SWBKRUN- Miles and Miles ahead!!!! CLOSED (Page 47)

Thanks.

Heh!!!  I'm not sure which makes him more uncomfortable, the swim or having to live and train with me in the house trying to be "encouraging".  LOL 

Let's just say between the two of us I am MUCH more type A than he is.

Too much potential for more problems than the kayak support can offer...  Not a good idea...  The US open had a good idea for AG'er swim start - it set people off in waves of like 6 every 10 seconds or so...  it put a lot of people in the water pretty quickly, but avoided the complete mash-up of a normal swim start...

DougRob - 2009-12-29 6:25 AM

SSMinnow - 2009-12-29 7:13 AM Q: If someone has never done a tri and fears the run, what approach might you suggest to get them through the 5K?

I was at a party last night and a 43 year old guy I know came up to me to talk tris.  He knows I do them and I was pretty sure he wanted to try one based on some conversations last summer. He used to be an athlete, got married, totally stopped doing anything, but working and drinking. His wife is a total non athlete. I suggested we do a sprint together this July. His biggest fear is the run (which alwasy baffles me), he swam in highschool (claims he can OWS) and has a bike.  He asked me to be his "Jillian" to get him ready. As the night went on he was more excited, but also had a few more cocktails!

Any thoughts on how to approach a running program for a total non runner?  Pretty sure he is going through a mid-lilfe crisis .

Have him find a 3 mile course and start walking it 3 times a week. Make sure he marks the time. Then have hium run the down hill portions only (still tracking his time). Slowly work up to running the whole 3 miles, Speed does not matter.

He will see the time dropping and be encouraged. Once he can run the whole thing, regardless of the time, he can work on going faster, starting again with the down hill sections. The time tracking should keep him going. Make sure he understands that speed is not important in the beginning.  Good luck. I hope he still wants to do it when the alcohol wears off.

Doug

That's a good answer Doug  - kinda a hybrid walk/run..  Continual motivation in timing himself - he will have to resist the urge to go our and "hit it hard" to get a good time, or he will hurt too much and not be able to hit the time again for a little while which would be counter productive...  That would be the only drawback I could see...

Trina, your bio was in the last thread, just post up a new one for everyone....

SSMinnow - 2009-12-29 7:13 AM Q: If someone has never done a tri and fears the run, what approach might you suggest to get them through the 5K?

I was at a party last night and a 43 year old guy I know came up to me to talk tris.  He knows I do them and I was pretty sure he wanted to try one based on some conversations last summer. He used to be an athlete, got married, totally stopped doing anything, but working and drinking. His wife is a total non athlete. I suggested we do a sprint together this July. His biggest fear is the run (which alwasy baffles me), he swam in highschool (claims he can OWS) and has a bike.  He asked me to be his "Jillian" to get him ready. As the night went on he was more excited, but also had a few more cocktails!

Any thoughts on how to approach a running program for a total non runner?  Pretty sure he is going through a mid-lilfe crisis .

Suzy

My response is quite simialr to the others posted here. I have seen a few beginnner programs from the running clubs in town and they basically go with starting at about a 2 minute walk with a 30 second light jog. From this they slowly build the run times up to to about 2 minutes alternatling with 2 minute walks. Once there they start cutting down the walk times and increase the run times by about 30 seconds until the walk is completely gone. The changes in the wla/run durations are done on a weekly basis. Once your beginner has reach this level  they should be in a position to extend the runs appropriately increasing no more than 10% per week.  It looks like a slow process but I have seen that people that try to go more distance too early have a tendancy to drop off as their bodies get too tired and they just don't want to go any more. It's hard to hold back sometimes but it is definitely the best for beginners.

I haven't seen a first time wave at any of the races I have been at. They have always been broken down into age groups and the largest group I saw was at the HIM where there were about 300 in a wave. That gave lots of room for those uncomfortable in the swim to be towards the back or off to the side of the wave without being too far back. I think it is especially important for first timers to positon themselves accordingly. Even if a person is a good swiimer the first time out in OWS in a large group can be intimidating.