Gray Guys/Girls Maturing Triathlete Mentor Group (Page 6)

Hey Kelly,

My bad.  I took it to mean you weren't on the bike or very minimally on the bike.  That lite up a huge red flashing light in my head.  Glad you are putting time in the saddle.

Originally posted by adbru My training also seems a lot less technical than you guys, i just run/bike and do my best

Adrian,

Are you having a good time?  

You aren't a professional triathlete.  How technical or non-technical your training is really doesn't matter unless/until you are seriously eyeing significant improvement, a podium finish or more.  Back when I started there wasn't anything technical.  I'd get up and think, "what do I want to do today?"  That was a "training plan."  Heart rate monitors were something they used in a lab as were power meters.  I had an old stopwatch and an aviator's chronograph watch.  That was the limit of my technology.  Don't think because other people do "more technical" training that you must do the same.  You need to be doing the training that's right for you so that you can achieve your goals.

If you want to get strong and ready to run hills, go run some hills.  There's no replacement for one hill workout per week.

George, hope she gets thru this well and feels better soon.

Swim - Run at the gym today.  I started to run from home but after reading about George's friend slipping and falling on the ice, I went to the dreadmill instead. Had a nice swim, and I must say to the swimmers in the group ... your WU is my workout!  After reading Scott's info on swim workouts, etc I decided to use the kickboard today.  And immediately I understood the basis; the work involved with this and I'll incorporate this forward.  Only swam 1,000m but felt good afterwards and proceeded to the treadmill.

Ran/walked for 2 miles at a very slow pace using the Maffetone method.  It was hard to go slow enough to keep the HR down, and I did bust out a bit.  At one point I laughed out load as the thought occurred that I was actually enjoying the run today.  This was the first time I've done this method in a looong time and I'm pretty stoked about it.  I really liked how I felt afterwards ... much less joint pain and soreness. 

Hope all have a good rest of the week.

Ciao ... Dorm

Scott,

I have skimmed through all the posts in this group and see that you have said multiple times that there is always room for one more, so I too am going to ask to participate in this group.  

I was hesitant to join a group this year because I been part of other groups that have died out early and so many of the questions that I had as I approached my early races didn't get any attention.  After reading through all the other mentor group introductions twice and not finding any group that I felt I connected with I decided to read through this one.  I connected to it because I come from 30 years of competitive running.  When I started running I was a middle of the pack sprinter.  I never considered really fast until I moved to middle distance and distance races then I was able to out last the faster people and move to a front of the pack runner.  I ran with USATF teams through elementary school then ran for school teams in junior High, high school, and college.  After college was the first time that I ran without a teacher or coach telling me what workouts to do every day.  At that point I looked back through my running logs and found patterns between what different coaches had me do and more importantly what training I ran my best races on.  I started to experiment with different things and develop my own training plans.  i didn't read books or have a coach but I was pretty successful with what I was doing and went on a three year streak while living in Tulsa were I was first place in my age group in every 5K that I ran in Town.  I was getting older though and got to a point where I was working harder and harder every year but seeing slower and slower times.  At that point I decided to try something different and tried some 1/2 marathons and some Marathons.  I found that marathons are devilish, but that I really enjoyed the half marathons and was pretty good that them so I focused on them for 6 years.  During that time I moved to Marble Falls, Texas with a job transfer.  That is a town of around 5,000 people and the running community was about zero and when there were races there would only be about 30 participants and no one to push me.  So my running started to suffer.  I did a Ultra Ragnar Relay with my Cousins in the Napa Valley add some motivation and tried to do a few other destination races but found I would train 4 months hard for a race go and compete then do nothing until I had another race on the calendar to train for.  I got in touch with a group in Houston that worked for the same company as me to help with my motivation.  They were all doing triathlons and their energy and passion for the sport got me looking at triathlons and I discovered that there was a 70.3/140.6 race that I could do in my home town that was 8 months out.  I considered doing the 140.6 because my younger brother had done two full Ironmans in 2002 with no other Triathlon experience and I though if I were going to do it I might want to do the full distance the first time just in case I never did one again.  I went ahead and went for the 70.3 just because I liked 1/2 Marathons better than full marathons and figured that half Iron distance races would be more my cup of tea.  Well.. the triathlon got me out of my slump.  I found that rotating sports every day was a lot better way to stay motivated than running every day was.  I also started to see improvements in my 5K times for the first time in about 10 years so I stuck with Triathlons.  I wrote my first Triathlon plan based on my experience in endurance sports from running.  No books, no no coaches or canned training plans.  I didn't know how well things would translated to swimming and cycling training but it all worked out and I was in the best fitness of my life on race day.

I find that I am 100 times more interested in what training people have experimented with and what the out come was for them than I am in what they read in a training book or what their coach told them to do.  I could talk to "write the book" type of people all day long but turn off when people start quoting book plans that they have never used or tested them self.  

My other hobbies include breeding exhibition chickens, Scouting, and Barbershop Choir (a sport that in nearly exclusively grey haired guys).  I am a mechanical Engineer by trade.  My 50th birthday is still a long ways off but I did get my first grey hairs last year and do feel at home in this group. 

-Curtis-

Dorm - Thanks to my friend's fall I too will run on the dreadmill tomorrow.  It just isn't worth taking a chance.  As soon as we get above zero again I'll start running outside.

I had a short fast swim today 1550m as fast as I could go.  I wasn't very fast but I got paired up with two ladies that are VERY fast (compared to me).  I was wiped by the finish but I kept up as best I could.  If you want to swim fast swim with fast swimmers.  I have noticed I seem to be slowly improving.

Hi Curtis,

Welcome to the group!

I enjoyed reading your bio/intro.  I had to chuckle when you were talking about writing the book.  Back when I started swimming, there was no book.  When I began triathlons, there was no book.   Now days, there are all too many people that tell you how your must do something because "the book" says so.  Like you, I don't tend to pay very much attention to those people.

I look forward to getting to know you.  You'll find this is a great bunch of people that are more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Good, I knew I had found the right group. 

Hey Curtis,

I probably should 'qualify' my feelings on 'the book' just a little bit.  I do think there is a tremendous amount of research that supports various training techniques.  Back in the late 70's and early 80's that research didn't exist or was incomplete.  For example, back then, "no-pain-no-gain" was the accepted training method.  EVERYTHING was hard - ALL the time.  I knew intuitively that there had to be a better way, indeed that belief was the seed of my desire to coach.  However, at the time, it was the way it was; so I drank the cool-aid and did what my coach demanded.  I was fortunate that as evidence of alternative methods began to appear, my coach was open minded enough to try different approaches and I was able to go from a swimmer on the verge of over-training syndrome to a fairly successful swimming career (by the way, we didn't know what over-training syndrome was back then).

That taught me that 'outside-the-box' thinking has it's place.

At the end of the day, what works for one person, may or may not work for another.  Certainly if you apply current methodology to your training, you will almost certainly improve.  However, because each individual is an individual and the book was written for the masses, if you strictly adhere to the book and are unwilling to 'think-outside-the-box' I believe you may well fall short of your FULL potential.

I could fill multiple pages on examples of straying from "the book."  You need look no further than run training to see that even the book isn't always clear - Jack Daniels, Hal Higdon, BarryP, McMillian, Jeff Galloway, Maffetone - all highly respected marathon training methods; and all very different.

What does that mean for "MY" training?  I think 'the book' provides an excellent road-map to begin training.  Adhering to the book will generally keep one free from injury and on a path to improvement.  At some point however, an athlete moving to the 'pointy' end will likely grow beyond the book and need to explore new boundaries - thus writing another chapter in the book.

Bottom line, anyone who says, "My way is the only way or quotes 'the book' as the ultimate method, doesn't really know what they are talking about."

Scott,

Thanks for the clarification.  Your thoughts seem to line up right with mine.  I have experimented with ideas from a 1993 article in Runner's World by Jack Daniels on peak training, I have taken parts of Hal Higdon's free plans.  I have used the McMillian Pace Calculator and the Galloway Magic mile pace calculator.  I have looked at the Barry P 1-2-3 plan, and have taken things for FIRST Run Less Run Faster plans etc.  My best resources was people in my Saturday morning marathon running group in Tulsa.  Some of them had done 50+ marathons and when they talked I listened because they were twice my age and running as fast as I was.  Yes, they all have different ways of doing things. I like to figure out what the purpose is for doing different things in work out.  If I know why someone's plans has certain type of works outs I can look at another persons work outs that does something different to address the same thing in training and then try both plans for different races see how I feel during training, how I feel in the races, then decide for myself what things work best for me.  Some plans focus on lots of volume at low intensity.  Others focus on lots of intensity at lower volume.  If you are a middle of the pack sprinter but a front of the pack distance athlete you are going to like the high volume plan a whole lot better in training than the high intensity.  If you are a front of the pack sprinter and a middle of the pack distance runner the opposite is probably going to be true.  Still you have to wait until race day to see which is better for you because there may be some truth to the no pain no gain.  Just because you would rather do long slow work outs better than fast short work outs the work out that you don't want to do may be what you need to get to the next level.  So... I like to get new ideas, try then, and compare then with what I have done previously.  Some of the ideas that I have tried are very non-conventional but I figure if no one ever tried them nothing new will ever be discovered.  I have had "text book" type people tell me that I can not progress on thing that I have already tied a had great results with.  That is the main reason I turn off when people start quoting books.  It is not because I don't trust the book or research that went into the book but because the person quoting the book often doesn't understand the reason behind the plan in the book and are not able to use the information effectively to build an individual plan.  

So..non-conventional triathlete here but always trying to learn from other and always willing to try new things. 

Hi everyone.

Winter is pretty deeply entrenched across a large swath of the country - even here in Southern California!  This is the time of year when many of us are limited to indoor trainer rides and the dreaded treadmill.  It's the time of year that it's REALLY easy to fall into inconsistent training.

Having a schedule/plan helps to avoid inconsistency and will also help to balance your training so that you can more easily attain your goals.

Do you have a plan?  Do you have a schedule that you typically follow?

Here's a basic road map to creating a plan for the season:

• Figure out what races you want to do and then identify the 'A' race(s) - this is THE race you are training for.  Put those races onto a calendar.
• A season is typically broken up into manageable 'blocks' - prep, base, build, taper/peak, transition.
• Prep - this is when newer people "train-to-train" and more experience folks target specific weaknesses/limiters.
• Base - laying the aerobic foundation upon which to build later in the season - building aerobic endurance.
• Build - adding force, power, and speed work to make you faster
• Peak/taper - final preparation for your race - remember the closer you get to the race, the more your training should look like your race.
• Each of those blocks is typically broken down into smaller periodization blocks - generally 4 weeks - 3 build and one recovery.
• Create a scheduling template that will help guide your weekly schedule.

A couple of key points:

1. Recovery is often overlooked.  It actually isn't during training that we get stronger and faster - it is during recovery.  If you don't allow your body to recover - YOU WON'T GET STRONGER AND FASTER.  Those recovery weeks should typically reduce prior week volume by at least 40-50%
2. Having a well thought out schedule written down helps to avoid training too much in one discipline and not enough in another.  Let's face it, we are human, most of us would prefer to train our "favorite" discipline.  If you don't have a schedule, it's very easy to think, "Gosh I hate running, I'll just ride and swim today and do the run tomorrow."  Except often, tomorrow never comes and you are under-prepared.

Below I attached a screenshot of my weekly schedule.  NO, I'm not doing all of this right now, but I will be building to this through the season.  The point is, there is structure.  This schedule drives my weekly training and workouts are written following that general schedule.  If you aren't comfortable writing your own training plan, there are many free training plans here on BT that you can use to provide structure to your training that will help you achieve your goals.

The important thing, whether you are creating your own plan or using a pre-written plan, is that you have some structure in your training.

Hope that helps and gives you something to think about.

Happy training!

(training_sched.jpg)

This is what my plan looked like for my first Triathlon. 

I typed out my typical training week just to see how it looked.  It seems a bit tame compared to Scott's schedule but it seems to work well for me.  Most of my workouts are with groups which seems to help me push myself about 10% harder than I would on my own.  My Monday swim and Wednesday long run are on my own.  I didn't include my "coffee" groups which are typically Mon./ Wed./ Fri./ Sat.

My typical training week:

Monday              Tuesday                       Wednesday           Thursday                      Friday              Saturday                      Sunday

Swim :60            Swim :60                      Long Run :45         Swim :60                                               Indoor Cycling :90       Rest Day

Rowing :15                                                                                                                  Rowing :15      T2 easy Run :20

Weights :60                                                                                                                 Weights :60

Easy Run :15      Indoor Cycling :60                                       Indoor Cycling :60      Easy Run :15

From here I will slowly increase my running about 10%/ week and I'll add a 4th swim on Friday morning soon.  The saturday Indoor Cycling will stay at :90 for 4 more weeks and then increase each Saturday for 5 weeks to a 3 hr finale in mid march then we're on our own outside.  Surprisingly the 3 hr trainer ride isn't too bad.  The "rowing/ weights/ easy run" are all one workout and won't be changed.

Curtis and Mel - Welcome to the group.

Hey Chris -

Welcome back!

Thank you for the kind words.  That's why the website is there - to help people get better.  It brings me true happiness to know that it's doing that!

Sounds like you have a busy race year planned!  Now that you are well and truly bitten by the triathlon bug, I'm wondering how long before you do a full Ironman?

It was a pleasure watching you become a triathlete last year and I look forward to your continued growth this year!