Fred D Mentor Group - Part II (Page 6)

ALWAYS interested! Thanks for the link. The world of marathon swimming tends not to be very organized although most of the swimmers do keep blogs--have to fish for info from many different places. There's also (like some other extreme/ultra sports) not much centralized info or consensus on how exactly one trains for these things.

Gonna check it out and drop him a cheer. Very cool.

Recorded a bunch and flipped through some volleyball and swimming.  I watched the whole USA opening water polo match.  Merrill Moses... geez talk about reflexes.  BUT he was getting burned on his right because his defense isn't rotating fast off their weak side drop.  /armchair coach...

Way to go Neil!

I also do the first tri I ever did every year to gauge how much I'm improving.

Going to an appointment with my wife to see her surgeon this morning, a checkup 7 weeks post surgery.  Hopefully he will report that everything is looking good.  He will be doing an x-ray to get an idea of how things are doing.  Fingers crossed!

Fairly easy training day for me, a shortish swim after work.

Hope everyone has a good one!

Grade 3 AC joint separation as a result of a crash on her bike in early May.  I was right behind her when she went down, she hit some deep sand that was in the shoulder of the road and couldn't get out of it.  She was unconscious for about 5 mins and her helmet was wrecked, she was lucky in some ways but not so lucky with the shoulder.

The surgeon said everything looked perfect and the range of motion and strength in the shoulder is coming back nicely so things are looking good!

Fantastic JOB on the race Neil! 
 
Congratulations!  
 
and you were worried about the swim.

Nice!

Nice work this weekend Neil and Jason!

I had a pretty good weekend of training on the bike and alot of yard work.  Capped it off last night with a boat ride and some cocktails.

 Legs are a bit banged up but planning on an 8 mile run at lunch.

NAME: Rudy Bleakley Jr  aka Rudedog

This is my 3rd go around with this mentor group, by far the best i have been involved in.

Story: I started all this for a charity bike ride in June of 2008, i weighed about 260lbs, i signed up for the 12 mile ride, training went well, so i bumped it to the 25 miler. 2 and a half hours later and lots of cramping and a near fall where i could not pedal up a hill that resulted in a 6" scar on my leg i finished, totally spent, but it laid the groundwork for the next 4 years. I have been doing Tri's and bike racing since that charity ride and have completed 4 half irons and a bunch of sprints,olympics and bike races of various disciplines such as Road, TT, Crit and my favorite Cyclocross. I currently weigh 213lbs on the tail end of a very disappointing season, but will be getting back on diet and training for Cyclocross season starting August 1.

Family Status: I am married (Nanci) with a 2.5 year old daughter (Morgan Olivia) and a puggle puppy (Dunkin).

Current Training: I am currently not training for anything, i am re-habbing (AKA resting) a IT band issue which has arisen this summer, riding my bike a bunch and will resume hardcore training in August for fall Cross season.

2011 Races: Ridgefield CT sprint, Patriot Half Iron, Mossman Sprint and Martha's Vineyard Olympic. I PR'd at all 4 races, Set bike course records at both sprints and won clydesdale in the two longer races. I also got in about 15-20 bike races of varying disciplines from Criterium to TT and Cyclocross. I am currently a Cat 4 roadie and cross racer.

2012 Races:  I raced about 7-8 spring Crit races and a circuit race, i completed 2 Half irons, Rev3 Quassy and Patriot (5h38 and 5h14) and a sprint (1h08) so far, i have one Olympic left and am scheduling about 12 Cyclocross races for the upcoming months. 2012 has been a season of disappointment as i did not meet any of my pre-season goals. The only highlights i have is that i had the 2nd fastest bike split at Patriot (2h18m 24.5 avg) and re-set the course record on the bike at the Mossman sprint (28:45 26mph). Hopefully cross season will get me a bit of retribution. I ended up having an IT band issue during the halfs that turned into some muscle strains, which i am currently trying to heal.

Weightloss: i was a skinny kid that got fat on booze and crappy food, i am currently 215lbs from a winter low of 202, i will get back on the diet train this August, and hope to get around 200lbs for cross season, and a goal of 190 by next spring.

WHAT WOULD MAKE ME A GOOD MENTOR: I train a little more differently than most, I race the same way, i am very strong on the bike and race to my strength. I need to run more, but do not have the desire. I feel i can bring a lot of different opinions on racing tri's and cycling that is different from a traditional triathlete. I train in a variety of ways including power during the winter and RPE during the summer outside.

This has been a tough year mentally, it is hard to train and not accomplish the things that you want race wise. I missed all my pre-season goals by a long way, some of that was my doing by not being consistent with my training, and some was just plain bad luck and timing. Hopefully the fall will fix that. It is also my last year at long course, i just do not enjoy the training required to do them properly, i occasionally enjoy running and swimming, but my love is the bike. That is what i train the most.

Hope i can be of help to the group.

Neil,  I sent an inspire, but to reiterate.....FANTASTIC JOB!!!!!!!!

SOOOOO, i had a charity ride this past weekend, i planned on doing 125 miles, 17 before, 103 during and 5 on the way home, i got the 17, and 80 miles of the ride done, in that time i had broken a chain at mile 50, flat tire at mile 52, 2 flat tires at mile 75 and finally ripped my derailleur off the bike at mile 97. It pretty much summed up my year, lol.  I felt great and was riding with the front group averaging about 20mph when the chain let loose, we replaced the master link (another rider had one) and i continued on with some other friends that were dropped early as the fast guys and girl went on. Flatted 2 miles later and that is just the way the day went. Some beers and food after i got back to the ride start/finish via the SAG wagon.

rested and watched the Olympics with my daughter yesterday.

very busy at work today, and you guys have posted a ton, so i will try to catch up.

I think the "when" and "what kind" question is important as well. Meaning what kind of hills and what kind of rider are you? I am the kind of rider that will get dropped every time if attacked on a climb, and cannot handle "surgey" riding for long, but I can hold a tempo effort for a very long time without suffering any cardiac drift and can usually ride myself back to the group once they have settled. Lots of slowtwitch and zero fast twitch if you ascribe to that thinking. I am not familiar with the IMMT course, but at LP my plan and training was to ride between 75 & 80% FTP on the flats and 85~90% on the climbs. All things being equal that should have me flirting with my LTHR. On the last climb into town I did ease back after the middle plateau and elevated my cadence somewhat just to make sure my legs had some run.

Unfortunately my power meter decided to go on the fritz for the entire ride (unless I really did ride 5:50 @ 145 watts...) so I am not sure exactly what I did, but HR and RPE both suggest that I executed the ride as I was trained.

Awesome question!

For me, I'm focusing less on specific percentages based on tests (that I haven't done in months) and more on what I felt from all the rides this past few months.  My target power for the race is 175 watts and I'm going to try to avoid going over 210-215 for the hills for any amount of time.  Although it's likely that anything that is steep will require me to go over that a bit.  Those numbers are what my rides over the summer tell me I can do, remain conservative and (hopefully) not kill myself for the run.  From a percentage point of view, it probably works out to 68-70% overall and 80-82% on the hills based on the last round of testing I did in April.

The other OWS'r I swim with is Rob http://robaquatics.com/ Very cool, funny guy, who keeps a good blog about distance swimming.  Good tips and equipment reviews.

On a non-injury year I target about 70% for overall.  Hills - sort of depends on the hill.  On a long grind I'd say about 90% max.  But if it's rollers where I want to keep momentum (7 b-tches at Canada, for example), then I might float higher, like 110%.

*Edit: this is pretty individual -- and also depends if you're sitting up on a climb or not.  Some training rides I'll climb around 130%+ for 10 mins, quite a lot higher than my IM limits.

Dang, Rudy. Quite the adventure for a charity ride!