kaburns1214 Mentor Group 2012 - CLOSED (Page 43)

Carrie - that book sounds interesting.  I've tried the Paleo for Athletes twice now, both times I failed.  I'm thinking more and more of going vegetarian again.  I just want something easy, that does not require a lot of planning/prepping.

I found a book I bought several years ago, but never really read.  It's called Eat Right 4 Your Type.  Has anyone read or heard of eating based on your blood type.  I have type A, which this book says type A's flourish on a vegetarian diet.  It even said that an animal based diet can cause fluid retention for type A's.

Might be complete BS, but I'm going to read the book.

Its like anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets.  This weekend was 4:17 on the trainer on Saturday and 3:00 on Sunday.  Not super exciting but not too bad. 

Good morning and hope everyone has a great week!!!

My household has been in one phase of sickness/feverish/virusish sine last wednesday, hopefully this will be the last week of this, as i have missed 2 weekends in a row due to illness.

Got almost 8 miles in outside this AM, had to take a potty break at the halfway point as gummi bears and mallowmars are not condusive to feeling good in the AM. I was up at 3am and could not longer sleep, so i made and drank a cup of tea and went for a run.  Monday is usally my rest day, but i had to take the last 4 off due to illness, so i figured what better way to spend early monday AM then running on the slushy roads.

Kudos to you who can go over an hour on the trainer, my max is about and hour and half MAX, i would rather go hard and short than spend 2-4 hours on my bike indoors.

That race looks sweet!  I bet you have a fantastic time.  Good luck next weekend!  Keep us posted.

Hope you start feeling better soon!  I'm with you.  I've been sick for days, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Did you daughter get sick, too?

long trainer rides suck.  only way i can do them is while watching sports or a movie.  unless you are training for an IM there really is no reason to do uber long trainer rides.  1:30 is usually my max and even that is dreadful. 

I think the hard part was staying in a specific HR zone the whole time.  If I do an interval workout, and just follow along to Sufferfest, Spinerval, or now TrainerRoad, I'm good.  It's the long rides in Z1 that are hard - can't slack off, but can't go too hard either.  If I don't pay attention and slow down my HR drops and stupid watch starts beeping at me.  Or go to hard without noticing and Garmin is beeping because I'm over the zone.  It was mentally tough.  I hope they do get easier though because it was a better workout for me inside.  Outside there is too many breaks with downhills and stop lights.  Inside was a solid 2:40 ride.

it is a challenge for me to ride the trainer but on the other hand i was getting tired of having to drive, park, get the bike out, pump up tires, get organized and then ride. it was such a production.  it is kinda of nice just going downstairs and jumping on the bike.  having a plan (jorges) has also helped me. 

yesterday was a blast! Had a fun mtb day up in the mountains. We got lost/off trail and had to hike/bike to find our way back to an arroyo that would lead us back to some trails to get to the truck. Fun times.

Today the plan called for a 4 mile run at 12min/mile pace...I made it to 11:38 I think and it was tough to run that slow. Amazing to think that 11:38 used to be a GOOD pace for me.

Considering I am 26 away fro IM Lake pLacid and I am triing to build Bikek strenght and power.

What kind of work should I be doing?

I am doing single leg drills

Right/left/ both/ easy a minute per item I did that for 25 minutes the other day. 

Kellys Z1 (131-141)

I also did 3 sets of 10 minutes at 70 RPMs

Kellys Z1 (131-141)

Should I be doing more high heartrate stuff I just want power and strenght at Lake Placid!!

Should I be doing more high heartrate stuff I just want power and strenght at Lake Placid!!

This is an interesting concept (and high and low heart rate are realtive terms).  For an IM length bike power and stregnth aren't so important as endurance to finish the bike strong and be able to run well.  Obviously you need power and stregnth to ride the 112 miles but you also need the leg durability and endurance to ride 112 miles.  3 minute and 20 minute power don't really matter if you can't comfortabley complete the 112.  Now confortabley can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people but my expereience is that for the IM bike, volume comes before intensity until you have a solid base of volume down.  That doesn't mean you always bike without intensity but it means that you focus on building aerobic volume before you focus on intensity. 

Also I posted this before, but I think it somewhat addresses your question -- http://kropelnicki.com/?p=305

I did not sleep well last night and was in court all morning so now my brain is rather mushy.  Not a great way to start off the week (to make things worse I need to wear suits 4 out of 5 days this week, which is so not me).

I need to get my butt in gear and get to the gym tonight to lift and swim.  Hopefully I'll feel more like myself by tomorrow. 

My Specialized Elite Road shoes were under $100 on sale (I think I paid around $75 for them, they were the prior year's stock). 

Is it possible to knock off 1 min/mile in seven months, yes, BUT it really depends on where your fitness is now. 

When you first start getting in shape (and training consistently) you can make really big leaps in a short amount of time -- think going from not being able to run a mile to running a 5K -- that's a big leap most people can make in a pretty short amount of time.

Once you are already trained, with consistent additional training most people can make year to year progress of about 10% (obviously you hit an age plateau at some point).  There are also additional speed gains to be made from improved body composition, but those only happen if you have actually have fat to loose, loosing weight when you are already at a lean body composition can be detrimental to your training. 

Being familiar with your training, I would say you are somewhere in the middle.  I don't think you've hit your "already trained mark" but you're also a long way away from starting out.  Going from a 9 min/mile to an 8 min/mile is more than a 10% gain but I think its in the ball park for you. 

And how much does genetics play into a person's potential?  I think I'm destined to be a slower runner.  It took me a long time to accept that, but after so many injuries and not being able to run, I'm thankful to be running again regardless of the speed.

But, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be faster.  How do you know your potential?  And when to just accept that where you're at is probably the fastest you'll ever be?

It depends.  Using me as an example, before I did IMAZ in 2009, I had been participating in triathlons for three years.  I had done some training (heck, I even had a coach) but was not consistent and did not have a plan for a yearly progression.  I completed IMAZ in 14:30 on a day with really good conditions.  I started training consistently in early 2010 and I started working with a yearly plan (not just a plan to get me to the next race but a plan looking at long term development) in mid 2010.  A little less than 2 years later I went 11:26 at IMFL (pretty decent comparison to IMAZ).  Obviously that was more than a 10% improvement.

Right now I think I'm getting close to be "already trained" and having to work with only 10% improvement in a year.  The big thing with me is that my body composition is off (I need to loose 20lbs of fat) so I can get additional improvement out of that.

I agree with Karen that there is a speed plateau -- that you reach a point where the diminishing gains make it hard to get any faster -- I don't think any of you three are at that point.  Without serious genetic/bio chemical testing its difficult to predict what your ultimate speed potential is when just starting out (or even after a year of consistent training).  Unfortunately its really a wait an see. 

Jen brings up another good point here.  Its really tough to train for a specific time.  You set all kinds of goals, but if they're not realistic, no matter how much training you do, you may not make them (I'm not saying 1:45 is not realistic -- I'm just speaking generally).

A race time is an outcome, which don't have as much control over on race day.  I think the more productive way to set goals is to look at objectives over which you have 100% control (such as I'm am going to be tough, I'm going to follow my pacing and fueling plans) and targets (I am going to run an 8:15 pace for every mile -- so long as this pace is reasonable given your training -- in Jen's case I think it probably is).  If you hit your objectives and targets then the outcome naturally follows. 

The other thing is when you pull goals out of your you can also greatly underestimate your potential.  At least for me, the "goal" is to be consistent about my training, follow my plan on race day and let the chips fall as they may. 

I guess my point is I've been running since I was about 30, so 15+ years of fairly consistent running.  The "fastest" I've ever been was when I was training for a marathon with a group in Southern California.  This group ran a bit fast for me, but I hung with them on the weekends (finished exhausted!).  I ran my best marathon that year (SF Nike - hills).  Due to injuries my shift focused to sprint & olympic triathlons for the cross training, and eventually moved longer distance tris which involved more long slow distance training.  I feel like I've just gotten slower over time.  Could be part age, but I don't think that's the only factor.  At that time I could run a comfortable 9:15 - 9:20 mile.  Today I'm well over a minute slower.

So, can I get back to that low 9/min. pace again?  Or faster?

Thank you for the honesty and the feedback.  Yes, I think it brings up lots of interesting topics of discussion.

On a personal level, no, I do not feel like I am done with the beginner stage of running (or cycling, for that matter), so perhaps the 10% rule doesn't apply yet.  Only time will tell.  You are right to say that setting goals for time only is a bad move.  Last year, I pretty much raced 3:00 over every time goal I'd set (wanted to go 2:55 at the oly but went 2:58, wanted to go 1:55 at the HM but went 1:58), which tells me that my time goals aren't too farfetched - yet.  If I want to go 1:45, then I'll probably go 1:48   I feel like I am doing everything that people say to do to make me a better, stonger, faster runner.  I committed to doing barryp's program over the winter months, and I've done it 100%.  I've built up my endurance, and I've gained some muscular strength by running all those hill repeats.  Now on to the speedwork and race specific work..... 

Anyway, do we really know where our genetic potential lies?  I don't know.  Personally, I need another year or two to know if I really have potential in this sport.  If I do have potential, then I guess I should thank my parents (they're also incredibly disciplined and have great work ethic, so I ought to thank them for teachig me to work hard, too). 

Mental toughness seems to be a huge part of the sport as well.  I don't feel like you can develop mental toughness.  You either have it, or you don't.  Opinions? 

an aside........It would be fantastic to be able to breathe out of my nostrils again. 

I agree to some extent, but also think that mental toughness has different meanings to everyone.  We had this discussion on the GA thread a couple of months ago.  What one person considers mental toughness may not be the same as another person.  Most of the discussion seemed to be around mental toughness racing.  I thought more of it during training.  There were/are days that I just don't want to do a long run, or go for a 100 mile bike ride.  But, I almost always suck it up and get it done.  To me that takes a certain level of mental toughness.  Or maybe it's just good self motivation.

Personally I think I have a lot of mental toughness when it comes to biking.  Running not so much.  Bringing it back around to racing, I will push myself a lot harder on the bike.  But running, I will only push until it's just not comfortable anymore.  Then I back off and tell myself that I don't really care what my time is.  I'm just not that competitive, I don't like pain running.