Clyde/Athena Tri-N-4- Weight Loss Mentor Group -OPEN AGAIN!! (Page 54)

Well after a strong week last week, i guess this week I'm just going to be sick. Woke up with a tickle in my throat yesterday, and went to sleep (at 7pm) with a full blown cold. Hopefully this won't last too long and I'll be back to running in a couple days.

Last friday was my long run for the week, 4.5 miles at 9:45 pace. I can't remember the last time i ran that far, and i definitely didn't do it that "fast." I showed up for my group ride on Saturday and apparently didn't get the memo that it was canceled, so i went on a quick ride by myself. It was nice to ride outside again, even if it was cold . 15 miles at 18mph, and i didn't even have a tailwind.

Have a good week all!

Just starting out!!

Hi my name is Gene. I am new to the Triathlon training and mentality. I have been an athlete on and off all my life. Graduating highschool at 6'6 275lbs D-lineman (from Texas). Than at the end of my first marrage, I found my self 6'6 and 400+. After my divorce I dropped to 250lbs and lost another 20 lbs when I joined the US Army. Before leaving for the military I was able to bench 400+ lbs, but the Army doesn't want the heavily muscled football players. I have regained some of my original size, and have gone through some up and down dieting. I started to train for a sprint triathlon as a way to lose wt. and become a leaner machine.

Triathlon activities and my ability:
Swim: since i come from the gulf coast area, I have always been a strong swimmer.
Biking: love to bike, with good stamina
Running: my achiles heel if you will. Not that I am not able to run a 5K, I just dont like it.

I would like to do my first sprint tri next year, but am primarily looking to lose wt. during my training.

Mentor Needs: I am wondering if anyone out there would be willing to impart knowledge and experience, as well as provide a person to answer too. This helps me keep motivated, as well as someone to ask question and bounce ideas off of.

Diet goals: I do not want to crash diet, but make life style changes. I am not looking for or expecting to lose anymore than two pounds per week. I am not going to starve myself or cause myself to suffer ( I feel that it is more detremental to my goals to do so). I eat a lower carb diet, but still take in some bread (one time a day and a small amout) and eat fruits as snakes. I have cut out my beer on my own.

Current Important stats:
Height: 6'5
Weight: 323
Chest: 52 or so inches
Swim: average for 4min/100 yards (long swim last week for 20 min)
Bike: 15 miles/hour
Run: 9:53/mile

Working with a Balanced 20 week beginner Triathlon program.

If you are interested (and perferrable a clydesdale) in being a sponsor for me please reply.

Welcome Gene!

I just finished my first "season". I also threw my hat in the tri ring as a way to lose weight, and I plan to stick around because of the people and it's just plain fun!

From what you posted, you are miles ahead of where I started. You should be more than ready when the season kicks off next year. I'm not up to mentoring anyone yet, but if you post your questions here (like my next post), or another sub-forum if it's more applicable, the general population around here is usually more than happy to answer, give opinions, etc... Just be sure to search first .

Welcome Gene! You'll find a really supportive bunch here, and some very knowledgeable folks too. Pretty much all of them with more experience than me. What I lack in experience I make up for in heart and reading. Your sprint goal for next year is quite reasonable, but you might consider setting a goal of two sprints, one late spring/early summer and one late summer/early fall.

Accountability and motivation? I find just entering my workouts here keeps me more accountable. Want to up the ante? Either leave your workout log public or friend a few of us so we can check it out from time to time. Mine is public. Anybody can check it out anytime. Every now and then you'll get a little note, an "Inspire", which are pleasant little surprises and great motivators.

Your times all look comparable to mine. I'm 56 yrs old, 6'2" and 373 lbs. I actually register just slightly slower than you on swim and bike. But at my weight I don't even TRY to actually run. I'm just working on building my aerobic base until New Years, when I will switch to the C25K treadmill program. My first sprint is planned for May 10th, so I should have time.

I'll be looking for your posts. Remember, slow steady progression will reward you with fewer injuries and thus more improvement than going gung-ho out of the gate.

21AP for today, 48AP for the wee, just short of my 50AP goal. I knew I wasn't going to reach my goal for 50AP this week, so I decided to at least come close. I did a brick; 800 yard swim and then 30 minutes on the LifeCycle. Finally found the right level on the LifeCycle, level 9. I could spin along at 95-105 rpm's for everything except the two largest hills on the program. Those slowed me down to 80-85 rpm's. Legs were a little rubbery when I got off the bike, so I know it was a good workout.

SWIM: 800 yds in 18m 49s. 4x25, 2x50, 1x100, 1x200, 1x100, 2x50, 4x25
BIKE: 30m on the LifeCycle for 9.7 miles, but don't even start to think I can ride at 19.5 mph for real. Out on the roads I am generally only able to average between 13.75 and 14.0 for my rides.

Didn't exactly do a "real" workout yesterday. I went to a new shoe store, specifically because they were the closest dealer to carry Hoka's. I went to Inside Track in Lewisburg, PA and worked with Sayard Tanis. She is a certified Physical Therapist Assistant with 6 yrs experience working with a working foot/ankle mechanics and gait correction. I was quite impressed. Apparently I have a strange gait as I tend to kind of "loop" my foot around in the air before it strikes. So she wanted to find a shoe to correct my landing, which she said was a bigger problem than padding my strike.

The bad news is the Hoka's don't come with a wide enough sole platform for my feet. Sayard was concerned I would blowout the instep long before the life of the sole was used up. My previous shoe store would only try to fit me in New Balance shoes, but she said there were other shoes she wanted to try first. The Asics were too tight in the toe box IMO and not a wide enough platform after her examination. Then we tried a pair of Sauconys that were nice and finally a pair of New Balance. What really surprised me was that she had me take them outside and jog to the end of the block and back while she watched. Both felt pretty good, but I had the preconceived notion that I had to have NB. Finally Syard had me put on one Saucony and one NB for t he trot down the block. What a striking difference! I could FEEL the NB restricting my motion and forcing my footfall. The Saucony was virtually undetectable. One more trot wearing the Sauconys again while she watched.

I wound up buying the Sauconys as an experiment. All totaled I trotted about a mile between the six trips, according to Sayard, and my left knee was SCREAMING. (No neoprene sleeves, DOH!) So I decided to cancel yesterday's 3.7 mile walk and just consider the trots to be my workout. I'll let you know how this works out.

10AP tonight, 10 AP for the new week, shooting for at least 50AP this week again.

Changed my pyramid, doubled my warm-up and cool-down.
4x50, 2x100, 1x200, 2x100, 4x50 = 1000 yds in 23:00 mins.

15AP tonight, 25AP for the week, halfway to my 50AP goal for the week. For part of this workout I was actually running an 8 min mile pace.
2 miles in 33:47 = 16:53 per mile average and yet, max HR was only 143. Heart and lungs can go faster but legs can't, quite yet.

WOO-HOOOO! Little goal attained! You may remember that last week I was disgusted because I could not even claim workouts for 50% of the month. I set a little goal for the remainder of October to get a workout in each of the remaining days. And with tonight's workout I have successfully attained that goal. Next up? I want to record workouts for at least 20 of the 30 days of November.

CHA-A-A-ARGE!

LOL, my HIM plan is 23 months long. How long is yours?

I have decided to aim for the HIM at Beach 2 Battleship in 2016. As of right now, I expect that to be the culmination of my triathlon career. After that I'll be happy to stick to sprints and Olympics.

Edited by leatherneckpa 2014-11-01 4:38 PM

Day 1 of 20/30
10AP for today, 35AP for the week toward my goal of 50AP.
4x50, 2x100, 1x200, 2x100, 4x50 = 1000 yds in 23m 20s

This month is off to a good start!

Sunday Update:

255.5... Down a pound. Not horribly happy with my week, but not unhappy either.

Swim: Mon and Wed (my interchangable days) both got 86'd. Got a good swim in on Friday though. 500yds at race pace, 8x25 off-side breathing, 3x50 kick drills (no flippers), and ended with 4x25 bilateral breathing for a total of 950yds. Kind of a short week in the water, but I really need to get more comfortable breathing on my left side.

Bike: I'm really digging this trainer. Yeah, I know the honeymoon will be over soon enough, lol! I only managed 2 sessions as my planned brick yesterday didn't happen. I now have a basic odometer, and based off my ride this morning, I'm guesstimating that I went about 10 miles on both days during my 52:00 interval sets. We are now getting into overnight freezes, so my actual road time is going to be limited since I freely admit to being a bit of a weather weenie It also helps that I'm getting caught up on The Walking Dead

Run: C25K restart is going slow... I only managed 2 runs this week when there should have been 4. Sunday was my make-up for my missed run the week before. I honestly don't remember why Tuesday didn't happen. Thursday was... painful... I've had my shoes for just over a year now and I think it's time to replace them. And again, I missed my brick yesterday.

This week is buckle down, hit 3 bikes, 3 runs, 1-2 swims and stay out of the kids' Halloween candy!!!!

Edited by WebFootFreak 2014-11-02 8:44 AM

LOL! I'll take flat and straightline winds over hills ANY day! I guess my living in the middle of Arkansas farmland makes me a little biased, huh?

No kids at home = No candy. Much easier to maintain.

19AP today, 54AP for the week, with a goal of 50AP.
Walked a 10K in 1:49:47.

CELEBRATE with me! I set TWO PR's today!

Left the house this morning intending to do a long, slow walk around the 4.5 mile River Rd loop. It was 40* and windy as I left. Within a half mile I had pulled my hands into my jacket sleeves. By the 1 mile mark I had pulled up the hood on my jacket. And I'm starting to wonder what the heck I am doing out here today.

Now, I'm 6'2 and 370 lbs, which means I'm about the size of an NFL lineman, and I like to think I'm fairly strong. But these headwind gusts are actually slowing me down and the crosswinds are knocking me off my stride. But somehow, my second mile is faster than my first. Nice. At mile 3 I am right on pace with my usual time, except I haven't done ANY jogging today, only walked. At mile 4 I am actually below my best time ever. I am on pace to set a PR, but the last half mile is all uphill. And that is when it happened.

"Hey, as long as things are going this well, why not stretch the workout and do a full 10K?" Never mind that I haven't walked a 10K since I left the Marine Corps in 1982. Let's go for it! Mile 5, still exceeding my wildest dreams and setting an even lower PR. I did use a little bit of my brain though. I went up the BACK side of Heart Attack Hill. Longer, but not as steep. It didn't matter, that hill kicked my butt. Apparently a long, drawn out hill climb is just as bad time wise as a short steep one.

I finished my 10K in 32 years in 1:49:47, averaging over 3.5 mph. This is really great news since my big race at the end of next season is going to finish with a 10K. Now I know that I can at the very least complete the distance. I'm going to write one 10K per month into my training calendar.

Keep up the good work leatherneck!

I guess this means the new shoes are... working out?

Just a update after week 2 of training

Totals from the weeks workout:

total swim-2187.23 yards
total bike- 29.21 miles
total run- 5.24 miles

Longest work outs:
swim 22 min- 984.25 yards
bike 44 min- 13 miles
run 22 min- 2 miles

Weight is down 5lbs in two weeks without dieting (not eating badly though, but not starving). The training is going good and dont hurt to bad (thank you Ibuprofen). Getting easier to wake up early and get my workouts in.

Also, would like to say thanks for the words of encouragement from everyone.

That was terrible! If you're going trade puns with me you'll have to step it up.

Nah... I stumbled on that one by accident... I re-read my post and caught it.

Although, in my defense, aren't puns horrible by design anyways?

Edited by WebFootFreak 2014-11-03 3:43 PM

I always felt that puns are like sex, the more they moan the better it was.