SBR Utopia ---- Permanently OPEN!! (Page 48)

HM today.  PR for me and the Better Half - very happy, both of us.  

Went with tights and a vest, and it was the right call - was hot for about 90 seconds, cold for about five minutes and good the rest of the time (wind was honkin').  Arend, not sure how you do that in shorts!

Actually has been a great "rest & test" week, with 5 PRs (1,000 yd pool, 15k, 10 mile, 20k and 13.1 mile - granted the last 4 were one run, but I'm happy just the same).

Finished the run and had a fish sandwich and chowder (New England's finest winter fare), then off to find a good double IPA to "rehydrate."  Good times!  

Now, if I can do this when I have kids my age…  

RR to follow.

Matt

Congratulations Matt!  What a way to finish off the week but with a PR and with the better half. 

Tweaked something in the hip flexors of my left leg during my long run yesterday.  It's a bit tender this morning so I am taking an off day to let it recover.  Hopefully nothing serious.

Matt, congrats on the great HM result!  To both you and the better half.  

Nice to see folks racing...still seems so far away with snow on the ground.  Great results as well all around!

I wound up getting sick the middle of last week which knocked me on my keester.  Took it easy over the weekend and back to the grind today.  Traveling for work and went to a pool I have gone to several times before.  Well, the water was about 86-88 degrees...unbearable.  The lifeguard offered me a bowl of ice...not kidding.  Apparently the senior citizens have demanded it be that warm.  Time to find a new pool in the area.

RR is up:  http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=512767 

Matt

A late:

Welcome back Rudy!

Great race Matt!   Fast field, no kidding, were you really 111 AG with that time???

Good discussion (for me at least) by BarryP over on ST.   http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Runtraining_and_why_it_is_so_counter_intuitive_P5009373/

As an adult onset runner, and thus seeing a steady improvement over my running "career" as I got more base, I always judged my fitness by my pace as it improved at a certain effort level.  Now that I have a few years in my legs, I find that leveling off, and am trying to divorce myself from the concept of pace as a training metric, but it ain't easy.  I should (and do sometimes) delete pace as a display on the garmin, but I still find myself looking at it and sometimes being quite judgmental about it.  I have continued to improve in races when I have been able to train into them without injury

Forced into accepting it today, as I am on a bit of a run block, and today was 4th day running, 25 miles over those days (a lot for me and my history), and legs are pretty fatigued.  Anyway, just a timely and good reminder for me.  it's taken (taking...) me years to accept this.

I have been following that thread as well.  I have raced very fast 10k and 15k doing nothing but lots of easy running.

5000 in the pool today...that takes awhile .  Mixed in some fast 100s and 50s at the end and felt great.

15K + scheduled in the pool this week...quite a bit for me.

I think that run thread on ST is great too.  When I first started running, I got hurt several times until I drank the "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" kool-aid.  My problem was that I took it to the extreme of eliminating the "sometimes hard" as I was scared to get hurt again.  It's one of the big reasons I wanted to hire a coach - to teach me how to incorporate the "sometimes hard" part properly.

I woke up this morning and the hip flexor issue was gone.  Had a good 5 x 5 @ 285w on the trainer this morning and a 45 min run with some strides at lunch.  Another cold day here but we are supposed to get a few warmer ones later in the week, fingers crossed!

Trying to catch up.  Had a busy weekend, which did involve some riding, but we had a wind storm come through with gusts up over 60 mph in some areas.  I didn't see those gusts, but the 35-45 mph gusts I did feel on parts of my ride were enough to keep them interesting...and on the shorter side.

I did manage to get out for my first Tuesday group ride in about 6 months.  Fun times...lots of suffering.

Matt:  You were asking about transportation to the Grand Rapids HIM and I meant to comment.  I am tentatively planning on that race as well.

I am local here...GR is only 45 minutes away.  Flying into GR would be very convenient if you can swing it and flights are usually not to expensive into/from that airport.  The airport is only 10-15 minutes away from the race site and all of the hotels that you would likely stay at are in between the two as well.

It is on the medium side for an airport but they have alot of flights in and out.  Baggage and security is really easy.

I would recommend that route.  Also consider that sitting in a car for 15 hours after a Half Ironman dont sound great .

This is really great. Thanks for sharing!

Chris, when you talk about pace as a training metric do you mean all the time or just during key workouts?

I think a lot like the way you guys use powermeters vs mph (and mind you that stuff is way over my head, but as the way I understand it) "pace" does not tell the whole story.  I was reading an article in Running Times about a guy who pulls a whole bunch of different data from a race (including terrain, weather, past results, distance etc) and plots them then you can compare efforts across the board. I am sorry I don't have the name but I will look it up when I get home. I thought it was really interesting. Rarely do I ever feel that pace even begins to tell the whole story (which is why I see the value in race reports.) 

I am, of course, a big believer in "the mostly easy, sometimes hard," I do think the sometimes hard is an area where everyone could work on. Understanding the purpose of different kinds of  "hard" workouts and how to apply them within a training plan. 

Above all, I think consistency is king. Athletes are successful with a wide variety of training philosophies but the common denominators for improvement are consistency and avoiding injury. 

What does that analysis come up with? Something like graded or weighted pace? The issues with pace in running are the same as biking, just a lot less prominent.  I find it quite helpful, but still can lack some like you seem to have noticed with telling the whole story. Keep waiting for something that's more like power in that it measures output instantly and without the influence of terrain or other conditions.

It's a number not a pace, but yeah, it's kind of a graded number. It sounds like they use it for college recruiting, specifically for XC where it's REALLY hard to gauge a "fast" time. Sorry I don't have more details. When I was reading it I was definitely thinking of you guys (Didn't one of you mention that if people had something similar to a power meter while they were running hills they would run a lot different?)

I'm sure several of us have at least thought that.

Sally, for me pace was always an issue.  If I didn't hit the fast pace I hit last week, I was getting worse, or not as strong, or slower.   I can't say it made a lot of sense.     But also as a new runner I have no internal pace clock.  I know some people can say they are currently running X:XX Per mile during a run.  I have no clue.

That was Rusty I thiink that mentioned the run PM