Baowolf mentor group is [ Closed ] (Page 4)

This morning's run mile times: 8:58, 8:09, 8:01, 8:04, 8:16, 8:14, 8:19, 8:24, 8:31 (gel), 8:11, 8:12, 7:57, 7:38 (overall pace 8:15 mpm) Better consistancy over 10 mlies than I have been able to show so far this year. I like to track my long run to see where the drop-off on my pace is to check fitness/fatigue load.

Welcome Jeff, Cathy and Frank and I think we should close it there or I will have too much reading to do every day.  It looks like a nice group, lets hear some questions from our newer members.

Rob 410 is a lot of calories per hour on the bike.  Most folks can not absorb more than 350 calories per hour and it is not one's size so much as how much your stomach can handle.  If you get the solids concentration too high your stomach looks at it as Lunch and not steady slow calorie intake that.  When the body looks at it as lunch it diverts fluids and blood to digestion and takes it away from muscles. 

Joe, your soreness is more likely due to working the same muscle groups across multiple exercizes.  In general eatting well will help, but it won't make fix it if you are trying to build too fast or are using a certain muscle group too much.  If your logs are close to up to date you went from no swim 2 weeks ago to 2 hours of swim last week to 4 hours of swim this week.  That alone is going to kick your tail.  You also added a chunk of running in there. 

So for recovery, pretty much anything will do, milk with or without chocolate, fruit, vegies, pbj, anything. 

If a workout is going to go longer than 90 minutes, most people do well to have a gel or some other form of calories at 60 min and then something every 30 min there after (100/100/100 or whatever).

If you look at your times for a weekly recovery run and it is getting slower over 3 weeks at the same effort, this probably means you are overdoing it and need a rest day.  If you find yourself walking up stairs with both feet on each step leaning on the handrail... ya rest day.  If you really don't want to workout, feel burnt out, hate life, grumpy, etc. and this is not normal for you, probably need a rest day.  This does not mean that 20 rest days in a row will fix you... it means we have a lot of hard driving folks in here and if you push too hard your body will.... help you stop for a while....

I have big time stomach  issues.  I now only use Hammer Brand gels and Perpetuem with my workouts.  It is gluten free and as easy on the stomach I can find.  I know Steve has great info on nutrition.  Being too concentrated has been the biggest issue for me. 

Going to start up again after this recovery week.  I'm excited to get some nice consistent training in!  And injury free!!!

I sent my first profile in yesterday to get on the group. Looks like its closed now. Now that I am at "work" I have time to complete it. Heh.

NAME: faspina/Frank

STORY: 43 yo IT Professional. Been running for about 11 years or so. I have completed 2 marathons, both of them were the local Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham.  Always told myself I wanted to do a triathlon. Swimming is my weakest. Jined the Y last summer, started doing light strength training for the first time in my life. I also bought a used bike and started riding.  The fall got busy and other than a little running I didn't do much of anything. I took two week of of workf for Christmas and that gave me a reason to get back since then I have been pretty consistent doing something every day. Starting in March I concentrated more on Bike, Swim, Run and lightened up on the strength training. 

I am signed of for  mini-Tri on April 22. My first sprint will be June 9 in Birmingham.  I am also doing a 10k with a buddy on Memorial day.

FAMILY STATUS:  Married 18 years. 4 kids (boy 6,14) girls (12, 8)

CURRENT TRAINING: Hybrid 13 week sprint with emphasis on run. But I move it all around a bit .

2011 RACES:  I think I did one 5k on memorial day last year. This was the first race after a bad issues with PF, now I have insoles. 

WEIGHT LOSS: I am 5'7" 145, need to drop about 8lbs , but put on some upper body muscle.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE:  Swimming. I really can't afford a coach, so I got some video from the library am trying to figure out it out. Longest pool swim has been 1000 yard straight, I am confident I could do a mile if I wanted. Right now I am concentrating on bi-lateral breathing drills and just staying consistent in my stroke. I could not say this 6 months ago but I am pretty sure I can do 400 yards. Just waiting on warmer weather to try the lake out. I find swimming and biking somewhat stressfull, what I mean is I am more relaxed when I run and it does more to clear my mind .Swimming and Bike is more of a thinking activity. I hope that goes away .

Training: I took 3 days off for Easter to be with the family. I regret not getting a run in on Saturday. Hit the pool this morning, not a lot of distance intervals , but I used the buoy and practice breathing on my right side which does not come natural. Few more weeks of those drills I should have it down. I will do a core/upper body workout tonight, then Bike/Run brick tomorrow afternoon (30 bike, 20 run). Long run Wednesday,  back in the pool Thursday. At some point next week I need to practice my transition for my first race.

Thanks for letting me in your group Steve.

Name: Cathy

Story: Started  running in 1998.  Ran first marathon (first race ever) in May 2000. Since then have done a couple more marathons, a few half marathons and lots of shorter run races.  In 2006 saw a post on a local running forum looking for someone to be the runner at the local triathlon in August.  I hooked up with 2 other ladies and we finished 33/35 of the relay teams.  But standing in transition for 3+ hours watching all the swimmers and bikers start then finish the race I thought if they can do this so can I.  Except I couldn't swim and didn't own a bike.  So in Oct. I joined the Y stroke improvement class (I could swim dog paddle already so was too advanced for the learn to swim class for those who never swam before) and discovered I wasn't bad at swimming and I really liked it.  Then at the end of Feb 2007 bought a road bike and that year did 6 triathlons, starting with a sprint and finishing with a HIM.  That was my best year for triathlon and things have really gone downhill since then.   In 2008 I did the inaugural Muskoka 70.3.  My only race in 2009 was a half marathon after which I battled with foot pain for months finally getting custom orthotics which seem to have stopped it.   For 2011 I decided to again do the Muskoka 70.3, registered, booked accomodation, started training.  Then in May my then 2 year old granddaughter was diagnosed for the second time with cancer, this time widespread and untreatable. My training came to an abrupt stop. Two weeks later I was diagnosed with periformis syndrome and spent the whole summer with sciatic pain down my left leg and seeing a chiro twice a week for ART.  We went up to spectate at Muskoka and it was sad to watch the race I had planned to participate in.  I finally got cleared to go back to work in Sept. but my running was limited to 30 mins max. before I'd start to get the tingling sensation in my left foot that precluded the leg pain.

This year has started off horribly.  Our granddaughter passed away in Jan. followed by a close friend in early March, my father in law's funeral was Saturday and my aunt passed away that morning.   The gym I belonged to with a pool went bankrupt and closed.    I really need some good things in my life again and running is my first love so my A race goal for this year will be a fall half marathon.

Family Status: Married for 33 years.  We have two grown children and two granddaughters (age 2 years and 5 months).

Current Training:  I log everything so as you can see current training is non existent.

2011 Races: My last triathlon was in 2008 and last running race was in 2009.

2012 Races:  'A' race will be Scotiabank Toronto half marathon in the fall.  Will do a couple local sprints and shorter running races throughout the summer.  Major goal is to stay injury free this year.

Weightloss:  This is a goal for me this year.  I'm currently 149 lbs, would like to get close to 130 before the HM.   I think my biggest limiter in running is my weight.

I have a question for the group.  I'm currently a member of a gym (get a great discount through my work)  that doesn't have a pool.   There is a city pool with pay as you go rates but limited lap swim times and both of these are in the city which is a 30 minute drive each way.  About 10 minutes from me is a beach where I can do OWS once the water warms up a bit more (for me that will be the end of May). 

Does anyone do OWS only as their swim training?  I could still do long swims or shorter intervals although the distances would not be exact (I'd go more by time).  Do you think you 'have' to do pool swimming to get better/faster?   I'm really only looking at being efficient in my tri swims as I am solid BOP.

you are dead on, typo on my part, I was at 310.  with 200 coming from Infinite and 100 from "other"... 600kcal concentrate in the bottle on my downtube and water in my aerobars with food on the top tube.  Even with that, I need to fine tune the timing... 

And this ties back to my point that I am around 800-900kcal/hr and the resulting caloric deficit no matter what I do... thus the critical importance of the weeks leading up to a full distance (or even 1/2 distance) race... 

OWS is great and I do about 50% OWS once the season starts (water is 30 seconds from my backdoor)  That being said, I will say that while working on technique and efficiency, that a pool will be better allowing you to see improvements in time, HR, and general feel with perspective.  Also, many time early on working on efficiency, it is tough and you can get tired pretty quickly and having that wall less than 25yds/m (or 50 depending on the pool) will help you to stick with it!! 

Attempted to run at 9,000 ft this weekend and failed miserably. Although I live at 6,500ft, the jump up in altitude was a bit to much for me. After only 15minutes, I was already at my LT heart rate and decided to call it quits. The fiance and I took the dog for hike later that day instead, which was much more enjoyable anyway. I'm giving myself one more week of recovery after the HIM I did on the 31st. Next week will start the slow climb in training for my IM in Nov.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!

Question for those who've done longer distance races -- is it normal to have a training mid point 'wall'?

I'm just starting week 13 of my 22 week plan and I'm occasionally fed up with all the training, and just wish it were race time. I'm alternately fired up to go s/b/r and longing to just stay in bed.  is this fairly normal for longer course training? This is my first HIM, and the training I'm doing dwarfs anything I've done prior. Don't get me wrong, there is no freakin' chance I'm not finishing the plan, and I will be ready to race and have a good day, but I sometimes look at the training calendar for the next month and think "oy, what the h*ll....".

LOL... you are doign better than I am... I'm right there with you for a HIM on june20th.  Every year, I hit it and have to find a way to push through it!!  I try new bike routes, concentrate on nutrition analysis, video my swim, buy some new toy to play with...  new shorts (and throw out the old).   Sometimes I get my wife to push me too... if I have a long straight swim, i'll have her and the girls drive the boat next to me the the whole way.  Much more difficult to quit when your girls are there and there isnt' a wall 25 yds away. 

Every year I get to the same point.  I would guess even the pros feel it too!

Hey there gang members, old (Ceril, Karen, Beth) and new!  Great to see such an awesome group coming together.  Looks like we have several going for HIM and or IM distances this year.  Hopefully will encourage me to commit to the HIM I have my eye on.

Hm, so I swam this morning (first time in a week or so), and then got in the hot tub for a few minutes to stretch.  Got in the shower, and started to feel very nauseous and light headed.  Got out and barely made it into the locker room....room spinning and going grey, sweating and shaky.  Lady there got me a cold towel and after sitting with my head down for a while I managed to get dressed.  First thought was blood sugar, but it was fine.  Friend came and picked me up and after chilling out a while at her house, I feel mostly better still a bit queasy.  My FIL (93) had a stomach bug last week that landed him in the hospital and hubby wound up with either that or food poisoning.  Sickest I've ever seen him.  3 trips to Care Now kept him out of the ER.  So...really hoping this was just going from pool to hot tub too fast.  Last thing I did in the pool was some faster 50's and didn't do a cooldown before getting in the hot tub. Hopefully I was just stupid, not sick!  Has this happened to anyone else -- going from swim to hot tub too quickly >>> almost passing out? 

Happens to me every time.  I try to have 3 big weeks then 1 recovery week when training.  I find that that recovery week helps me not get too burnt out.  That being said, Just ask my wife about half way through my training I get tired and grumpy.  Just have to push through and getting  through it mentally is the hardest part.

Just did a nice 6 miler.  Had some very bad heartburn in the middle and had to pull off and throw up.  I have to take a pill everyday for my stomach etc... and ran out yesterday.  That mixed with all the junk food did not do Mitch too well.

Decent run anyway though.  Splits were: 8:39, 8:27, 8:04, 8:21 (Throw up mile), 8:04, 8:02.  Tried to keep it easy the first couple miles then tempo a bit... Re building  my base...

Frank you  are in, just trying to keep it so that I can stay up with everyone and it not get too out of control 8).

Sorry to hear about your losses.  Hope we can be of support to you.

Yes during IM and HIM and even Mary training there is often a point solidly into the build where you get a bit burnt.  You get low energy, low motivation, tired, hungry, grumpy.... somtiems it just takes a rest day to ditch a little fatigue.  But it is part of the process.  Taper also has its own crazyness where you have too much energy and are anxious about ther ace and just want to get to the starting line.

Pulled muscle is still a problem, thanks for asking, Ceril. Glad I could do master swim tonight with pull buoy. I'll see a PT on Wed and get to the bottom of it.

I have tried foam rollers but didn't stick with it. A tri friend swears by them and is urging me to try it again and stick with it for a while and it won't hurt as much.

Carol--similar thing happened to me after a hard master swim and way too much time in the dry sauna-- I got very dizzy and nauseous while I was showering. Hope it is just that and not the bug.

Mitch--your throw-up mile is faster than my feeling good mile. Sorry you got sick, but damn, you totally rock anyway!