kalalau's Group - FULL for now (Page 5)

Yes, that was me.  I can get 15 SPL if I use a "legs out wide" frog kick to get a good glide on every stroke.  I have abandoned that kick for a more "economical" flutter kick.  I'm back up to 20-25 strokes per length, but I don't wear out as quickly.

Ah, that's pretty interesting.

You mean 25 meters?  I am only doing 20 strokes per 25 yards.

The kickoff is a funny thing when doing this.  For it to mean anything, we have to have a consistent kickoff.  I guess I could do mine with no kickoff but that sounds hard. :-)

There's no bagging a race! :-)  Plus, this one is going to be great, trust me.  Even if you missed a bunch of workouts you would still be ok. You don't have to stick to just running though, you can do a swim/bike workout instead of one of your midweek runs.

Stopping at 10 is ok, it saved some of your energy for the rest of this week.  I'm not sure you should skip to next weekend's mileage though.  What are you scheduled for?

I have this incredible recovery story I want to tell now, but the case hasn't been settled yet, so I won't. :-)

That would've been pretty impressive! I would be in awe.  I wonder what Michael Phelps can do for 50 meters.

OK, so I counted strokes tonight.  The best I could do was about 24 strokes per 25 yds.  That was with a pretty small push off the wall.  I can imagine if you did flip turns, you'd cut off a few since you come up after the flags...but I can't!  Maybe if I only counted every other arm...

Sorry ya'll.  I know I have not been posting much lately, but I just got a job and battling school and swim club has got me busy. 

OK.  I halted my running for the time being (cold outside and started having knee problems again).  I was on week 10 of the Ironman training, but with my schedule I had to abandon (spl) this time-consuming program.  I have been swimming with my schools swim club 3 times a weekish.  They do about 2-3 miles but it's incorporating drills and sprints mostly.  It has been good to get involved with the team because I was doing long slow swims and not fast paced workouts like the team does.  I believe it has helped me tremendously.

 Running.  I have the Nashville Music Marathon on April 25th.  I have run once in the past 2 weeks.  I felt well especially when I came in with a 4 mile 28 minute time.  I am going to pick up my running now the weather is not in the highs of 19 degrees and miserably windy.  I was thinking of running 3 times a week.  1 being sprints (400's 800's type of sprints), 1 being intervals, and the last being long slow gliding runs (start off at 8-10 miles and build weekly).

 Anyone have suggestions on a good 3 x week running program that allows one to finish a marathon (first one ever) in 2 months?

I found a 3x per week marathon training plan on Runner's world , but it's a 16 week plan, not 13 weeks, like you have before CMM.   It also starts out with runs of 10 miles, which I don't know if you're up for (I forget where you were at with running). It also maxes out at 20 miles, which from my own experience I personally don't buy into, but I know a LOT of people who do. 

Either way, like the plan suggests, I'd try to do a speed day, a tempo day, and a long run day if you are only doing three days per week.  If you don't have a great base or are injured, I'd cut the speed day and just do a moderate length run instead.  That's just my 2 cents.

I like that program.  Yeah the key is where are you now?  It doesn't sound promising, with skipping two weeks and you had knee problems.  If you jump too far ahead in your long runs it'll just get worse.  Taking the lazy way into a marathon is much better than making it there injured most of the time.

I usually peak at about 18 miles but I won't complain too much about 20.  Is that what you were saying, Becky?

I would rather you start at the beginning of a schedule, and come up a bit short on the long runs, than jump into week X of a schedule where you might not be ready for week X.

I would probably do 16 this weekend then, and 18 the week after.  If you feel ok, yes, doing 20 (or 18) on the recovery week is a good idea.  Play it by ear, listen to your body and see if it feels like doing 20 that weekend.  Sometimes I head out with a range for that day, and set up the route so I can get an early out if it's needed.  So for the "recovery week" I might have the range of 17-20, but if I feel like I could get injured or bonk badly, doing the lower piece of that range is not going to be bad.

That's ok, just look at all the improvement you can make! :-)

I'm not sure we should compare ourselves too much anyway.  Everyone's going to be different and some of it is unfair advantage like a natural long and lean body.  I think it's pretty important to be consistent with the things like the kickoff though (consistent with yourself) so you can see that you are improving.

I had a nice breakthrough in swimming on Saturday.  I have to check it out though and make sure I was doing it correctly and not causing a shoulder injury. :-)  I started playing around with how I move my shoulder, and getting it ready for the catch.  I found that when I got my shoulder in position to have a more vertical arm, I was a lot faster.  I had read something about a common problem being that we tend to push water down at the beginning of the stroke, when we should be pushing BACK.  All motions should be to move your body forward, not up.  If you press down with your forward arm, you are wasting time/movement that could be spent pushing backwards.

I know we are told frequently to imagine that we are rolling a barrel underneath our body, but I'm not sure that's been helping me much. :-)

Actually, no.  I prefer to run up to 24+ miles in training.  I think those last 6 miles are by far the hardest (mentally and physically), and I'd rather practice it, as long as I've worked up to it and am not in danger of hurting myself.

I do agree with you though, in that it's better to start at the beginning of the plan, or at whatever mileage is appropriate as opposed to starting at something too high and getting more injured.  Starting a plan at week three or four after taking two weeks off injured seems like a recipe for disaster.    

Great job!  I've read a lot about "high elbows" as your arm recovers so your arm is more vertical when it enters the water, and then pushing backwards like you describe.  The imagery I've heard is like you are climbing a ladder.  Not that I have this all mastered, but it's something to think about!

Yeah - about those arms..

I remember the TI DVD showing the optimal placement for that forward arm.  A little bit low and to the side.  They show an X-Y grid on the screen to demonstrate this.  But then they say to swim through an imaginary tube - which to me means arm directly in front of you and high.  This also lets me "swim long".

So when my recovery arm enters the water, I bend my fingers a little backwards (hyperextend them) to allow the water to scoop the hand out in front of me.  I think this is what he means when he says to "imagine your hand entering a mail slot".

Do I have any of this right?

Steve,

The NCR Trail Snails are doing a HAT preview run on the 31st at 8am.  They are doing 10 or 15 miles.  I'll send you the info if you are interested.

I haven't been able to run myself very much since Disney.  I am hoping to do a 5/10 mile BRRC club trail race on Sunday but I'm not sure that's going to happen.  Between injuries and being sick I might be out this weekend.

I'm going to have to rewatch that video, I don't remember a grid.  I hadn't thought of hyperextending the hand, I would've figured straight is the best.  I will have to play with that.

Wow, you are tough.  Even in the Iron distance guide I use, we don't run over 3 hours.   I've sometimes wondered if I would run any better if I did a couple of longer runs.  Have you tried the classic 18 mile peak for any marathons to see if it makes things better or worse?

I got to my fastest marathon times when I was running marathons really often, like once a month.  Of course I got injured doing that too.  Someone begged me to play softball the day after my 6th marathon in 7 months.

It would be pretty tough to get out of bed knowing I have a 24 miler to do. :-)

Ah you must be on the same email lists that I am. :-)  I'm sure there will be other HAT runs, I might even be up for one.

The Superbowl Trail 5/10 is a good race.  I imagine I will be there even if I can only manage 5 miles.  Most of the people there are doing 5, but there's still a decent amount doing 10.  There's 2 decent hills, one of which I manage to run up on the first loop and can never make it up running on the 2nd.  If you did this race, it might be tough to get your 15-16 miles in unless you do the loop a 3rd time by memory or GPS.  I think they follow the last guy of the race and pick up the route flags.  Another option for your post race mileage is to head around the corner to Loch Raven Drive, which is closed to traffic on weekends.