Asphalt Junkies Spring 2013 - Closed (Page 45)

Bhargav. enjoy your trip!!!  hey why don't you take all the Junkies!!!

Samantha, wow, what a trip...enjoy and go for it!  Also, good luck with the PT.  Let us know how it goes.

Matt, GREAT run! 

Well this week is going to be a different week.  yesterday spent a lot of time at the baseball field cleaning up, getting the signs for advertising tightened up and all so I did not get a good workout in.  Today I did get a slow 5 mile run in w/out to much pain.  I'm hoping I can run the HM this weekend.  I will only get 2 swims in this week due to obligations and we also have the Kickoff baseball banquet Thursday which will make for a late night...but hey this is supposed to be a taper week right??? that is the way I'm looking at it anyway..might as well make good out of bad...lol

Jo, our boys play baseball  11 out of 12 months here, we don't have the problem of the while balls getting lost in the snow..lol  Of course the orthopedic drs love it here, baseball keeps them in business..well along with skateboards and us crazy runners and tri folks...lol

Enjoy your ride!

Matt nice run yesterday, sounds like you are getting dialed in with your pacing and it's always great when you can get a really good enjoyable run in.

Bhargav glad to hear you are feeling better and getting back to your training. Have a safe and enjoyable trip.

JoAnne I think I'd take a pass on those catapiller as well. Have a great workout.

Karl I hope you are feeling good enough to go and run your HM this weeked. A taper week is not a bad thing so this may work out well for you.

I am now officially halfway through Jorge's WCP as I finished my long ride yesterday, 2:40's and it was a great workout. The downside is I have another cold! I can't freakin believe it I just got over being sick a few weeks ago. I was going to swim and do the week 9 day 1 workout but I am going to pass on both as I feel like garbage today and that first Jorge workout is HARD. I may attempt a run this evening if I feel up to it but the weather here is going to be snow and then rain. This really sucks I wanted to get back to swimming 3 times a week and get ramped back up for a good solid week of training but I doubt that will happen this week. Not happy about it at all.

Matt, good job dialing in some run pacing.  You've got a serious base built and I think your move up to 40+ miles will get you to that half goal.

Bhargav, enjoy your trip.  What a great chance to get away and break up the monotony of life!

Will, as far as eating for workouts I don't really eat anything if I go under an hour or so.  If I'm running 90 minutes I might grab a gel.  For bikes over 2 hours I'll usually take some "real" food - maybe fig newtons or Clif bar type stuff.  I also eat gels with caffeine on the longer rides.  My stomach is pretty happy with anything, so I'm not the best to ask about eating while training.  Everyday eating I'm pretty boring.  It's either oatmeal or eggs/toast for breakfast, with V8 and some fruit.  I try to get 5-600 cals for breakfast and a diminishing number of cals for each meal.  I eat mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, usually just fruit and cottage cheese and sometimes nuts.  Otherwise it's whatever leftovers we have for lunch and a salad and whatever Kathy comes up with for dinner.  We eat mostly fish/chicken, with red meat maybe once a week.  We also tend to eat a lot of the quinoa type grains with various stuff mixed in.  My one big no-no is that I eat WAAAYYYY to much ice cream after dinner.  That's my winter concession.  I stop that once the season starts as a way to keep from being on the Biggest Loser in a few years.  I would also say that white stuff is absolutely salt, and that's very typical for people who sweat heavily.  Mu running stuff is coated with it after a run.   Do a weight sweat test sometime if your interested in knowing how much you are sweating.  Weigh yourself before and after a run, keeping track on exactly what you take in.  Can be informative.

JeffY - 2013-01-24 9:12 AM Dina, Don't forget how training works!
You challenge your body, it complains, you persist, then it grudgingly adapts.

You might be over thinking this.

I'm highlighting Jeff's reply but welcome discussion from everyone!

I made it through my weekend workouts on those tired legs - bike/run Friday, 1.5 hour bike on Saturday, trail run of 4.5 miles yesterday. My run was really hard, my legs had nothing.  And why did I think it was a good idea to pick yesterday to finally drag myself outside for a run - 33 degrees and raining. I was soaked and cold!

So is it safe to assume today is a good time to take a rest/recovery day? I'm busy with preschoolers all day anyway but I could fit an easy spin on the trainer later tonight if it would be better to do something than nothing.

Another question - I have settled on running every other day instead of every day for now. So this week that means my running will be Sun/T/Th/Sat. T/Th are my YMCA days when I've been swimming and weight training. So now do I drop the weight training on those days or just add the run to what I am already doing? My run will be 2 miles tops.

Apologize in advance if my questions are to specific to my personal workload. I just have such a tendency to overdo it and I imagine others in the group might face some of the same situations......

On my front, I did an indoor bike TT on a computrainer Sat.  I didn't know what to expect due to my sickness and a few weeks off training, but I decided to just go for it and see how I felt.  The ride was only a 6.6 mile course with a few small hills, so seemed like a 18-19 minute effort would be likely.

It's hard to imagine bonking on a < 20 minute ride, but that's sort of what happened.  I was really psyched to be riding right next to a guy I knew from a few races.  Our bike times are almost identical, so we were hoping to have a fun race.  There was a large screen right in front of us that showed speed/distance/power and a picture of where we were on the course.

We rode side by side, within a few seconds of each other for the first 9 minutes.  I felt good, though I knew my HR was about 5-10 beats higher than I would expect for the effort.  We were at about 275 watts, which I thought seemed reasonable for a 20 minute effort and felt only slightly harder than the 20 minute intervals I’ve been doing.  Then at about 10 minutes I completely fell apart.  I don’t know exactly how to describe it, since I know Jeff is always asking what it felt like precisely.  I simply couldn’t push the pedals any harder.  My power fell off a cliff, and I finished in 19 minutes and a change with an avg. power of 250. It was a fun effort and it’s great to do something in the winter.  I was amazed at how many ridiculously fit people were there – lots of real roadies and lots of crazy bikes.

Samantha, yes!  By all means do a few duathlons this season to qualify for nationals/worlds.  Make the most of the trip.

I only did 1 duathlon last season but it turned out amazing.  I think my USAT ranking score in that race was over 90?  But I didn't get a 2nd duathlon in to get my ranking.  This year I'm hoping to find 2 duathlons to get ranked.

Jen, you get bonus points for hauling around all those kids and single-parenting this week!  I would like everyone to know that I have 4 kids and I used to take them out by myself all the time!  I did my girls' hair, got them dressed and fed in the mornings and off to day-care/school.  I took them on solo grocery shopping trips, I changed diapers...I am SUPER-DAD! 

On the nutrition front.  I'm not a good example to follow, but I will say that I think we put too much emphasis on eating and drinking during our workouts.  If you aren't putting your body in danger then replenishing fluids is a luxury.  So, what is 5% of your bodyweight?  You can lose that much during a workout without any risks.  Should you?  it's debatable.  Feel free to drink a lot during workouts if it makes the workout more comfortable.  But I like the idea of teaching my body to function under (safe) dehydration.  So I am OK with losing 5-8lbs of fluid during my workout.  So I don't drink during workouts of 2-2.5 hours in fair weather or up to 1-1.5 hours in hot weather.

As for eating?  Not unless I am going for 3+ hours.  I actually think it's good for training to be HARD.  So being in a calorie deficit and depleting glycogen and suffering through that teaches the metabolism to get better at using fat.  I will often do a hard Saturday right and hit the wall and struggle just to get back to the car.  WHEN that happens I will pull out food that I had stuffed in my pocket to help me get back, but eating it preemptively is something I only do in special circumstances.

Note: I don't do long-course races.  If I did, I would need liquid and calories during the race to perform my best.  So I would use them when doing my long workouts, at least in the weeks leading up to the race, as a race-specific type of training.

If you like to ge the nourishment while training and racing, there isn't much down side to it so feel free.  I am not quite suggesting that you should be going about it the way I do. 

As for daily eating, don't follow my poor example.  I have been eating like a hog over the last 10+ days while I've been sick.  I've gained 8lbs in the last 2 weeks.  The first few I think were muscle being regained after resuming weight training after my surgical rehab.  But the rest are from over eating and the lessened workout volume from being sick.  Yesterday I ate an entire quart of Breyers ice cream with CHOCOLATE SYRUP. 

I feel a little bad about myself.  I can even see the new fat on my body.  But I do know that I can lose it easily so I'm not freaked.

I couldn't 'race' my 5k this weekend so I got my 3 hr ride in during the morning before my afternoon 5k.  I ran with my 12 year old son who suffered a side stitch right away and we had to walk off and on the entire way.  But we got to talk about stitches and causes and cures and had a good time anyway.

Both of my daughters ran it.  My 21 year old won her age group.  My 19 year old placed 2nd in her age group.  I'm very proud!

My swimming has been great since my surgery (not because of it though...very weird).  Today's workout I got there late and missed the warmup and the first part of the main set.  But I got in and swam some of the first block then we got to a block of 8x100.   I was finishing the 100s faster than I've ever done before plus was able to stay on the interval throughout.  I was starting 2nd in my lane, so spotting 5 seconds to the first guy.  We usually go fastest to slowest in starting order.  But I was catching him and messing with his feet.  He couldn't hold the pace and eventually grabbed his pull buoy and slotted in behind me.  For many years he was the fastest swimmer in our group!  (we have had some new people join that are faster recently). 

The folks that I've been competing directly with for years are now half a length behind me during our intervals.  After years of not improving, but not having a specific reason why....it's very nice to see an improvement finally happening--yet there's no specific reason why.

I'm still sickly, but the aching and fever seem to be gone.  Now it's just a head that wants to explode, a stomach that's nauseous (from swallowing drainage) and lungs that have junk needing to be expelled. 

Recovery is tricky, and somewhat personal.  However, if the recovery is really just from a "tired legs" perspective, which is sounds like you are as opposed to a "I can't get out of bed" fatigue, I really believe it's better to do something than nothing.  I prefer a walk, or an easy spin, or something else which gets the legs moving but doesn't really put any stress on them.  There are days that I'll just decide to do nothing, but I still will likely do a self massage/roller session or some core work on those days.  This is my concession to being 50+, so maybe doesn't apply to most of you guys.

In terms of the running, I would simply add them to your current training, but monitor how your body responds.  I don't know exactly what weight training you are doing, but that amount of running doesn't seem like it will add too much stress to the system for those two days.

Thanks to Warren's recommendation I get these cool emails from Bobby McGee.  This lead me to a couple of cool articles that might give us some food for thought on running form.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/is-there-one-right-way-to-run/

http://bobbymcgee.com/to-heel-or-forefoot-strike-is-that-the-question/

Very interesting articles!!!

Warren, sorry you struggled on the bike but we all know you here and you are an awesome cyclist...don't I remember you finishing a bike race w/o a seat!  You are a hero!

Jeff, congrats to your daughters!!!  and time with son!  Congrats to your swim!!! What is it with you and Warren and the ice cream...lol  isn't that a summer treat...lol  Hope you get to feeling better.

Tony-

I have the same experience when I get sick.... I am never sick, then I sick back to back to back for about 6 weeks. Hope you feel better soon.

Reading about your Jorge training over the past several weeks  has me thinking I might do the same in the very near future. I switched up my training so I am getting more balanced training 3x a week , but a 3rd bike session is hard for me to squeeze in.

Hah! Now I know what to say to people when they think they know it all and tell me how to run or what sort of form I should be focusing on. Love the articles. Thank you!

Tracy I hope you are feeling better and being sick really sucks.

Jeff congrats to both your daughter's for their finishes. Sounds like they take after their Dad you must be very proud of them both. Hope you are feeling better soon as well.

Jen thanks and I will say this about Jorge's plan or any interval workouts they have really helped me improve my conditioning on the bike. I am doing 4 days now but even two or three days a week will make a difference. Following Jorge's plan and riding on the trainer with a purpose has made a big difference for me this year. I wish I would have done it last year and as much as I complain about doing this it is well worth any pain and suffering that I have endured. I may even give it a go tonight and try and get my workout in.

Yes - you are super dad. The hardest part for me in dragging 4 kids around was the noise. I just can't handle all the noise. My oldest (4 yrs old) and I are pretty quiet and when we had a day alone together running errands in the car we both barely said anything all day. We are just not chatty Cathy's.

As for nutrition - I am sitting here now eating Peruvian fried rice with chorizo and shrimp... I could barely get through my swim workout because I was so hungry! I ran 8 miles this morning and have eaten some through the morning, but not quite enough. I notice that if I eat a great meal the night before, I can push myself through a morning workout (before breakfast) and not feel lethargic. For short workouts, I make sure I have water to sip on. I have noticed on long runs I will start to feel warm sometimes and I will take a sip of water and then pour some over my head to cool me off (not on the treadmill though).

I notice if I don't force myself to take a sip here and there, then I seem to forget about drinking all together until I am famished. I have had to train my mind and my body to keep sipping and putting fluids into it. 

A quart of Breyer's ice cream sounds AWESOME right about now.

TAPERING?

I know Karl is running the Tally Half Marathon this weekend too, so I am super excited to be out there with another Junkie. Since this should be a taper week in preparation for Sunday's half marathon, I am curious about tapering insight. While this week will be a taper for the HM, I am still tri-training.

So, what is the best way to taper during the week before a HM? Should all three disciplines decrease? Should just running decrease and maintain my regular bike/swim workouts?

I did my last long runs, 6 miles on Friday,3 miles on Saturday, and 8 miles with a negative split this morning. I stayed away from the 9-11 mile long run that I was hoping to get in but decided against after getting straight forward advice here. I'm confused! I want to be strong and rested, but don't want to be a couch potato either.  

trigal38 - 2013-01-28 9:16 AM

JeffY - 2013-01-24 9:12 AM Dina, Don't forget how training works!
You challenge your body, it complains, you persist, then it grudgingly adapts.

You might be over thinking this.

I'm highlighting Jeff's reply but welcome discussion from everyone!

I made it through my weekend workouts on those tired legs - bike/run Friday, 1.5 hour bike on Saturday, trail run of 4.5 miles yesterday. My run was really hard, my legs had nothing.  And why did I think it was a good idea to pick yesterday to finally drag myself outside for a run - 33 degrees and raining. I was soaked and cold!

So is it safe to assume today is a good time to take a rest/recovery day? I'm busy with preschoolers all day anyway but I could fit an easy spin on the trainer later tonight if it would be better to do something than nothing.

Another question - I have settled on running every other day instead of every day for now. So this week that means my running will be Sun/T/Th/Sat. T/Th are my YMCA days when I've been swimming and weight training. So now do I drop the weight training on those days or just add the run to what I am already doing? My run will be 2 miles tops.

Apologize in advance if my questions are to specific to my personal workload. I just have such a tendency to overdo it and I imagine others in the group might face some of the same situations......

Dina, I think you've definitely carried your fatigue forward enough days now.  Definitely recover.  I don't know what that means to your body specifically.  It could mean doing what Warren suggests, it could be just enjoying a walk and maybe some upper body and/or core exercises at the gym.  It very likely includes a bountiful meal.

"Apologize in advance if my questions are to specific to my personal workload"---these are the best type of questions and mentor groups enable this more so than the general forums because we get a chance to keep up with your specifics. 

Hope you feel fresh again soon!

Well, keep in mind that the goal of tapering is simply to be fresh for your best performance on race day.  If you are someone that has trained a long time for 1 specific race and that's the culmination of your season then you might want to train as little as possible towards the end without losing conditioning because you have no goals left for the season after the upcoming race.

so there you have a 'minimum' and 'maximum' mindset.  I go in to my races (since there are so many) with the 'maximum' mindset....what's the maximum amount of training I can do without hurting this race too much?  Because ultimately I'm training for the last race of the season, or even next season's races.

If your mindset is the 'minimum' then you just want to make sure you don't get out of shape or stale before the race and otherwise will want the minimum amount of work.

The real answer is that you want enough decrease in training leading up to the race that you are fresh on race day.  Now, if you have been stretching yourself in training in the lead up to the race to be in your best shape, you might have some accumulated fatigue to recover from.

If you are someone that's been on the same training program for a long time and you are just participating in yet another HM, you won't have much accumulated fatigue to recover from.

I would say that now that your last long run is over, do the rest of the week the way you did last week with the possible exception being that your last run would be 2 days before the HM and the day before should be a day off.  But stretch out and walk around.  it might be a good day to swim that day because you won't hurt your HM by swimming.

Other tri training that week?  Keep that normal too with another caveat.  Don't ride the bike HARD 2 days before.  I think 3 days before would be OK, as would a relatively easy bike ride 2 days before.

Frankly for me, I plan on going all in for my half marathon... meaning I will likely cut out all biking and swimming the week leading up to the half.  I figure the following week (after the race) I will be cutting down drastically on running, which would give a chance to make it a swim/bike focus!

It really just depends what you want out of it all, I think.