Experior and Slornow's Spring/Summer Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 53)

I've seen restaurants and art galleries without price tags, but never a bike shop.  Lol.  That's pretty funny.

Hope the races went well.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=450887&posts=1&start=1

Race Report posted ... Set a new PR and improved in the OLY distance from 3:11 to 2:52. Almost a 20 minute improvement over the last OLY two months ago. What a difference consistent training makes :-)

Swim was screwed up ... I really need to get contacts. 

I can easily improve in all three categories. I have 4 more Sprint distance Tri's this year that I am actually signed up for. I might throw another one in there somewhere! Thanks for sharing all your knowledge. Every little piece of information helps. 

Rene - Congratulations on your results.

Rene-congrats on the podium finish!  Sounds like you had a solid race and a great bike

Michael/d3-that's a huge PR..Good work.  You should see continued improvement in your remaining races.

Randy 

Excellent report.  You're doing awesome.  Can't wait to hear about your upcoming races!

Congrats on the podium finish!

Can't fathom what would posses someone to draft in a no-draft race. Maybe she was watching too much Le Tour :-)  That's a distraction you don't need. The nerve of some people !!

Hey everyone, Nate and I did our sprint tri yesterday and it was great! I'm waiting to see if the race will post better results, they still haven't posted category results or a breakdown that includes transition times, before writing my race report. My time (250m pool swim, 16m bike, 5k run) was 1:30:58 and Nate's was 1:30:48. Congrats to Nate on a great first race; I think he only missed getting podium for Clydesdale by one spot! I had a great time and I'll give a more detailed race report asap. Getting ready to sign up for my next sprint in August!

I had a great time! Really glad Jamie was there to coach me through how to set up and tell me what to expect.

Strange about the times, not sure why they didn't include transition times. Not sure if they post that much later or what...

After seeing the results they did post, however, I missed podium by 2 spots. Those other Clydes pretty much smoked me. I think there ended up being only 7 Clydes in all I'll be racing my age group on my next Tri! I'll probably be right at about 198-200 lbs by then.

Pool swim was insane, it was really hard to pass people without the threat of smacking into someone coming the other direction. Had to dive underneath one woman to avoid that. Really need more bike training and endurance training in general.

Overall, it was great and I can't wait for the next one! I just got permission from my better half to enter the one in Greenville, SC on Aug 12.

-Nate

Yes! August 12th, Greenville Triathlon...another pool swim

Good work Nate and Jamie!  I've never done a tri with a pool swim.  Have to think it would be pretty congested. Sounds like you both had good results.

Randy

I am very lucky that I have a very supporting wife ... her last statement a couple days ago was "I will buy you a tri bike for your birthday!" Lucky me ... ! I am married for 13 years now! I got two girls one is 7 years old and the other one is 4 years old. Those two consume the rest of my time. 

I am trying to train around their schedule. I get up at 4am in the morning and get some training done. After work I spend time with my family until my little ones go to sleep and then I usually go on the bike trainer or for a run while the wife goes to "Zumba"! :-)

Double post day indeed

I was married for 19 years, and have now been divorced for 2 1/2 years.  Tri training was sometimes a strain on our marriage but my wife at the time was very supportive (cheered me on, bought me lots of nice tri toys, etc.) and often made a vacation out of my races.  It's definitely a commitment which takes the support of your spouse. 

Now having been divorced, I find that I do have more time to train.  My boys are older (18 and16) and they are developing their own social lives and I often find myself free to do whatever I want when not working.  I don't believe my tri training caused the divorce, but I have to be honest and admit it certainly was a factor to some degree.  We grew apart for many reasons.  She is not athletic at all. Despite this, she knew what a big deal tri's are for me and she respected that.

Divorce has been a blessing in disguise for us as now we are better friends.  We meet up as a family at least 2-3 times a week.  She has even expressed desire to come with the boys to Hawaii if I ever get in (I have done 9 IMs so far, and 12 is not too far away). As she has supported me along the way, I do believe she has earned this invitation.   Jim

Congratulations, Nate and Jamie, on your race! How fun to have friends to race with. I know that having my friends to hang out with before and after the races is awesome.

Rene, kudos for your results even with someone taking advantage of your hard work!

As for supportive spouses, this is old hat for mine. He has been my biggest supporter and fan since my soccer days, which were 7 days a week, sometimes 3 hours a night, and were not very family friendly. I also traveled to other countries quite a bit and he would use his leave to stay home with the kids while I did that.

He is more involved and enjoying the triathlon activities because most of it is new to me while he actually has more knowledge about biking and swimming. He's always coaching me on the biking and enjoys watching me swim. Already told him that we'd be traveling to another island nearby for an Olympic triathlon and he was all for it.

Today's training was a 3 mile run on the t-mill and 1500M in the pool.

Great races all around folks!  I look forward to reading the reports a bit later today.

Training and family.  That's complicated and in some ways it depends a lot on one's individual circumstances, but I'll share my own thoughts on the matter (modified from a post I made a couple of years ago that some seem to have found helpful).  For context, in 2011 I averaged around 13 hours/week and peaked at over 20.

Rule number 1 is to communicate with your spouse.  This 'rule' is not tri-specific, but it is probably the most important (IMHO).  Frequent simple communication is much better (in my case, at least) than a few 'come to Jesus' moments.  Apart from that rule (which trumps the others), here are my own guidelines.

* Make training as invisible as possible.  The vast majority of my training is done when my family is not around.  My wife knows that I train a lot, but I make sure that it is not 'in her face'.  I NEVER ask her to change her schedule so that I can train.  (As in: "Honey can you be sure to be home by 4:00 so I can get my bike ride in?"  That's a no-no in my book).  So, I often run early in the morning before she is awake, or swim during my lunch hour, etc.  If I wanted ('needed' -- remember the scare quotes there!) to ride at 4:00 and she's not home, I get on the trainer.  flexibility is key.  I'm very fortunate that my work hours are somewhat flexible (there are a lot of them, but they are somewhat flexible), which helps a lot of course.  I also try to make other aspects of training invisible -- I often wash my own workout clothes (there are a lot of them!); instead of going to sleep at 8pm I take a nap in the middle of the day so that I can be awake a bit longer.  I don't leave bike bottles and other paraphernalia lying around the house.

* When training isn't invisible, ask.  When training is not going to be invisible, it isn't hard to say "honey do you mind if I go for a run now?" instead of "I'm going for a run now".  It is very easy to detect a genuine 'yes' from a 'yes' that really means 'couldn't you do it some other time?'.  Act accordingly.  The one regular exception to keeping training invisible is long rides once per week (and there are other exceptions from time to time).  They start at 5am, but often don't end until 10am.  Our kids are trained to get themselves breakfast and not disturb my wife (let her sleep in), so this has worked out OK, and I always ask several days in advance whether it's OK.  When it's not OK (it usually is), I find an alternative.

* Chores before training.  I never leave my wife with obvious chores to do while I'm training.  Example:  if there is a sink full of dirty dishes, I wash them before I leave for a morning run, especially if I know that my wife will be awake by the time I get back.  (If she won't be, I might wash them when I get back instead.  Same principle.)  I don't want her to be washing dishes, putting away laundry, whatever, and thinking "Mr. I-Have-to-Swim is playing at the pool while babushka is schlepping underwear around the house."

* Involve the kids.  I involve my kids in my training whenever possible.  Sometimes I take the older two to the pool with me.  When I was pool-running a lot, I took all of them to the pool with me.  When I first started, I often pushed the youngest in a jogging stroller (not practical now).  I often have one or two of the older ones ride their bikes with me while I run.  The point here is not just to take some of the kids off my wife's hands when I train -- they are good kids and don't cause much trouble anyway.  The point is that training is thereby a family activity and not the selfish 'me-time' of just one individual.

* Discuss the race schedule.  I never ask my wife to come to a race.  Ever.  I know that it is harder for her (especially with the kids) than it is for me, not to mention that spectating triathlon is about as exciting as reading insurance documents.  We discuss my racing plans at the beginning of the year and then I decide what is reasonable within our family constraints.  So she knows well in advance when I'm racing.  Occasionally she wants to come, and that's great.  Mostly she doesn't.  When I get home from a race, I might share a bit about it with her, but I don't yammer on about it all day.  I get cleaned up and get on with normal family life.

Of course, there are other things -- keep lines of communication open; be supportive of her hobbies; make family time; etc.  These are just normal parts of a healthy family life.  The 'rules' above are just my tri-specific rules.

Following these rules and some common sense has allowed me to hold down a busy job and volunteer several hours per week while training and racing a good bit, and stay happily married (18 years and counting).  Pretty much everything else has been cut out of my life, though.  I don't watch TV; I don't go to movies; I don't play computer games; I have essentially zero social life, etc..

Raced in a Family Relay, sprint distance, with my kids on Saturday.  My daughter is a swimmer, my son did the run (he has trained every day this summer).  Proud Dad.

Race: Tri! Ballantyne 

What a great experience.  I knew we had a pretty good team.  My daughter had to go to work at 9am so we couldn't stay for the end and see the final results.  Checked the results when they were posted the next morning.  Wow, we made second in the Family Relay Division.  Then checked the times. Crap, only 3 seconds out of first.  Too bad this was a timetrial start, would have loved to see my Boy running down the other team's runner.  And yes, my bike leg was the weak link, but it was by far the 1st placed team's best leg.

-Steve

Just finished my race report from Saturday's race, Race Report. I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but I did as well as I could, I believe. I really need to get faster on the bike to do better, really. I'd have liked to have run faster, but the course was pretty hilly, and that was about all the speed I had. Basically, I just need to get a lot more time on the bike. Overall, it was a nice race and I'd do it again. Oh yeah, my times are a little screwy since they apparently had some technical difficulties with the mats in the transition area, so my transition times are folded into my SBR times.

Unfortunately, something from race day messed my back up. My back was hurting in Feb. and the doc said I have a condition known as spondylothesis, basically a pinched vertebrate in my lower back, and it hasn't hurt since I started training for tri's. However, Saturday night something tweaked it and it's hurt since then. It'll get better with rest, so I'm taking off training until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm also re-considering putting aero bars on my bike and getting fitted, since I think sitting too upright on the seat is what's compressing my back. Oh well, not the end of the world. 

As far as spouses go, my has been really understanding. First, she understands after being married to me and that I have a little bit of an obsessive personality. When I find an author I like, I read all their books. The same goes for movies, TV shows, etc. So, she understands that I'm going to give this 100%. I've found what Michael has said to be true, I can't expect her to love as much as I do, and I don't want to throw it in her face. It's a part of my life now, but I can't let it overwhelm it, or make my wife jealous of it. As I'm planning on going Olympic-HIM-IM, I'll need to keep this in perspective. I try to think of it as if my wife suddenly found religion, or something else all-consuming, it shouldn't change the fundamentals of the relationship.

Wow, long post

Great list Michael!  Chores before training? Ouch, that's a tough one.

I also try to make my training invisible (mornings, lunchtime, etc.). Sometimes you just can't so that's when I think consistency helps. For example: Since January, every Monday and Thursday I stop at the gym on my way home from work. Having this routine helps avoid scheduling conflicts. If I need to reschedule a workout I do without complaining (to much :-).

It also helps that I do sprints. My workouts don't have to be long.