Tony's Xterra & Short Course Tri Group - OPEN (Page 4)

I like to set ambitious goals that will take a lot of work to get to. If I don't and I feel like I can do it with slacking off, I will try to do it by slacking off. So, I want to do a 1500m swim in sub 28:00. It's ambitious for me. I'm working on planning out my training through October or November now with that specifically in mind. Most of my planned Xterra swims are only 800m. I'd love to go sub 15:00 on that, but that would be an end of the season goal.

I'm pretty proud of the 1:37 PR as I started swimming less than a year ago. In August, I was coming in at 2:15/100 in a balls out 100. I did it at the cost of some cycling, so I need to pick that up now.

- Joel

Hump day.  

Who's doing what?  

Who's feels like crap? 

Who's ready for the weekend!?

Felt absolutely fatigued on my run last night, and strained my neck on the pullup bar. Got home, made a berry and coconut water smoothie with some honey. Thought maybe not enough carbs. Had dinner with the family, then took a pain reliever and went to bed at 8:30pm.

We have a super sprint this weekend. Just got a road bike and have no idea how to shift gears on it. I've done everything in that last 1.5 years on my mountain bike. I guess I should figure it out before Sunday, ha!

Tonight is swim and run training with my groups.

Have a great evening!

Joel, I find sitting in the sauna after a swim helps curb the hunger.  It's actually pretty common and some people attribute the hunger after swimming to the water cooling your core.  Heat the core back up and hunger goes away

Kyle, man you're lucky!  That NEVER happens to me! LOL

My legs are still toasted!  At 37 I don't think I recover from weight training like I used to.  I'm thinking that's why I have no strength in my legs.  After adding the strength training to my program I've been worthless on the bike.  I can't get near the power numbers I'm supposed to be at on my workouts.  I can't get my HR up at all, there is just no energy in my legs.  Is this just a matter of getting used to the strength training?

A couple of other things are going on too which is making it hard to pinpoint why I can't get a quality workout in.  The diet!  It's probably tough to recover without carbs...right?  And I did have a day this week I got very little sleep.  Like 1-2 hours.

Any comments? suggestions?

No recovery suplements right now, while on the diet.  I am eating protein, all day every day.  Like every couple hours I eat something and it's all protein right now, including shortly after workouts.  Yep, I stretch/foam roll/etc.  Tony makes sure it's in my program.

For me, and I work some crazy hours sometimes myself, I always shut it down if it gets too late.  My minimum I would like to get is 5 hours sleep.  If I won't be able to do that, I skip the workout.  I'm curious to see what Tony says about this though!

5 hours wouldn't be enough for me to recover from a tough workout. 5 hours nightly wouldn't be enough for me to consistently get quality workouts. I could get my workout time in, but I would have good workouts with much less consistency. I always feel that quality of the workout is as important as the quantity. I aim for 7 a night, and that's tough. I don't have crazy hours at work, but I do have a significant amount of work to do outside of normal work hours (by nature of my job). If I know that I'll need more sleep, I will skip a morning workout and get an extra hour. I definitely notice the difference.

If it were me deciding between a few extra miles or building base, I'd look for some way to multi-task while on the trainer (which I don't have....yet) to get the extra miles in. I'd try to do something else I need to do while on the trainer. I don't like sleep (I'd rather be running!), but know that it is necessary if I want to do well.

Anyway...that's how I see it.

Medium 8 mile run after work today.

Good luck!

- Joel

You know my response... HTFU... ) 

Yeah its tough with busy scheduled and everyone is different.  If 5 hours works for you, then go for it.  

Not too much too soon; well OK maybe it is.  But it's designed to be, afterall its January in Chicago!  So, better to break you now, then build you up for your next race.  HTFU the rest of the week, next week looks easy.  

In regards to the lower weight / high rep - that doesn't make you strong.  Think about cycling; thats already a HIGH rep / low weight workout.  Mimicking that in the gym is worthless.  It's called STRENGTH training.  It SUCKS doing it and makes you hurt (I just started this week and can barely walk! LOL), but, once it all comes together its REALLY worth it.  

You can always work on the speed work (low volume high intensity) stuff while your workout; and rest days (stretching, foam rolling, etc). Then when your off focus on the extra miles.