tcovert's Winter 2009 Mentor Group - FULL (Page 42)

Shared your weight loss stories, Todd and Scott, especially since you have experience with WW. Members seemed to be very impressed and motivated. I always want them to know what is possible and you both are shining examples of that.

Todd -- Wildflower's coming up quick, huh? There's lots of people coming up from San Diego apparently.

I'm off to do a bike ride and my core class today. This is a TT week for me so we test my s/b/r to see if I go any farther in the same period of time or faster in the same distance. It's that same down tempo run. My training gets cut back on this week, too. Want to get this ride in before it heats up too much. Still warm, but not as hot as yesterday.

Happy Tuesday!

Cool that you got a deal Scott. I got mine used and inexpenive as well. That break away zipper thing sounds interesting. Don't think mine does that.  You may have heard this already, but to get it off your feet, use pam cooking spray or body glide on your legs, heels and ankles generously. I've also seen people use plastic grocery bags to help get the suit on over your feet/legs, but I've never had a problem with that.

Maybe it was official Be Kind to the IceMan day and someone forgot to tell you!

What's up for everyone this weekend?

Happy biking and running Scott and Todd...and Morgan, say hi to Shamu for me. Have fun with your daughter.

I've got my son's track meet tomorrow out in  Escondido. Glad it won't be hot. I'm going to get a run in the morning and then a bike with DH on Sunday. He's off on a biz trip to the east coast on Monday. Looks like my training is going to start ramping up a bit. Nowhere near the 20 miles you're doing Todd!!

I may check out that book ,Scott. My inner critic often tries to get the best of me. And, I do believe goals are great as long as they are realistic, yet we don't want to short change ourselves either. It's a tricky business. Trying to keep it all in perspective is the key. I re-visit the reasons for tri training at all and what I want out of it. Actually, one of the forms my new coach had me fill out had that very question. Why do you want to do triathlons? It might be a question some of us need to re-examine periodically to keep us grounded. Same as why do we run marathons. Like with Todd's wife.  Reading of her experience kind of scares me, but I guess that's the mental toughness often mentioned in the same sentence with marathons. It's on my list of "to dos" so I guess I'll find out one of these days.

Hope you all have a great week. Today's my rest day and I'm going to be true to it. This is the first week of a build cycle for me in all three disciplines. The times spent in each are inching up a bit every week.

I imagine this is a taper week for you, Todd. It will be great to say you've conquered Wildflower!

Have fun at SeaWorld Jocelyn and happy birthday to your boy! Morgan -- hope that family is doing fine and your DW isn't quite so sick.

Lynn

Doing the run with Liz yesterday pretty much validated some things I tend to believe about the marathon, both from my experiences and what I've heard from others.

The marathon really divides into three sections.  The first third or so (8-10 miles) should be within the comfort zone for most people who take on a marathon, i.e., it should be within the range where most longer runs are on a regular basis.  During this section, you're warming up and feeling good and the temptation is there to go too fast.

The second section (middle third, say miles 9-18) is where the outcome of your marathon is really set up.  This is where pretty much everyone--no matter how fit--is going to really start working.  This is where you have to constantly manage the race...back off your pace if you need to, watch your posture, take in extra nutrition or electrolytes, what have you.  This is all with the recognition that everyone is going to be suffering for most or all of the last third of the race and you need to make it out of the middle third with as much left as possible.  Unless you've been doing at least monthly runs of over 15 miles--and how many people really do that--the middle section is going to hurt...the question is whether it's going to be uncomfortable or torture.  That's where the difference betw. an okay day and an awful one lies.

Somewhere late in the race (the truism is "mile 20"), everyone runs low on fuel--on top of the predictable aches and pains from having run more than ten miles--and the body says it wants to stop.  The deeper into the race you get before you are just bargaining with yourself to hang on or whatever the better.  Hence the need to manage the difficult middle section.

That's my two cents on marathoning.