Beer Drinker Appreciation Society (BDAS)--OPEN (Page 56)

Well then Andrew congratulations are in order!!  Welcome to the rest of your life as I like to tell any other new parents

Went through the same with my wife and the preeclamsyia, though thankfully without the ambulance ride!  We were at the hospital already when it was discovered so just got put up then and there.  Glad everything's back to normal!

YES!!!  Congrats Ironman!!!

Sorry Gretchen this made me laugh out loud!  Especially since I'm not much of a lager guy (except pilseners which are apparently lagers - love a good Eastern European style pilsener)

Haha!  Not laughing at your pain, rather with it.  My ride last weekend was the same way.  I went out and kept hearing my pace splits on MMR and thinking 'wow I'm doing great!' then the turnaround and the 2nd half home was just awful.  Still had a great overall average speed at least so I know the fitness is there.  That was my longest brick on the training plan - 50 min bike followed by 2 mile run.  The run was awful.  Felt like I was cranking at race pace for the effort needed, except was like 1:15 min/mi short of 5k race pace...

Been MIA myself.  Mostly vacation.  Went 9 days eating and drinking way too much, and exercising too little.  Of course  Got my runs in, only managed one proper swim (though spent TONS of time in the water, never really swimming enough to get a heart rate up though), and had zero bike time.  Plenty of this though: 

(Divi balcony.jpg)

BTW anyone looking for Juan's RR, it is public and it's here:

http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=547812&page=1&posts=6#M5224319

Congrats again Juan!!

So the recovery from the bike crash has been....interesting.  Painful, for sure....but more to it than that.  I've always been super consistent with my training -- I make probably 99% of what's planned and rarely have "life get in the way" (I'm "fortunate" in that I'm single, no kids, and have a reasonably regular hour type job)....I've always been super passionate about my training and racing.  And all week, I haven't felt like doing crap....and I didn't even feel bad about not doing anything.  

I see so many people bounce back from crashes quickly and I, honestly, felt guilty that I wasn't bouncing back quickly and that I wasn't feeling bad about missing all of my training (to be fair, my coach put nothing on my schedule because of the crash).  I felt like the passion and the drive were gone and I wasn't sure if I was going to get it back.  I literally forced myself to get on the trainer last night to test things out.  I followed it up with a short run.  I felt no passion or desire to start....and nothing at the end.

I woke up this morning feeling similar, but forced myself to get on the trainer this afternoon....and then I wanted to do a short run.  And suddenly it was back.  So much that I've now registered for St. George 70.3 for next year

It's been a downer of a week, but I think I'm on the up swing again.  Now to figure out what to do about the bike situation....frame is cracked and Argon says not to ride it.  Highly doubtful the owner of the dog who caused me to crash will pony up the cash, so I have three options: 1) take him to court because we live in a very litigious society, 2) pay for a new frame myself, or 3) get the old P2 back in road-rideable condition and pull it off the trainer.  Sucks, but I'll figure it out.

Nicole - agree with everything above around making sure the owner is held accountable for his pet's actions.  My wife was bitten while on a bike tour a few years ago, and had a personal injury attorney handle the case and she received a settlement.  It wasn't like $100K or anything, but it paid for her trip.  The owner's HO or renter's insurance should cover it.

Glad you found your tri mojo.  Your body was probably just using that energy to heal. 

I sit here knocking on my desk, the door frame, and my head (you know, knock on wood...), I feel like as I approach the six month mark I'm starting to feel better.  I'm biking to my heart's content and am limited by my fitness.  No running yet, though I'm hoping to do a little jogging starting in September.  Swimming is still slow going, so no Masters practice for me yet.  I'm up to about 2500 yards/week in two sessions so hopefully I'll have a couple of good weeks and be ready.

I'm going to see a pain management specialist this week to deal with the remaining nerve irritation.  Yay!  More needles!!! 

Happy World Emoji Day!!!! 

RE:  Introducing speed work

I would highly recommend reading Jack Daniels' Running Formula...it has a really good (and very technical) discussion of how to set up a running training plan, and the "why" behind the structure. 

There are basically four stages in his plans:

Stage 1:  building neuromuscular and anaerobic speed, where you would start by just introducing some "pickups" or "strides" to your runs and progress to like 300-400 meter repeats

Stage 2:  building aerobic capacity (VO2 max), where you do longer intervals at roughly your 5K race pace (like 3-5 minutes at a time).  I won't lie - these suck. 

Stage 3:  threshold capacity (tempo runs), even longer intervals (starting with 10 minutes up to a half hour maybe) at roughly your 10K race pace.  These feel awesome.

Stage 4:  race-specific, so if you're looking to do an HM you'll be focusing on longer intervals that are maybe a little slower than your 10K pace, whereas for a 5K you'll be doing the sprint stuff and VO2 max work.

The length of the stages depends on the length of your plan, and the amount of work you do in each intervals session is determined/limited by your total weekly mileage.  IIRC it's 5% for Stage 1, 8% for stage 2, 10% for stage 3, so for instance if you're training for a HM and you're running 30 miles that week, you would have one of your runs incorporate 3 miles of tempo work, preferably all in one shot, but you could break it up like 3 x 1 mile with 1' jog recovery or something.

LSD running is great for building aerobic endurance and you will progress to a point, but you will never reach your potential as a runner unless you start to incorporate speed or interval work (albeit slowly and smartly).

Wow - +1 to that thanks Mike!!

I've been doing speed work for a few seasons now, under Jeff Galloway's run/walk plan.  I use the $3 5k app (iOS only which is annoying).  The 5k plan is based on 3 runs/week, typically I do two of them - the speed work one day and the long run the other day.  The speed work is also 400m intervals.  I believe they're supposed to be at 5k race pace, so I run them for the 5k pace I want rather than the one I prove capable of lol.  Really I've done so many of them I can figure out how fast I can go and maintain for not only the 400m, but for however many of them I'm doing that day. 

Well, I talked to the homeowner today....and no surprise, he's not interested in paying $5k for my bike.  So I guess I'm going to have to go about this the hard way.  I also called my insurance agent....have no idea if his policy is the same, but if it were my dogs who caused the crash and it was not on my property, they are saying they would not be able to cover the damages, which seems like total BS to me.

So.....I guess I'll lawyer up.  It was clearly not my fault....I just hope that they can prove this, even though I don't have any witnesses or anything.  I spoke with the police officer (yes, I filed a report!) and he will be issuing the guy a ticket in person....he hadn't been able to get in touch with him until today, but finally did and will be issuing the ticket by the end of the week.

Current plan is to get the P2 back into rideable condition and ride it in the meantime.  That said, I'd be lying if I said I was itching to get back on the road.  But my coach is basically forcing me to do so by giving me a long ride that I really don't want to do on the trainer.  May need to find a different route, though, as the homeowner clearly is not interested in admitting fault and/or ensuring his dog stays in his yard. 

Nicole - that really sucks, I'm sorry!  It is making me think though that I have no idea if my bike is covered under my homeowner's policy at all.  I believe if it's at home, and it's stolen, then it's covered.  Then again it may not be because I haven't told the insurance company I own a $3k MSRP bicycle so who knows...I need to look into this stuff!  I don't have a trainer bike if I crack my frame I don't ride any longer...