Slornow's and Wannabefaster's Summer Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 66)

Thank you, I appreciate it!!

Last big training weekend for me before I start tapering for Augusta 70.3. Big ride on Saturday with a short brick after, and a moderate run and OWS on Sunday.

Had my last long run tonight (thank goodness!!!) and the legs felt good until mile 9. It's just so hot and humid right now...here's hoping for less humidity by the end of the month.

Frieda Marie (my bike) is uber excited because she's getting new tires on Monday. She says it's like going to the mall and getting new shoes!!!!

What kind of bike race? Sounds like fun.

No race this weekend for me. There is a duathlon next Saturday we want to do but are watching the weather before we register.

Suzy, enjoy your recovery and trip!!

I have a mountain bike race this weekend, but I also have a soccer game that we have to win to get into playoffs. ARGH! They give me such a guilt trip when I race on game days like that. I hate that!

Also, I registered for a 100K bike race called "Hell Of The Marianas". You get a nice warm up in the front end, but I hear the hills are crazy, hence "hell", in the end. I don't even know what go into me! I'm just getting comfy on the bike, like pretty sure I won't fall, kind of comfy. It's in December and my coach is working with me. Hopefully I'll be ready. I think I was just caught up in all the cyclists signing up to go. Oh well. A little island hopper trip with friends with be worth the pain.

Edited by Blanda 2013-09-11 9:09 PM

No racing for me this weekend, although the weather is looking pretty great, so I wish I was! Otherwise, it's been a matter of getting back into the swing of full training again. I started last week, but no speed work. This week I've gotten back to intervals, and I feel pretty much back to my old self; I was even able to push pretty hard in my brick run, and was happy with the numbers I got.

A quick question for the group: How seriously do you watch your day-to-day nutrition? I'm not a fan of "diets"; I would always rather make my own way than stick with some program of extremes. However, I've been reading about the high fat/low carb diet and I think I'm going to try and cut down on the carbs I take in. I'm wondering if a carb deficiency may have been a factor in my IM performance, or lack thereof. I was listening to a podcast recently and the guest (I'll link to it if anyone wants it) was saying that some people have trained their bodies to use carbs at a higher rate than they can digest them in a race setting. I looked at my diet, and it's really carb heavy: I eat a lot of bagels, fruit, pasta, sandwiches, and rice. So, it seems like even though I eat whole foods and vegetables and don't eat out often, I may be training myself to run on carbs way too much. Anyone else worry about this? I'm definitely not going to jump into a "diet", but I guess it couldn't hurt to cut down and sub with some healthy fats, right?

I'm making a quick guest appearance in the group as we got back (late!) on Tuesday night from our London to Paris bike ride, and them tomorrow night we're off on a 2 week road trip round Europe. We haven't decided our itinerary yet, so no idea if there'll be internet access, and there definitely won't be any training. My legs are thanking me after a pretty full on 3 days of cycling over the weekend.

Quick summary:

Day 1 - London to Hythe (English coast). About 78 miles in total. Started off up a pretty steep hill, but overall the day was reasonable, with a few steeper climbs, and a lot of flatter stuff. Kevin and I tried to keep up with a couple of his colleagues, but I just couldn't hack the pace and was frying my legs. In the end I had a little meltdown at about 50 miles and we separated and slowed down a little. It got a lot more fun after that. We got to the finish point and were looking forward to getting showered and maybe using the spa. Unfortunately our support minibus had broken down at the half way point (with our bags containing clothes, towels and toiletries) and didn't arrive for another 4 hours, so we had the joy of sitting in our stinky bike stuff waiting for it to arrive. Then we headed through the Eurotunnel and stayed near Calais for the night.

Day 2 - Calais to Amiens. About 85 miles. We started out cycling with a couple of the guys we made friends with the day before, along with another couple from our team. Then we picked up another 6 from the North West Ambulance Service team. So we spent most of the day cycling in a group of 12. It was a lot of fun as we all took turns on the front and had a bit of a peloton going on. I really enjoyed being in the big group and having lots of different people to chat to. The day flew by as we were enjoying ourselves so much. It helped that the weather was beautiful, and the scenery and villages we cycled through were really pretty. The drivers in Northern France seemed pretty friendly as well. They were mostly really considerate when they were passing us, and the roads were generally really quiet. Sunday was definitely my favourite day.

Day 3 - Amiens to Paris/Versailles. About 94 miles (I forgot to re-start my Garmin after a check point - DOH!) We started in the bigger group, but lost the ambulance guys at the first check point. So there were 6 of us for most of the day. The beginning of the day was fairly nice, and then it started to cool down a bit and we knew the forecast was for rain. As we were leaving the first check point it started to rain and we stopped to put waterproofs on. I gave one of the other guys my gilet as he didn't have much with him (he was an individual rider, and they didn't have as much access to their stuff during the day). By the time we stopped for lunch we were soaked through, and we all huddled in the minibus, which our driver Tim had got lovely and warm for us. The paramedics came round with those silver blanket things, which we put round our core under the clothes. Turned out to be a stroke of genius - kept us going for the rest of the day. Setting off after lunch was hard as we were all really cold and wet. Kevin and I had layered up from the many extra clothes we'd brought (clean, dry socks were such a pleasure) and also loaned out clothes to a bunch of people who were short - I think we had 5 different items on different people! After lunch if anything the weather got worse. It was raining so hard it was getting inside my glasses and I couldn't see where I was going. Fortunately it didn't stay that bad for long. We hunkered down and really got working as a team. We picked up a few extra people along the way and had a very formalised rotation going on, so that there were two people at the front of the group and you took a minute in each of the front spots and then rotated back for the rest of the time. It was pretty hard at the front, but it worked well everyone taking their turn, and to be honest really helped us get through it. We lost a couple of our "team" to injuries in the afternoon, but picked them up again about a mile from the end so that they could cycle into the gardens at the finish with us. The route for the last 20 miles or so got a lot more urban and became a lot less enjoyable. The traffic started feeling a lot more like they were out to kill us, although as far as I know no one got hurt. We did see a fairly nasty car crash, which clearly happened because neither driver was willing to give way, and so they drove into each other! But we survived the weather, the traffic and the hills and got to the end. It was great cycling through the gardens with our little team spread across the path next to each other. We weren't quite team Sky, but we tried! It really was a huge achievement getting to the end after all that distance. And I've never been so pleased to get to the hotel, take my soaking, freezing clothes off, and have a hot shower...

I had a sports massage on Wednesday, which was really painful but has helped get my legs back into slightly working order. The plan now is to do absolutely no training for the next two weeks while we're away, and then consider getting back into things slowly while we make plans for next year.









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Rachel-that looks like a great trip. Thanks for the report. So intersting to read about riding in Europe. Would love to do it someday. 

Jamie...I can't say that I can offer any insight with regards to your question. However, Harvey Gayer (with TriCoach Georgia in Athens), is a member of our TriClub and he's done a ton of research with regards to nutrition and endurance athletes. He posted recently on our TriAugusta FB page a link to this article, and I found it not only an easy read (thank goodness), but interesting information.

http://www.eat4fitness.com/articles/Metabolic_Efficiency_Training.p...

Might be what you're looking for.

Very interesting read. I don't know if I could slow myself done to that "fat-burning pace" and be excited about my training.

Rachel,

Great report and fantastic pictures.

How were the new pedals? I would imagine that you are pretty used to them after using them for 260 miles in three days.

260 miles! That's my kind of trip!

Thanks for sharing. Looks like an awesome trip!

Very quick check in from Johannesburg. Spent the. Day touring the city--can't believe apartheid was such a recent occurrence. Tomorrow we head for Botswana so you won't hear from me until we return at the end of the month! Take care.

So it's been an interesting last couple of weeks. I took a promotion at work that has basically derailed my trainging for the last week (along with pretty much everything else in my life). I am going to have to cancel my plans for the my last race of the season since it's smack dab in the middle of our busiest month. Once things settle down after October I am going to get back on my training consistantly. I've found that I am more drained not working out than I ever was while I was working out and it's only been a week. I am also signing up for the Boise 70.3 this weekend so I'm excited there.

Jamie

I think Randy's response to this was right on. Sprint triathlon pace is open 10K pace. Olympic triathlon pace is open HM pace. HIM triathlon pace is open marathon pace. IM pace should be your training "go-all-day" pace. In both of my IMs I could have run much faster out of T2 but anyone who has done an IM knows that the running is going to get very hard at some point. It is better to go out a little easy and then pick it up towards the end than it is to go out hard and be walking by mile 18. I definitely want to negative split every race if possible. Almost universally, fast running times are even or negative split.

I don't use heart rate in training or racing. I wear a HRM while training but just look at the data retrospectively. I am going by pace and RPE while training (and pretty much while racing too). I don't even wear the HRM when racing. I am afraid that if I looked at it and it told me my heart rate was too high I would back off too much. Instead, I just run to the point that I 'think' I can hang on for the race and then try to hold it there. When I near the end (last 5-10K depending on the race) I make a serious evaluation of how I feel and what I think I can do and then try to push it to the end to empty the tank. I don't think that having a little bit of a kick for the last tenth of a mile means you didn't go hard enough. Look at Galen Rupp at the last Olympics. He kept a finishing lap kick in his back pocket and it got him a silver medal. I don't think that he could have gone appreciably faster in that race and still kicked for the silver. No one would accuse him of sandbagging.

Lat year at IMAZ my coach told me to start the Marathon at 8:00 pace and hold it there. I thought he was crazy because I knew that I could run a marathon fairly comfortably at 7:15-20 pace. I was afraid that he was setting me up to under perform. My plan was to ignore his advice and go out at 7:15s and then just hang on. At the last second (think when I was starting to actually run the marathon) I decided to listen to his advice and run 8:00s. The first 8.7 miles was too easy. The next 8.7 miles got appreciably harder. The last 8.8 miles I was really glad that I had listened to my coach. I was able to finish the last 5K or so running 7:30s but it was through will power more than anything else. I am pretty convinced that had I gone out harder that the end of that race would have gone down very differently.

A couple caveats. I have a pretty good sense of what I can maintain as far as running-pace. (I don't have nearly as good a sense of how hard I can go on the bike). If you over-cook the bike at any distance, you will dramatically affect your run pace. Because I don't have as good a sense of my sustainable bike pace, I tend to under-bike which is part of why I have fairly good run splits in triathlons.

At Tahoe next week, I 'think' I could pretty easily run 7:30s but I really don't know how the altitude is going to affect my race. My plan is to once again go out at 8:00 pace and reevaluate how everything is going frequently. I don't think you want to pick the pace up appreciably in an IM until you are down to single digits (9 or less miles) left in the Marathon.

Hope that helps somewhat.

Another Jamie response

I eat everything!

I do make an effort to eat 10 + fruits and vegetables per day. I eat lots of lean meats like fish and chicken and even the occasional steak or burger. I deny myself nothing. I am the world's worst dieter. If I try to cut out a food, all I do is think about it. So I eat bread, bagels, donuts, candy bars and anything else you could ever think of. I just try to do it all in moderation.

Dietary things I do:

I drink a lot of water.

I stop eating when I am full.

I try to never get too hungry. If I do I tend to gorge/overeat. Instead I graze all day long. Food goes in the mouth every couple hours but it is often a banana or apple or peach or some other fairly healthy snack. I also love peanut butter on everything.


When I swim a lot, I am hungry all of the time but I still stay pretty lean. That has nothing to do with the things above but I wanted to mention it.

Edited by wannabefaster 2013-09-13 1:19 PM

And, because I am trying to pad my post count.......

Taper is going well. Legs are completely junky which is what I expect at this point. I am going to go a little gentler than my coach wants me to for the next few days. My forced early and extreme taper for Boulder seemed to work quite well so I am going to really try to make sure my legs are completely fresh fo rthis race.

Swimming: I have had some of the best swims in a long time the last three sessions. They have been hard but have given me the confidence to be ready for an IM swim.



Mike, How are the conditions in Tahoe now? Has it continued to clear or has the wind shifted back and filled the valley with smoke? I am coming out no matter what. Really looking forward to a few days vacation with my wife, race or no

Edited by wannabefaster 2013-09-13 1:48 PM

Jason,

The smoke is all but gone, so no worries there, the weather has actually been awesome for the last week. It seems there is a little cooling trend next week with highs in the valley in the mid 70's so at the lake the highs should be probably in the mid to upper 60's. You never know around here it could snow and us locals would not be suprised.

Rachel-that looks like an awesome trip! I'd really love to do a long bike trip like that, especially to some of the places you hit!

Jason-thanks for the input on pacing and nutrition. I'm definitely approaching them differently this time around. I'm just trying to take nutrition much more seriously since I now realize how important it is the longer you go. As far as pacing goes, I'm going to be more flexible with it during training, and I am aiming to push harder during races. I just tried out TrainerRoad last night, and even though the first 20-minute FTP test was really hard, I liked it a lot more than just watching TV and spinning the pedals. I'm going to try and make my hard runs and rides harder. I'll still keep my long stuff nice and easy, but I think my base is big enough that I can start pushing a little. I was listening to a podcast with Joe Friel and he was saying he's a lot less afraid of Z3 than he used to be, after all, he said, it's where you spend a lot of time during a long distance event. I liked that logic.

Jamie,

I've seriously been looking at trainer road, (I raced this year with one of the owners and he is brutally fast on the bike). Do you think the $9.99 a month is worth it. I'm finally picking up a trainer this weekend and my only consideration was that it is on their list.

I can't claim to be an expert on it yet, but I can say that I like it a lot from what I've done so far. Here is a link to my 20-minute test: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/396528so you can check out what it looks like. When you download the program, you get a huge amount of structured workouts, and even though the Virtual Power won't help me in a race (since I don't have a powermeter), I do really like having feedback during my ride. I'm all about increasing my power on the bike, and I think the structured workouts will get me there a lot better than relying on myself to push harder. So, all in all, I'd definitely say it's worth it. Also, it'll definitely be worth it this winter when I ride outside a lot less.

Jamie-interesting to look at your FTP. Did you feel like you were going to die over the last 5 minutes? Looks like your cadence was around 100 during the 20 minute test....is that what you usually average? I think TrainerRoad is a great tool to add some structure to trainer rides. Some great workouts on there. Good job!

Jamie,

That looks like a pretty stout 20 minute effort, especially for the first time doing it. I'm impressed.

Mike,

Thanks for the Tahoe update. It makes me rest a little easier knowing that things are looking good out there.

Randy-That was a pretty tough threshold test; it hurt, but it wasn't unbearable. I guess after you experience running until you pass out and smash your face on the pavement, unbearable gets redefined. You can see from the graph I had a little bit in the tank left for the last 30 seconds. 100 definitely isn't my normal cadence. Pre-Louisville I was usually around 85, but since then I've been working to keep it at at least 90.

Jason-Thanks, it wasn't easy! How do you feel heading into Tahoe? Is this an A-race for you, or just another on the schedule?

I might've had the ultimate triathlete Bachelor evening. Got home from work and swam. Then I took my dog Gus for the first 35 mins. of my run. I dropped him off and finished the rest. Then I went to REI for some Perpetuem for tomorrow's ride, and had just enough time to grab a burrito from Chipotle. Not a bad day, all in all...

Edited by WoodrowCall 2013-09-13 8:30 PM