Older&Wiser Group - FULL (Page 5)

10in of fresh powder here in the last 48hrs - this snow is to die for.  Skiing on it is like floating on clouds.  When I fall, it feels like I'm landing on the biggest, softest pillow.  Growing up in Hong Kong, it took a long time for me to figure out this Canadian winter thing.  Since I started skiing about 15 years ago, the winter feels so much shorter, and more enjoyable.  I'll never be as tough as those home grown Canadians but every time I go skiing in the Alps, I learn to embrace winter a little more.  Wolf, I know skiing is the national sport of Austria, but are you guys born with the national secret ski gene or do they send you to ski boot camp the minute you can stand?  You guys are truly awesome skiers, I'm a klutz on these planks.  Doesn't stop me from discovering that other Austrian secret though - in 1994, my husband and I were doing some spring skiing in Kitzbuhel, arguably the mecca for Austrian skiing.  The sun was shining, the air just cold enough you could see your every breath as you exhale.  After a hard day of skiing, we found ourselves at a sidewalk cafe, admiring the tyrolean winter landscape.  The apple strudel came, steaming hot, melting the ice cream beside it.  Oh, what a heavenly sensation as the strudel and the ice cream and the crisp clean mountain air dissolved in our mouths and we could taste and smell and even see the aroma rising into thin air from our every breath as we savoured every bite at this sidewalk cafe - Ah, that's my best apple strudel experience, one of my most memorable Austrian experiences, THAT'S LIFE!

Fast forward to 2007, I'm convinced this tri lifestyle will allow us to continue to indulge in these experiences without having to pay the price later in life.  Just like me, most of you seem to be struggling a little with the swim.  You can do breast stroke and you can walk in a tri, LOTS of people do it, so don't worry.  If you wear a wetsuit though, you cannot do breast stroke (suit is too restrictive and too buoyant).  So even though I can swim longer and faster in breast stroke, cold water makes me hyperventilate, so I opt for wetsuit and front "crawl".  However, we're blessed by the presence of Lynne in our group, the swim goddess amongst us.  Feb 1, she logged "swim - 40min, 2000m, 2min/100m.  Today is my rest day, so just an easy swim.  Nothing special."  EASY, NOTHING SPECIAL???  I go as HARD as I can, and maybe if the stars are all lined up, I may get one 100m in 2min.  Swimming is definitely the next topic I'd like to discuss, after weight loss / maintenance.  Jennifer, I noticed you're dead consistent with your weight.  Are you always like that?  What's your secret?  And Rose, you've dropped a few lbs since you started with us, what's your key?  I'd like to hear all your ideas as I truly believe our collective wisdom will help each of us reach the next level.  Together, we're more than the sum of our parts.  Angelo, you can count on us to be your buddies and we'll hold you accountable, to yourself.

Wolf - I checked your log and left a note BEFORE I read your workout story. Now I'm really impressed with your ride!

Think of it this way, as unpleasant as it may have been when you were riding, it was good practice. Unfortunately, race days don't insure perfect weather and some practice time in adverse conditions can be helpful when the weather doesn't cooperate for a race.

I've had many of what I call "good weather" workout buddies that refused to run when it was warm or swim when it was cold. These were the same ones that had issues during races when the weather conditions were less than perfect because they didn't know how to adjust to, or weren't used to the conditions.

See our "collective wisdom" post on the first post of the last page.

Links: group summary,  swolf,  buying running shoes,  progression to injury free running,  setting yourself up for success, 

Keys to  successful weight loss / maintenance – the following is based on our group's discussion and the 7 habits of highly effective dieters by Professor Jim Hill, who started the National Weight Control Registry where the average individual has maintained a weight loss of 67 pounds for five-and-a-half years:

1. Keep trying. Most people, over 90%, failed many times before they finally succeeded. 
2. Don't deny yourself. Eat a little bit of everything but in moderation.
3. Weigh yourself often, say every week. No denial. Don’t get too worked up about a pound or two. But when it creeps up, time to cut out the wine and cheese.
4. Exercise an hour a day. You can’t lose weight and keep it off by dieting or exercising alone.
5. Get other bits of physical activity into the daily routine.
6. Eat a low fat, high carb diet, research shows this is the most effective diet for keeping weight off.
7. Eat five meals a day starting with breakfast.
8. Do a race that’s the same every year. Racing keeps us training. The same race makes it easier to compare our fitness level year over year and with others in our age group.
9. Train with a BUDDY, provides camaraderie and mutual support. Join the BT mentor program.

Next topic - swim tips

Older&Wiser Group - Patricia, Wolf, Lynne, Jennifer, Malinda, Rose, Angelo, Jeff

Hi all,

I'm back from Aspen, although our luggage are still taking the scenic route around the world.  I apologize for being a couple of days late with my weekly wrap up, but here goes:

1.  Each of you is awesome this week – I should go away more often. Look at the graphs you’ve created on the left of your logs, everyone has raised the bar. Don’t you feel great? Pat yourself on the back and keep it up. The award for this week goes to everyone who has raised the bar on his/her graph – congratulations, Wolf, Lynne, Jennifer, Malinda, Rose and Angelo. Malinda, you’re too hard on yourself, over 200min in a week is no slug! Jeff has gone home for the weekend and is giving his knees another week of rest. Jeff, hope you feel better soon. Here are the standings so far:

2.  Our team is awesome – Not sure if people are aware, but there are now over 120 mentors on this site, and we’re about 4th in # of views, with relatively few posts, and the top 3 had a 2-4 week headstart. Seems like there’re a lot of lurkers checking our thread for content and wisdom. Let’s keep up with what we’re doing and continue to ask questions, exchange info, share ideas and experiences to help each other reach our goals.

3.  Keys to successful weight loss / maintenance – Combining everyone’s ideas and also the 7 habits of highly effective dieters by Professor Jim Hill, who started the National Weight Control Registry where the average individual has maintained a weight loss of 67 pounds for five-and-a-half years, this is what we’ve got so far:

1. Keep trying. Most people, over 90 percent, failed many times before they finally succeeded.
2. Don't deny yourself. Eat a little bit of everything but in moderation.
3. Weigh yourself often, say every week. No denial. Don’t get too worked up about a pound or two. But when it creeps up, time to cut out the wine and cheese.
4. Exercise an hour a day. You can’t lose weight and keep it off by dieting or exercising alone.
5. Get other bits of physical activity into the daily routine.
6. Eat a low fat, high carb diet, research shows this is the most effective diet for keeping weight off.
7. Eat five meals a day starting with breakfast.
8. Do a race that’s the same every year. Racing keeps us training. The same race makes it easier to compare our fitness level year over year and with others in our age group.
9. Train with a BUDDY, provides camaraderie and mutual support. Join the BT mentor program.

Can anybody think of anything else? I’m going to put these in the first post of the page, which I’ll call our "collective wisdom" post, and add to it as we discuss other topics. I’ll include in it links to other important posts so we don’t have to search all over the place. I’d really like to start discussing swimming next week, unless people have other suggestions.

4.  Albums – There’s an album button where you can upload and share pictures in case people are wondering what it is. I’ll put up some of my various ski pictures eventually .

5.  Lynne is racing this weekend. We’re cheering for you Lynne!

Hi all,

As Wolf noticed, I uploaded some pictures yesterday.  Aiguille du Midi – those words still send shivers down my spine, but what unforgettable memories!  Wolf, when were you there last and where do you think I should go skiing next, I’m still learning.  Now, back to business:

1. I’m pleased to report once again that we’re making great progress.  It’s now been 4 weeks, and that means working out is slowly becoming a habit for all of us.  I hope Jeff can resume his training next week, Jeff is considering switching to the "Couch to Sprint" program as the knees are not cooperating, and busy season is setting in.  Rose reaches a milestone – she ran for the first time, a few minutes as per her Couch to 5K plan.  Wolf gets more toys from Amazon and discovers Eric Harr’s programs.  Kudos to Angelo for trying to organize a community fun tri.  Malinda, Jennifer and I continue our base building quietly.   Lynne finishes the week with a bang – her weekly volume exceeds, for the first time, 1.2 mi swim + 56 mi bike + 13.1 mi, i.e. a Half Ironman (HIM) distance of 70.3, and caps the week off with a 10K race where she sets a PR!  Congratulations, Lynne for a great race and thank you, Wolf, for those amazing pictures, which inspire and motivate us all, so a √ as special recognition for your inspiration.  As important are the "inspire me" notes that all of you are writing each other, which I believe have been instrumental to our group’s success.  Standings thus far:

Award	Wolf	Lynne	Jennifer	Malinda	Rose	Angelo
1. most inspiring training session – Jan 17	√
2. toughing it out				√
3. coolest idea – "swolf"		√
4. raising the bar	√	√	√	√	√	√
5. inspiring race / pictures	√	√
Overall winner – TBA	3	3	1	2	1	1

2. Call me slow, but I just found out this week about the new BT button  in the training logs.  You can integrate the route in your log, but I love the elevation graph which will help me find the closest, longest and steepest hill for my bike hill training come spring.
3. SWIM – Let’s talk about swim.  Angelo has previously asked how important it is to do other swim drills or strokes in training for a TRI.  For myself, the 2 things that really made a huge difference to my swim:
1. Do sets / drills instead of lap swimming – The idea is to focus on form / technique first, speed comes later.  Also, I’ve found doing sets / drills / other strokes reduce risk of overuse injury because they give your system valuable rest in between (eg arm drills let your legs rest, kick drills let your shoulders rest, seconds in between sets let you stretch, let your system rest and adapt).  Contrary to popular belief, practice does not make perfect, it only makes permanent.   Laps and laps of swimming with poor form only reinforce poor technique.   Only perfect practice makes perfect, and drills are the keys to perfect practice.  There’s no need to do every drill in the book, just focus on those that correct your bad habits / poor technique.  Of course, I still do test swims (lap swimming) periodically, once every 2-3 weeks.
2. Find some feet to follow, whether in the pool or in a race – Everybody knows about the benefits of drafting in open water swimming, you can swim faster with less effort and save time on sighting.  2 of my very best swims happened when I found a person to follow.  In a pool, if you swim behind a person that’s slightly faster and try to reach for their toes on every stroke, it trains you to swim faster with a long efficient stroke.  Just make sure you don’t pull on their toes, they get very mad at you.

I have 2 questions:

1. Should we use HRM for swim training?
2. Bilateral breathing – even though I normally breath every 3 strokes, any time I want to swim fast and at races, I feel I need more oxygen and end up breathing every 2 strokes and just changing the breathing side only occasionally.  Is that OK?

What’s everybody’s take? Questions? Ideas?  Bring them on.

I’ll combine everybody’s ideas in our "collective wisdom" post eventually. Here is a summary thus far, many of the tips are from Lynne’s prior posts. Let me know of any errors, omissions, etc…

General Tips:

1. Have someone (swim instructor, coach, experienced swimmer, etc.) look at your stroke and offer suggestions.   I've my stroke videotaped and found that helpful.
2. DRILLS DO NOT HAVE TO BE DONE FAST!  They should be done as slowly as you need to do them correctly.

Technique / Drill Tips:

1. Swolf - swim golf, trains you swim faster with the most effective stroke count....

I was laughing so hard as I read your post.  How did she lose her teeth while swimming?  I never realize how dangerous swimming can be!  Now, when you say swimming with straight arms,  do you mean straight arms during recovery or straight arms pulling under water?  2 important points in your post -

1. Useful to check out the strokes of better swimmers.  I found the better the swimmer, the lower their stroke count, almost always under 20 per 25m. 
2. Important to swim against pace clock to know if you're improving with stroke modification.

Lynne, I feel so much better after what you said.  If you breath on one side, then it must be OK!