Gaarryy's Group now Closed for Business (Page 5)

Congrats on the pregnancy, I must admit I'm jealous.  I can't convince my wife to have another one yet.  We have a  4 year old daughter and she is a handful.  I would love to have 10 kids, although that might put a halt to any training.  Although it's tough it is also very rewarding.  I love being a parent.

Good luck on your bike ride.

I know it's already Saturday, but weekend plans included a bike ride this morning, after which I was supposed to do a 1000m swim TT. That did not happen.  The bike kicked my butt today.  It was really cold and really windy (gusts around 30, steady around 13mph).  So, tomorrow I'll swim my TT first thing in the morning and then get my run in and then it's football time.   I think I'm going to go to the sports bar around the corner with a friend.  No drinking though,  I have made a promise to myself that I won't drink until after my first HIM.  It's just too easy for me to have 2 or 3 beers when I come home after work and then just hit the couch instead of working out.  So better for me to just not drink at all.  Have a great remainder of the weekend all.

OK, where were these last Friday Night when I had what I thought would be 2 glasses of Merlot - thus no training on Saturday, mean while - congrats on the pregancy, I have two and they are a blast and yes they will drive you crazy but I am convinced that what there primary reason is. 

 The day of these photos when I was finishing the Oly at Falls Creek Falls my kids & one of their cousins jumped the finish chute & "accompanied" me across the line. I collapsed and my daughter found me & said "Um, Dad...you definitely did not win."

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Alright, so Alex asked me what my goals for the week were, and after I thought about it I decided to post them in here:

1.) Train for more than 7 hours this week

2.) Stretch my time on the bike to more than 1 hour per session

3.) Swim more than 3500 yards.

Anyone else care to add their goals for the week?

So I found out tonight that I didn't pass one of my CPA exams (there are four parts and I've passed two), so I have to study for and pass two exams by the end of the month instead of one.  That means that I'll have to cut back on training and replace it with studying; unfortunately, I"m going to have to hold of on starting a swim program until February....  That said, here are my goals for the week:

1. Train for 4 hours (Long stationary bike on Sunday); and
2. Study for CPA exam 2-3 hours Tues - Thur and 6 hours Sat & Sun

With that, time to hit the sack, and as Grady said "Tear it up this week".

Good luck on the exams.  Studying and facing exams is one of the areas in my life where I happily say 'been there, done that, and don't need to do it again'.

I'm real bad at setting specific goals (that would require accountability) but in general:

1. Make sure I get my swim time in and work hard in the water
2. Have a LT test on my bike Friday so I need to make sure I don't overdo it going into that.
3. I'm getting very anxious about getting a 50mile bike ride in outdoors but weather may not cooperate this weekend.

Definitely wish you good luck on your exams!

Hang in there, Dave. The training you do get to will be an awesome stress reliever. Also, your goal race isn't until July, right? Plenty of time.

it depends on the plan you are using,, either one from here, one online, or even from many of the running books out there... but basically it's going to be a lot of zone 1, mid zone 2,  the "speed work" tempo stuff,, what ever you want to call it really isn't that often,   You want to be able to have the ability to get some decent run volume without injury.. 

sorry I"ve been MIA the last couple of days,,, just slammed at work with limited computer time, and same at home

 good luck on the exam,,  and I'd agree that studying for them is more important than swimming this month,, how long does it take to get the results back

S: 8200.00 Ydn or  3h 00m
B: 6h 00m
R: 2h 10m

I"ve really got to start getting up early,  I usually have no problem but lately I just can't seem to have the motivation to get up,, maybe if I adjust my heater to come on 30 min before the alarm I wont' be diving back under the warm covers

Thank you all for your well wishes for the exams, greatly appreciated.  I should get my scores end of February or early March, and will keep you posted.

Today during lunch was my first run/walk on the Couch-to-5k program and I noticed a couple of things, which raised a couple of questions:

1. The treadmill seems more stable when I jog compared to walking - my water bottle bounces all over the place and I need to keep the cover on when I walk, but when I jog, it barely moves at all. 
2. I notice that while walking on the treadmill I need to lightly touch the side rails to stay in the middle - I drift left/right when walking, but can stay centered when jogging.

My guess is that both will get better as I loose weight and get used to being on the treadmill.  Have any of you experienced the same when you first started out?

A couple of quick things that come to mind. 

• What speed do you have the TM set at when you are walking?  Are you in a comfortable stride or do you feel like you are trying to do more of a power walk? You need to keep your HR up during the walk but don't want a stride that is unnatural and may result in injury.
• Where are your eyes?  I'm guessing that when you're running you are probably focused slightly ahead and steady.  If you are gazing around when walking you will definately have balance issues.
• It will get better as you get used to the treadmill.  I remember the days when I would have sea legs when I got off from one, now I can stay on for hours and never have a problem when I get off.

Keep it up.  You are doing great!

 I agree with the "eyes" comment also.. it's an old trick/technique from motorcyles, where ever your head/eyes turn the bike will go..  actually oddly enough I'm just the opposite I can walk ok on the treadmill but when I run,  ouch.... I can't count the number of times I've almost tripped and fallen when my feet hits the side or I hit the bar at the front which (at my gym) is where the emergency stop is.   But you will get used to it.. are you walking/jogging with it completely flat?/  I"ve heard many times and when I use a treadmill do this also, but having the incline at 1% or 1.5% incline is more like being outdoors??

I've heard that having the treadmill set to 1% does a bit to simulate the effect of wind resistance.

I have the problem of running off the front of the treadmill (or at least catching my feet on the plastic at the front of the belt) or fading side to side - if I'm watching tv.

The look where you want to go thing is absolutely true, on the treadmill and when outside on the bike.  I just have to watch for target fixation problems at the gym...need blinders to avoid glancing at the scenery. 

When walking, I have the speed set at 3.5 mph, so it's more of a power walk (cadence is 56 left foot strikes per minute) and I keep the incline at 2.5%.  I don't have a heart rate monitor and not to sure how accurate the TM is but HR is in the high 140s during the walk portion.  Do you think I need to slow down a little on the walk portion? 

Eyes are looking forward and there is a TV in front - I watch the sports highlights, but don't listen to it - I have an audio portion of my CPA exam study guide on my iPod that I listen to while on the TM; maybe I'm drifting from this like Dan described in his post.  I used to ride motorcycles when I was younger, so I know about the 'body follows the head/eyes' that you, Gary, and Dan have mentioned (Dan, I have a problem with target fixation as well; it's usually tougher if I'm at the gym at night compared to during the lunch hour though).

So, it sounds like I should try slowing down a little bit on the walk portion and the rest will come along as I get used to being on the treadmill.

Thanks for the advice

My goals for the week:

Three trips to the pool

One road bike & one trail ride (to prep for the X-terra Off Road Tri)

Do my yoga dvd a few times

Stay in appropriate heart rate zones while running (when I remember to charge the Garmin)

 Have you done many X-terra off road tri's??   I think that would be really cool.. I really need to get a mountain bike ......  nice goals,, charge that garmin

This is my log entry for my swim this morning:

2 times
300 pull (2:07, 2:13)
300 zoomers (2:11, 2:18)
300 swim (2:23, 2:27)

c/d 100 kick on back w/zoomers

times listed are pace per 100 yards even though this is a 100 meter pool.

This morning I actually felt the best swimming w/out either the bouy or the zoomers. Was very happy when I got out of the pool cuz I had gone 300 meters twice (second one was actually 350) and felt really comfortable and pretty balanced in the water. I haven't gone that far comfortably in quite a while.
Then I start taking laps out of my sport count and realize how horribly SLOW this was. I went from feeling good about this swim to being discouraged again. I can't figure out if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If I didn't look at the times then I'd be satisfied with just going along like this because I'm comfy and can maybe gain more confidence, but on the other hand this pace is NOT acceptable. Urrrrrrgggghhhh.

 So what do you guys think?  Is it more important to settle for the slow pace, be thankful that I can maybe find a comfort zone in the water, and work on building the endurance that I desparetly need, or push harder and try to get those times down.  I guess I know that it is just like the bike and run that I need to be doing both endurance work and speed work but it is just so hard for me..... Alright, think I just needed to whine a bit there.  Back in the water tomorrow but I haven't written that work out yet.  Any suggestions?