Olympic 3x Balanced 16/20 Week Group (Page 4)

as TTMA said, the off season is a GREAT time to realistically assess what your weaknesses are, and develop some plans to shore them up. If you aren't a former swimmer, it's a great time to get some lessons, work on drills, and really get better at form.

If not that, then taking some time to work on a single sport (Often called a "focus") to bring it up to speed (HAH! I made a funny!) is one of the best ways to have some fun in the off season.

John

10/2/60 is mine too.

Pool was full this morning and no one was willing to split a lane. 

Seriously? That is ridiculous! Next time, don't be shy and just get in a darn lane and start swimming. Is there a lifeguard?

Lifeguard couldn't have been any older than 16.  She's wasn't about to stand up to anyone.  So I just started week 4.  What I would call a deload week if it were weight lifting.  These types of weeks always make me feel lazy even though I know they're for my own good.

Off day tomorrow.  Good thing too.  I need it.  Legs are rubber.

It was in the low 70s this morning.  Felt awesome for training.  Makes me worry about my OWS in October though since I don't have a wetsuit. 

Brrrr! Is there a tri shop nearby that rents wetsuits?

I have a buddy about my size, fit may be a little tight through the shoulders, that has a wetsuit he never uses.  May borrow it.  Ofcourse this is Houston and it could be 90 degrees again by that time.  Who knows. 

So not prepared for this sudden jolt of cooler weather.  Got out this morning and had to cut my ride short due to a headache and the snot streaming down my face.  Still averaged about 20 mph though.  Also added some leg exercises back in to my weight routine yesterday which I've left out since tapering for my last race.  Goodness my legs are sore.

AH...the good old days. :D

I feel your pain, I ran x-country at a mountain college in Colorado. Baclavas and similar are great, especially when you have the wind chill on top of everything.

John

Cross country in Colorado just doesn't sound fun to me.  Scenic yes, fun no.

What is fun is how swimming long distances is getting exponentially easier lately.

Added in squats and deads this week.  My legs feel so much stronger for so much longer.  Sometimes I miss power lifting.

That too. I've been swimming competitively since I was 4. Also in Colorado. You think RUNNING is cold, try coming out of a pool after a winter AM workout to head to school.

Nothing like sitting in your first class and having the girl behind you say "Is your hair...frozen?"

Glad the distances are starting to get easier...once that happens it's time to start adding the intervals and thresholds, and really make it hurt again. :D

John

Pain is fun.  I think I'm going to get through this plan once strictly by what is printed and then mess around with intervals and thresholds.  FWIW I like the hurt.  Means you're moving forward.

Ran the Susan G Komen here in town on Saturday.  5k in 24:10.  Not bad but I could have gone faster.  Left some in the tank which disappointed me a little and there were some people on course that had no business in a timed run.  Got boxed in a few times.  Blech.

Getting boxed in at a typical road race is more about race awareness and less about the other people.

And I'm surprised you'd say that, about people out supporting a good cause, on a site geared for beginners.

When does one become "worthy" of being able to do a timed run? There would be other people that wouldn't consider 24:xx time as one that should be running in a timed race. It's all a matter of perspective.

John

This is true.  I decided to start MOP with a friend who was running instead of making sure I was near the start line at the gun.  Pretty much my fault. 

I'm just uber competitive and it's just the way I feel about the whole thing.  I'd actually consider my time borderline not worthy of a timed race either honestly.  I'm actually pretty sure I should have been in the noncompetitive run instead of the timed one.

Congrats on your race. Part of learning to race all out is just a matter of practice, so keep it up!
You will always have slower people in races, especially charity races, that don't have similar goals to yours and may be out there just to support the charity or to have fun. It's just part of racing. It is that way in triathlon as well...even the pros have to deal with it on multiple loop courses. No sense in making judgments about whether people should or should not be racing. We are all just trying to do OUR best, and whether that compares to YOUR best is irrelevant to whether we deserve to be out their with you. A person doing a 40 minute 5K has every right to participate in a timed run if they are gunning for a 38 minute 5K after months of training, don't you think?
Congrats again on your 5K time.

See this is a foreign concept to me really.  I was raised to believe that if you're going to be an impediment to the performance of the majority of the athletes out there you either compete but stay out of the way, or you find what one might deem a minor league race.  In this instance that would be registering for the non-competitive run.  I actually felt that perhaps I should have been in that group, especially with the advent of Garmin/Runkeeper/etc.  Based on a couple of my posts I see my mindset isn't the norm with most here and I'm cool with that.  I just have to tone it down a little. 

As I said above it's pretty much my fault for getting boxed in.  First of many competitive run only events to come so I'll learn from it.

Again if my tone or anything I posted offended anyone it wasn't my intent.  This is just my outlook on competitive events and while it gets me in trouble sometimes on message boards it also fuels me to get to the point I feel myself worthy of competing on a certain level.

Oh, I totally get it! We all have our inner dialog that motivates us! Don't be too hard on YOURSELF, though. Be proud of your accomplishments and enjoy those PRs, even if you still have the desire to be better! Give yourself a pat on the back!
BTW, what exactly do you mean by "non-competitve" run? Like, did that race have an option for not being timed but at the same distance? I have never seen that before. I have seen races where they have you line up by projected finish time but not one where they have a timed and un-timed division. Just curious!

There were 4 or 5 categories.  Family 1k, Competitive Run (timed 5k), Non Competitive run (Same course but not timed), Walk, and something else.  There were over 35k participants.

35,000 people?!?! HOLY COW!