Clyde/Athena Tri-N-4- Weight Loss Mentor Group -OPEN AGAIN!! (Page 44)

Chi , thanks for the remembrance. It's nice to be back. I read your race report. Sounded like a great time. No goals for the Lumberjack, other than to finish. Of course, that also depends on just feeling ready also. Toward that end, I will hopefully be training on two-a-days from here on out. I'll be walking every day, and swimming or biking at least twice a week each. I want to incorporate strength training twice a week too, Between one rotator cuff re-build and a re-attached bicep on the other arm, my arm strength is not what it used to be.

I see they still haven't gotten the programmer of the forum to automatically bring us to the last post we read. Should be an easy one-line fix. Oh well.

I won't bore you all with my totally unimpressive distances or times, but I did want to mention that I did my first ride in nearly two years today. And it was also m y first two-a-day training session. My quads feel like jello, but it feels great. Now they get to rest until Saturday at least.

W: 1 mile in 18m
B: 4.5 miles in 22m

Happy 4th everyone, 5k tomorrow. I have decided I am just going to enjoy it, now if I get out the blocks and 1 mile in I am at 815-820 pace i'm gonna push it, but if not ill just cruise on in at whatever.

In other news I am super excited, got lots of goodies from a member here, can't wait to use them

First ride on clipless tonight. The amount of extra power was amazing. Our ride was a bit slower, which was good for me and my back...

Yea going clipless really did help my bike rides in general, thats a purchase I am pretty happy with.

July 4th 5k : Good and bad, the good is I felt great almost the entire race, hit a point where I was slowing down but recovered and finished strong. Unfortunately the finish was up a freaking hill but it was a good strong race.

GOOD: 25:53- PR in a 5k and what I really wanted to do which was break into the 25:xx club. Looked at the clock as I rounded the corner it was on like 25:55 and I just busted my butt to get in under the #

BAD: 4th place

Worst: 4th place by 5 seconds........crap. My wife won her age group, could of been cool to bring home 2 medals, oh well.

I can't complain with a PR, in my current training the speed work doesn't even happen for another 2 weeks or so, ill keep pluggin away

Thanks Robin, here are the official results. No time error , lol

http://www.runningtime.net/Races/PrayHopeBelieve/2014/results/5k_sp...

Overall

http://www.runningtime.net/Races/PrayHopeBelieve/2014/results/Chip%...

199/ 935 Which while it still sucks I will take. Including Tri's and stand alone 5k's only my 5th 5k ever.

Hope everyone had and/or is having a great 4th, back to the fun tomorrow. Ill get some pics up of my new toys including a tri bike!

leatherneckpa: Welcome to the group, brother!

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The last couple of weeks have been... not good. I am aware that my issues are my fault and I need to pull my head out and see the light again.

Weight as of 7/7: 260... yup, I'm back up to the weight I plateaued at for 6 months 3 weeks after briefly touching the 240's. This is 90% dietary and 10% training so I know I need to get back on the wagon and watch what I eat again. TBH, the last couple of weeks my attitude has been "whatever" towards food. Add in more sodas than i've had in the last year and well... the numbers don't lie.

Training last week took a bad turn as well. I swam 2000yd on Mon thinking I wouldn't be able to swim on Fri (out of town, again). I managed to make it to the Y on friday, but they were closed unitl 8 (was a bit upset). My Tue and Thu runs were great and I'm making my time goals, and my Thu group ride was a touch slow, but still good. Saturday was a complete bust. I was convinced to leave all of my workout gear home this weekend (even though I've been itching to ride in middle TN for a change of venue). I'll be honest, it made perfect sense: Since Sunday is a rest day, and we were planning on being home earlier than usual, it was planned for both of us to do our Sat training on Sun. Y'all know what they say about the best laid plans, right? There is no blame, because it is nobody's fault, but with everything that happened this weekend (including a couple of trips to a couple of ERs) we didn't get home unitl 11:30 last night. I even ended up sleeping through my alarm this morning and missed another swim!

Just so nobody worries, the 1st ER trip was for an uncle who is, for lack of a better term, slowly dying of old age and the 2nd was to get an object out of my oldest daughter's ear (no, we don't know what it was, but at least it wasn't a bug!)

The goal this week is to buckle down, stick with the diet, and work my arse off (literally and figuratively), and repeat

The good news is you know exactly what the deal is 90% dietary. Although I wouldn't beat yourself up too much about it, we all have to have cheat days (weeks? lol) or else you would never stick to the basic plan. I'm not even gonna go near a scale until Friday, after my race on Friday we had parties to attend Fri night/Sat and Sunday. I honestly don't even wanna know, just gonna get things cleaned up and have a good week.

Personally I think anyone that realizes that its not exercise nearly as much as diet that controls weight loss/gain is already so far ahead of the game that you'll be back in those 240's before ya know it

Oh man I had this huge post all finished and accidentally hit cancel instead of save. Let's see if I can remember everything.

- looking at ditching WW. I feel like I'm not getting the right food in because I'm concerned with the points and I worry how that's going to affect my training.

- re-upped my gym membership. I'm currently stationary biking while I type this.

- my gym has an international/national triathlete trainer who I'm thinking about meeting with. I feel really overwhelmed with what I should be doing still.

I think those are the only important things. Nutrition is really bugging me lately.

emine, the thing to remember with WW is that you determine what you eat, not the plan. You can actually eat anything you want to, you just have to track and deduct the points. Also, my leader told me that it is REALLY important for folks who are training as we are to be sure we get our full points intake. Now, I don't know about you but that's 71 PPV per day for me. That's a lot of food. And don't forget, you have the 49 "extra points" each week.

First full week of training has included five walks (w/ gravity shuffle), two bikes, and one swim. And that is with the holiday weekend and driving 6 hours each of two days. Could not be happier with that.

It will be interesting to see what the scales say at Wednesday's weigh-in.

finally found out my wet suit is officially gone. The race does not have it. I do not even remember seeing it post race.

I am thinking about the US national sprint race. Trouble is I need a new wetsuit for it. I rather wait and see until september if I do the Oly or can maybe get a winter clearance sale suit.

I'd wait for a clearance or clear out type deal, but that's me and I am cheap.

In other news I have to share this real quick. Out on a bike ride, long ride for me (40m) and its very hilly, if you go by map my run ranking of climbs and what not their are like 6 lvl 5 climbs (which idk if thats much or not but for me its a ton!).

Anyways, I am going down a monster hill but about to have to then go up a HUGE hill, so of course I am thinking I had better get some serious speed going to get me up at least half that sucker. Starting to get towards the bottom and see something in the road and then a car coming the other way is slowing down. Its a family of ducks, mom and dad and about 10 babies waddling across the street at the very bottom of this hill. So I come to a complete stop and then have to climb the entire freaking hill from scratch. I was officially toast after that, luckily it was the last big hill till the ride was over. Ive gone to this group ride now for a month and in that time I have now had this episode with the ducks, my chain pop and get majorly wrapped and stuck and finally my personal favorite, ride up a big freaking hill and hit a pothole and your new water bottle falls out and rolls down the hill.

So hows everyone else's week going.

Oh man ECS, that stinks!

Today is my first rest day this week, and I'm excited/frustrated. It's nice to have a day where I'm not trying to figure out how to get to the gym or race home to get a ride in before it's dusky out, but I keep feeling like I should be doing something. And honestly, I'm pretty sure I'll get a ride in tonight anyway. Maybe I'm just not working hard enough to really need the rest day?

I would also like to pose a question to the group: what piece of advice do you wish someone had given you when you started tri training/becoming more active?

LOL! You're going to just love this one... I really wish someone had stressed rest days. At one point I was out doing something 7 days a week, usually morning and night... Now, I know that at 41 I am not old... BUT... I found out in a painful way that I don't/can't recover the way I did when I was 30.

I cut back my training a bit (my wife still thinks it's too much, I disagree) and I have a mandatory rest day on Wednesday and Sunday. It is possible to shift my schedule to rest Sat and train Sun if needed. Of course I swim 2x, bike 2x and run 3x, so I'm not hitting anything too heavy... yet

How about 1 piece of advice for all 4

Swim- Don't worry about doing distance, work mostly in intervals. My first race all I did was 500m sets in the pool each time because that was what I was gonna race at. So I might do 1500m broken into 3 500m sessions. These days I realize its much more beneficial to my overall fitness and speed to do interval training of maybe 10 100's with 30-45 seconds of rest in between.

Bike- For me, a huge turning point was getting a bike computer with cadence. My first race I didn't have one and I thought I was doing well, turns out I was going pretty slow and just didnt really realize it. With cadence it pretty much tells you exactly when you should be shifting which was helpful for me as someone that never had any road bike experience.

Run- The right shoe's #1 and then training most days slow but for distance and at least 1 day fast and shorter.

Transitions- Wearing something in the swim you can leave on the entire race was a major time cutter for me

Having a rough couple weeks!
Had my training leading up to my 'A' race fouronthefourth go very well!
Diet was a disaster!
Ran the race and ended up running the entire race w my GF 8 yo son who needed many stops and walks!
(We all started out together and when I was ready to take off I said goodbye to him and said stay with your mom - he said she was gone! - we had already dropped her!!! Man I wasn't paying attention!

Then the long fourth weekend - diet shot - training - shot!

Pulled it back together a bit and will hit training hard again this weekend!,,

ECS, I am so there with you brother. ANY hill is a mjor climb when you are trying to pedal 375 lbs up that sucker. I feel your pain.

As a matter of fact, this was driven home to me YET AGAIN today. You cannot train at max effort every day.! (My biggest adversary is the 21 yr old Marine in my head who keeps telling me "Gung Ho or go home") Read today's post just above.

Other than that, you have gotten great responses from everybody else already. Heed them all.

ETA: Ooops. Apparently I chose to reply before I posted my report for today.
It is counter-productive to train at maximum effort every time you go out, so I dialed it back somewhat today. No "gravity-shuffle" for the mile back to the house, just walking. My shins thanked me. My "Triathlete's Training Bible" has each week broken down into an "easy" workout, a medium workout, and a hard workout. I paid good money for that book. Maybe I should listen to Joe Friel on this one. He has, after all, trained more Ironman World Champions than any other trainer in the history of the sport.

Edited by leatherneckpa 2014-07-11 8:11 AM

So, I'm back from vacation. I'll attempt to get caught up.

We've been on a cruise for the last 10 days. Weight loss? Ha, that's a joke! I'm not even getting on a scale until tomorrow. I did manage to get in some OWS. 3 different swims, the longest of which was .75 miles in Labadee. I did run a few times, although my choices were either a .2 mile track on the ship or the treadmill. Both offered unique challenges.

Leatherneck - welcome back! Glad to have you here.

ECS - great job on the 5K PR. I could only wish to be that fast.

This coming week fir me will consist of some training, getting back to work and then the NJ State Sprint on Saturday.

chirunner: Dude, that really sucks about the wetsuit....

Mike: I'm jealous, lol! I really wish we could get away on a cruise. Of course it'd have to be Disney!

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Sunday Update:

Well, after my weight spike to 260 as of last week, I'm happy to say that the scale says I'm at 255.5 this week. Pretty darn happy with that. I have 8 weeks until the Riverbluff (formerly NashVegas) Sprint in Nashville. I may not make my desired sub-240 weight goal by then (it's been a while since I've been able to avg 2lb/week loss), but I'm dang sure going to try!

This week was both good, horrible, and game-changing.

The Good: I made both bikes for the first time in a while. Thurs group was excellent (almost dumped it trying to unclip), and even though I had to cut my Sat brick short (13 miles, glasses broke and I turned around), I kept a nice 16+ pace overall. I even got a couple of miles out on the bike with Amy.

More Good: All 3 runs were made as scheduled. I managed a 22min sustained run on Tue and a 25min sustained run on Thu. I've changed my gait to more of a mid-foot strike instead of the heel and even though I am slower, the soleus pain that's been bugging me for ***checks calendar*** 8 months now, is all but gone. The second half of my Sat brick left a lot to be desired. I managed to run about 1.5 mi, and walked the rest. I was just out of gas. Oh well, that's why we train, no?

The Horrible: I've managed to miss my last THREE swims. To say I'm irritated is a gross understatement.... I missed 7-4 as the Y didn't open until 0800 and we were on the road at 0700. I was THERE at 0500... but oh well... We got home so late on 7-6, that I slept thru my alarm on 7-7... On 7-11, scheduling dictated that I swim after work, and when I showed up at 1636, there was a notice that lap swimming was shut down from 1700-1830 so that kinda shot me in the foot too... I'm going to try to get there early enough tomorrow to crank out 2K before work

The Game-Changing: I'm in the same boat as Peter. I will be turning in my notice here at work in the morning. My two biggest arguements here are 1) Having to work Sundays, and 2) The lack of opportunity to move up. I'm leaving the Enterprise Service Center (Enterprise, Alamo, National, Enterprise Truck) for a lead tech position at a Goodyear that is half the distance from my house. This will also put me on a primarily M-F schedule (heavy weekend training, yay!). The 2 biggest bonuses for me are that 1) The Service Mgr is leaving in a year. That gives me time to get in the door, learn the front end systems and position myself as a viable candidate who already knows the store, emploees, customer base and location quirks. 2) If/When they ever finish the Harahan Bridge MUP, then riding to work becomes a very real option that I plan to take advantage of. I can imagine the looks on the other tech's faces when I ride up the first time kitted out... lol!!!

Since I'm already rewriting War and Peace with this post, I also want to run my Riverbluff goals by everyone.

Memphis in May ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~> RiverBluff Goal
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440yd swim: 13:04.7 (3:15/100yd pace) ~~~~~~> 400m swim: sub-12:00 goal
12mi bike: 49:04.8 (15.64mph) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~> 14.36mi bike: sub-52:00 (16.5+mph)
3.1mi run: 42:59.9 (14:19min/mi) ~~~~~~~~~~~> 3.4mi run: sub 49:30 goal (13:30min/mi)
O/A: 1:51:48.9 <~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ O/A: It'd be nice to be that time right there!

I don't have the 2-hr cut off like I had at Memphis in May, The slowest sprint at Riverbluff last year was 2:52 and change. However my 1:51 goal puts me in the lower half of the Clydes. I have no pipe dreams about a podium (only 1st place Clyde) either . But, I figure that If I beat my MiM time with a slightly shorter swim (just a few feet), a longer bike and a longer run, then I am doing something right.

Edited by WebFootFreak 2014-07-13 9:52 AM

WFF - stop missing swims - they hurt you the most.

This coming from someone who hasent been in the water for a workout in over a month.

(been in there swimming for fun, but not training)...