TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED (Page 6)

Originally posted by tmoran80

Well I gave my legs plenty of beer on Sunday afternoon at my nieces graduation party (or at least my wife thought so haha). Probably didn't help my recovery much.

Good news on the swimming improvement. If you want to use something to get a good gauge of improvement and also work to balance out stroke efficiency compared to effort try doing the "Swim Golf" drills every swim session.

Basically do a 50Y swim and count your strokes. Take the number of strokes and add it to the time and you have your number. I am usually around 80-84 depending how I feel. Experiment with your stroke and your effort to find what works best for you. You will find that sometimes focusing on a more efficient stroke will be better than pushing really hard. Do about 4 of them each session and you will see improvement.

Originally posted by tmoran80

If it was me I would do the half marathon but use it as a training session for your IM. Nobody runs an IM marathon complete. You have to have some type of run/walk strategy so you might as well start working on it now. Plus it will help mentally for your 70.3 to know that you have completed two half marathons.

I think I mentioned this before but look into the Galloway Method of running. I used this during my IM training last year then I got stupid and stubborn and thought I could run the marathon at a decent pace. Guess what? I walked haha.

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html

Originally posted by WillTriForBeer

Hey Simone,
Personally I would drop down to the 10k if you have that option. If your big "A" race is Shep 70.3 then just use the other race as a tune up. If you were to do the half marathon then I would do a walk/run method to avoid any injury. Good luck whatever you decide! Sounds like you've been having a lot of success lately!

Originally posted by krazytallchick
Hey Tim, what do you mean by counting your strokes and then add it to your time. So if it takes me 40 strokes to do 50 yards and it takes 55 sec to complete the 50 y then you are saying that my number is 95? And what number is that? Yes, I am blond and need things really broken down for me to understand.

Originally posted by krazytallchick

Simone, I have done the run/walk for numerous years, and each year I tweak the run/walk times. Jeff Galloway recommends that you start the walk right away versus running a good distance and then starting the walk. My coach and I have worked on my times so that I can run to each aid station and walk thru the stations and then start back up only for my HIM and IM races. Each race is different in where they place the aid stations so you would need to look at the map and see how they are going to set up it and see how you can structure your ran/walks. Currently I am doing a 12:1 before I was doing a 9:1 and I have friends that do a 2:30/1 and we run about the same pace. The key here is to be flexible and find what works for you.

Originally posted by tmoran80

No worries KTC haha - So basically what I do is count my right hand strokes for 50Y then double it. make sit easier to count for me for some reason. Then just add your time. So for example I am usually around 20 Right hand strokes so my total strokes are 40. My time is usually around 41 seconds.

TOTAL STOKES (40) + TOTAL TIME (41) = SCORE 81

The key to this workout is finding that sweet spot in which you can consistently hit low scores by tweaking your effort and keeping good form and minimizing effort. I have found that if I really work hard my times are very similar to maintaining good form with less effort. With some work you should see your total score dropping while keeping the same effort.

Jen - don't worry about the 50M compared to 50Y. It is your own metric that you are gauging so as long as your score is going down you are good. You aren't comparing scores with anyone (unless you really want to haha)

Hopefully that makes sense.

Originally posted by tmoran80

No worries KTC haha - So basically what I do is count my right hand strokes for 50Y then double it. make sit easier to count for me for some reason. Then just add your time. So for example I am usually around 20 Right hand strokes so my total strokes are 40. My time is usually around 41 seconds.

TOTAL STOKES (40) + TOTAL TIME (41) = SCORE 81

The key to this workout is finding that sweet spot in which you can consistently hit low scores by tweaking your effort and keeping good form and minimizing effort. I have found that if I really work hard my times are very similar to maintaining good form with less effort. With some work you should see your total score dropping while keeping the same effort.

Jen - don't worry about the 50M compared to 50Y. It is your own metric that you are gauging so as long as your score is going down you are good. You aren't comparing scores with anyone (unless you really want to haha)

Hopefully that makes sense.

Originally posted by ettringite23
I have learned that is called the SWOLF score or SWOLF metric. SWOLF is equal to the number of hand entries into the water (both left and right) plus the time for 1 length of the pool (25y, 25m, 50y, or 50m). I found when comparing SWOLF values, it is only good to compare individual SWOLF values and not compare to other individuals.

Fortunately for me, my Garmin 910 calculates my SWOLF for me. I have learned a few things from my SWOLF values. I worked on created a longer stroke with more glide. For me, this increased my SWOLF and did not increase efficiency for the same level of effort. When I revert back to a short stroke, my SWOLF goes down (gets better). Again, this is very individualistic. A good SWOLF score, for me, on longer intervals is 38 (25 yard pool). When I am sprinting, my SWOLF is around 34. I am still working on getting better at swimming. Realizing that a longer, glide stroke was not vary efficient was frustrating and lost a lot of pool time.

Originally posted by kruzmeister

Hey Jen,
I think I'm going to do the half and as you suggest do the walk/run... I really want to get a couple of HMs under my belt before Shep... things are definitely going better for me, training is going well. When's your HIM?

Originally posted by tmoran80

Simone - listen to KTC. Iwas going ot say the same thing about the program. He wants you to start off right from the start with the theory that you will save your legs over the duration of the whole race. His thinking is that if you run for the first half then walk you are now on tired legs and your overall time will decrease. Where if you stay consistent with the run/walk right from the start your average pace will be better and your legs will be stronger at the end of the race.

Originally posted by tmoran80

Was all set to get a 3 hour ride in this afternoon after going to the bike shop to pick up some new tubes. I have been having a rash of flats and have gone over my front rim with a fine tooth comb and can't fins anything. I have a feeling it is just old tubes plus a few weeks ago I went and picked up some new tubes from a different LBS and the girl gave me wrong tubes - she gave me 700x 23 instead of 700 x 19. From I what I read they should have worked but I got three flats with one of them being my first blow out going 18 mph. They were Specialized brand tubes and were pricey $$$. I went back to my Performance Bike tubes and was all set today. I got about 2 miles out and the road I was on split from one lane to two and I went to the shoulder and before I knew it I went over some glass and BOOM - another blowout -ughhhh. I went to put in my air cartridge and realized I only had my old threaded ones and my air tool was threadless - UGHHH again. Had to call the wife to come pick me up... Got back and was gonna run to LBS to pick up cartridges but noticed storm was rolling in so decided to just get a long run in. Got 10.5 miles in at 9:08/mile pace. I really struggled the last two miles. I don't think I have fully recovered from race last weekend. The plan is to get a 2 hour ride on the trainer either tonight or first thing tomorrow AM.

Hope everyone's weekend is going better than mine!

Originally posted by SouthFLJoe

This past Saturday I did my first ever Triathlon in Clermont, FL. It went pretty much as expected, but I hoped to do a little bit better. I'm still very new to all three sports so I'm hoping progress and gains come quickly once I start picking it up. Thanks for all the motivation. I've attached a link to my race report below. I know biking is my weakest right now and running could definitely use improvement. Any advice or criticism would help! Thanks!

http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid...