BamaDC's Mentor Group v4.0 - Closed (Page 6)

IMO, the longer the race the more important bike fitness becomes.  When you get to the HIM and IM distances you're usually on the bike longer than the swim and run combined. 

Unless your a slow runner.  My bike split might be faster than my run split.  We will see.  Lots of work to do on both.

I have no dog in that one,  just thought it was funny.  I was watching European Road Trip the other day (I was bored and it was on) and they backpackers hooked up with the Man U soccer (football) fans going from England to France for Man U to play a french team.  It was pretty funny portrayal of the Man U British Football Fans.

titeloops - 2011-04-15 8:19 AM Late night on Bourbon st. My head hurts!

So jealous!  My husband and I went in November for our 5th anniversary.  Cannot wait to go back!  The Mardi Gras Rock and Roll marathon is on my bucket list!

Name: Sylvain

STORY: Had a very active lifestyle, then stopped all when had first child 6 1/2 years ago. For my standard I was in terrible shape and was starting to worry about keeping up with my daughter when she became a teen. I want her to be active also and she will need to learn from somewhere. One day I fell upon an article titled "Train like a triathlete to get in shape fast". I read the article and was hooked. Couple days later I started running in my yard (5 acres), 30 seconds run, 30 sec walk. I started searching for info on triathlon, found BT, sign up. Browsed around and found the couch to 5K program. This was in Aug/07. Not having access to Bike or pool, I stuck to running. Finnished my first Half Marathon in May/08, then first Marathon in September/08. Ran two Marathons in 2009, plus a 30K and 10K running race. In 2010 did one try-a-tri and two sprints.  Bring on year 2 of tri'ing! My first Oly!!!

FAMILY STATUS: Married for 9 years, with two children, both girls, aged 6 and 3.

CURRENT TRAINING: Currently on 15 week Oly plan.  First two weeks not good, pool closed for maintenance.  Doing some bike and run but very busy at work with late nights. 

2010 RACES: Binbrook Give-it-a-Tri, Toronto Island Sprint, Orilia Sprint

2011 RACES:
Binbrook Sprint - June 18 (Registered)
Gravenhurst Oly - July 16 (Registered)
Toronto Island Sprint - Aug 28
Lakeside Oly - Sept 17

Cheers!

Sylvain

Thanks for chiming in everyone, I really do appreciate it.  And it makes sense that bike fitness gets more important when bridging to the HIM distance.  I'm an ok swimmer and to answer sand's question, I didn't have any issues coming out of the water and wasn't any more fatigued than I expected to be.  My bike and run were actually much faster than I expected. 

That said, I think the 20 week plan with more time in the saddle will work best.  I've only been riding for about a year and have come a long way.  The bike time in this plan will be a challenge for sure but probably worth it based on what you guys have said.

I'm in if you'll have me. 

In a bit of a rush at the moment, but will provide a bio soon.

Looking forward to being part of this mentor program! 

Room for one more?  If yes, I'll post a bio tomorrow (or most likely Monday since the weekend might be a bit busy!)

I'm aiming to improve my HIM time from last year, and I'm pretty sure my biggest limiter is on the bike.... You guys seems to know about HIM's and cycling, so I'd love to join this group!

Name: John

STORY: I've been athletically active my whole life, but within the last few years I've picked up the pace.  Not really sure why, but maybe I'm subconsciously trying to postpone middle-age for as long as possible.   I did my first tri on a whim about ten years ago, and then didn't do another for about 6 years.  I've done several more since then and have plans for two more this year.  I find that I do my best thinking when I swimming/biking/running (not that I'm much of a thinker!), and I consider that to be a tremendous added benefit to my training.  I also love the feeling of accomplishment that comes after a good training session.  My neighbors think I'm completely insane for training so frequently, but I'm long since past caring.

FAMILY STATUS: Married for 4 years, with two dogs

CURRENT TRAINING: Currently on a week long vacation and not doing exercise of any kind.  However, I'm back at it on Monday.  But what I'm hopefully not going back to is a completely unorganized plan.  My training consists of running once or twice per week, riding about 3 times, and hardly swimming at all because of water quality problems at the pool.  These numbers include a bike/run brick which I try to do every week.  I also try to get in one upper body workout at the gym per week.  I recently switched over to BT to log my training, but you can see in the two months of data here, that my swim/bike times really haven't improved much.  Ideally I would like to get some help from this mentor program in making my training more productive.

2010 RACES: N/A

2011 RACES:
Hua Hin Queen's Cup Oly  Aug 21

Laguna Phuket Oly+  Nov 27

I'm really looking forward to participating in the group, and I hope that I'll be able to provide some useful information and/or inspiration to other members.

John

Some background on me...I have incredibly flat feet.  Most people say they have never seen feet as flat as mine, including health professionals!  Because of this, I have dealt with soreness in my achilles, specifically my left foot, since I started running.  Orthotics and motion control sneaks help but I still have some soreness after long runs but it never really hurts. 

I am not doing too good this weekend.  I cut my 17 miles short yesterday because my achilles was sore for most of my run.  I ended up  little under 16 miles.   Yesterday it hurt.  I was supposed to do an easy 25 minute run today and lasted 5 minutes.  I had terrible pains in my ankle and foot so I stopped to ice and take Alleve.  I have been icing off and on all morning and it is feeling better but still not going to run today.  Tomorrow is a rest day but I might try for an easy run if I am feeling good.  This is not what I want to be dealing with 4 weeks out!

This has been one of the hardest training weekends I've had in a while.  So far everything has gone fine.

Saturday was a 2200 yd swim w/lots of fast 50s, followed by a brick of 40 miles on the bike and a quick 20 min run.

Sunday was a 1hr 20 min run and a 30 min recovery ride (still have to do that later).  And we've still got an indoor soccer game to play later tonight.  I'll probably play sparingly, a little worn out and don't want to risk injury.

Hope everybody's having a good weekend.   

Bummer.  I saw NOLA was changed to a duathlon b/c of high winds on the lake. 

Titeloops, hope the race went well for you otherwise.  Looking forward to hearing about it. 

I checked the results mid day to see how you were doing and was confused there wasn't a swim split.  But you definitely had a solid 69.1!

Hi all - if the group's still open I'd like to join...

Story: 37 yo female, married with 2 boys (7,9).  This is my 2nd year racing.  Grew up as a swimmer who hated running.  Now I appreciate running but I'm still not sure I like it.  Husband is dedicated trier too and we have much discussion on who gets the trainer or the AM run time.  I can beat him out of the water but I get toasted on the bike and run.  I was in a mentor group recently that was great and taught me many things. 

Training: 6x/wk. about 6-10 hours per week.  Currently doing BT Sprint bike focused.  Getting a new tri bike next week which will help with the bike focus! 

Race schedule: Finished 1st HM in March (sub 2hr) and have a couple of sprints planned for the year (first is white Lake NC in 4 weeks), graduating to an oly by Oct. and maybe another HM before winter.

Goals: run faster, get comfy on aero bars, learn to drink/eat/drive at the same time, finish an olympic distance, win my age group swim time in any tri, run 1:45 HM, get the confidence to register for HIM distance in '12.

Looking forward to learning much from all of you!

NAME:  River (actually, that's just a nickname that has stuck; some BT'ers know me as Missy as well)

STORY: This will be my third year of triathlon.  I grew up swimming, playing soccer, and doing Tae Kwon Do (even got a black belt).  In college, became pretty inactive and stayed that way for ~8yrs.  In 2007 I decided to get healthy by becoming vegetarian and getting active again.  I took up yoga and strength training, and lost about 60 pounds in the process.

In 2009, I had it in my head that I wanted to "do a triathlon", so I registered for the Chicago Olympic.  Then I was told to do a smaller race first, so I did a sprint that May.  Then I caught the tri bug and did 2 oly's before Chicago.  I still had the racing bug after tri season, so I did my first half-marathon (ahem, my first running race) at the end of Sept, and a second half marathon in November.

In 2010, I wanted to focus more on training than racing.  I planned to do my first marathon in April, my first HIM in July, and my second marathon in October.  My marathon went well, except for all the hills I didn't expect, causing me to slow down at the end.  My half iron went decently, but I realized I don't know how to pace myself on the bike.  My bike split was really slow, but the up side of that was that I passed everyone I saw from mile 40 of the bike and throughout the entire run.

Last Sept, I PR'ed my half marathon by 9 minutes; I also did my first 2.5k open water swim race.  Unfortunately, I messed up my hip doing my 20-miler because I was out of town in Carlsbad, CA, and I didn't take into account the affect hills would have in my training.  My running was horrible after that run, but I still attempted the marathon in Oct... I got up to mile 15 before deciding to voluntarily walk off the course rather than risk injury.

FAMILY STATUS: Single, live alone.  I have a plant!

CURRENT TRAINING:  I think I got burnt out after messing up my hip... I took some time off after the Chicago marathon, and am just now (this week) starting to get my groove back.  I tried to help it along by registering for the Mardi Gras half marathon in Feb, but my mojo wasn't there and I ended up just going into the race untrained and getting my PW (personal worst).  Right now I'm kind of following the beginner HIM training plan, but making modifications to the schedule so that I can join my tri club's group rides/runs on the weekends.  I'm just trying to train by feel right now because I can't go by the paces I was doing at the end of last season!

2011 RACES:  New Orleans Mardi Gras Half Marathon, Galena Tri (sprint), Soldier Field 10-miler, Door County Tri (Half Iron), Big Shoulders 5k Open Water Swim, Philadelphia Marathon.  There are only 2 tris in there, so I might do an oly in either June or Aug, but I don't want to lose focus from my A-races which are my HIM and marathon.

WEIGHTLOSS:  I dropped 60 lbs from my heaviest, right after college, until I decided to start triathlon-ing.  I have since gained some of it back, both from meeting/befriending a bunch of triathletes who love beer and pizza, but also from my recent stint as a couch potato after messing up my hip.  I'm currently focusing on cleaning up my diet and getting back into regular training.  Hopefully that'll help me at least get to last year's racing weight, though I'd prefer to get back to my pre-tri weight.

WHAT WILL MAKE ME A GOOD MENTEE:  I like tri talk, and hanging out in this mentor group will help me do that without boring my IRL non-tri friends to death.  

Sunday morning ride.  Got to get it done.

Tough, Heard the swim got cancelled in NOLA.  Sounds like the race went okay though.  Looking forward to the race report.

Title - sorry to hear it was 69.1, but sure looks like you had a good one regardless!

My weekend was so-so. Saturday was a 7.3mi run followed by a hard 2000yrd swim. And that wasn't a hard workout, but it was HARD for me to complete it. I was gassed!

Yardwork on Sunday and following some of NOLA.

Oh well. The week is here and time to start throwing down the training.