GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 53)

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 8:16 AM ANNE - Just the person I wanted to hear from! Actually, what I wanted to do was tell you how the Fitz scedules are set up, as I know you have a system of doing things that works really well for you. He treats Mondays as rest days - never anything on Mondays. I'll do it as a list: Monday -- rest Tuesday -- cycling Wednedsday -- swim and run Thursday -- cycling Friday -- swim and run Saturday -- cycling or bricks Sunday -- swim and run (or rarely swim and brick) And his bricks are always bike/run, never swim/bike or an oddball combo. Does that scheme of things come close to working for you? As for the knee ache you had yesterday, my experience tells me that if it is below the knee on the inside it could be pes anserinus, and on the outside it could be the the popliteal (sp?) tendon. Anyhow, google those to see how they fit with what you were feeling. Pes anserinus is kind of cool, etymologically and structurally. The anserines are the goose family, and pes anserinus refers to what is known as the "goosefoot" tendons -- I think three of them, that bifurcate and resemble a goose's foot. (How's that for a cocktail party chatter topic?!?) When I have soreness on the outside of my knee below the kneecap, it is never all that far down and I worry that it is ITB stuff. But when I have had aches on my pes anserinus, they seem to be far enough down that it is hard to confuse them with anything else. Having said that, though, when I tore my meniscus it was medial, right side, so if my p.a. starts to hurt a bit there, I get all nervous that I've done something terrible to my meniscus again. (I know --- worry, worry, worry.) For me, p.a. is not a deal-breaker, just a soreness or dull ache that goes away with a bit of ice and a bit of rest (like, a day or so). Lemme know! And on my all-consuming topic of USAT points, after my devastating fall from grace yesterday morning I managed to rebound some by late afternoon so I was 51/538, with two below me. I did not dare check it last night before bed, and I haven't looked this morning -- it's a pretty day here, and I don't want to cast a pall over it!

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 2:52 PM ANNE - I had a good run this morning -- 46 minutes, about 9.4km on the pedestrian path adjacent to the Rideau Canal, so I got to watch and listen to all of the skaters. Nice! I hope your own run went well. Let me know, okay?

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 3:13 PM STEVE - As usual in responding to your posts -- where to begin?!? This time, i'm just going to scatter-shoot it, jumping around willy-nilly. You kicked some serious tokhis on that trainer ride - awesome performance! That's a pretty wicked sequence at Z4, but judging from your mph numbers, you nailed it. Those types of workouts are killers, but really, really rewarding. The pain just feels soooo good when it stops, eh? My guess with the oly is thta it is there to kind of justify that bike workout. And I think it is a fabulous workout leadoing up to an oly, but I'm just not sold on it as part of IM training. A hard-ridden bike leg in and of itself is not too risky, but a workout like the one you described might assume a similar effort on the run, and that's just not prudent enough for my liking. But as I siad to Anne the other day, there's maybe a good reason why these people have written plans and I haven't! It's at times like this that having a coach pays big dividends. I am NOT advocating that for you, but all I'm saying is that a responsible coach will have been with you since the inception of the plan and juggled things accordingly along the way. Also, a coach would know your history backwards, forwards, and sideways, which would serve to nip a lot of problems in the bud. Which plan are you using? You may have told me a few times already, but I can't conjure it up right now. My vote is for speed at the middle, allowing for a decent cool-down. Speed at the beginning is easiest due to freshness, but is also the riskiest - unless there is a good warm-up beforehand. But you had a 5-minute cool-down, anyhow, so that's okay (although 10-15 minutes of c-d would be my picayune vote!) At SG, however, the perfect world would have you being able to tap into some glorious reserve so that you could actually turn it up a few notches for the final mile or so, in which case saving your speed for the end of a workout might be a good dress rehearsal! Finally, the swim, and an hour of feeling good is --- good! As for the counting of the laps, maybe try counting 8s, and at the end of every 8 press the lap button on your watch. That'll not only allow you to figure out your yardage, but will also let you see how well you're holding it together over the course of xx 200-yard sequences. And then you could get fancy, trying to do three easy and then the fourth one hard, and see how your times worked out for those. From what I remember of your Malibu swim time, you are probably doing about 3000 meters over the course of a 60 minute swim, so that modified speed set of 3 easy/1 hard would give you about 15 sets of numbers to ogle afterwards -- a swim geek's idea of nirvana! Finally, I can tell you that drilling in a 50m pool makes about 47X more sense than drilling in 25m (or worse - 25y) -- but then again, so does lopng sets of just plain old regular swimming. If I were King of the Universe, I would mandate 50m pools without exception. Period. Finally-finally, but an important one (if I may be pompous for a moment ) -- Even though you are playing catch-up tomorrow in lieu of the scheduled rest day, whatever you end up doing, make sure it doesn't compromise what is almost certain to be a key workout (or two) on the weekend. That's a really solid cardinal rule, and ven in general it is best to let lost workouts go. I guess there are two parts to it: (1) Let lost workouts go, unless the are key workouts, in which case insert them in the place of a workout of lesser value. (2) If you must do a non-key lost workout, put it somewhere that it doesn't compromise the integrity of the key workout(s). But, having siad that, I remember that the questionable oly race was there for this weekend, and I think we agree that we're not too sure that that is a key happening. So, JUST THIS ONCE , feel free to play catch-up tomorrow!

LadyNorth - 2010-02-04 7:38 PM Hi,

Help needed.  How do I reply to an inspire?  If I click reply, I go to the senders blog - but what do I do then?
Thanks, Denise

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 6:25 PM ANNE - Just quickly for now, as Lynn is due home real soon and I have allowed the house to get a bit unkempt today! Here is a brief rundown on the runs in the first 8 weeks of the Fitz Level 1 HIM plan: week #1 -- 30, 35, 40 week #2 -- 30, 35, 40 week #3 -- 53, 40, 45 week #4 -- 30, 35, 10 (this is a brick run off a 45' ride) week #5 -- 39, 40, 50 week #6 -- 42, 40, 25 week #7 -- 45, 40, 55 week #8 -- 39, 35, 15 (brick run off a 45' ride) Those oddish numbers in the fist runs of weeks 5, 6, and 8 are correct as written and reflect intervals. Also, each of the middle runs of weeks 5-8 include some strides. Finally, weeks 4 and 8 are Recovery weeks - which is where he typically places his bricks. I thought you should know that, just becasue his run plan is a bit less demanding than that of the Silver plan. Weekly totals for the first eight weeks of Silver begin at 2:10 and build to 3:00 at week 7 before coming down to 2:00 for week 8, so if you have some concerns about your running, then Fitz might be better for you. But this is also a case where you can mix 'n' match -- maybe just do the Fitz runs instead of the Silver runs? Let me know what you think about this. Also, I will get to your post per se later, okay?

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 10:26 PM ANNE - On the neuroma front: My understanding is that Morton's is the name for the one between the 3rd and 4th (middle and "ring"), with Heuter's used for the the one between 2nd and 3rd (index and middle). As for one between 1st and 2nd (thumb and index)......I dunno! Also an "I dunno!" for me is the copper foot plate. I'm intrigured, but it sure doesn't sound very flexible or "giving". But maybe if used as a "corrective" in non-athletic footwear, it might have merit. Verrrrrrry intriguing! Have a productive session with he osteopath! Backs seem to work on their own timeframe, agitating about things we are not aware of. It seems to me that almost all lower body injuries can be traced back to a specific happening, or at least attributed to "overuse", but not so with backs. One day, a movement you've executed 17,463 times to no ill effect ends up making you unable to starighten up for four days........and then for no apparent reason, all is well again. Backs -- ain't they just the damnedest things?

stevebradley - 2010-02-04 9:26 PM  Backs seem to work on their own timeframe, agitating about things we are not aware of. It seems to me that almost all lower body injuries can be traced back to a specific happening, or at least attributed to "overuse", but not so with backs. One day, a movement you've executed 17,463 times to no ill effect ends up making you unable to starighten up for four days........and then for no apparent reason, all is well again. Backs -- ain't they just the damnedest things?

FoxfireTX - 2010-02-05 6:16 AM

Good morning all.  Sounds like everyone is doing pretty well with training albeit dealing with some injuries.  Another total newbie question:  What is a "brick" when you are talking about training?

Met with my trainer yesterday.  She is seeing huge improvement in my shoulders, particularly the left which was the worst.  So no upper body strength for a couple of weeks to see if that is the trick.  But I am now back in the pool twice a week with two days of rehab.  But I have some real work to do.  I always breathe on the left which puts more strain on that shoulder so she wants me to move to bilateral breathing on every third breath if possible.  Along with trying to change my form in accordance with the TI method I've got a lot of work to do before I even think about improving on time and distance.  But the pain is so diminished even after a rehab workout with her it was well worth the effort.

And I agree Steve, I am very lucky to have someone who really knows what she is doing and is on top of things.  I spent last night redoing my training schedule to space out the rehab days and swim days so feel like I am finally on my way. 

And my bike box now shows up on UPS tracking!  Will be here Tuesday, already have the new tires for it and will take it directly to the bike shop so perhaps I will have it back by next week at this time.

My trainer had mentioned how hard it was to do the runs after the bike and figured I needed to see what this felt like so on Wednesday I did 15 mins on the stationary bike followed by 10 mins on the treadmill followed by a few laps in the pool.   What surprised me was after the biking my running felt really slow and I ran faster than usual.  I was tired at the end of the 10 minutes on the treadmill but am glad that I tried it.  My training plan calls for a 25% decrease on everything in the fourth week of each month so think I am going to do this once each month during that week and build up the times so my body adjusts to going immediately from one sport to another. 

BTW, I think I have lost my niece in the process.  She doesn't seem to have the discipline to do the training consistently.  BUT my daughter is getting motivated watching me and is considering working on training to do the mini-tri with us in May.  And the woman who is partnering with me on this finally got in the pool on Wednesday.  She is a pretty good swimmer, has tons of upper body strength as a personal trainer, but was afraid to get in the pool after years away from it.  That is now behind her so we can work on drills.

All in all it was a good week here and I am looking forward to my weekend training.  Hope that everyone has a great weekend!

FoxfireTX - 2010-02-05 8:16 AM

What is a "brick" when you are talking about training?


My trainer had mentioned how hard it was to do the runs after the bike and figured I needed to see what this felt like so on Wednesday I did 15 mins on the stationary bike followed by 10 mins on the treadmill followed by a few laps in the pool.