SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 41)

Not really sure.  I've been fine where I do 3x a week at 2500-3000 each.  But it has seemed to flare up when I go 4-5x at 3000 each.  Intensity is usually about the same...which usually isn't super hard.

Recently my masters coach has been telling me to work on my left arm with more of a high elbow recovery as I tend to sweep my arm across from the outside and then cross over.  Not sure if that change in my stroke has anything to do with it.  Maybe my shoulder isn't quite accustomed to the new movement yet...but my coach says it looks a lot better now and I do feel a lot more balanced.

We'll just have to see how it goes.  My plan for this coming week is to limit my freestyle to 1000 yards per session, work on more kicking with fins, breast stroke and some other forms of swimming like maybe underwater sets.

um...  It's mostly a head cold.  I'll still workout if it's all above my head. 

Based on my (limited) experience, every time I make a modification to my stroke, there is some sort of rebound in my shoulders, neck or upper back. Takes a while to settle in, and then everything is happy again. I like the idea of slowing down the volume a touch and see if it gets better.

Salty - that is wickedly cool (sitting next to fasties like that). I always hope something rubs off on me by osmosis.

Kim - sorry to hear about the cold. Take it a tiny bit easy...

Got my first long(ish) run in today for this training cycle. Felt much better than I think I deserved to.

Ha, running with your daughter sounds as good a reason as any.   Not sounding like a long shot to me.  How you feeling on your long runs?

There's nothing like a tough race coming up to focus the training...

I'm trying to get a better handle on when to hold onto a challenging pace and when to descend for swimming. Last night (Sunday) at Master's the main set had 2x200p, 4 x 100 desc, repeat the series 3 times. I ended up hitting the first 100 yds at 1:20 (1:30 send-off) which is blazing fast for me, only hitting that once before. So decided to just hold onto that as best I could. Ended up with all 12 of the 100's at 1:20-1:21 save for one at 1:19. I've been close once before, but it was on a 1:40 send-off  and I was well rested going in (Fri & Sat were challenging swims this time).

So the question is, what would I have gotten out of starting at say 1:23 and descending from there? There is no reason to expect I could do better than the 1:20 for the fastest one. I didn't want to lose that speed, as has happened before, getting stuck at a slower pace later in a set.

First off, congrats on the great times!

How would you describe your RPE for the 100s?

I've been in that situation plenty of times where you have a descending set and the first one is way faster than expected and I think I'm screwed.  Usually what I do in a situation like that is just go with it and see what happens and adjust as needed.  For example, for the first time through I would probably do the first 3 100s holding the 1:20s and if it wasn't gassing me too badly I would push the 4th and see what kind of time I could do with a really strong swim.  Maybe things go really well and you can pull off a 1:17/18.  The next time through I would aim to do the first one just a little bit slower, maybe 1:21/22 and descend the times down to what your fast one was, so 1:21/22, 1:20/21, 1:19/18, 1:17.  

Another important part of the equation is what the 2x200s were like.  If they were setup with an easier pace time to provide some recovery then that allows you to focus even more on the 100s.  Was there any extra rest after the 100s or just straight back into the 200s?

This sounds like a mental hurdle to me .    I'm with you on not wanting to lose the speed and I wouldn't back off by 3 seconds either.  Given that you held the 1:20/21 range the whole way you wouldn't have gained anything by doing 1:23 down to 1:20 but something like I described above may have been better.  Sometimes you will pull it off, sometimes you blow up.  

It's a good exercise in fine tuning your effort level and feel for the water too.  IMO it is easier to hold a specific time than to make the tiny adjustments that increase your 100 speed by one second at a time.

That awesome. Marathon running just sounds... hard.

Ha.  It's more mentally hard then physically IMO.  Especially when you are slow like me and will be out there a while.  But like anything you train up to the long runs and as long as your week day volume supports your long run attempts it all works out.  Once you figure out how to pace for long runs that is. 

Er, gulp, say wha????? That is an 11+ percent grade average for 10 miles!?!?!?! There are not enough gears in the world for me to be able to ride that... Hopefully it is at least all at the beginning of the ride and you have a 90 mile descent to the finish...

Nope, that is the tail end and when temps are expected to be in the 100's.  lol  The decent is prior to that.  Basically climbing back into Flagstaff which is at 7,000ft or so.  I am a bit of a sucker for these type of rides.

Back up in the mountains I had a much better ride this weekend: on my second climb of the day I held 14 watts higher for 22 minutes than I did on my 20 minute climbing FTP test 4 days prior. And that was after my first climb in which I rode for 43 minutes in mid zone 4.... The difference was all cadence. On my FTP test my cadence was 70, but on the climbs this weekend I ignored everything but cadence (it was actually the only number displayed on my computer) and just held 80-85rpms no matter what. So I think somewhere along the way IM training has caused my "natural" cadence to become much lower that the cadence in which I "naturally produce the most power." Even though I have been riding for 30+ years, I think I somehow bought into the idea (or just didn't understand the nuance) of the common refrain that cadence doesn't really matter - you should just ride at whatever feels "natural." Maybe I am an outlier, but I am definitely doing some cadence work to see if I can get my "natural feeling" cadence to come up to meet my "most efficient power-producing" cadence - for me anyway those two things are clearly different at he moment..

On the upside the first climb was my second fastest time up in the last 3 years, and the second one I beat my PR by a handful of seconds and i still had some space in which to work. Hopefully that means I am in much better shape than I thought I was on Tuesday.

What ride is this? definitely putting it on my bucket list: I like hot, and I like climbing...

only when I have a fever or I have thrown up...otherwise....its a training day. If I have a strange urge to stop a workout (very rare) I always find out later there was a good reason for it. Sprain, concussion etc.

oops this was sposed to be tagged to an earlier post. I am technically challenged. sorry.

http://www.absolutebikes.net/taylor/  The 95 mile route (still do not know how it is called a century but anywho).  Although all their routes do pretty good in the climbing area

That's some crazy elevation!  I have never ridden anything like that and have no concept of what it would be like.

Does anyone know who this is on the Desoto Facebook page???

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151341738137590&set=a.180463017589.125611.50530552589&type=1&theater