tri808's Spring Pot Luck (CLOSED) (Page 42)

Will,

I don't know what the water temps are in Texas but when I used my wetsuit for the first ows, the water was very cold.  I jumped in and it literally took my breath away.  I had to allow myself some time to acclimate myself to the water and still I had a difficult time getting myself moving.  Anyway, the wetsuit should be pretty tight but not so much to cut circulation off, there should be very few wrinkles and it shouldn't limit the movement of your shoulders.  Was the water cold?  If so that might explain the light headed feeling or maybe it was the euphoria of knowing you just cut up to 20 seconds of your 100yd. times.

Melanie,

The Garmins are pretty incredible tools.  I love mine!  It will provide some really good feedback that help in training and races.  I never leave home without mine but one word of caution, don't get to wrapped up in all the data to quickly.  There was another thread that discussed this yesterday and I think J commented on it.  Just remember it's a tool that requires knowing how to use it and that means to use it effectively you have to get your HR zones figured out properly and thats the part that HURTS.  But a lot depends on what you are trying to get out of it.

Congrats on the run and the Garmin.

__________

I am upping my long run mileage today as the temperature has fallen again in the wonderful weather of northern Indiana.  Right now we are at a "balmy" 24 degrees.  Anyway, I am planning on running 11 miles this morning and getting a 3500 yard swim in later on. 

I also have to work tonight from 8:30 PM until probably 4-5AM.  I hate doing this but we have to drop a substation that has one source of power (stub feed) so we can upgrade the equipment and serve the customers better.  We have done some pre-work to shorten the outage time by setting a pole and getting the wire prepped............Anyway, you don't care about that!  I just hate working overnight.  It screws me up for a week every time and my family won't want to be around me because I can become a little gruff.

congrats Mel.  in a way you remind me of a dear friend and she just turned 38 a couple of days ago too.

Knee is fine, yesterday was 1000m,800m,600m repeats. today an easy 5k. tomorrow I am planning on a long, hard (hard, long? long, hard? English, English. :P) run. it is a hardish course that starts out with 6k uphilland turns into a great trail that is 6.5k long. around 19k which will probably be my last long run before the half marathon on April 17. (date change). leaving me 21 days to recover well and taper.

Hamlet...with all the running you've been doing, I doubt you need a 21 day taper for a half marathon.

I would train normally up to 7-10 days before the race.  Cut down your last long run the week before, then cut down the distance of your runs in the week leading up to the race.  Keep some intensity in there...but if you're normally doing 5-8 mile mid week runs, cut it down to 3-5.

Just a thought.

ran 19.5 kms today. I got there early and talked to the guards at the park and they told me the REAL distances for everything. total distance was 21k but I didn't run all of it.

first part was all uphill. the I hit the trails with some friends that were waiting for me. we then ran all the trail to the end and were stopped there for a while, a guy passed out and we helped a couple of paramedics while the ambulance arrived. that took all the adrenalin I had left and made the run back a bit more difficult so I wasn't able to run all the way back. still a great run for me.

thanks J! I didn't mean a 21 day taper but if this run (being my first try at this distance and at this hard course) took a lot out of me I would need to recover well before being able to do it again. I think I will do one or two more runs in the 10mile range.

32.62 Mi week total.

Sweet I can't wait to hear how you do, I have a HIM coming up in August. I can learn from you, I found this article on another web site I thought you might like to read it. It is for an Ironman but I think it will help a little, just half it

One thousand calories. Roughly a third of many athletes' normal daily allotment. That's how many calories you're likely to burn during the swim of an Ironman-distance event. With a 5,000-calorie bike ride and a 3,500-calorie run yet to come, that's a pretty deep hole you've dug for yourself, and the event has only just begun.

There's really no way to avoid burning a ton of calories during the swim—or to prevent an energy deficit by eating in the water—but your performance for the rest of the day depends on adapting your nutrition strategy to compensate for this deficit. Fortunately, a few tweaks to your pre-race routine and your bike-leg nutrition can help you catch up on lost calories from the swim and set yourself up for a strong run.

Keeping Topped Up

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that old adage is never truer than on race day. You burned most of the carbohydrate stores in your liver overnight, and breakfast is your last big chance to pack more carbohydrate into your body. From then on, it's a constant battle between using energy and replacing it.

The body runs on a seemingly flawed system that lets us burn energy faster than it can be replaced; you can easily burn 800 to 1,000 calories per hour, but you can only replace a portion of that. To maximize performance, it's crucial that you start with as much fuel as possible in your body, and that you consume enough calories during the event to maximize the replenishment capacity of the system.

Plan to get up a few hours before the start of the race so you can eat a large breakfast and give it time to digest. For most people, this means sitting down to your final pre-race meal three to four hours before the start. You obviously don't want to go to the swim start with food sitting in your stomach, so practice your race-day plan in training to know exactly what you'll be eating and how much digestion time you'll need to feel comfortable when you start racing.

Before shorter events, like sprint- and Olympic-distance triathlons, you can often get away with a smaller meal about two hours before the race. And for all race distances, it's a good idea to consume a bottle of carbohydrate-rich sports drink in the last hour before the start.

Before you know it, however, the gun goes off, the swim goes by in a blur and you're out of the water, ready to start hammering on the bike. And no matter what you did before the race, you're in a caloric deficit again. Some experts recommend taking 10 to 15 minutes on the bike to get adjusted before you start eating in order to avoid stomach problems, and if you have a finicky gut, this may well be the best tactic for you.

The problem with this approach, however, is that you're already low on calories, and another 10 to 15 minutes just puts you further behind. Thus, if you are able to handle calories immediately after the swim, you may want to double-up on calories at the beginning of the bike leg and then settle into your normal nutrition strategy. Specifically, instead of waiting for that first 20-minute timer to go off, take in your first bottle of sports drink plus a gel or a bar as soon as possible after exiting the water.

If you can handle it, downing a bottle of sports drink in the transition area lets you roll out onto the course a step ahead on nutrition and hydration and with two full water bottles on your bike. Similarly, eating a gel or bar in transition or in the first few minutes out on the course will help replenish energy burned during the swim and put you on the right track to keep the tank as full as possible.

Breaking it Down

For most athletes, the bike leg is the easiest time to consume solid food. One good option is to break the food component of your race-day nutrition into more manageable 100- to 150-calorie chunks. That's the equivalent of a gel, half an energy bar or a large banana. Since most athletes find gels to be easier to eat—and easier on the stomach during the run—the bike is a good time to focus on solid food.

This is especially important in daylong events like an Ironman, because increasing the variety of foods in your nutrition strategy means you'll be more likely to keep eating frequently. Along with water, drinking a bottle of sports drink during the course of each hour will add about another 100 calories.

The long-course triathlete's plan boils down to this: Make sure you eat as large a breakfast as you can handle, then try to consume about 150 calories as soon as possible after you exit the water. Following that, settle into a normal feeding schedule of 100 to 150 food calories every 20 minutes. Combined with the sports drink, you'll be consuming about 400 to 550 calories per hour, which is about the maximum most people can handle.

It's not complicated, but inserting that carbohydrate-rich feeding before the bike is critical. It fills an important gap in the nutrition strategies of many athletes by replenishing some of the energy burned during the swim. This will lessen the caloric deficit most of your competition will be struggling with.

Jarrod's got a lot of good advice.  But what it really boils down to is experimenting during training and using what works for you.  What did you do for nutrition on your long brick?  Did that feel like too much, too little, or just right?  What were the conditions like compared to what you will experience on race day?

The one area I would like to comment on is what Jarrod mentioned about waiting to take in calories on the bike.  I have one person (who's done multiple HIMs and IMs) who tried to down a bottle of infinit during the first hour of his bike.  He told me he was feeling awesome out of the water, and thought the instant calories was needed to replenish the calories he burned during the swim.  He ended up throwing up at the end of the bike, and throughout the entire run.

Granted, this is may not happen to everyone or to you specifically...but you should experiment with it in training first.

Lastly...realize that the calories you are taking in on the bike is to fuel you for the bike and set you up for the run.  I find it hard to eat more than 200 calories per hour on the bike because I feel like I don't need it...but you can't start the run on empty.  I've heard you should shoot for about 900-1100 calories on the bike...regardless of how fast you ride.  If you're doing the bike in 2.5 hours, then you need at least 400 calories an hour.  If you're doing it in 4 hours, then you probably only need 250 per hour.

Fueling is something I haven't worked a lot on myself.  I haven't felt the need to do much of it since my marathon but I may start a slow learning process this summer and try to take the knowledge into next year's HIM.  I also need to work on it again for this years marathon but I think the way I fueled for my last one seemed to work well.  Jarrod, I like the article you posted  and I will try to apply that over this summer during the few long bricks I would like to do.

On personal training note, I backed my level of intensity down yesterday and kicked my brick out the door.  After I got off work yesterday morning I was spent and I don't think I could have dealt with the run, despite being only 2 miles.

My training for today was only slightly modified from my usual schedule.  I figured I needed to take the opportunity to sleep in rather than get up at 6:30 to get my run in before church, and it may have been just what the doctor ordered.  The brick went very well and I was able to keep a very similar intensity to what I would normally do.  The ride was the usual 1hr trainer and then my usual 5 mile Sunday run.  Everything seemed good today.

Dirk sounds like you made the right decision, it's good to listen to your body and how you are feeling.

I was out of town for a week and it killed my training, I did get some running in at the first of the week. I had to get out today and do a ride, it had been over a week since the last time I was on my bike. I did a loop that I did awhile ago that included the tri loop I will be racing. I felt great and even with a wind just like last time I was able to hold an average of 20 mph. It's nice to see my speed climbing on the bike, now I just need to start running more.

Jarrod...good stuff on the bike.  That 20 mph mark is always nice to see...

Got in a 12 mile run this morning...and really put in a hard steady effort the second half.  Nothing too crazy, but "very focused" would be a good description.

Ate, rested up a little, then headed out on the bike to practice the hill climb TT I have coming up next weekend.  Did 2 loops of the course, first one was a steady effort, and the second one, I just felt like what the heck...lets go all out.  In the process I set a new personal best for 20 minute power average.  Not bad considering my legs were pretty fried before I even did the first loop.

Needless to say, I'm estatic with my progress...ok...done tooting my own horn.  LOL

Nice job J,

I hit the gym this morning and did a mile swim in 33 minutes. It felt great especially because I haven't swam for 2 weeks. It was good to get back in the water, just can't wait to do an OWS. After the swim I did a 4 mile run, feels alot better then it did in Denver its good to be home. Now to fix some plumbing at home so my house don't flood again.

Got an easy 3 mile run in this morning.  Legs definately need a break this week, and I will oblige.  Will cut down my running by 1-2 miles each run, and the intensity 1 notch.

Fell of the tri training wagon last week, only did a couple of runs not really worth mentioning...  The yard kind of crept up on me with warmer than usual temps so between that and trying to put in a paver patio, note it is not as easy as DIY makes it sound and don't skimp and buy the cheapest wheel barrow @ Home Depot, so was dealing with that most of the week and after tamping Carolina clay soil and moving dirt the only water I wanted to be near was a shower...

But less than 2 months until my 1st tri and am planning on working at least one brick workout in a week, more than likely I will try to pair a long workout in one discipline with a short one in another to get used to it as well as test some of the race nutrition stuff...

I am looking at bikes on ebay and at LBSs for sale, craigslist never has caught on down here, and are there any brands of bikes to stay away from?  It seems that people have huge opinions on good/bad bikes but any brands that stand out for poor equipment/ bad track record

I had an unplanned rest day but there wasn't much rest happening.  Someone hit a pole and broke the top of it put at the end of the workday yesterday.  I had to work until midnight last night and couldn't sleep the extra time I had this morning.  I guess The normal sleep pattern is screwed up I guess, especially after last Friday nights work.

Oh well, I'll pick up what I can tonight and see what I can get done for the rest of the week.  I will probably get a swim in tonight.

So... went for my proposed brick today, was going to swim 2 miles and then bike for 90 min, until I got into the water at my pool and discovered much to my dismay that they had turned off the heater since we had warmer temperatures last week, nevermind that we had a freeze warning last night...  After my first 500, which was quicker then normal at 9:12 I decided to modify and go through more of an actual practice tri.

So did the 500, 20 k on the bike and then ran 1 mile, wanted to go longer but was about done at that point all in all though I did it in 55 min so I think I am good to go for my 1 hour 20 min finish in my May triathlon, does that sound reasonable? (500 swim 20k bike and 5k run) or should I shoot higher or lower, I want to make sure I am pushing myself.

legs are fine today. two 'easy' days and that seems to be all they needed to recover from Saturdays experiment...

BUT I was asked to a soccer game last night and I can never say no to that, and I twisted my ankle. I kept playing and it does allow me to run but there is some pain still. oh well. idiot hamlet.. at least we won.

I think 1:20:00 is doable.  A race always seems to get a little more out of you. 

This is a personal thing, I don't really do swim to bike bricks.  I have done a couple of them but that transition doesn't seem to be a big deal for me.  The bike to run is the one that seems to hurt a little.  I actually try to do a small brick every week. for the bike to run.  After my long rides over the winter I have had several 2 mile run immediately following the ride. 

If you need to do the swim/bike bricks it doesn't hurt anything.  I think I did the same bricks a couple of times before my first tri for a personal security thing.  It made me feel a little bit better about what to expect leaving the water.  Looking back now, I really didn't need to do it for any other reason.

My first scheduled race isn't until May 21 but I could pick up another race sometime between now and then.  I don't have anything on the radar for now though.

Hows your training going Krystyna?  After all the long course stuff are you relieved to be working on shorter distances?