Baowolf's Mentor Group- Closed (Page 55)

Another quickish post. Great day today. Up early to aid with local tri (location of my first last year) and the weather was perfect. Got hubby to go to my favt burger place afterwards and thoroughly enjoyed my Holy Moly burger. Spent much of the day going around town and getting our rent checks (all in – PTL!) Got in a nice, shortish hilly run and then went to our Greek Festival and had some more awesome food. Then back home and went out for a longer tempo run. All in all, a spectacular day!

Carol, so glad Katy the dog is ok.

Mike, Yay on the running with no pain!!! IMLOU, huh? Sounds like you have a great wife.

Jim and Mitch, hope you have an awesome day tomorrow riding.

Jay, I’ve got a ultra friend who went Paleo several years ago. She loves it. I know that she eats lots and lots of sweet potatoes during races but then a lot of the ultra courses are set up for that. Also congrats that the kids have found their sports. It’s tough to find that right balance of encouraging them to try new things without getting overwhelmed with activities but also trying to find the thing that makes life better.

I want to go stalk a 21 y.o. from Tally who is at Kona but I really need some more stretches and a shower since I just came back from that tempo run. Night All.

Sorry to see my bro Andy Potts DNS today at Kona.

Fellow BT'er Colin Cook (aka PeakTriCoaching on BT) put down a 9:37:45 at Kona today. Nearly an hour better than he did last year at Kona.

Steve: Thanks for the input. I find it interesting that you disagree with a friend of mine who feels that running does help with the bike. I guess another way to look at it and/or ask your opinion is: does running a decent number of miles help more than say an hour on the trainer?? I understand that's a very subjective question but that will be the decision that I'm left with soon due to Northeast weather. I should've been clearer on Insanity; I'm going to try to supplement it with my tri training to help Ki get started with it. I expected to use the same muscles on some days but I'll deal with temporary pain to help her kickstart the program.

Mike: Great news on the run! If you're pain free today, perhaps you can try for a shorter run today to see how your body responds to 2 days in a row of running. IMLOU huh...you seem determined to torture yourself with that race....leaves me baffled. Your comment about talking to wife/kids about the undertaking IMLOU would take reminded me of a post I saw in the Tri Talk section. There was a post a few days ago now with advice from a lot of folks with keeping your marraige happy while training for an IM. As with most topics; you have to sift through some crap but there were some good points that resonated with me. Bummer on your new bud Andy; do you know what happened to cause a DNS?

Pam: I'm glad you had a good volunteer experience! I know I enjoyed volunteering at the HM last March after my AT surgery; I've only volunteered once but it seemed extra special because it was an event I participated in. Thanks for the input on your ultra friend too. I spoke with my friend yesterday and she goes back to her standard bagel/banana breakfast for race day. She's BQ'd every year for 5-10 straight years...so she's a bit superstitious and scared to change it up. I understand where she's coming from. Also, the idea of eating sweet potatoes on a run isn't appealing to me. I'm teaching myself to accept squash, turnips, and sweet potatoes now...can't imagine eating that every 30-60 minutes to refuel right now! So, what is a Holy Moly burger? My mind envisions something evil like a 1lb burger with cheese, bacon, mayo, etc!

Mitch/Jim: Hope the run goes well today.

I had an interesting conversation with Ki last night about soccer town politics. I may or may not have mentioned that I got to watch my son play his game last week and it was a disaster. It was chippy with pushing and dirty play.....which culminated into a shoving match near the end of the game. We are friends with the coach of the other team so Ki was speaking with her yesterday about the game last week. Long story short; the main aggitator was on her team and his father is the head football coach in town. So, when she approached the league with help in handling this kids overaggressive play...the league told her to figure it out...they're not getting involved. She also made a comment on how the official in the game didn't control it (I completely agree with that....I even told her after the shoving match that she needed to get control of the game) and the response was the official told her that the parents were out of control and all over her. (which was true AFTER the confrontation) The wonderball goes round and round...another sport, more politics and not putting kids safety first. Basketball, baseball, and now soccer...it just disgusts me that adults put their own motives in front of the kids best interests. Sadly, there's a part of me that wishes my son wasn't a good athlete so I wouldn't have to see this crap first hand.

Edited by medeiros13 2013-10-13 7:00 AM

Another day another pain free run. Did just over 3.5 miles and it felt great. Baby steps, but steps none the less...


Kids sports can be insane....

Hrm how to put it. You can be a 3 hour marathon runner and a sucky cyclist. The better cardiovascular shape you are in the faster you can improve in a sport that requires cardiovascular fitness. So yes if one runs 50 miles a week and then wants to become a cyclist, they will be able to build faster than a person who has sat on the couch for the past 5 years. In a general sense being fit helps one to be a better cyclist. General fitness will help you to go farther on the bike. It will not help you to go faster on the bike. Only cycling will make you go faster on the bike and a lot of it and hard efforts. If I look at my cycling my average non Lake Tahoe IM bike speeds have been 17.6-17.8 mph over 3 races. In that time I rode my bike roughly 11,000 miles and did not get any faster. I also ran roughly 4000 miles. My IM run improved 35 minutes and my bike improved 5 minutes. So that was not enough hard cycling to improve my bike speed. So to get faster on the bike I am going to have to first get my legs healthy, then do some specific strength training to make me more resilient regarding not getting injured during hard efforts and then do a lot more harder efforts. I don't know if that clarifies things for you.


So biking with: 75 wats of power = 14 mph.
2x that effort 150 wats of power = 18.5 mph (+4.5 mph).
3x original effort 225 wats of power = 21.8 mph (+3.3 mph).
4x original effort 300 wats of power = 24.5 mph (+2.7 mph). Kona male winner power = average 280 watts, woman winner 225 watts
Biking at 20 mph up a 15% grade requires 1475 ish wats.

Hills, wind, weight, etc impact these calculations. But basically to be a solid cyclist you need to triple the bike fitness you are going to get coming in to the sport from being in decent ish shape. There are bike specific muscles, muscle memory, bike stroke mechanics etc., that you are not going to get on the run. Let me know if this doesn't help and I will try a different way.

Mike, happy to hear your running is going well! Careful not to get ahead of that hammy though.

Jay, good for you on wanting to work out with your wife. We are not professional triathletes, so sacrificing some S/B/R training time for something more important to you makes you a winner IMO. Sorry for the kid sports political carp. So dis-heartening to see stuff like that and to have your kids exposed to it. But you, your wife, and a lot of other non jerk parents are there to help them persevere in the midst of all that....good skills for life.

Pam, you had quite the busy day! You may be glad when the work week arrives! Hey, can you ride your bike to collect rent checks?

Steve, I think I fall off the bottom of that cycling/power chart.

Mitch & Jim, how was your ride?

Rode a little bit yesterday....thought I might push it a bit, but was a little stressed about all I needed to do otherwise. So mid ride, I turned it into an errand running ride. Bought a new tag for Katy and a gift card for lady who took her home and called animal control, etc. Nope...won't be moving those power numbers, but felt better about my day and got a ride in. Today, went over to the Cooper Center in McKinney and swam with a few of my diabetic triathlete friends. At first there was only one other guy and us in the pool. Other guy turns out to also have Type 1 diabetes. Nice to be able to encourage each other.

Steve, that made sense. Thanks! To be honest, that makes me want to focus on bike less and running more :D

Don't ya hate it when you dig up 50 feet of sprinkler line to find the leak and learn that there isn't a leak, but a flow of water that chose the softer dirt where the trench was to lower the ground to make it look like a water leak......

So it is easier to build on the bike to go far but slow than it is to build on the run to go far slowly. But easier to get faster on the run than faster on the bike. Someone said you run twice as hard you go roughly twice as fast, you bike twice as hard you go 0.60 x faster, you swim twice as hard and you swim 0.2x faster

Edited by Baowolf 2013-10-13 7:52 PM

Oh Steve, so sorry about the digging!

Jay, almost right on the Holy Moly. Bacon (very crispy), huge burger, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and guacomole (sp?). I love it. Not exactly the best thing for your heart but I bet it brought my iron levels up.

Carol, no bike riding for me to collect rent checks. Confession time here but I'm petrified to ride on busy roads here. I've done neighborhood streets, bike paths, and the busy roads only on race day when they are mostly closed off. I'm such a weenie. But I see what drivers are like when I'm running towards them and they have another lane to move over towards - and don't. I've moved off road way too many times because of entitled drivers. I really just don't trust any vehicle behiind me when I'm in a bike lane or riding the roads. I know that MOST drivers are good people but it's the .01% that I don't trust. And the ones that are texting despite the law. Oh, and the friends of my son who hit a parked car 3 days after getting their driver license. ...and their parents who "taught" their kids to drive.

Edited by Pink Socks 2013-10-14 3:48 PM

It is kind of the same thing, cardiovascular fitness helps with sports that use cardiovascular fitness. If injured you can maintain some "run fitness" by cycling and walking, but you won't get faster on the run or on the bike unless you run or bike.....hard.

Jim, I haven't read it but I do like in on FB and read a lot of their articles. What they say makes sense but everything makes sense if it is a well thought out plan. My wife is interested in getting the ebook as well but I'm not as excited. I like what they say about eating more calories and carb cycling at certain times of the day but they seem geared more toward Crossfitters/Powerlifters. Unfortunately, they don't have a contact us on their site...if they did I'd ask what benefits they could provide to endurance athletes vs. weight lifters. If my wife really pushes the issue and wants to get it...we probably would buy it and share the online account together. If that happens, I'll let you know how it turns out.

For now, I'm going to try and eat clean/healthy. I'd love to stay low carb but I just can't sustain the energy I need to do the workouts I want to do. I've read it takes your body time but I've been dealing with this off and on since March......I'm just tired of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Cycling technique question -- should my legs be aligned such that when I pedal, my knee is right over my foot? I ask this as my legs tend to widen out a bit (point outward somewhat) and that seems rather inefficient when pedaling. Started thinking about this a bit ago when I was trying to ignore how much my bike workout was making me hurt

I did my first double digit run in over a year today and the results weren't what I had hoped. What I found today is that I've completely lost being in sync with my stride. Before my injury, I could look at my Garmin and confirm that the pace I thought I was running at is where I am give or take 5-10 seconds. Now, I'm off by 30 seconds or more. I'm finding that cardiowise, I'm great. I keep my breathing regular...no issues. Not shockingly, my legs just aren't up to taking me as fast as I want to go cardiovascular wise. Realistically, I know this is the reality of coming back from an injury and getting readjusted to putting in miles....but that doesn't make me feel any better. Sorry, done ranting.

Mike: Me and biking aren't friends. I vaguely remember Steve giving some biking tips in our winter mentorship group if you want to search through there. The one thing I remember is the vision of wiping mud off the bottom of your foot with every revolution. If your knees are going outward, I can't see that being the most efficient way to bike.

Samantha: Thought of you today; during the run I had a car with Idaho plates pass by me. Its not everyday we see Idaho plates here in Mass!

Steve: That sucks you did all that digging but it must've been one heck of a workout!

Pam, don't apologize for avoiding busy roads...that is not chicken, it is smart!

Jim, sounds like your house is a great place to for the kids to gather. Way to go with providing them a fun, safe place.

Mike, I found this and thought it might be helpful to you: http://beta.active.com/cycling/articles/correcting-knees-out-pedali...

Steve, hope the sprinkler system is kinder to you next time. Have you been able to get back on your bike yet, or still recovering?

Jay, here you hit a major post surgery milestone, and you are upset about it? If you're not going to do a happy dance over that double digit run, we will just have to do it for you. It goes something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQu_NLRvULM

Had a good swim today. I added in some skulling on my side, then front, then other side, repeat...really focusing on hips not dropping and keeping my kick tight regardless of whether I was face down or side down in the water. Wound up feeling like I was working a lot less hard to go the same speed. I thought about it after critiquing a friend's swim on Sunday. He was really dropping his legs and making a big frog kick when he rolled to one side to breathe. Ha, it's good to follow my own advice sometimes .

For cycling your knees should be about as far appart as when you run. But, if you run with your kness more than 4-6 inches apart we probably have more to talk about. So ya knees shoudl be about 2 inches to 3 inches from the center tube of your bike which is pretty much over your feet. If you don't belive the distance walk across the room stop and measure the distance between your knees when applying force down.

Jay it took me 500 miles to feel kind of back in sync. with my running. Just keep plugging away at it, what else can you do? And yes double digit runs is a really big accomplishment considering where you have come from.

Now I am back to walking..I am chomping at doing a walk 4 jog 1 combo, but probably shoudln't. I should be back in run shape around February. Being not 16 anymore is not as much fun for training as one might think. I think I will start some very lite cycling this week, continued cocern about the top of the knee muscles. I am basically taking 6 weeks to recover, let muscles rebuild etc.

Edited by Baowolf 2013-10-16 3:18 PM

Thanks for the perspective Steve. I knew it was going to take awhile but to see that 500 mile number thrown out there...I'll be lucky if I can give my HM in March as strong of a go as I want to if that ends up being accurate.

Thanks for the link Carol. I wouldn't have placed you as a Seinfeld fan but you must be if you found that. I'm happy with the miles and I recognize that its a good milestone...but I always want more! You should know that about me by now To be really honest, it was/is frustrating to not have a feel for my pace.

Random side note: I was watching NBC nightly news last night and they had a story on the "new American middle" The basic premise is that roughly 15% lean way left and right and everyone else is in the middle. They had a survey on their website so I took it for the heck of it. Not a shock, I'm within the 15% that lean WAY right. My wife took it and leans WAY left. Sometimes you wonder how you get along when you see things like that lol. All I can say is thank goodness politics aren't important to Ki!

I'm going to apologize to everyone for the way I've been acting and will continue to act. But again another quick post and it will probably stay that way for a few more weeks. I read everything at work but can't post from work. Then when I get home, I've forgotten all of the responses I was going to post and I'm just so tired. My day starts at 5am and is a rush until 7 (if I'm lucky) or 9:30 pm. Then all I want to do is go to bed early so I can repeat.

Jay, doubledigit run is AWESOME any time but esp since you are recovering from surgery.

Carol, good job on listening to your smart coach. :-) OMG, that clip moves you are my sister!!!!!! I loved that episode of Seinfield. For my first HM, there is a kickazz hill at mile 12 and awesome people playing music at the top. I found myself running and trying to dance (to the Beatles) and even as I was doing it, I knew I looked like Elaine dancing

Steve, you deserve that rest and recovery. You'll be coming back strong when you re-start training.

Getting my workouts in. Sometimes they are better than I expected and sometimes worse. Today was good.

Edited by Pink Socks 2013-10-16 6:11 PM

Quick reply for me today. Life is picking up for me as I find myself making some big life decisions. In the last 2-3 days I think I've found the direction I want to go for my career and I've already contacted the college that has the program right here in CDA. It is a Master's degree in Social Work and I'm excited in a way I haven't been excited about other options. Not to mention, this degree will likely accept my bachelor's degree so that I can go straight to my Master's...woohoo! Did I mention I can do it all in CDA? Plus I have found several possible ways to get someone else to pay for it all. I am also really excited about a volunteer opportunity I'm getting on board with. It is called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). The program exists to provide children an advocate when they have been removed from their home for whatever reason. I will be doing research, facilitating parts of the process and being present and giving account from my research to the judge regarding what would be the best for the child. I know it will be challenging and I'll probably face disappointment and frustration; however, if I can give one child hope or help one child get placed somewhere they will be safe and loved I will be thrilled. Anyway, pray for me as I pursue all these new possibilities and seek to move forward after feeling a little stuck.

My MRI is Friday, and today I went for a 2.3 mile run. Felt really good. Been thinking about getting into some weight training. As I look forward to going to school I want to still run/bike/swim, but I also need some training that doesn't take quite as much time but still keeps my metabolism working hard. So I'll be learning how to balance things.

I will respond more on specifics when I get more time, but I loved reading up on everything and am happy to hear so much good stuff happening with healing and all other things!

Samantha, I am not sure you know but I am a Clinical Psychologist, School Psychologist and have School Admin credential. I have done custody evaluations, worked with the JJ system, group homes, court schools, ER for inmates, etc. I would be happy to speak with you about what you are getting into and which degree you may or may not want to obtain given what part of the system you want to work with and what level of mobility you want to have. Feel free to IM me, and we could talk on the phone if you want. The various aspects of the job are complex, especially testifying in court with lawyers cross examining you, your motives, your level of overinmeshment with the client, your training.... etc. Just like the IM want you to go in with eyes open not to discourage you at all. Also it would be good to talk with social workers in the area you are considering going into so you can get an idea of what they actually do on a day to day basis.

Thanks for the cycling info both Steve & Carol. The article you mentioned is exactly what I"m trying to fix, Carol. I'll check out my walking stride today, Steve and see what I get for a measurement. I need to concentrate on alignment, and fix the bad habit.

Off for another run tonight. Feel like things are getting better. Hoping to swim tomorrow & at least one day this weekend.

Race registration for 2014 is already upon us. Crazy how early some of these open up!

MD

Here's some perspective on how fast the folks racing Kona can be. My friend Colin (BT'er PeakTriCoaching) just did a 9:37:45. Pretty good for an IM race, particularly Kona, you'd think.

He was 88th of 177 in his age group (M30-34)
8 guys in his age group were sub 9 hrs
He was 1hr 20 min faster than he was last year.
He rode a 5:04 bike, and was mid pack

Yups they are pretty fast. The cycling is what blows my mind thats 22 mph in a hot, windy hilly race= MOP. I have to roughly double my IM power to do that.

So I did a simple calculation that I do every so often three years ish, it is how many calories I have burned since I first started triathlon training and it came out to roughly 1.9 million caloires or 525 pounds.

Steve, your pants must be really lose with that weight loss :-)