QueenZipp & Dexter's good cop/ bad cop - FULL (Page 5)

Wow...travel on business for a couple of days and I find that I've missed a ton of activity with the group.  Got back from San Francisco on Thursday night.  Nice to be sleeping in my own bed again, but I woke up in a panic.  What day is this?  Do I have to go to work?  I guess that kind of panic is better than when I wake up wondering what city I'm in!

A warm welcome to all the new members!

JHoyt1:  Nice to have you on board.  Looking forward to following your training.

Akuma:  Adam--your story is very inspirational!

Joel.Antes:  Switching from a weight loss focus to a fitness focus is a good way to go.  I have a feeling that if you succeed on the fitness front, the weight loss will naturally come along.

Liquidsilver:  J...I feel your pain.  It sounds like you do more business travel than me, but I do spend about 3-5 nights in a hotel somewhere each month.  Finding a way to get your training in is definitely a challenge.  The key is to be flexible...and very creative.  On the food front...I don't do much fast food under normal circumstances, but finding decent nutrition on the road is still a challenge.  If you get that one figured out, please let me know!

Soccer35:  Anti-drowning!  That's a classic!  I see that you'll be taking some lessons.  I did that last year to help me move from being a backyard paddler to a swimmer.  The lessons made a big difference.  Unfortunately, I haven't been back in the water since October.  I need to get my butt back to the pool...

And finally...

Catherine:  Sorry, I'm no help on the Finis Tempo, but I've always been intrigued by those gadgets.  I'll be interested to hear how your training goes with it once you get the interval settings figured out.

Rob:  Another one for the 1% approach.  Been doing that consistently for a couple of years on the treadmill.  I know it's supposed to help offset the lack of wind resistance when running indoors, but I don't care what they say, for me running on the tready always feels easier, even with the incline.

Happy training everyone!

What's on tap today?

3 hour bike ride is done, but so is Sunday over here.  Having a pregnant wife and 3 hrs worth of bike ride hunger = trouble....

Enjoy your Sunday.

Hi Judi,

My area of weakness is definitely the habit of near drownings Running is the strength, bike neither here nor there, so perhaps the Sprint - Swim Focused - 20 Week plan would work best of the ones available? I did get some technique analysis back in '04 when I did my first tri, so I can take those tips with me thankfully.

Good luck with your rehab, always tough after injury to know how far to push huh  

Michelle: Nice to meet you also, and thanks for the kind words re: my story, we all have our challenges

Edited by Akuma 2011-01-23 4:34 AM

Nice epic ride!

Sundays are usually set aside for my regular yoga class, so I'll be heading out shortly.  We rotate the focus each week...last week was backbends, so I'm thinking we'll be practicing a lot of standing poses and hip openers today.   

Hi everybody! Work has been keeping me busy lately, but happily I've been training more consistently than I'd been - just not POSTING as consistently.

George - the Y is great for adult swimmers! I just came home from my adult advanced lesson about an hour ago, actually. I don't know about yours, but the lessons are incredibly reasonably priced here, too.

Adam - the sprint focus sounds really smart. I think if you focus there and train well you're going to dominate!!!

Michelle - I miss my yoga class! Need to get back. Speaking of the Y (I'm a HUGE fan, obviously) I've been known to take two free classes a week there - love it, especially as my particular facility favors the "salsa dancing in every class!" approach to fitness, whereas the yoga classes are somewhat more focused and calm. Not that there's anything wrong with salsa dancing; it's just really not my thing.

This snow needs to go away, or at least melt enough so I can run outside again, instead of this BS melting a little and then snowing again. Boo!

OH, and go Jets!

Hi peeps.  Hope the weekend is going well.   I'm off to maramdaddy's, friend to all, for a little trainer work while watching the game. 

Hi all,
Yes, Adam....that sprint program sounds good!

Michelle, I need to find more challenging yoga. I have a couple dvd's from Gaiam that just don't make me feel like I have really done a workout.

I swam this afternoon and actually enjoyed it.  Not entirely sure what made it better.......it was shorter and mixed in a few strokes.....think that's part of what I need to make me like swimming again.

It's gorgeous outside, I'm going to pump up the tires on my race bike (road bike is on the trainer) and go for a little ride in the sunshine.

I finally got around to writing my race report on the blog.  http://www.quadrathlete.com/ 

I'm about to fill in the stuff on here.  

Haven't been doing much since I was at Key West Race Week.  Sailing for 5 days!  Was a busy schedule.  Hopefully will update on that too.

I did do a swim in the condo pool.  It was quite funny seeing relatively old people doing breast stroke laps and me doing a swim practice next to them!  

Wanted to run but really couldn't fit it in, was too tired/hungover or sailing or partying!  My goal this week is to get back into it and get the bad food habit I gained last week back under control!   

would it be crazy to do the Miami Man 10k swim on Saturday April 9th and then the Nautica Triathlon on Sunday April 10th???

http://www.miamisportsinternational.com/

http://www.nauticasobetri.com
 

Alternatively, there is the Ride for Hope in Eleuthera, Bahamas that weekend:

http://www.rideforhopebahamas.com/

AHHHHHH DECISIONS!!!  

Great work on the blog and the Key West race Lee, waking up at 4:30am is an achievement in itself let a lone a half marathon after that

I'm no expert in tri's or swimming for that matter, but I did play national level sport all through my youth and I know personally, backing up the following day was always easier, and according to the physio's quite safe and even beneficial if you are downgrading the distance/effort/length. In their words, it can serve as a flush out of the lactic acid.

My guess is if you can do a 10K swim, you would handle the much shorter tri swim ok as a warm down and flush out, I guess it is about what muscles were used when it comes to transferring to the bike and run.

Good luck and well done!

Edited by Akuma 2011-01-24 4:15 AM

Lee, I am not so sure about doing a 10K swim followed by a tri the next day......sounds like a bad idea to me.  However, the events do sound fun

Lee - are you a super strong swimmer?  Could you do a 10K swim at an 'easy' effort?  If so, then it might be doable.  Personally, I know that *I* could never do it!  But I'm still pretty much a beginner swimmer.

Speaking of which - can you all tell me if this is insane to even consider?

I just found out that there is a Rev3 Half and Oly a little over an hour from my brother's place, next October.  We were talking about visiting them next fall, so the timing could be good from that point.  They are near Atlanta, I live near Portland, OR (to get an idea of the extent of the travel).  So here's the part I'm wondering about - should I do one of these two races IF I have my first ever HM the following weekend?  Is that not enough recovery time?

I'm doing my first Oly in June...so if there was not a HM already on my plan, I would shoot for the Rev3 Half just to make the trip worthwhile.  Now I'm not so sure...  An Oly would be easier to recover from, but it is worth travelling all the way across the country for an Oly?  Probably not, right?  Ugh.

I think I'm considering all this because this may be my last summer of triathlons for a long time (like 7 years) and I want to get as much out of it as possible.  It's too much though, isn't it?

I am a strong swimmer.  Both of my 5k swims last fall were "easy" in that I got out and felt like I could keep swimming, both under 1.5 hours I think.  10k gets into the whole feeding category though, although I think I could practice that, and also means 3+ hours in the water vs 1 and a bit.  That's why I was thinking the sprint vs. the olympic distance.  I'm seriously considering it!  Will decide this week, because Ride for Hope is a very fun event if anyone is interested in doing some riding on a gorgeous tropical island!

Catherine,
An oly a week before a half mary sounds like too much for someone relatively new....it's a LOT of stress on the body for either one.  My first real Oly (first one was turned into a du thanks to a hurricane) I felt beaten up for a couple days.  You tend to feel the same way after a hard effort HM


Dud, are you noticing that I am actually more conservative than you thought here???

Lee, I forgot that swimming is your strength.....a 10K swim is going to take it out of ya for sure......the sprint might be doable..... not the oly

Kinda wondering who you really are and what have you done with Judi. 

Lee depends on what you want out of the races.  If ya want to have fun go for it.  10K will take it out of you I definitely consider it.  If the Oly was first I'd say pick one. 

Catherine keep it simple at this point.  I would do the Oly and look for a HM later.   Climb up the distance ladder slowly and enjoy the races. 

Excuse my ignorance, but what are strides? (apart from a part of running of course )

Fair question.

Picking up the pace and accelerating up to a sprint for 100-200 meters (give or take) focusing on form and leg turnover.

Ah! ... well after my first run in months and months this morning, they should be called "strokes" ... I guess the time will come when I can actually increase speed in the middle of a run. Thanks for letting me know.

Edited by Akuma 2011-01-24 11:40 PM

Little late to the party, but thought I would weigh in on the 'should I' debate.  Bottom line, I think you have to have a solid base of fitness and a good amount of focused training under your belt in order to pursue back to back events.  I'm assuming anyone who would consider this has a good foundation in this already. With that said, for me at least, the thing I think I would be asking myself is whether I could be truly happy with knowing that pushing myself that hard will likely result in a less than stellar race performance in both events.  If I could be satisfied with whatever time I ended up with because I was just doing the event to have fun and do the event, then I would go for it.  If however, my competitive streak is going to leave me beating myself up for days after the events because I wasn't able to achieve my race goals, then I would likely focus my efforts on one event, train accordingly, and go all out.

For what it's worth, Fresno is debuting a California Classic event in May that I'm considering...on Saturday there's a Century and metric Century ride, and on Sunday, a HM.  I could do both (assuming I can find the time for focused training), do one or the other, or just let it go.  Haven't decided yet...but I do know that with my crazy schedule right now, if I do sign up for even one of the events, it will have to be just for the fun of doing it and not the race time.

Judi...you said you needed to find more challenging yoga...

As you know, I practice at a studio, so I'm not really up on the latest DVDs.  But look for anything that has 'flow' 'power' 'ashtanga,' or 'vinyasa' in the title or the liner notes.  Those should be a lot more challenging.

Of course, my yoga teacher would say that the very thing you are trying to avoid (something that is more gentle and nurturing) is the very thing you really need.  Just sayin'

surprise, surprise.....maybe I do know a few things