Mndymond and Disturbed275's Awesome SBR Mentor group---Full! (Page 4)

Funny, December was like swimming in molasses for me. January is way better (so far). Like you said, just keep one foot in front of the other and you'll do fine.

One day at a time...one race at a time. Training has its good days, its bad days, and days that are just 'meh.' Tomorrow will be better!! 

I struggle to stay motivated but we will learn to 'keep moving'.

Hey Kate,

You might make it a personal goal or insert those exercises into your training plan for long term success. Do you have a training plan?

Planning out my weeks keeps me oriented on the goal. Without a training plan, I am just working out. BT offers several good ones. I have just started making my own this year to fit my needs. I am currently working on my next few months. The BT plans are great to get you on track. With your race being so far away it might be good to do a base plan, first. You can then find a plan that fits your race and plan to end it right before the race. Basically you are working backwards from the race.

Good Luck!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! That is awesome!

Welcome to the group. Alcatraz sounds amazing. I might have to put that one on my bucket list.

x2.  Having a training plan to work off of definitely helps with long term goals.  I also set quarterly goals for myself so that the longer-term goals seem a bit more manageable.  Even now in the off-season/pre-season, I'm following a training plan that's supposed to help with fat loss, so there's a method to my madness!  Every workout I do has a specific purpose.  Once I make enough progress on my fat loss goal, then I plan to re-evaluate what my goal races will be, and what training plan to follow accordingly.

That actually also helps me with the motivation issue as well.  I hate seeing missed workouts on my training plan, so I will usually opt to do my workout even if I'm not feeling it, rather than mark it as a miss in my training log.

I've had that chat with lots of people too about doing a Marathon before IM.... I am one of those that am doing a marathon before IM as per my trainers request. She stated that it's more the psycological preparation it helps with that makes it beneficial to do. At this point I agree. I've only ever trained for a half marathon before and had no idea how my body/mind would respond the to training for the extra hours it would require to do a marathon let alone an Ironman.My marathon is next week which puts it 7 months before IM. at this point I'm happy to have had this training in rather then waiting...I feel I have a bit of a handle on one aspect of the race and will be able to prepare for the bike and the swim with having this foundation down on the run. (but also keeping it up!)

I'm new to this forum thingy ....i'm finding it kind of hard to follow along when the new posts are and I see they are at bottom of a person's message...is there any way to make it easier to read?? or just have to scroll through all the messages??? lol

Thanks! I like that idea. I have noticed improvement as I do races and become more comfortable with the setting and the distances. I didn't realize how much psychological preparation there was to racing (duh). Nerves can be great or a killer. Building confidence in different distances has been nice.

I'm new at this system too, so I'm not sure. I've just been scrolling. I set up the "Toggle email settings" at the bottom. It emails me whenever someone comments but that gets a little obnoxious. If anyone has any pointers I could use them too.

I am learning that the more races I can do the better I perform in my goal race. Just like rydergirl said, it helps psychologically. I would say do a couple 5k or a 10k just to get the race atmosphere down again. Maybe a duathlon so that you are forced to ride the bike. 

You might practice water bottle tactics on a stationary bike or trainer to gain confidence too.

Got off the "couch" today. 30 min walk/run intervals and 20 mins strength training.

Yes, I will be sore for a couple days...I hate restarting over.

Good job!!

Yea You!

I agree with what Robin said above.  I think the bottom line is to pick a plan that looks doable to you.  Any plan you get off the internet will be generic to apply to everyone, so if you need to tweak it based on your personal strengths/weaknesses, then you totally can.  For example, if you're strong in swimming, you may want to sub in one of the swim workouts for an equal-intensity bike or run workout.

Another option is to come up with your own plan; the book "Triathlete's Training Bible" gives guidelines on how to do that based on what your strengths and weaknesses are.  I think the most important aspect of a training plan is total training volume (ie how many hours per week do you spend training), which generally fluctuate throughout the plan based on what phase in training you're in, if it's a recovery or race week, etc.  But for a regular beginner (ie you're not a world-champion marathoner dabbling in tris, etc) then the generic plans should be good enough and easier to follow.

As for modifying the plan based on how you're feeling or fitting into your schedule.... I would say it's ok to switch around workouts from day to day as long as you get all the perscribed workouts in, but I wouldn't change it too drastically.  Remember that usually training plans are written so that hard days are followed by easier/recovery days so don't switch things so that you have several hard workouts in a row.  Also, plans tend to have you build for 2-3 weeks, then recover for a week, so if you're moving things around, make sure you're not working too hard during your recovery weeks!

You also want to be weary of going farther/harder than the plans says or you risk burning out and skip your workouts for the rest of the week/month/season.  Of course, if you're following the plan and after a few weeks it consistently doesn't feel hard enough, maybe you picked one that was too easy... In that case, I'd suggest looking into a different plan.

For reading the forum, I try to check in at least twice a day- first thing in the morning or during my lunch break, and again at night when I log my workouts.  It's really hard to catch up if you don't check in on a regular basis!  What I usually do is find the last post I've read, then read everything so that I can follow the conversation, and respond accordingly.  Of course if there's a lot of posts, I might miss some, and if people have given advice that I have nothing to add to, I won't respond.  

And if I don't have time to catch up on reading everything, I'll at least read the last page and hope that people have quoted any important previous conversations.  I find it's easier to read the flow that way instead of reading back several pages.

I don't have it set to send me an email; I would probably find that annoying!  

Good job!! we had great weather here too!! finished my longest run before the marathon next week- 20.11 km in 2 hrs....best pace/distance yet for me! gave me some more motivation that i'm going to be fine in the marathon!!!

I'm very sore today. Can hardly raise my arms above my head.

Got new running shoes...hopefully helps with my knees...my other shoes are pretty old now.

Great job everybody!!

Tomorrow I start my new Olympic training plan and prepare for The Republic of Texas Triathlon. I found this race yesterday and couldn't help myself. How can a true Texan resist?!

Here we go!!!!