Funked Up Triathletes (Sprint, Olympic Focus) Group - Closed Until Next Season (Page 4)

Jesse- when you're on a steep (say > 5% hill) and you're sitting and spinning in a small gear, what are you doing mph wise? ballpark.

On hills like that sometimes I sit and spin and sometimes i stand to climb. I haven't noticed much difference in speed, usually anywhere from 13 to 15 mph depending. I sometimes "feel" like I need to stand when climbing but maybe it is just a perceived effort mental thing, no real speed increase noticeable vs. sitting for me.

Shoot I don't know for absolutely certain since I don't have any kind of speedometer/odometer/power gauge or anything on my bike, it's all by feel. Realistically I'm probably doing about 14-16mph depending on effort (I know I was doing around 13-14 two years ago). Then in reverse I'll go down the hill around 30 possibly a little faster so I average out around my intended flat racing threshold pace of 23-24mph.

Of course the average doesn't always work out so well on a continually rolling course, but you get pretty close.

I'm not even in the ball park of you guys then. I need to lose more weight. Down to 183 lbs now, but need to get closer to 175-176. Maybe I should get liposuction before this tri with the big hill to help out my speed?! :-)

Triathlon is almost entirely focused on the kind of power/weight ratio you can put together. When I started racing tri's my sophomore year of college I was averaging around 19mph at my fastest(read: flat course) on the bike and now (we'll see this weekend) I am hoping to hit 23-23.5mph on my high end. It's taken a lot of building up my bike time to get anywhere near there and 4-5 years of racing to see that for me.

That's not how it happens for everyone, but endurance sports are such a long term game its hard sometimes to focus on the little gains each and every day since you want to focus on the huge gains that take a long time to get.

Just keep after it, enjoy the sport and being fit. If done right it really is a lifestyle.

Waking up on post-race morning and I feel like I've gotten hit by a truck. Guess that means I left in on the course.

Ended up 8th overall in the Age groupers (would consider it 16th overall counting age group elite) and 1st in my age group by posting the fastest age group run time for the day and 3rd fastest counting age group elites. Disappointed with my swim and bike times, but there wasn't much more I could do I suppose so it is what it is.

Results are here for anyone interested. http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=32969&submi...

Male pros kicking the course's butt pretty hard it makes me feel inadequate sometimes, ha.

Anyway I got done what I needed to get done so I'll be getting my registration in for Age Group Nationals and the 5150 National Championship.

That's simply awesome! congratulations!
John

Great job!

is this group still open? If so, room for one more?

Yes it's still open, no mistake on not changing the title. Just a few regular posters in the group so room for one more is certainly here. Feel free to do your "intro" post with the who/what/where/why stuff or just jump right in.

Welcome either way.

Hey everyone I look forward to joining. I noticed Funk leads this group and I live in the same area. I was in one of these groups last year and really benefited from having a group to bounce ideas off of.

NAME: David aka dprocket / Twitter: dpanjada / Blog: workoutblogger.com

STORY: I'm in my 2nd year in triathlons. I have always hated running. About 3 years ago my wife and I (both athletes in high school) started a "biggest loser" challenge with each other. I went from about 225# to about 190#. Then, we both went into the world of P90x and Insanity workouts. My "fighting weight" was 178# and then in Nov. of 2010 I tore my knee out placing football. I had ACL reconstruction in February 2011 and basically gained weight from too much weight lifting and little (er, no) cardio. I've always admired triathletes but never thought I "could" because of my disdain for running. When I invited one of my buddies (who is an extreme distance runner and triathlete) to work out with me (in "my world) I realized that athletically I could do it if I applied myself. Having not run more than 1 mile at a time for at least 15 years, I signed up for a little indoor tri on 3 weeks notice. I was hooked. I then signed up for a modified Olympic Distance race (with a 7+ mile run) and gave myself about 1.5 months to train for it.

I survived, and then finished 2 other Olympic distance tris last season. I am not fast, AT ALL, but have become a sort of junkie and love the sport.

FAMILY STATUS: Married 12 years, 4 children (9,7,2 and 7 months!). My life is very busy and I don't have tons of time to train. My workouts happen between 4-7am. I'm also very involved with my church and family. Any "workouts" that don't happen early in the morning tend to get missed due to the busyness of the day.

WEIGHT LOSS: I am 6' and 194.5# this morning. To be frank, I need to lose at least 15 pounds and I'm convinced that is the single biggest thing holding me back from getting faster.

Goals: My personal best is a 2:46:00 Olympic tri in Washington D.C. last September. My goal to start the year is to go under 2:30 at the same event this year. I think that is an aggressive goal, but it's what I'm aiming for. Based on how I've fared so far this season, I've got a lot of work to do.

David great to have you on board. Sounds pretty well like you've caught the bug like most people who get into triathlon do. You do one and then you can't get enough.

Although I'm busy I wouldn't qualify my life as cram packed as yours aside from training hours. That aside I definitely understand the need to get things done in the morning. Even if I have time in the evening its so much harder to get going if you haven't done anything all day.

At the beginning of the thread (what? you didn't read the entire thread? ha) I had mentioned helping John out with some technique critique on his run form via video. If you'd like to do that as well I'd be more than happy to help out and shoot you the link to the beginning video I've made on run form.

Additionally which this is open to everyone in the group as well. If you're interested in bumping up the quality of your nutritional intake with some of the protein pancake mix I make then I can make that available to you for zero cost for your initial sample (currently available on the site free sample paying shipping I'd nix the shipping for your sample). I could probably just drop it off to you being so close (can't say that with everyone!).

Anyway let me or anyone else in the group know how we can help you if there's any questions you have that's what we're here for.

Here's a question for you and anyone else with input...

What should my training program look like with multiple races in a short period of time. 2 weeks ago I did an Olympic, than again this past Sat. And now I'm scheduled to do an Olympic in Omaha in 3 weeks. I struggling to figure out the best approach to try to recover, train and taper a bit in a short cycle.

Actually I have a similar kind of scenario coming up with Regionals, Nationals and the Hyvee 5150. 3 weeks to regionals, then 3 weeks inbetween regionals and nationals and then 3 weeks to Hyvee Nationals.

The way I'll structure my training schedule still revolves around my 4 week cycle where 3 weeks are regular training load and the 4th is a rest week (just decreased mileage, intensity stays the same) modified to adopt various amounts of taper dependent on the race. So how exactly it gets done depends on where those races fall in the pattern I'm on.

In general however the week following a race I'll have essentially 2 days of recovery then back into my regular training days. If a week is not connected to a race at all then it follows the regular training loads and of course if there's a race on the end of the week then I'll adjust the taper dependent on which race it is. Regionals this year much like last year I'll just have a very small taper for and essentially treat the race as a brick workout of higher intensity since my focus is on my A race at Nationals. Taper gets much bigger for Nationals and starts on Monday for the Saturday race, just gradually cutting down mileage but keeping intensity high.

Do you have a training program already set up we can take a look at to make suggestions or are you trying to write it out?

I'm doing 5 sprints in about 9 week period, and I couldn't find any plan that accounted for any more than 2 races, so I just kept my
regular 16 week plan I was following and altered it to take a full rest day after each race and lightened the load 2 days prior to
every race and that's what I'm going with. However, I'm just doing the sprints to gain experience and don't really have any "A" races, per
se.

John

After the 5150 this past weekend, I sat down to consider things that I need to change in order to improve my performance. Somethings just can't change (for instance, I just can't add many more hours of training per week). So, a few of the things I decided to do were:
- Get more input from other people (that's what led me to joining a mentor group again)
- Drop some pounds, this will make me faster and getting some accountability will help
- Get more focused with my training, instead of just doing "some swimmin, bikin, and runnin" (I took advantage of the BT special that just ended and actually paid for a package to access some more precise training programs).

So, I just built a plan with my Sept 8 race date and am (right now) thinking of just adjusting it slightly for Omaha (7/21). I'm also going to try keep my logs up to date here at BT too. I log everything in Training Peaks, but am trying to regularly transfer it to BT since that is where my plan lives.

Accountability is huge when it comes time to train and you just don't feel like it. That's why having a training partner or team is more ideal than being out by yourself, but this just isn't possible for most people (myself included).

I'd agree losing a little weight (as long as we're talking strictly fat, be careful about eating up muscle) will probably help make you faster. As I've said and will say time and again triathlon is in a major way about the power/weight ratio you can put out, especially on the bike.

From what I've read Omaha is going to be a beautiful venue and I'm planning on it being about the same difficulty as the 5150 course we just did in St. Louis. So I'd say think about how you'd want to prepare for the 5150 over again and then adjust your plan accordingly.




As an aside for anyone in the group. I'm contemplating starting a little mini video series talking about how to build a periodized training schedule and its various stages (base 1 and 2, build 1 and 2, peaks, etc.). This would essentially give you the basics any coach uses to build a plan for you. Is this something you guys would be interested in/think would be useful to people?

I'm sure John is shaking his head at me as I haven't continued with my running form series yet, but this one is more easily done just recording on the computer John I promise! No need to set up the tripod and video myself Uncle Rico style.

Uncle Rico...lol..nice reference!

Yeah, I would be interested in a little video series...cool idea.

Not shaking head, I understand you're busy and appreciate all the advice so far! I would be very interested in a video series on training schedules. I'm going to be especially interested in figuring out what to do between October and February to not only maintain my fitness but improve it for next season without over training.

thanks- John

This probably will not be of any interest whatsoever to anyone but Funk since I doubt anyone else is racing Omaha....
I did Omaha last year. It was my first *real* Olympic distance race (the previous race was weather shortened) and it's also the event that I discovered what this means:

That said, I don't think the course is very similar to 5150, although it probably equally difficult.

I'm basing this on my memory and downloads from last years race (where I wasn't fit enough).

The Omaha bike course reminds me of the 5150 Run course...it's hills the entire way. You're either (as I remember it) climbing or descending. I can share my data from my ride if you're interested as I think the course is unchanged.

Also, I'm interested in the run technique video you mentioned...

Edited by dprocket 2013-07-02 5:13 PM

John,
this may or may not work for you but this is what I am planning for that time period. My season ends with an Olympic distance race in Melbourne, FL on September 29th. After that its the off-season. Going to take the entire month of October and do nothing SBR. Total recharge mentally and physically. 1st week of November through Christmas will be a maintenance phase. Thinking maybe 3 runs a week, bike once a week, probably no swimming. Just enough so that on January 1 it doesn't feel like I am starting from scratch. Then on January 1 its full throttle training again with an early season first race in either late March or early April.

This is what I intend to do, but as this is my first year, we'll see how it goes.

Lots to reply to here.

John: It's mainly me just wanting to get stuff out there. It applies directly to you guys and you can give me feedback on the videos and such, but obviously it doubles as "marketing material" as an inexperienced 24 year old tries to build a pancake empire, ha. But really I love being able to say here take a look at this and helping people directly which is why I started a mentor group in the first place, but that's neither here nor there I suppose.

David: Definitely interested in seeing whatever data you can throw my way about the Omaha race. It's so funny that the 5150 I'd consider mid-level difficulty in terms of hills and regionals is supposed to be a beast, but Nationals I'm told by my coach is supposed to be flat as a pancake (I've taken a look at the elevation map and it's rise and run of a max 100 ft so not too bad).

Also I love the graph. I'm a mathematician so anytime I can get mathy stuff mixed in with triathlon stuff I have a smile on my face. What kind of run course do you remember it being? I assume flatter than the St. Louis race. I'm just interested to see what kind of flat out time I can put out at the end, but I may have to wait the month and a half to find out.

Doesn't look like the embed of the video is working here on the forums, but here's the link to my run form demo video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CfrdBoA2xs

A few related to racing/training podcasts (obviously more to come) on the protein pancake blog as well.

Also for anyone interested I just finished doing my write-up of the race. If you're extremely bored and wanted to be enthralled *cough* err trudge through my race reflection its up on the blog.
http://www.jessefunk.com/i-am-a-triathlete-st-louis-5150-race-in-re...

Great race report Jesse. Awesome job!
I don't think you came out and said what your run split was.
I wish I could run them down like you described.

Great report. I enjoyed reading it. I can relate to those 40 year old blowing by on the bike. The onyl difference is that I never saw them again on the run.

I sent you a personal message with some course info.

A few questions on the running form video. This is a huge area that I need work in, so bear with me.

It looks like that chicken is a heel striker. Just kidding, but I'm wondering about your stance on the strike. I tend to run on my toes and consciously am working on a mid foot strike. Thoughts?


Also, I have a cadence sensor for my bike, but do not have a foot pod. Do you recommend one?