Dirk's Junkie group - CLOSED (Page 54)

Sounds like a great ride.  It probably was a good idea to keep the pace away from a tempo pace this early, you'll have plenty of time to work on that before June.

Do you know the climbing data?  I would like to hear about the climbing and descents from a ride around Tahoe.  After being in Wyoming and seeing what I could have for climbs and descents I certainly have the itch to try some of that out.

I think my problem might be that it is too big in the shoulders actually. I can easily zip it myself. When my training friend puts on her suit I have to help squeeze and work her suit around her shoulders - it takes a couple of minutes. She just pulls the shoulders up for me and then zips. And then it feels short in the torso - I'm always pulling down at it. When swimming in it I end up feeling a lot of shoulder fatigue, like I lifted weights right before I swam. 

 For an example - I swam the same HIM swim 2 years in a row (although one year was a aqua/bike only), One year was warm - no suit. The next year water temps were cool enough for the suit - I was 4 min. SLOWER. I know there are a lot of factors to consider and I can't blame just the suit but my execution of the course was much better the second year in the suit and my fitness just as good so there is really no reason I should have been so much slower. It is getting a few small tears in it too so I guess I really need to look at getting another OR choose warmer races .

Jo63 - 2012-03-11 8:53 AM So I went on what was supposed to be a 15 mile run yesterday, I haven't tried the LT test yet so tried to stay at 155ish or lower for my heart rate felt amazing for about 7.5 then hunger hit I had Gatorade and gu drank the Gatorade, the thought of gu at that point just wasn't happening, I actually started feeling stomach cramping, and some pain and am thinking this is what happened on the long run a couple weeks ago, and all I could think about was a peanut butter and jelly so I basically hit a wall and walk /ran home finished about 11 miles inhaled a pb&j and chocolate milk, I am happy this happened as I paid attention to my body this time. So my question is does anyone use solid food on a long run? I am feeling like I shouldnt be getting this hungry for a longer run. Any suggestions?

I have never tried solid food on a long run before but I suppose you could give it a shot.  My thoughts on something like would be that it would be hard to manage.  Simply carrying something would be hard enough but actually chewing is another thing altogether. 

I would suggest trying different types of gels and chews.  I have and do use nearly everything there is out there but my favorite things are the Clif Shot Bloks.  (Clif has several other forms of food that you could take with you and they take many different forms.)  The Bloks seem to dissolve rather quickly in my stomach and they seem to give me just a touch more energy than a gel.  Clif also make Roks that are like a peanut butter filled pretzel and maybe some other flavors but I have never tried them.

I have also experienced what you explained happened on your run too.  It is usually a result of poor fueling pre-run and maybe even from the day before.  I always tried to get a few more carbs on board the evening before I did my long runs during marathon training.  I had been out on these long runs before and felt completely, totally trashed and wanted to quit, so I know what you mean at a very personal level.

Bottom line is, if you're going to do an IM you're going to have to work on getting fueling dialed in pretty closely.  The good news is that you should have plenty of time to begin that process.  The bad news is that to get it dialed in well it's going to cost some money and possibly a lot of frustration getting everything just right.

Now, for food on the bike I always have solids on long rides.  I can take that kind of food in to my system on the bike unless I am trying to do a TT or something.  One of the reasons I can take solids in on a ride is because of HR and breathing is lower thereby making chewing a little easier.  I do have bouts with spitting food everywhere though as I am trying to catch a deeper breath and exhaling faster causes me to spit some food out.  Luckily for those around me it usually lands back on my own jersey.

If it is short in the torso than t is probably pulling your shoulders down and out of optimum position causing undue stress on your shoulders.  As you have been swimming in your races your body is working to stay true to "pool form" and your probably trying to get a good stretch for your stroke, like you should be, and it's wearing you out early.  As you said, with tears and the fit you may need to look for another suit when the funding is available.

Whew!  Another crazy week done!

I remember back in the day when it was just the four of us and it didn't take me an hour to read through a week's worth of posts on the forum.  This is great activity.  Dirk, you've really brought some dedicated people into the group.  I love it!

There have been a bunch of things covered this week that really don't need my attention.  One of the things about the 5 x 1' workouts....I never had that in my workout plan.  I'm wondering if for some reason mine only got partially loaded and I thought I was done a lot sooner than I was?  Either way I have switched over from short hard efforts to longer sustained efforts on the bike now.  Trying to hold around 230-240 watts for a 20 mins for example.  I think this will help me build into holding that for longer.

Matt, to answer your question about the wheel/tire combo, the answer is yes.  They will work.  Which wheels are you looking at and what is your budget for those?  I actually have a set of fulcrum racing 7 wheels that I don't use anymore that I'd like to get rid of.

Now that I'm sitting here, I don't remember who brought up the wetsuit question about full vs. sleeveless and if one should buy new or used and the whole xterra sizing thing.  I think it may have been John????  If you are going to buy one suit, the answer is almost always full.  Well, I mentioned a while ago that I was switching suits and going with Blueseventy to support the whole sponsor whatever.  I still have my xterra vector pro full suit.  Click here to check it out.  Really is a great suit and has zero wear.  I haven't even written my name on the name tag yet.  I did cut about an inch off the bottom of the legs.  Trust me you don't need the extra length.  I'm tall and it's still useless.  If you are interested, we can work out a deal.  I want this to go to a good home.  Just let me know.  Here are a few pics of the suit.  It's a size large.  If you're not sure that it will fit you, I have no problem mailing it to you with the understanding that it will be returned with no damage if it's not the right size.

^^ this was the post I was trying to remember.  Okay, so when I swam in my full suit last year, I was about 190 lbs.  And it fit really well.  It's easier to describe in jacket size, but I'm right around a 43" chest and have long arms.  I forgot to mention that you can also cut the arms down on the suit as long as you don't cut past the sealed seam.  

No real training today. Just a walk.

I added some photos of my bike ride. They are in my album. I'll add some captions to them when I get the chance. Also, I added the route to the training log if anyone wants to see it and can look at the elevation graph. I still need to edit a couple things on it (the route manager is kind of a pain in the a$$ to work with). It also shows 612,618.00 feet of elevation gain. lol. I think it takes a couple days for it to actually correct itself to the proper numbers.

Anyway, this was a great ride on a nice day and I plan a few more of these before my century race. Also, in Sept. there is a race around the lake and I will post the race info soon.

Click Here for the wheels I am looking at

Good day today, started with a 11.5 mile run through the park.  After that I decided it was time to dust off the kayak and hit the lake.  Isaac and I packed all the fishing gear up and headed out.  Of course my pole barely had a nibble and he was able to catch a fish, small catfish, but still a fish.  Good way to start the spring, I can't wait for the days to stay warm

 I do have a cassette, shimano 105 CS-5700 11-28 10spd.  What do you recommend for wheels?  I have been watching E-bay and haven't seen much come up, but I probably wouldn't know if I did? 

Now that looks like fun. My husband and I were just talking about what a great day for fishing it was today! We have not fished very much at all since we've had kids. They are a little young with short attention spans (4 & 6).

The return from injury is going well.  I swam 1100 yds on Friday, and ran 3 miles Saturday, and haven't had any pain.  Yay me!

Today I drove a couple hours to Columbus for a triathlon swim clinic.  I guy I grew up with coaches triathletes and he held a group class today.  It was 2 hours of drills, and he's going to send me video, both above water and underwater, with his feedback and advice about what he sees in the video.  That should be a huge help.

Brenda, that's awesome that you have had a swim breakthrough.  

Vero, your ride sounds amazing.  Its just warming up here, so I hope to get some outdoor rides in this week.

Stan,  That rides sounds like a great one.  I checked out the pics in your album and with scenery like that It had to have been a great ride.  And with the century not coming until June your going to have a lot of opportunities to get all of the time in the saddle to make for an awesome time.

Matt,  Your early spring fishing trip looks like a great time with your son.  I haven't gone fishing in years and I haven't gone with my girls in longer than that.  They became disinterested a while ago, probably about the time boys came into the picture and frankly I could do without the interest in boys.

David,  I am very happy that your injury recovery is going well.  The swim clinic sounds like it could really provide a lot of good tools to use to build up your swim.  There have been swim clinics here a couple of times but I have either been to busy or they have been a little to generic for me to take part in.  I know the one was basically about putting wetsuits on/off and transitions.

___________

I completed my last bike test last night and planned to run 5-7 afterward but I couldn't stomach it.  I was blown up, my legs were trash and I was still reeling from the time change.  I had spent the day at church and a wrestling meet and got home jumped on the bike with that plan and I just couldn't pull it off.  I can usually do it but............well,  I was trash.  I'm going to try to double up tonight to see if I can play catch up a little bit.  Anyway, i want to kind of crunch the numbers from all of my tests and see what I come up with if anything for gains over the training cycle.  I imagine it will be hard to get real numbers since I have had a few tests that have been either bad or I trained right up to and through them.  We'll see.

Hooray, David!  We're glad you are making a good recovery.  That sounds like a great swim experience too.  I hope you get a lot of helpful feedback. 

It IS hard, but I have a few things going for me that most people wouldn't have.  The first, is that I go to work first, then walk next door to the YMCA.  That way I'm downtown already.  I get to miss the rush hour traffic.  That's one big motivator.  The other is that after driving in, it doesn't seem so extremely early and my bed isn't so close anymore.

Also, since my early morning workouts are indoors, the weather is never a demotivator.

I also have come to realize that if I don't do my morning workout I'm only about 15% likely to do it later in the day.  So realizing this, I know that my morning self-rationalization is really not "now or later?" It's actually "workout today or not?".

In the nicest part of summer, I do switch to morning rides because I can start at 5:30 and actually ride 30 miles outside before work, but that's something that I really like and isn't a motivational problem.

MWF mornings are a little easier too, because the first workout at 5:45 is my master's swim practice and there's a little accountability built in to the group.

As for sleepiness.  I really wouldn't make it without caffeine.  I don't recommend it to others, but I wouldn't survive 4am wake ups all week long without it.

That afternoon crash really isn't nutritional.  It's a side effect of waking up so early.  A lunchtime workout will definitely help.  It also might subside with time as you get used to waking early.

Thanks for the clarification.  It makes more sense thinking of it as a cyclist's program.  In road racing you live or die by your ability to maintain contact with the peloton.  There are times when, for tactical reasons, the pelton explodes with effort.  It's often done to shrink the group and take people out of contention.  In my day, there was ALWAYS an attack if there was a crash.  You can often get 90% of the people in the peloton behind the crash so sprinting at that time can leave the race whittled down to just a dozen riders.

For this reason the difference between a successful racer and one who isn't is the ability to do a super human amount of work for 30 seconds or 1 minute in the middle of a long race.

To help understand the importance of this skill it might be informative to look at my last race last season.  A local cat 2 road racer (and Pro mtn biker) named Dustin did the triathlon.  He is focusing on criteriums lately and working his way up to the elite ranks.  He obviously has the ability to go way beyond threshold repeatedly and recover.  He is good in a pack situation, and he is getting increasingly better with race tactics...But in this triathlon my bike split beat his by a minute and a half.

And you be be pretty sure I'd get lapped and pulled from a cat 2 criterium race in a matter of about 10 minutes!

Bike racers need to focus more on VO2 max efforts than aerobic efforts while triathletes need to focus much more on aerobic and threshold efforts than VO2 max, or anaerobic efforts.

Some people are fine in cold water wetsuit or no.  I'm not one of them.  I can say that I'd personally be uncomfortable in a sleeveless in 64 degree water.  However, a full wetsuit is faster anyway so there are a couple of reasons to lean that way.

I am 6' and was 200lbs when I purchased my Xterra wetsuit in size large.  It was on the tight end of the spectrum and I think it fits better now that I'm under 180.

I'm pretty sure that a Large will be good for you even as you lose some weight.

I have seen the Vector full-sleeve for $150 on sale (no need for the BT discount).  It's a sale that they continually offer every few months.

Jo63 - 2012-03-11 7:53 AM So I went on what was supposed to be a 15 mile run yesterday, I haven't tried the LT test yet so tried to stay at 155ish or lower for my heart rate felt amazing for about 7.5 then hunger hit I had Gatorade and gu drank the Gatorade, the thought of gu at that point just wasn't happening, I actually started feeling stomach cramping, and some pain and am thinking this is what happened on the long run a couple weeks ago, and all I could think about was a peanut butter and jelly so I basically hit a wall and walk /ran home finished about 11 miles inhaled a pb&j and chocolate milk, I am happy this happened as I paid attention to my body this time. So my question is does anyone use solid food on a long run? I am feeling like I shouldnt be getting this hungry for a longer run. Any suggestions?

I'm speculating a bit here based on my personal experience so take that in to consideration.

The only times that I've gotten hungry DURING a workout is when I'm bonking.  Normally the act of metabolizing glycogen during exercise moderates your blood sugar levels such that you never feel hungry.  That is until you begin to deplete of glycogen.  At which time your blood sugar plummets and you are ravenously hungry.  Plus you get very lethargic.  Sometimes getting the shakes.  And you crave sweets.

This is a good thing.  Every time you reach this condition in your workouts you are improving your body's tolerance to it.  Your body will adapt by storing more glycogen and by using it more efficiently going forward. 

Keep up the good work. 

Matt!  11.5 mile run and you still had enough life in you to get out the kayak!  You're doing awesome!

I'll poke around for wheels for you and if I find anything interesting I'll send it your way.

JeffY - 2012-03-12 10:27 AM

Jo63 - 2012-03-11 7:53 AM So I went on what was supposed to be a 15 mile run yesterday, I haven't tried the LT test yet so tried to stay at 155ish or lower for my heart rate felt amazing for about 7.5 then hunger hit I had Gatorade and gu drank the Gatorade, the thought of gu at that point just wasn't happening, I actually started feeling stomach cramping, and some pain and am thinking this is what happened on the long run a couple weeks ago, and all I could think about was a peanut butter and jelly so I basically hit a wall and walk /ran home finished about 11 miles inhaled a pb&j and chocolate milk, I am happy this happened as I paid attention to my body this time. So my question is does anyone use solid food on a long run? I am feeling like I shouldnt be getting this hungry for a longer run. Any suggestions?

I'm speculating a bit here based on my personal experience so take that in to consideration.

The only times that I've gotten hungry DURING a workout is when I'm bonking.  Normally the act of metabolizing glycogen during exercise moderates your blood sugar levels such that you never feel hungry.  That is until you begin to deplete of glycogen.  At which time your blood sugar plummets and you are ravenously hungry.  Plus you get very lethargic.  Sometimes getting the shakes.  And you crave sweets.

This is a good thing.  Every time you reach this condition in your workouts you are improving your body's tolerance to it.  Your body will adapt by storing more glycogen and by using it more efficiently going forward. 

Keep up the good work. 

Jeff, I've been thinking about this process in my longer runs in relation to long course tris.  I've typically used liquid sugar (in whatever form - gu, engineered powders, etc) during runs once they get to ~90 minutes or so, but I'm thinking I should just use water and let this adaptation of improved glycogen use happen.  But then another side of me thinks why bother if I'm always going to supplement longer sessions anyway.

Since an event like a HIM will always be way too long for stored glycogen, is it still worth it in your opinion since that would give us more leeway in terms of nutrition mistakes or problems, and gives us more options? I hope I worded this clearly enough to make sense.