SCIFT group (Short Course is Fast Twitch)! (Page 4)

 I'm kind of in the same boat, minus the whole podium thing. I think I ramped up a little too fast for my race next weekend. I've been doing either track intervals or hills once a week as well as added mileage. My IT band is starting to bark at me. I'm pleading ignorance as a defense, I thought that was how you were supposed to do it. Been following Higdon's Intermediate plan minus one short day.

 This winter I really want to focus on building a solid base. Planning on doing a BarryP type of plan. Perhaps 5 days a week all at any easy pace. Probably throw a 5k in every 4 to 6 weeks just to check my progress.  For the bike I'm going to use trainerroad. i just order the Garmin sensor and an ANT stick. Haven't wrapped my head around the swim portion yet.

 Of course, I need to figure out a plan to pull it all together. Nobody told me I would have to think so much to compete at Tri's.

lani, take care!

I'm more into working with running concepts than following any one particular plan. Read through this and the links for a good deal of the concepts. I don't know why his links don't go to the first page of the thread, but make your way there.

The BarryP 1-2-3 has been a simple way to help divide up the mileage for a week. It's more semi-structured than a true plan. In that it's a guideline for how to distribute the running, but doesn't say exactly what to run each day like a plan would. So for you guys, take whatever you've been doing as a weekly total and divide by 10. That will be 1 unit. 3 times a week, run 1 unit, 2 times, run 2 units, 1 time, run 3. Spread them out throughout the week something like 1-2-1-2-1-3-Rest. The exact order isn't so important so long as you keep the 1's between the 2's & 3.

So for 15 miles a week, that would be 1.5 miles for 1 unit. 1.5-3-1.5-3-1.5-4.5-Rest. All of this is at easy pace. Until you get more miles, all running is at easy pacing. And all of the runs should be repeatable. As in you should feel like you could do it again right there. And you should always be able to talk without struggling. If you have to time breaths in the slightest, it's too hard. Make sure you have a distinction between "easy" and "hard" for pacing. For an example, my hard run pacing is somewhere in the low 6's/mile, possible slightly beating that, or around my 5 & 10k pacing depending on what I'm doing. My "easy" pacing is back near 8/mile. Look more at the differential than the the exact values. Doing this, I've been able to get my weekly mileage more than a few times higher than 15 and still feel pretty good and I have not had a history of being indestructible. Not prior to making the difference so distinct.

I'll see if i can round up some other ideas on getting miles in, but for now, the general idea is learn how to make sure your easy is actually easy so that you can run more frequently. Through that frequency you'll build more volume over time with bits added to the run.

Where in NJ are you? I grew up in Brick. The pictures and videos coming in are heartbreaking. Hope you and everyone else are safe.

Hope everyone is doing well...especially those being impacted by Sandy.

Been focusing on swimming and running the past 2 months and they have been coming along nicely.  So now it's time to put a little more attention back on the bike and even things out.

Flip turns and bilateral breathing are definitely two skills I want to master this winter. Awesome post on run training by the way, I've been working through the different links. I work for the regional telco so I've been pretty straight out with post Sandy repair. Luckily we didn't get it as bad as a lot of  people. Still not much time for anything else though.

I keep telling myself I'll learn to do flip turns, but I never do.

After taking some time off from the big race, I decided to figure out several things I'd been meaning to do in the pool. One was swimming with the ankle band. The other was flip turns. I was at least going to give it an honest effort (ie work really hard at) for the one session and see how things went. After using the band, how to use the paddles became more apparent too. Kind of knew before, but it's going better now. Some of that is from watching details more closely and more proactively fixing something instead of waiting for it to come.

I'd been bilateral breathing for a few years, but switched to one-sided earlier in the summer. Helped out a lot in being able to push harder and farther. I'd still work both sides by doing like 50 on the right then 50 on the left, alternating that way throughout the set.

I'm attempting to teach myself bilateral breathing and flip turns as well.  Honestly, I've never been entirely concerned with being able to do either since a) you don't do flip turns in open water, and b) for a race, I'd rather be breathing every stroke, rather than bilaterally.  But I decided learning to breathe bilaterally would be smart since there may be times when breathing to the left is inconvenient (choppy water, sun rising, etc), so I've decided to at least make an attempt....it's definitely not natural or easy yet (I can do it for a few laps and then I need a length of breathing on just one side again). 

This week has been a bit of a mess for me (nothing like dealing with Sandy, but not a typical week).  We just closed on a house and moved in over the weekend.  But I did manage to get in a "brick" this morning -- trainer ride followed by aquajogging.

Should we do monthly totals here as well? Well, here goes:

Swim: 16,500 yds

Bike: 573 miles

Run: 324 miles

Swimming is way down as I'm focusing elsewhere right now. But I'm also revamping some technique and have increased the effort. Every time I'm in the water, I seriously do not know if I can complete the workout. The volume will build up over time.

Bike is down some and has largely been fairly easy riding. Getting myself back together before picking it up. the mileage will go up some, but the intensity will go up quite noticeably at times. I've also been riding in aero position a lot, so that it's easier to hold. Yes, this matters for short-course too.

Running has been kind of an experiment. Big increase in volume to get everything built up stronger. Even with this volume, there is still a speed focus. First I'm conditioning my body to better handle impact. As I get more used to it, I can do more speed. For me, namely variations of threshold running. Doing 10-11 runs a week with a couple ones at 9-10 or so and one at 11-12. These are the three I push on in some way. All the other running is well within easy pacing with some strides in a few of them. The hard ones have to be hard, otherwise I need to back off on the easy pace to make the next one where it should be. The hard ones aren't necessarily that much more key (the overall volume is), but they do require more thought in being able to perform them well. If the easy runs are a bit of a struggle, then I need to back off somewhere until they are easy again. That would include backing way off on the hard ones if things are feeling great going into one.

Well, you managed to make me feel like a slacker.

Run: 79 Mi.

Bike: 0

Swim: Haven't kept a log, Ill start this month. It wasn't much.

Bike: 9h 34m

Swim: 8h 23m - 30621 yd

Strength: 4h 55m

Working on strengthening my left quad so my knee has the support it needs.  Still can't do impact activities, but starting on aquajogging in November.

Pretty happy with the swim time.  Starting today, I'll be doing two Master's sessions per week and one session on my own.  Hoping to bump up the bike a bit.

Use whatever means necessary for motivation.

It's on, my friend. It's on.

Oh, something else with the increased run frequency. If you guys have only been running 3x/wk, then you don't have to jump right to 6. Shorten up your runs, but add a day. Get comfortable with that and add another. Make the additions short. If you like the way BarryP divides up the runs, then work towards distributing the miles in this fashion. 20-30 minute runs for everything is fine while you're making the adjustment. When you get to (most) every day, then add to just some of the runs to get more variation. So that the stress load isn't the same every day.

We'll manage for a few days. Take care of your place!

And that is a nice room!

Completely understandable. Hopefully, life gets back to normal for you soon. Nice pain cave.

Saturday was an easy hour or so running, then ~50 miles on the bike. Exploring some roads I hadn't really done much before. No specific goal other than to just ride. Of course, no riding I do is ever mostly a pleasure cruise. Lots of time in aero and still at IM effort or just over.  Position work is helping. Holding it longer stretches and it's easier to do so.

Yesterday was tough. Did the longer run of near 12 miles in the morning. Wanted to get a tempo of near 5 miles in there, but late in mile 3 of the tempo part of my left quad quit working right. So I just backed off and ran it easy the rest of the way. Seemed ok with that. Shortened up the 2nd run a bit. Swimming is still swimming, so is always how much I can stand. 200's are such a torture.

The amount of work I'm doing may not seem to be short course specific, but I'm trying to go faster. And in trying to go a lot faster a bigger training load is needed. Someone looking to make it through ok can get away with doing less volume on short course (vs long course), but someone who wants to go faster should do more regardless of race distance. As the event approaches, workouts will be more tailored to the specific race to target the intensity of them. But for me right now, more is more so I do what I can fit in.