Baowolf's Beginner Banquet -Sorry all tables are full no room.. (Page 5)

Many calculators overestimate the calories burned by working out.  Really ballpark figures are 100 calories per mile run, 500 calories per our biked or swum assuming steady effort at z2.   You can get a touch more accurate, but hard to count your calories in more accurate than those global calorie figures. 

Triathletes tend to overestimate calories burned in general, and then overeat to compensate and then don't lose weight.  Just a trend.  If your current calculator is working for you, no need to change, I just like to keep things simple and kind of at a basic calculation.   

steve i am assuming your talk of not being able to make up workouts was somewhat directed at me and my post. and i definitely agree. i kinda misspoke as it was really more a matter of missing my normal time to workout. so...same day just later. and yes i very much enjoy weightlifting. i know that as my swim/bike/run times get longer I will have to cut the weightlifting time shorter and shorter and i am alright with that. you might have noticed that i do give a lot of attention to my core so i think i have a decent idea of what i should be focusing on with my workouts.

i got my first swim in and omg it was brutal! i will definitely be trying to get in a master class as you and ceril suggested.

i took yesterday off as i was needing a personal day but will be back on it today.

Just got done with an unplanned bike ride.  I've only had this new bike a week(first non-Target bike) and am also learning to use clipless pedals.  My LBS taught me the same as the advice here, unclip one foot before stopping.  He also said when getting started, not to worry about clipping the second foot in until I got going down the road good and through the intersection.  I think this was wonderful advice.  

This is the first time for me to ride with my Garmin moved over to this bike also.  What an improvement.  On my old bike I had an avg. speed of around 12MPH on a ride.  Today's ride was almost 15MPH.  That's a 25% increase in speed.  Sure I need more but I feel that's not too shabby.

My biking is coming along fine, minus my issue of not being brave enough to get in the aerobars yet.  What I have a question on is swimming.  Every time I swim for over 30 minutes I feel and look extremely bloated.  It almost hurts to walk.  I believe it is me swallowing air while breathing that causes this.  What can I do to prevent this.  Take a Gas-X before swimming perhaps?

Thanks and I must say I have enjoyed reading everybody's posts regarding progress.

@Baowolf:  Thanks for the quick review of my logs.  You commented on my Max HR being a little high.  My Max HR is always registered in the first .25-.5 miles of a run.   I always get a crazy high spike then it settles down.  I just figured this was a common thing and never paid to much attention to it.  For those that train with a HR monitor, do you see a similar spike at the start of a workout? 

Yesterday I made a comment regarding purchasing a new bike vs. using your hybrid/mountain bike. Last nights ride in the park reminded me of that.  I got passed by a guy on a mountain bike on a very hilly section of the ride.  It was a nice reminder that tri bikes are cool and look really fast but it's still all about the engine.  I have got a lot of work to do.

@Dennis....Oh man, I went for a swim last and felt the same. Thought I took in half the water of the pool, but air is a more fitting description now that you mention it. Also anybody got any tips on learning to breathe better while swimming?

I have my breathing down pretty good.  I just have to use nose clips to do it.  I just constantly breathe out while under for 2 strokes, then breathe in on the the 3rd.  It takes a couple of laps to get my rhythm down though.  This is bad because I have difficulty on the first 50-100 and in a race I have to have it right from the start.

One of the things I practiced to get accustomed to breathing is just stand in the shallow end, put your head below water, breathe out, turn head and breathe in.  Repeat.

Breaststroke animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHojPPuVIzk

Freesytle animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSqrZVTw4N4&feature=related

Hope that helps.

Breaststroke in general is slower overall but easier for breathing.

My garmin does the same thing, spikes during the first mile and then settles in.  It has to do with the galvonic skin response er I mean lack of sweat to help conductivity until you are warmed up.  I couldn't tell from your logs that your high spike HR was due to that or if it was due to the fast portion of your run.

Swimming takes a really long time to get any better.  I have no coach within 100 miles so that makes things worse.  For 1 season I was driving 100 miles each way 3x a week to get my swims in (the closest pool).  Coaching will help a lot. Grats on the improvement 25 yards to 1500 wow nice.  It took me a good 2 months of drowning to get to a decent distance of a mile or two swimming continuous freestyle.  And it kicked my butt for the rest of my training, it takes a lot out of you.  Most of what helps is balance and timing.

Biking also takes a really long time to get any faster.  An entry level race bike will typically buy you 3mph over a kmart mountain bike while you are at the same fitness.  However, it may well take you 10,000 miles to gain your next 1 mph over long distances.  Be careful of speedwork and hill work on the bike, that is what resulted in a pulled muscle 3 months before my last IM.  The one purchase that makes sense for a mountain bike is getting smoothe tires for the road.  The rolling resistance on those cheap knobby tires is massive.  Changing to smoothe tires even on a mountain bike should gain you 1 mph at a lower effort.  

Couple more questions.

1. How often should I train in my tri suit (top and shorts)?  Obviously some to get accustomed to the padding in the shorts being less on the bike and present for the run.
2. I've been thinking about adding a Finis Tempo Trainer to my swim workouts since a metronome helped my running and biking so much.  I'm worried it will be too loud and annoy others at the pool (if not just the life guard).  Anybody used one for practice.  I know their legality in competition is still unclear.

Hi all,

Gosh I just love reading all the helpful comments and support. Just love this group!  Nice that no one is afraid to ask questions.

Brian-Lunch work outs?  Are you serious! Must be nice.  I am an elementary teacher, my lunch is 20 if I am lucky.  But I am sure if I wante dto work out during lunch, my kids would sit and "be good'. lol

Dennis-3:30-5:30AM workouts? Do you ever sleep?  Kuddos to you for being so dedicated! Also congrats on the new bike and improved bike speed. As far as aero bars go, I'd say get them.  I have a tri bike and love the bars.  I feel faster when I use the bars.  I actually only use the handle bars for stopping and starting. 

Ceril-I am impressed with your 1500 increase in just three weeks.  I feel like such a slacker.  My first race is May 7 and is a sprint.  So for the past month I have only been swimming 800 meters, no further.  I know I need to, but I just wanted to get my endurance down enough so I could freestyle the entire distance with out stopping or flipping to backstroke (I consider that like walking).

Coach Steve-Love the info abot ice not in the hat.  I never would have thought that would make you vomit.  I'd like to add to that topic.  Only pour a small amount over your head to cool down.  Not the whole cup they give you at water stations.  I did that one 1/2 marathon and had soaking shoes that gve me bilsters by the time I was finished.

Two Questions: 

Oops hit the wrong button, so sorry guys if there are a lot of typos in my other post, didn't get to go back through it.

So Two Questions:

1. With the Garmin 305.  I use my Garmin for both biking and running.  When I do brick work I have to go to settings, change to run.  Pain.  Don't see me doing that in a race. Isn't there a multi sport function that will switch from bike to run easily? Anyone?

2. Tire question. I've read about having training tires and having another set for races.  Should I, why or why not?

My one day of rest is today-yeah.

Easter Beach 4 mile run tomorrow.  I'll let you know how I do. (Daughter is running with me, fun.)\

Long Bike on Sunday-guess I'll wait for the family time to die down.  Good idea huh?

Happy Easter for those who celebrate. Happy weekend for us all. -Karen

I have the aerobars, just not comfortable with the aggressiveness of the bike while in them.  I think I need to move them in and shorten them.

I have a Garmin 405.  What I do is change my screens so that one shows pace and MPH at the same time.  I also use the Windows software to create advanced workouts that I then transfer to the watch.  Not sure if the 305 supports any of that.

Also for us bloated swimmers, this article seems to be mentioned everywhere with advice on how to fix it. http://www.triswimcoach.com/article.php?id=5

Batlou--you can avoid the HR spike in the beginning by putting a little water on the two sensors on your HR strap before you put it on.  There's more on that on this blog (an awesome blog, btw!):  http://bit.ly/8YuZH8

The stuff about bike speed is interesting, though I think I'm going to choose to believe that I will speed up beyond a 9 mph average between now and July.  I've averaged 12 mph before while pulling the trailer, but that was before I had #2.  (And I have no idea how fast I can really go without the trailer because, um, it pretty much never happens.)

Psyching myself to get out the door and do school pick-up with the double jogger, which doubles as my tempo run (6M w/4M tempo).  And did I mention that the winds are blowing from 18-30 mph today?  Ugh.

I'm so glad to hear that improvements on the bike are not instantaneous (or even close).  And thanks for the info and encouragement on the clipless pedals.  I think my new name is "thud".  Was a bit more bruised from those slow speed falls than I realized at first.  One really deep bruise on my....er...cheek, which my husband thinks is quite funny.  But I'll be back out there in the morning armed with tips from my awesome mentor group and high hopes of staying upright .

For those of you new to swimming, it really does get better.  I'm living proof because I started off struggling just to put my face in the water, no idea about breathing, never a swim lesson, etc.  I watched a couple of videos (free youtube) on total immersion swimming, and they were a huge help.  That and going back to the pool a few kazillion times determined to get it.  Main takeaways for me were learning to RELAX and find my balance in the water, not kick much, and harder isn't better.   

I hear you on the wind...what is with that this year?  Can't remember a spring as windy as this one. 

You probably only need to do one workout in your tri suit on the bike to see how the seat feels.  For fun you could swim a couple hundred yards, go bike 20 miles and then run 2 miles to get a feel for what it is like to swim with a top, bike with wet thin shorts and then run with a technical stop.  I ran my marathon as well as 3 mile and trail runs in my tri suit.  I typically bike in try shorts because of my adamo seat doesnt like too much padding. 

Some people really like the timer for swim pacing, but I havent used one.  I simply set the speed on my swiming pool faster and try to keep up without get smooshed against the back (swimspa).

If you set your garmin face screen to pace, heart rate and distance it doesnt matter what mode you are in.  People just like to see bike speed in mph and run speed in minutes per mile.  It simply converts for you.  So on the bike look at your speedomiter and ignore the mpm and then on the run pay attention to the minutes per mile.  Problem solved.  You are really just looking for HR, pace and distance. 

Smoothe tires will help a lot on a mountain bike.  For a race you want tires that are not going to flat on you and for a  race you think you may podium you can use tires that have say 300 miles on them to wear off the ruff part, but have pleanty of tread and grip for performance and puncture resistance.  But you don't "need" race tires.  It is just like shoes, if your shoes are toast, race in some a bit newer.  If your tires are toast you really don't want to be changing tires during a race.  If you are elite and bike 25+ mph you probably have 20 tires for different purposes and have strong opinons about them. 

When I said that bike/run doesn't improve quickly I meant that yes you will have an initial speed boost from becoming fit enough to ride/run at a steady pace at a moderate speed. After your initial speed boost due to fitness, however your improvement slows down dramatically.  The faster you get the harder improvement is and the longer it takes.  Running at 14:00 mpm means you can get fit and run 10:00 mpm inside of 6 months.  It may take another 6 months to get to 9:00 and another 6 months to hit 8:45,  6 months 8:30... for your mid range runs.  Similar for bike, just getting fit and having the endurance to keep a steady pace will improve your speed.  But then getting faster at a distance of 80 + miles will be much slower.  You can be faster for short distances and then try to go farther at that speed.

Yay walking is less effortful and more fluid today, Frankenstien walk almost entirely gone now.  

Congratulations.  You finished it.  That was your goal.  Nobody cares about the time.  When somebody says they ran a marathon, nobody cares how long it took them.  Just doing it is impressive.  As long as you learned something from the experience, it was definitely worthwhile.

6 pm for a race start is really late. That would mess a lot of people up I think.