Fast Twitch Tri-FULL (Page 42)

So, on the whole swimming thing (and I can I just throw in that if I COULD get to 1:10/100, I might have to do that - even if it blew up the rest of my race… I mean great googly moogly, that's fast).

Ahem, as I was about to say…  wrt OWS, which it is apparent at least a few of you all very much like and work in to your routine, a few questions:

- Do you always go with someone else, or go alone?

- How do you manage to do speed work without knowing distances (here a 910 might help)?  Seems especially important for sprints vs. distance (this is Fast Twitch, after all&hellip.

- Do you swim with or sans a wetsuit?

- Any pointers for other things noobs should be thinking about/asking about?

I grew up swimming in the ocean and never thought twice about swimming to rocks 1/2 mile from shore or the like (well, maybe twice in the early season when the water was in the 50's, but you get my point), but it seems like swimming in a pond at 0500 is just more dangerous!  Fewer hungry, toothy critters (which aren't really the problem, unless you're swimming further out on the Cape, and then they definitely CAN be), but I just have this feeling of the dark, forbidding waters of Walden pond swallowing up unprepared traithletes!

That said, there are probably more triathletes at Walden at 0500 any day from April on than at your average local sprint.  Anyway, thoughts, comments, advice all welcome!

Thanks.

Matt 

When I was in college I could do 10 100s leaving on the 1:10... yikes how times have changed.

As far as open water- I'm pretty lucky that our local city has a lake with a swim beach and they do OWS 6 or so times a week.  They put out a triangular 1/4 mile course with buoys and have a lifeguard on the beach and one out in a kayak.  So, I either go alone, or my husband and I go and we play on the beach with our daughter for half and switch off.  So, basically I'm swimming alone the whole time.  I figure the buoys are pretty close and the beach and kayak are never to far so I don't worry too much.  I usually do 6-8 laps.  I do the first one warm up then I usually pick up the pace between the buoys that are parallel to shore on each round til I do a cool down lap. I think it's really nice to have visual references so you don't have to stop and check your watch.  You could check with your watch for distances and pick out this big tree to that big tree.  Or the lifeguard house to the end of the parking lot fence (I have not been to Walden in probably 15 years so not sure what it's like now.)

If that fails I can go to Boulder Res too- but the times are less convenient and I love watching the quiet sunsets over the mountains while swimming (sometimes I only breathe to the right so I can watch the sunsets.)  It's so relaxing and quiet. 

That said when I was in high school and college I used to do laps the short way of Walden- I think it's a 1/4 mile?  Seems a little sketchy to have been doing it alone- and often there were only 3-5 others out there.  Not sure what I would do if I didn't have the set up I do.  Maybe get a baby sitter and get my husband to come with me.  Does your wife swim?  Or kayak?  (do they even allow kayaks there?)  Or do you have kids old enough to come with you?  I used to swim with my dad at Valley Pond when I was younger.

ETA I usually wear a wetsuit- but did two weeks without when the water temps were border line legal prior to the Boulder 70.3 just so I would be prepared if they came in to high. 

Hi Matt -

I just started OWS last summer.  We didn't get into the Lake (Okanagan) until mid to late June and we went back to the pool late September.  It's a pretty short season.

- I was fortunate to go swimming with a group of 4 other fellows M/W/F for the whole summer so I mostly went with someone else.  I did swim alone a few times but where I swim the lake is relatively shallow (30" to 8' deep) even though it is a fair distance from shore and it is quite clear and all sand bottom with very minimal weeds.

- One of the fellows had a waterproof watch so we knew our approximate swim times. A 910 certainly would be handy.  I have read on BT that you could wear your Garmin (I have a  310) in a baggy under your swim cap.  As for distance we swim along the shore from one landmark to another at the opposite end so we walked the length of the beach between the two landmarks (with the Garmin) to determine the distance.

I'm planning to try the Garmin in the swim cap for both time and distance as soon as I can get back in the lake to be more accurate.

- I mostly swam with a wetsuit but when I was preparing for my 1st Sprint I anticipated it would be wetsuit illegal so I swam a few times without my wetsuit.  After swimming with the wetsuit I couldn't believe how slow swimming sans felt.

- Pointers? Being still relatively new myself I don't have a lot to offer but I did like having two pairs of goggles - in case of loss but I also like to have a clear lens pair and a smokey lens pair.  I'm looking forward to reading what everyone else suggests.

On Mondays and sometimes Thursdays I get the opportunity to swim in the pool at the same time as my daughter's swim team.  I usually swim 30-45 minutes then go do some strength training, and then come back and sit in the deck area waiting for her to finish up.

So yesterday my daughter finishes up and is getting changed, and I'm watching the team finish up.  One of the swimmers (girl, 13YO? 14YO?) is kicking with a kick board and is obviously hammering it while the coach is watching.  I'm thinking, "dang she's moving pretty well" so I time her next 50 (meters).  47 seconds with an open turn!

Sadly, that's about my all-out swimming open 50 pace.  Depressing. 

hi!

Im still around-lurking. Participating in The sufferfest's Tour of sufferlandria!

For 2 weeks I have had bouts of lower back pain, no idea why, it has interfered with my running and swimming a little but I think it is mending.some new activities maybe partly to blame for back woes, I spend 8 hours in a hard back chair for a class on the 19th and have been doing some pistol shooting and working on my stance and the pain began the following week-not sure if it was the sitting or the shooting! Ibuprofen manages it.

JEFF -

Hi!  Very pleased to see that you haven't split the scene here!

I'd say you have your eye on two very likely suspects with your lower back pain, and a third one can be --- back woes can grow out of seemingly nothing.  But seeing as how the sitting on the 19th and the repeated stance work could get my back going, then let's blame it on those, okay?  I don't know what the answer is, other than no all-day classes and maybe less work on your shooting stance ---- and keep the Ibuprofen at hand, but be cautious with your consumption!

My last episode of back problems, not too long ago, kept recurring just as I thought I had it beat.  It was enough of an issue that I began to wonder if I had entered the realm of Chronic Back Pain..........but it all finally abated and I've been good for well over a month now.  Whew!!

MIKE -

Same for me for 50m freestyle, and that's when I'm pushing it quite hard, like real hard, like I-cannot-sustain-this-for-too-many-lengths!!!

My best-ever kickboard time for 25m was about 41 seconds.  That girl must have amazing plantarflexion!

Feeling pretty good about the Ravens?

GEORGE -

I have swam for too-many-years with a simple Timex 50-lap Sleek, and as long as I don't press any buttons while the watch is submerged, it is fine.  I have NEVER lost a single watch to water leakage, but that's with scrupulous above-water-only button-pressing.  There ahve nbeen many times it's been close, but I guess I have never goofed. 

Anyhow, you can get by with a relatively inexpensive watch for water purposes, or for any purpose at all.  I have worn that model since '03, and it is blessedly lightweight and very low-profile (the moniker "Sleek" is well-earned!)

The Sleek, however, cannot do distance, but to get around that I just use a topo map or a decent area map and use the scale on the bottom to measure my distance.  But seeing as hiow I am a remarkably consistent-speed (with my consistent speed being consistently moderately mediocre......) swimmer, depending on my time in the watetr I can get a very close read on how far I swam.

Less than four months 'til my next OWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KATE/GEORGE/MATT -

I am responding to these going backwards, and reading them that way, which is just shy of being quite stupid.  Anyhow, I now see KATE'S, addressing swimming holes and swimming alone, so........

I do all my OWS alone, and often in far-from-shore water, and way too often with no one who could see me, hear me, or help me.  I know this is highly risky behavior, but if I waited for OWS partners I'd never swim OWS.  I used to be amazingly brash about these, swimming in either very cold water or water that could be hugely tumultuous.  I stopped both habits a few years ago, finally realizing that (a) I had all the exposure I needed to such adverse conditions, and (b) those conditions are not at all conducive to decent swimming.  Plus, I just wasn't ready to drown!

I take some inane pride in not being thrown for a loop by any type of water, but there's no pride in doing it the way I have done it.  It was pretty much a matter of necessity, and I so I am always pleased to learn that people in my mentor groups have either swim partners or a setting in which the dangers are blessedly minimized.  (KATE, your 1/4-mile course, and the lifeguard, and the nearby spousal unit, all add up to an ideal situation.)

GEORGE, re multiple goggles -- don't leave home without 'em!

MATT -

Speedwork during OWS is probably best done similar to fartleks --- just speed up and slow down whenever it suits you.  That is essentially what I do in race swims, anyhow, and for me, not being a fast swimmer, there isn't much science to it.  In fact, i think for most MOP or slightly slower swimmers, all they need speed for in a race is getting around slower swimmers, or extricating themselves from a swim-mob, which usually entails doing an "end-around".

So, my subtle advice here is to save speed efforts for the pool, and mostly work on a smooth and steady stroke when in open water.  I'm pretty well convinced that even my speediest efforts in races don't help me much -- especially since I cannot sustain them.  That is, they are really nothing more than "bursts" or "surges", and those can be practiced as I said above -- as kind of "fartlek" efforts.

Glub, glub!

So, I've been thinking about this advice and decided to test drive one of the slightly harder plans- and it's going a lot better than I expected.  I already put in the two biggest runs for the week and got close to the biggest bike on time (1:11 vs. 1:24 but I did it on my mountain bike- so that was the loop and we had to get back to the babysitter.)  So since it's a 20 week plan I have three weeks to try it and then re-load it for good.  I'm thinking I'm just going to step it up. (I'm planning on a long weekend of skiing so need to front load my workouts if I'm going to get them done.)

Also a few friends are trying to convince me to join them in a 62 mile bike ride that sounds like a lot of fun.  It would be a few months before my tri- I guess I would get my base up prepping for that.  They take them very casually- so I'm thinking of agreeing to join them. 

So- thank you for the push!

I am curious what everyone does for warm ups/ cool downs from their workouts.  I have a swim set that I used in college that I just default to (200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull for warm up and usually 200 mello for warm down) For running I find if I walk for 2 minutes before I start and 5 minutes after I finish my knees feel much better.  Cycling I usually just jump on and go.

I feel like there has got to be some science to this- so I'm curious what others have learned and how they incorporate it.

Thanks!

For swimming, depends on the workout...right now I'm only doing about 1.5K total so my warm-ups are pretty short (like 75 swim/25 kick x 4 or something).  Bike...jump and go, though my trainer workouts have designated warm-ups and I kinda sorta do the same when I get outside.  Running...agree with you and I go to at least 10 minutes WU walking (this has been a big change for me...I used to just go but I've found the WU and CD make life easier on my knees and I enjoy the runs more).

I am pretty much like you. I usually warm up with a kick set of 300 and a pull set of 500. Cool down is 100-200 yards. Sometimes I do underwater swims. Other times I may try to limit my stroke count.

For running I do series of stretches first. After a good run I will walk for a bit.

I have no routine for the bike.

Good run warmpup consists of dynamic stretching (no static stretching cold muscles!) and slow walking / jogging until the muscles are warm. In the HM training group I did last year, this consisted of jumping jacks, then butt kicks, then high knees, ankle rolls, neck rolls, arm windmills, maybe torso rolls, before heading out. I've noticed that I need about 1.5 miles easy before my muscles are truly warmed up to do anything strenuous like hills or speedwork.

Bike warmup generally consists of 10 minutes of easy high cadence spinning to warm up the legs.

STEVE - As a follow-up to your advice above about training days, I'm curious which days you would cut out of this run training program and convert to cycling days:

http://halhigdon.com/training/51230/Marathon-Boston-Bound-Training-Program

P.S. I chose this plan because it was the right number of weeks and I had success with the HH 10K plan, not because I have any delusion that I can qualify for Boston (3:15!) particularly at the hilly Pittsburgh Marathon.

Swimming: Usually a couple hundred just swimming, then some pulling and also a little back and br work. Masters will have more, and it's fine, but I don't need that much. Want to keep the necessary warm-up short for races, not all of them even have a warm-up.

Bike: Could be anywhere from 5-30 min of easy riding. Picking it up depends on what I'm doing. If just riding, then I'll just keep riding. If it's going to involve efforts, then short surges are helpful to wake things up. I tend to feel more lively in a workout when I get cadence up early on, even if it feels like power should be a little more.

Run: Run really easy. And actually behind easy pace, well into recovery pace. A few minutes of this and then pick it up as I feel up for it. Could be after a mile, could be 20-30 minutes before I'm up to speed. If harder running will be involved, some strides or surges are nice to wake things up some more.

Awesome, I knew you could hang with the harder plan 

Don't forget tires, latex tubes & a disk cover for more speed.

The kids sure are amazing aren't they.  Between Xmas and NY they had a swim camp for 12 - 16 yr olds and at one point as I turned at the deep end I could see 4 or 5 kids per 6 lanes swimming a full length of the pool underwater doing dolphin kicks.  They seemed to me to be doing this faster than I can swim freestyle. 

For three days they were just amazing.  Even just to watch them warming up.

KATE -

Boldly tackled!!  Woo-hoo!

On ecaution is the part about front-ending workouts before your ski trip.  While I fully understand your intention here, be careful not to compromise most of those workouts in an effort to lay clain to all of them.  If you can identify ones that are more 'key" than others, make sure those are involved in any pre-ski efforts.  And if a key workout is separated by a day on one or both sides of it, then try to keep that separation in your re-made plans.  In general, it is better to have one or two or three good workouts than five or six or seven rushed and haphazard ones.

And while I'm on this general topic........

If at some point you have to miss workouts due to illness, work commitments, travel, whatever, don't try to make up for the ones that were lost!  Again, this would result in compromised owrkouts possibly all around, and so it's best to just let the lost ones go.  The exception to that is, as you might guess, the key ones, and this will especially be true as the training plan winds down to the goal race(s).  You will feel a huge panic to make up anything lost --- but avoid getting apoplectic about it, and just let the lost ones go!

A fairly low-key long ride won't hurt anything, especially when quite a way out from the goal race.  that sounds fun, and the bottom line for most of us is to have fun.  Some people can handle being a slave to their workout plan, but most can't.  So enjoy the ride, and if you must attach some "true" training-based purpose to it, view it as a chance to play around with long-distance nutrition.  It'll just be perfect for anticipating what your body will need while doing 4-plus (I'm guessing here) hours in the saddle, and then seeing how close you were to keeping your systems stocked and functional.  The alternative to that is to just have a ball with it and bring along as many chocolate bars as you can gulp down over the course of 62 miles.  Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Donto - 2013-01-30 3:53 PM

wenceslasz - 2013-01-30 5:43 PM

jmhpsu93 - 2013-01-29 3:46 AM

On Mondays and sometimes Thursdays I get the opportunity to swim in the pool at the same time as my daughter's swim team.  I usually swim 30-45 minutes then go do some strength training, and then come back and sit in the deck area waiting for her to finish up.

So yesterday my daughter finishes up and is getting changed, and I'm watching the team finish up.  One of the swimmers (girl, 13YO? 14YO?) is kicking with a kick board and is obviously hammering it while the coach is watching.  I'm thinking, "dang she's moving pretty well" so I time her next 50 (meters).  47 seconds with an open turn!

Sadly, that's about my all-out swimming open 50 pace.  Depressing. 

The kids sure are amazing aren't they.  Between Xmas and NY they had a swim camp for 12 - 16 yr olds and at one point as I turned at the deep end I could see 4 or 5 kids per 6 lanes swimming a full length of the pool underwater doing dolphin kicks.  They seemed to me to be doing this faster than I can swim freestyle. 

For three days they were just amazing.  Even just to watch them warming up.

Yes they are.  We were at the FL YMCA state meet this past weekend and the warm ups are way more than my swim workouts!.  My son (13YO) did the 500 for the 2nd time in 6:18 (he's still trying to figure how to pace himself in it) and my daughter did it for the 1st time in 7:19, all I can say is I WISH!

Your sons pace for 500(yds?) is faster than my 300m time by about 40 secs.  And your daughters time is impressive as well.  If I'm right about the yards then his 300m pace would be about 4:12.  Wow!! 

DONTO -

If I can "knock off" 500 in under 10 minutes, that is an accomplishment.  Well, if it's meters, then it's an accomplishment; if yards, though, heck -- I might be good for a whopping 9:37!

When kids are kids is the time for them to lock in those fine-fine-superfine mechanics.  Give a youthful body with good athletic genes a decent coach, and the sky is the limit.  But for those of us who venture into this stuff kind of late in life.........it's forge ahead and hope for the best! 

In my case, though, for swimming, it was an early imprinting of a few choice poor mechanical flaws, and they have been well-nigh impossible to improve upon, let alone erase and start over.  Sigh.

Congrats to your kids, thouggh, and tell them I gassho in thiri general direction!

DAVE -

I will get to that shortly, or at least start thinking about it.  It'll be a tough call, though, as you have a marathon plan for your own marathon, written by an expert marathon planner; that is, it might be tough to cut anything out.  But I trained for Boston (April 19) and had to keep an eye for Columbia Tri on about May 23 and then Eagleman HIM on about June 12.  So, I will try to find the training plan my caoch gave me during that whole process, and try to figure out my pre-Boston running hours and how much cycling was thrown in there to keep me primed for those two triathlons.  When is Pittsburgh, and when is your first tri?  (If these are on your races or logs pages, i'll find them.)

Yeah, Pittsburgh Marathon is not exactly one of those money-in-the-bank Boston qualifiers, is it?  I've often thought of the world of BQ races as being very unfair, especially for people who either live near a hilly one and/or can't swing it to travel to an easier one.  My BQ was the North central Trail marathon, north of Baltimore, and the "trail" in the name refers to the rail-to-trail course that was an out-and-back:  very gradual ascent going out, complementary descent coming back.  With a crushed limestone surface, it was easy of the lges; as a former railbed, there was no camber; as the race day twemps were about 45-50, it was perfect.  The only drawback was a stiff breeze.but as much of the course was along a river in a fairly deep valley, the wind was only a minimal factor.  IOW, I had a pretty easy time at that BQ!