New Year New You...reopened for late comers (Page 5)

Saw this story on the BT website and thought of how inspirational it was. Great story =)

http://beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=2090

Wow 10 minute miles to an 8 minute one is some going, how did you feel?! Definitely agree regards mixing things up and adding interval training. Being out injured for 4 months has allowed me to reflect on my approach to training over the years and its really just been about going out an running with very little structure. Now I am beginning to train again I am going to mix things up, long runs, intervals, hill training etc, I recommend you think about doing the same, hey maybe we can compare notes!

Great riding David, that speed is impressive!

Keep at it buddy|!

I love these stories, so inspiring. My first Olympic was similar, I got my leg stuck in my arm in my wetsuit in transition, got lost in the swim, was last out the water, couldn't get the wetsuit off as I was so cold, shivered all the way round on the bike and the run had 3 horrendous hills! I crossed the finish line with the biggest smile in the world!

As well as triathlon coaching I work as a business/confidence coach at work, its hugely important. I remember in 2008 in my first marathon that at mile 20 I thought the world was ending, I had 6 miles ahead with not an ounce of energy left. I learnt so much about myself in those last 6 miles, it was all about mental strength, I cried when I finished!

Hi David,
funny I have never thought about my stride and bounce.....when you've run all your life you just assume you are doing it right! But recently my daughter (who runs like a Gazelle) commented about how heavy I sounded on the treadmill. At 170lbs I'm not heavy so I'm going to check all this out. Thanks for posting!

Hi folks

There's tons of stuff around on nutrition for training and racing which we can go through. For starters here is a very simple table with the various food types etc, reasonable place to start with more to follow:





Attachments
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Handout 1 - Nutrient Table.docx (11KB - 14 downloads)

Hi gang,

It's been an interesting start this year. This week we had -27 degree temperatures. Yesterday It was 50 degrees. 77 degree temperature swings in four days. The water main at my gym froze and when it thawed flooded the place. They were closed most of the week.

Getting outside to train this time of year is difficult. I spend a lot of time skiing. I take the kids down hill skiing during the week and I go cross country skiing on the weekends. Yesterday I was able to get out for a good run. It was strange running along the bay and seeing all of the ice fishermen. They though I was crazy and I thought they were crazy. So I guess it all evens out.

Other than that there isn't much going on. I just wanted to check in and say hey.

Have fun out there,

Don

Hey Don,
we hear you man......up in Canada and outside activity is a long way off I'm afraid. Can't wait to breathe some outdoor air! Cross country skiing is a great choice I'm told although I've never tried it but I'm sure it will keep your cardio levels up there. Its a long season so plenty of time......

Grrrrrrr.

Coached pool session Thursday night reaggravated my knee. Didn't realize how much I was warming up prior to putting fins on when working out alone, and never stopped to think about the added resistance of the fins. Showed up late to session after a long day at work and jumped in and started doing fin drills. Made it 200m before my knee was screaming.

Rest of the weekend will be stretching and strength stuff. Seeing the physio this afternoon (he's my neighbor). Frustrating.

Matt

I'm in Erie, PA.. The only thing separating us from Canada is lake Erie. It's quite a ways across the lake. Otherwise I would be able to see Canada for most of my workouts.

I've decided to clean up my hame gym today. We'll see how the workout goes but I plan to...

20 minutes easy work on the rowing machine
Then I'll mix my weight training routine with my calisthenic workout. Alternating between the two for some non stop interval training.

That should work up a nice appetite for lunch.

Don

Matt,

Really sorry to hear about your knee. Hope your physio helps and gets you right back into the swing of things. I don't know the extent of your knee problem, and I don't know exactly how you are stretching to prepare yourself for workouts. However, there are a couple things that I've come across so far in my quest to find proper stretching methods (i normally don't stretch; bad, bad, bad). Anyways......

Because the knee being a joint, I'm finding out that in some cases that over stretching actually weakens the joint. Here's something to keep in mind. When we stretch, we are trying to loosen and/or warm up the muscles with a benefit of increasing range of motion. However, take for example something as simple as extending out your left arm and using your right to pull it across your chest to stretch the back shoulder area. What ends up happening is you are not only stretching the muscle and other tissue, but you're putting additional pressure on the joint.

Maybe, you might be over stretching the knee area. I don't know. Hope you find a way to get past this unfortunate problem and that you are not too frustrated...

Let us know how things go =)

One of the disadvantages I have is that I cannot relate to the snow/cold season. This forum is making progress for each and every one of us. Don, great that you mentioned cross-country skiing. I would of never thought of anything like that. I also don't have in house gym/room because everything is easily accessible in Southern California.

However, there are a couple of things that I've come across prior to getting gym membership for "home workouts". One thing that stood out the most is "be creative". Something as simple as filling up old containers with water to be your weights for your workout. Finding something that is low enough impact while still maintaining complete body movement like burpees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYfNA_lmkHM.

Keep posting alternative workouts. Some of us might fall victim to the "well, i can't get out today" trap :-)

For some reason I had problems opening up the file. I ended up saving the file to my computer and renaming the file to have the "docx" extension. For some reason it saved with an "htm" extension.

Edited by [email protected] 2014-01-12 11:38 AM

Ok all you good swimmers out there I attended and adult drop in swim lesson today and it was encouraging. It seems that my stroke is not that bad and there is something to work with (I guess stroke technique lessons 30 years ago still linger within). However my problem is my leg kick. Its pretty weak and I find my legs sinking as I tire and that makes me work harder with the arms and shoulders. Can anyone recommend some drills that I can use to improve my leg kick?

What is weird is that I'm an ex soccer player and can cycle well so I always considered my legs to be a strength. But in the water they are burning and screaming at me after 40m.......go figure.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts
Thanks

This feedback is exactly what you need. Ok, to answer your question directly... Get fins and a kick board. There are different fins out there, I would recommend a set that works on correcting your kick (they will have a smaller tip typically while longer tipped fins work on strength).

Now comes the other answer (as you can tell from my prior posts, I don't have short answers) LOL
I come from a swimming background. I swam in high school for 4 years and did quite well. I was a utility swimmer, which means that where ever my coach needed me to be, I swam that event; but, mainly, I swam butterfly and back stroke. One thing that is interesting is that during my workouts, my freestyle kick was the worst (even the worse my coach has ever seen; no joke). So, during workouts, I wouldn't kick at all, I was all upper body except for when it was required to kick.

A couple things to keep in mind about a weak kick are...
1) Your body isn't positioned completely flat, so your kick is actually propelling your head up and out of the water rather than propelling your head forward through the water. Just a couple degree difference can be the difference between efficient propulsion and one that gets you no where.
2) Your kick itself is causing more drag than what it's worth. If your hips are moving too much and you are over rotating it will cause your knees to kick outward. With swimming, even more than bicycling, you need to keep aerodynamic to get the least amount of drag. btw: feet going down is definitely causing drag :-)

Suggestions: http://swimplan.comyou can customize swim workouts based on your abilities and equipment - free website
1) If you don't have fins and kick board, you can practice your freestyle kick by laying on your back and kicking that way. On your back, you will place your hand over your head and held together, while you kick... With kicking it's not speed that gets you going, it's efficient power strokes and "whipping".
2) I cannot recommend distances cause I don't know your whole level of what you are capable
3) When swimming regular, make sure you keep your chin down to your chest, specifically look at the bottom of the pool. This will help force your hips up and your kick will be behind you rather than under you.

I encourage you to keep going to the adult drop in swim lessons. As you start adjusting your swim stroke, you will notice other areas of improvement...

Keep it up!!! You are in the right direction :-)

Hi everyone. Just thought I'd check in for the week. I've enjoyed reading what everyone else has to say! As for the cold weather, I'm from Alabama so the past few days (it went down to 15 degrees here) have been very strange - I don't think I've ever been colder in my life. The past few days have been beautiful and back in the 60s, great biking weather. I'm planning on going on an outdoor bike ride sometime this week!

Rob - I second what has already been said about swimming and kicking. Weak kicking is a problem for tons of swimmers, and even as a seasoned swimmer I find myself having the same problems you are having. I've found that (once you get the form down) it is helpful for me to keep my mind on my kicking more than anything else because it is so easy to let my arms do most of the work.

After riding (indoor) for a few weeks, I've noticed that my butt is getting sore from the bike saddle. How should my weight be distributed in the seat (leaning forwards, backwards, etc.)? Leaning forwards towards the handlebars feels natural to me, but of course I will change if this is not the best method. Also, there are bikes at my gym where the saddle is higher than the handlebars, and others that have the saddle lower than the handlebars. I've tried both but have been using the bikes with the higher saddles - I was wondering if anyone had some thoughts on this. Sorry for all of the questions, I'm still leaning but I think I'm getting the hang of things much quicker than I anticipated.

Hope everyone has a great week.

- Virginia

I have found that indoor cycles are not designed well for long workouts, maybe 30 minutes; they also cause discomfort to me. One observation that I have found is that the more wide and soft the saddle, the more pain you'll be in quicker, longer, and higher pain. They might feel good at first, but you won't last on them. There really isn't much you can do outside of switching out their seat with yours. A wider seat has more area to pinch, crush, or irrotate nerves and blood flow.

To answer your question about position. Each position will get you more or less power, more or less comfort, more or less drag, and more or less fatigue. Triathlete bicycles have their seats at a different angle than regular road bicycles; they are more upright. This more upright position delivers more power to your legs. So, best position for power is sitting more forward in the seat. However, imagine being hunched over for hours (depending on distance), this will start fatiguing shoulders and possibly other parts of your body. For cruising, on a road bike, you want to be sitting more upright and back in the seat. This position with loose grip on bars will not give you the most power, but will not fatigue you as much.

I know that this doesn't directly answer your questions, but I hope it gives you some insight of what is happening and what you need to look for to find your best fit.

I have to say that everybody is asking some great questions. These questions are helping me with being more aware of what I need to look for to help me. For example, after 2 hours on my bicycle, my right foot starts to tingle. After about 2.5 hours, my left foot starts to go. Once I get into a 3 hour ride, I just want to stop every thirty minutes. Can my seat actually not be the right one for me? Is there something else causing the numbness? Your questions are making me think the seat.

I always feel that I am out of breath at the end of the pool. I know that I have never been a "quiet" runner, and never could get the hang of "in through the nose". I felt as if I did not have enough air doing it that way and would quickly revert back to breathing in and out through my mouth, sounding like a wildebeest herd coming down the road.

I practiced some drills of breathing the entire time my head was in the water, at a constant rate to ensure all the air was out of my lungs before taking the next breath, but any tip and drills that can be passed on I will try.

When your body needs air, your body needs air. Depriving your body of the needed oxygen will only fatigue you quicker. I am also a person that breaths in and out of the mouth; I would think that others would say I am cheating by consuming all the air. There are times when I would slow my pace down and "control" my breathing (in through nose) I think others can pretty much say the same thing.

Drills that can help...
1) Lower your intensity at start. Breath every 4 strokes for 100 M/yds. Repeat for a set of 5. If 100 is to long, do nothing less than 50. Next set of 5, breath every 6 strokes.
2) Work on seeing how far you can swim under water. Push off the wall and mark your distance. Each time, trying to further your distance.
3) Lastly, noticed you mentioned that you are letting all your air out (your comment). With swimming especially, a rhythm breathing that works for you is the one you need to use. I am constantly changing my breathing as the workout progresses.

Edited by [email protected] 2014-01-13 12:02 PM

Hi Virginia,
the other day I came across this youtube video explaining the difference between a road bike position and a tri bike. Thought it might help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mb5g55ly_I

Good luck and enjoy the outdoor ride!

Hi David,
thanks for the great feedback and in particular this......"3) When swimming regular, make sure you keep your chin down to your chest, specifically look at the bottom of the pool. This will help force your hips up and your kick will be behind you rather than under you"........this is great advice and I know I'm looking up and forward because my neck is sore after a swim. I'm going to try this!

Let us all know how you do :-)
I'm actually anxious to hear how things go for you. This will be a great move forward for you :-)

Neil,

what are your thoughts about this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0QZoavQqW0


Edited by [email protected] 2014-01-14 8:09 PM

Matt,

How's the knee doing today? Did the physio work?

Knee somewhat better. Physio did little more than an exam yesterday since we were working on my living room floor. I'm going to his office Friday for him to work me over. My first race is the bike leg of a sprint relay in mid May and he thinks I can be ready. He thinks this is the typical 'weekend warrior returns to serious athletics' type of issue. My job involves a lot of standing in one place all day (surgeon) and by the end of a standard day my hams/quads/lower back are tight as guitar strings. The resulting imbalance around my knee is pulling on the ligaments and tendons. All fixable in his opinion and he's pretty good.......though I'm sure its gonna hurt Thanks for asking.

Hi Rob,

Wow that video was really helpful! I'm excited to try better posturing/body angles on my ride tomorrow. I really appreciate your help.

Also I'm so happy today because I ran a 10K tonight for the first time in years. I tried doing 10min run/2 min walk and it really made a difference. I'm starting to feel like I can take on a triathlon (in a few months, of course) instead of feeling like just another new years resolution-er. When I finished my run i almost wanted to keep going... so odd how that always seems to happen, even when I'm exhausted. I had no idea that I missed running until today.

- Virginia