, very fast field. Lots of pros do this race, Like Matty Reed and Andy Potts, plus other elites and super-fast people because it's one of the first Olis in the year with a prize pool. For me it was encouraging to see so many great athletes, but it can be a little intimidating for a newbie.

Edited by Spleen 2009-12-18 11:28 AM

Speaking of which, what is the deal with the Clydesdales going off in such an early wave?  Seems like we'd be quickly overrun by the age groupers (well, at least I would be).  I noticed it was a very large field (2x+ the largest I've been in)   I imagine the swim and bike were pretty crowded.    So are you planning on doing it again?
-Stu


Edited by juneapple 2009-12-18 1:30 PM

Did a 1 hour spin class yesterday PM. Was feeling great and energetic throughout the class. Awesome class. A little low volume for the music than what I like, but good nevertheless.

Today on the other hand, I am feeling LAZY... My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, and I just want to go home and have a glass of wine . But fortunately starting this week I have teamed up with a co-worker to go the gym at our work to do some walk/run sessions on the treadmill. So, she will drag me down there in about another hour. Hopefully my lazy butt will start moving by then.

It is about 23 degrees here today. Don't like the winter at all and very very jealous of all you so. cal. folks. For the person that asked about swimming in winter - I belong to Healthtrax here and hope around between a couple of gyms between work and home for some good old indoor swimming.

Ha ha!  Yes, swimming can really suck the juice out of you.  It is deceptive because, after all, you are immersed in water, but in fact water can suck the moisture out of you faster than air does.

You will be!  Keep up the good work and you'll get there.  (Race day adrenaline has a pretty big impact as well.)

Now THAT sounds like a triathlete! 

I've gone through several phases here.  When I first started running I just glanced at the clock as I left the house, then glanced at it again when I returned.  Like many of us, my first attempts at running were more like shuffling (OK, shuffling WHILE gasping for air); they didn't last long; and I was just glad to make it home alive -- I didn't care much about the time.

Then I got a little more serious and got a Garmin 305.  In case someone doesn't know, that's a GPS/watch/HRM/bread slicer all wrapped into one.  I loved it, and it was especially useful when traveling.  It shows distance, pace, time, pretty much whatever you want.  Then it died (a month after the warranty ran out, of course).  For a while I went back to the 'glance at the clock' method, but I did eventually get a watch.  I bought the watch for the pool, actually (because I'm blind without my glasses and I often don't bother to put contacts in for a swim workout, so I can't read the pool clock), but began using it on the run as well.  That's still what I do most of the time, although occasionally I'll just glance at the clock.

Yes, just getting out there are doing the time is the main thing.  But it IS good to mix up the paces -- lots of slow, and some fast -- and having a watch on can help with that.

It doesn't much matter whether you train by time or distance -- in the end what matters is that you train.  Of course, if you have a specific goal race in mind, then you will eventually want to be sure that you train to complete that distance, so at some point, distance does matter.  But even then, you can easily 'convert' back to time.  I did most of my IM run training by time because that's the way my plan was written.  It worked out fine.  (I WAS keeping track of the distance, but the target for each workout was a time, not a distance.)

Race directors do weird things, don't they?  I did a race last year where (apart from the Pros, who always go first, at least in the races I've done) things were pretty much completely backwards from what you'd expect -- the prima facie slower waves all went first and the faster waves all went towards the end.  (Of course, this is a general trend only.  Some people in the 'slower' waves are actually very fast!)  It made for a really weird swim for me.  I'm a pretty mediocre swimmer, and I was catching people from one and two waves before me, which had never happened to me before.  And yes, the bike course was a mess for the first half of the bike.  I still don't know what they were thinking, unless they just wanted the race to be over as early as possible.

It is great to team up with someone to get some accountability and motivation.  I mostly train alone, but I'm going to join someone for swimming after the new year.  He is a much stronger swimmer than I am, and I need that motivation in the pool.  It was interesting to me that he said the same thing to me.  He is a very strong swimmer, and a strong triathlete all around (he races in the open division around here, and does pretty well), and he said the same thing that you are saying -- it helps to have someone else around to get you through the tough training times.

We're experiencing rather uninspiring weather here in Chicago at the moment. It is severely overcast with a light mist and temps hovering around 35.  We're supposed to get dusted by a few inches of snow this evening.  I think folks training in the north should get some sort of handicap on our race times for having to slog through this weather!  Californians and Floridians have it easy : )

Here's a random heads up to anyone looking for a new crankset:  Jenson USA has a double ring, standard (53/39) Shimano105 on sale for $22 (plus shipping).  That's an incredible deal for a nice crankset.

http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/CR706B00-Shimano+105+Fc-5502+Crankset.aspx

Pete, as for running watches...I use a Timex 1440 Sports watch (basically a cheap 'Iron Man' watch) and then map my runs on google maps.  It's not as precise as a GPS watch, but it gets the job done in terms of figuring out distance and pace. 

I hope everyone has a nice Friday night.

Last year Clydes were wave 7 of 9, but oddly we were right after women 45+ and many of the Clydes (not me) caught up with that wave. Not really an issue honestly because the swim is a single loop and there's plenty of room to spread out. The bike did get bunched up in spots. I'll be doing the race again this year and hope to shave a lot of time off of last year.Thanks you guys for the run timing advice.

I think that the south side of Chicago extends all the way to Columbia, SC, today.  We've had exactly the same weather all day -- rain and temps around 35.  It is raining pretty hard right now, and tonight it is supposed to get below freezing, which will be an ugly sight indeed.  Folks around here pretty much lose contact with reality when water appears outdoors in the solid state.  I am sooooo glad that I'm not supposed to run tomorrow (though I did run through that cr*p today).  It'll be hard enough to motivate myself to go the pool.

I check the time on my Ipod when I start and make a mental note at each mile(have the markers memorized). Not very exact but it gives me an idea. Getting a timex ironman for Christmas so i'll have a better idea of the splits.

Way to get out there in the nasty weather!

We're under a Blizzard warning here on Long Island for the weekend, Guess I'll have to log a back and arms workout for shoveling that foot+ they're calling for!