RFP GROUP - CLOSED (Page 6)

Hey all, life is sweet.  Welcome to the new arrivals.

My training is going well.  Run is faster, bike is stronger, swim form is improving.  The kettlebell strength training and paleo are rocking my world.   Down 21 pounds as of last week and lots more muscle since Jan. 1.  I know that's where the run improvement is coming. I ran 8 miles of fartleks with the run club Wednesday and looked at the lock to see that I'd run the distance faster than ever despite the seed up, slow down to stupid easy pattern of the workout.

I haven't raced the bike outdoors in the Tuesday TTs yet - actually my Tuesday Computrainer workout is harder than the race.   But as my first sprint gets closer, I'll get out there.  Next week is a testing week so...

Still taking semi private swim lessons.  They've really helped establish the idea of swimming on my side.  Also, my kick sucks.  Going to talk to him about.  Yes, I know, we don't worry about kicking that much in triathlon, but I think I could improve my time without increasing effort much.  I think it is a form issue. Taking off another brake. 

Tri coaching classes are going well.  Learning a lot and finding out I've picked up a lot over the years. All good.  Rest day today.  Loving it.

Hi Tim,

I would love to be part of your group if you still have an opening! This is the first time that I have participated in the Mentor program and joined BT last June. About me...

• Married with a wonderful dog (Weimararner/blk lab mix) named Otis.
• I live in the mountains west of Boulder, CO.
• Longest race: 2/3rds of a 1/2 ironman. I love saying that. It was an aquabike event.
• Planning on racing Boulder 70.3 for my A race this year
• Also signed up for a sprint, Olympic and anything else that peaks my interest
• Current training is about 5-7 hrs a week. Following my own made up plan
• Weight-loss: winter weight is gone and I'm down to 136. Can't go much lower than that due to all the yummy beers and nachos that I consume

Thanks!

~ Jen

Tim and fellow group members,

Hi, I'd like to join the group if there's still room.

A bit about me,

My name is Brian, (screen name is IndyJoe).... and as you guest it, I live near Indianapolis, IN.   I'm in my late 30's, married with three kids and one on the way.  I've completed two triathlons, one sprint, and one Xterra/sprint/offroad tri.  I completed a full mararathon about two years.... This year my goal is to complete my first Half-Iron Man at the Great buckeye challenge, August 26th.

Thanks & I look forward to getting to know all of you.

-Brian

Happy Friday, everyone! 

Welcome to the new members! You're gonna love this group. 

Deb - congrats on the breakthrough! It's so satisfying to visibly see the gains.  So motivating!

Scott - I love kettlebell training but don't get to do it often enough. It's great to hear you're still making huge gains. I could definitely use more muscle.  I'm gonna start mixing in some P90X stuff into my training. Hopefully I won't struggle too much with trying to balance all the workouts though. 

Brian - good luck today! Lol, I like KC's comment of RFP.  I love Brooks!  I run in the Brooks Ghost.  Can I ask what you ran in before the Pure?  Curious b/c they have such a low drop. Have you been running in the minimalist shoes for a while?  I've been toying with idea of trying it out. 

Chris - I don't know much about HR training but I do know that you are correct assuming that your zones will be slightly higher for run vs. bike.  

Danny - achilles, ouch! Ditto what everyone has said. You definitely don't want to do too much.  You are on the right track of taking it easy. Your fitness will come back 

I had an ok week. Swam Wed but bailed a little early.  I definitely need to work on the mental toughness factor.  Race day is not a problem for me but I have a hard time making it through some of the longer training sessions now that I'm doing it on my own this year.  I'll have to use Kathy & Tim's tip to get through the swim later today! I did manage to get through 1.5 hours on the trainer last night...watching 2011 Kona highlights  The video was only an hour so the last 30 minutes of the ride was kinda boring, haha!

Tomorrow is a 20min run, followed by 3 hour bike.  I'm also traveling to Indy this weekend to celebrate my nephew's 2nd birthday!  Trying to plan my morning schedule so I can be on the road by noon but I've got another friend's bday dinner tonight and my goal is to try and wake up at 6. The group tonight is a bunch of foodies and it's a BYOB dinner...if it was anything like last time each person will be bringing at least 2 bottles.  I'm bringing 1 and will try to drink only half...with LOTS of H2O in between! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Welcome to the group Jen.  Sounds like you live in a beautiful area - great for training! I just get to look at cornfields and prairies haha.  I think you will like the mentor group feature on this site.

I am now hungry just thinking of nachos...

Welcome aboard Brian - Sounds like you have your hands full with 3 kids and 1 on the way.  When is the baby due?  That is great that there will now be two other people in this group with baby's.  I have found it definitely puts a different twist on training that I would not have imagined.  Which marathon did you do?

Hi Brian & Jen! Welcome 

Haha, after reading your intro posts, I realized I never posted mine...so here it is:

NAME: saskat/Sarah

STORY:  I was never very active.  I played tennis in high school for 2 years but nothing else.  I also used to be a pack a day smoker (but not while playing tennis, ha!).  I quit smoking in 2002 and started working out to try and offset weight gain.  That didn't work out too well though b/c I still managed to put on 20lbs.  I can still vividly remember my first time on the treadmill. I could only 'run' 1/10 of mile before I was winded and had to walk.  Fast forward to 2009. I signed up for my first century in memory of a friend that passed away from cancer. It was my first time on a bike since I was kid! I trained April through July and finished the San Jose Livestrong Challenge on July 12.  I also managed to raise almost $3K for the Livestrong Foundation, which was very cool!  The following year I joined an all womens cycling team and competed in criteriums and time trials. I also participated in a couple duathlons and adventure races that season.  At the beginning of last year, I figured I'd throw in the swimming part and signed up for the Door County Half Ironman.  I trained with a group so it helped to have others to train with who were doing the same race.  I also did a sprint before the HIM to get my feet wet, ha! I managed to finish the DC HIM and didn't end up in the medical tent, as many people did that day. (The heat index was over 100 and it was the hottest in race history.)  After that I was hungry for more so I signed up to volunteer at IMWI.  Throughout the course of the day, as I was handing out water bottles, I didn't want to sign up b/c so many people looked miserable. But when I was standing at the finish chute cheering people in, nothing else mattered and all I could think of was wanting to cross the finish line myself.  So I woke up at 4:30am the next morning and signed up! 

FAMILY STATUS: I have a 4 legged kid named Murphy (Vizsla - makes for a GREAT running partner!) and in a long term relationship with a fellow cyclist Jason

CURRENT TRAINING: Currently training with Endurance Nation.  It's not an in person group like I did last year so it's been interesting training on my own.  Lots of other ENers in the Chicago area though and continuing to meet new teammates. 

THIS YEAR'S RACES: High Cliff Half Iron and IMWI are my A races for this year.  Some B races includes: Soldier Field 10 Miler and Chicago Rock and Roll Half Mary.

WEIGHTLOSS: Could lose a few pounds but focused more on body fat % than weight. 

So we are at 15 members so I am gonna close the group with the addition of Jen and Brian.  This is what I have and please let me know if I am missing someone:

RFP GROUP MEMBERS
1. tmoran80 - Tim
2. kcgolf - KC
3. razorxp- Dave
4. IceManScott - Scott
5. Peterssonb - Brian
6. Jennifers - Jenny
7.saskat -Sarah 
8.diane.b- Diane
9.mfoster73 - Matt
10.cheekymonkeys1 - Deb
11.krazytallchick - Kathy
12.dmahr - Danny
13.chris316 - Chris
14.WillTriForBeer - Jen
15.IndyJoe - Brian15

If this is good I will make a blog home page link to everyone's logs to make it easy to check up on everyone.

Brian - I grew up in Indy!   Heading back there this weekend.  How long have you lived there?

Hi Jen. Welcome to the group. Looking forward to getting to know you.

KC

Indyjoe Brian - great to have you with us. It is going to be a great summer of training and racing with this group - looking forward to getting to know you.

KC

Hi Sarah - sounds like you are doing well - and the party sounds like fun as well. Good luck with the ride tomorrow.

KC

Perfect - now are you going to set up one of your fancy group lists we can cut and paste to our blogs? PLEASE

RFP GROUP MEMBERS
1. tmoran80 - Tim
2. kcgolf - KC
3. razorxp- Dave
4. IceManScott - Scott
5. Peterssonb - Brian
6. Jennifers - Jenny
7.saskat -Sarah 
8.diane.b- Diane
9.mfoster73 - Matt
10.cheekymonkeys1 - Deb
11.krazytallchick - Kathy
12.dmahr - Danny
13.chris316 - Chris
14.WillTriForBeer - Jen
15.IndyJoe - Brian15

If this is good I will make a blog home page link to everyone's logs to make it easy to check up on everyone.

Ok - here is the official list.   If you haven't done this before here is what you need to do:

1. Copy this HTML text
2. Go to your blog home page
3. Click "EDIT"
4. Click "HTML"
5. Cop this into the HTL Source Editor
6. Click "UPDATE"
7. Click "OK"
8. Test the links to make sure that they are working.  If they don't work complain to KC.

COPY AND PASTE THIS:
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      <a href="../forums/thread-view.asp?tid=434810&amp;posts=13&amp;start=1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #008040;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-size: small;"> 
      <span style="color: #ff0000;"></span></span></strong></span></span></span></a> 
      <blockquote><b><font size="+2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=434810&start=1">RFP 
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        <p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="font-family: arial black, avant garde; color: #339966; font-size: x-small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=64782" target="_blank"><span style="color: #008040;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #000000; font-size: small;">razorxp 
          -Dave</span></span></span></a><span style="color: #000000; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          <a href="index.asp?memberid=208318" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">kcgolf 
          - Kevin</span></a><br />
          <a href="index.asp?memberid=114282" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">tmoran80 
          - Tim</span></a><br />
          <a href="index.asp?memberid=119310" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">IceManScott 
          - Scott</span></a><br />
          </span></span></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index-weekly.asp?memberid=223283&amp;year=&amp;month=&amp;day=" target="_blank">Peterssonb 
          - Brian</a></span><span style="color: #000000; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index-weekly.asp?memberid=223283&amp;year=&amp;month=&amp;day=" target="_blank"><br />
          </a> <a href="index.asp?memberid=191393" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">saskat-Sarah</span></a><br />
          <a href="index.asp?memberid=36912" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">Jennifers-Jenny</span></a><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=303072" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">diane.b 
          - Diane</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=306263" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">mfoster73- 
          Matt</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=150958" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">cheekymonkeys1- 
          Deb</span></a><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=293845" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">krazytallchick 
          - Kathy</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=186104" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">dmahr 
          - Danny</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          </span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=194609" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">chris316 
          - Chris</span></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
          </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=269993" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">WillTriForBeer 
          - Jen</span></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><BR>
          <span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="index.asp?memberid=240396" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;">IndyJoe 
          - Brian</span></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> 
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It should look like this in your blog:

Where in Indy?  I live in Plainfield.

KC - looks like a great place to run.  Those dirt or limestone paths are so much better for you to run on then pounding the streets.

Hi Everyone - I am looking for general input as I work my way back to some level of fitness.  At the the moment, I am walk/running for about 40 minutes and adding time as my heartrate levels at the end of my run drop.  I am wondering if I am pushing too fast in increasing the length of my walk/run in my quest to get back in shape.  I weigh about 222 and am definitely 30 lbs over weight.  Because of my past achilles injury I want to take things slow.  I have promised myself that I will not run without walking until my right leg is about 95% as strong as my left leg.  I am currently at 85% and it has taken me a year to get to this level.  So when we talk about base building, I assume we are referring to our heart rate levels.  When I was fit, I was runnning 9 minute miles for up to 8-9 miles with my heart rate average at about 160ish.  At the moment, I am doing walk/run intervals walking at 4mph for a minute and running at 5.4mph for 4 minutes and my heart rate steadily climbs up to the 175 range over the last 5 minutes.  I have not been progressing my time until the max heart rate stays below 170.  So, am I pushing too fast?  Should I be going slower and a lower heart rate?  The harder I work, the more weight I lose.  But....I really want to work on my aerobic fitness....

Thoughts....advice....please don't hold back!

Thank you,

Danny

Danny - I think Deb is correct. Looking at your logs from your last run and your HR zone data you are spending too much time in Zone 3:

To build your aerobic base you should be staying in Z1-Z2.  In the program I am following now he calls Zone 3 "junk miles" as they don't really give much benefit above working in Z2 but increase your risk for injury.  I also see a lot of time in Z4/Z5 which if you are recovering from an injury may not be a good idea.

Not really knowing much about your injury or how you actually feel - What if you tried really slowing the pace down and reducing your walking?  Don't let yourself go into Z3/Z4/Z5 at all.  It might be an extremely slow pace but the speed will come as you build your base.  As Deb mentioned it might be very hard to keep it under 159 for the whole workout but I think it will benefit you.  Let me know if yo have any questions.

Chris - KC posted some good links. First step is determining your training zones and understanding how the zones work. Second step is just sticking with them. Are you following a training plan right now?

Deb is absolutly right.  Your optimal fat burning zone is much lower than where you would run a good pace.  Have you checked out the articles that KC sent you?

So on my run this morning my legs just feel like dead weights and I don't really feel like they ever get warmed up - and as I was thinking about it I don't think I have run on "fresh" legs fro the past 8-10 weeks.  

I am doing my best to stay healthy but I just feel like the legs are slowly tightening up.  I have been doing the foam roller when I feel my IT band tighten up and my hamstrings but I just can't get them loose.  

So Brian, Scott & Dave is this normal for IM training and can I expect it to get worse-haha?

This is probably when I startd to allow myself a day off from the schedule.  I don't think I ever had really fresh legs, but when it got really bad I did not get down on myself if I took some additional rest.  My rationalization was "I am going to finish,not trying to win."

HOpe you enjoy Indy - I love my city!

Why a 20 minute run followed by a long run?  It would seem that the 20 minute rrun would be better served after the bike to give you the transition feel of getting of the bike.

I have run in Brooks Adrenaline for the past 3 years.  Switched to the Pure only on Thursday.  Trying the minimalist shoes for first time.  Seeing if it will help some leg strength and back issues.  So far everything seems good.  But, I am taking it slowly.