Experior and Slornow's Spring/Summer Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 68)

Nice work Jimmy!

Getting ready to head over to Sandestin for race tomorrow. Rented a condo in the resort for tonight and tomorrow night. Wife and daughter were going but now wife has to go to a funeral for a great aunt. So, it will be 17 year old daughter and myself.  Suspect our daddy daughter weekends are numbered so I need to take advantage of these times.  A little anxious about the swim in the Gulf in the morning.  It will be a wave start with probably 100-150 in my wave. Most races I have done this year have been time trial starts and I don't like the "crowd" with wave starts.  Would like to push the first 100 yards or so to clear the crowd but I know my HR will spike.  There will be several folks I know in my wave so maybe I can just find some feet and follow them.  Hope the Gulf will be nice and calm.  Race starts at 6:45am so hopefully the heat will not be too bad....although humdity will certainly be there.

Good luck to all of the racers. Will check in later.

Randy

Good luck Randy! Have a great weekend.

Only a 20% chance of rain for my race on Sunday. Woo hoo!

Good luck!

Hey all,

Wanted to check in with you all.

First off, Congrats Randy!

Second, I raced the Hammerhead Ocean Marathon today which is either a 1.25 mile or 2.5 mile Ocean swim. I signed up for the 2.5 mile swim, and honestly knew I wasn't quite there for the endurance and speed, but I really wanted to knock this out. I have swam 4000-5000m in a few Masters swim classes prior, so I knew I could do it.

Well, I learned more in the 2.5 miles than I have in the last few months in the pool. I definitely don't put enough emphasis on longer intervals (though I would suspect that even still, pushing off the wall allows a bit better of a body positioning), as my legs started to drag, and body position was horrible. We've had alot of Southwest wind lately, and in turn we've had a bit of upwelling. The water was around 76, and honestly quite chilly. I had brought my wetsuit, but figured if I got through the swim decently without the suit now, it will be that much easier come November 3rd @ IMFL. I hit the 1.25 mile buoy at around 52 (I think...) which was way off of my 35-40 minute mile expected pace. I ended up finally having a breakthrough in that I started to feel my hips rotate better, and stopped swerving all over the place (I really have become dependent on the lane line it seems). Also, I noticed when I started bi-lateral breathing patterns, I was stronger, and more balanced in my stroke, and in turn ended up clearing the last 1.25 miles in just about 38 which I was very happy about. I finished strong, and didn't ever once feel like I was going to run out of endurance. I can only imagine how much faster I would have been with a wetsuit on.

Good weekend for me.  Ended up taking a pass on Saturday as I just needed a break from everything.  Made up for it this morning with a 20 mile run (with negative split!).  I'm definitely making great progress on running.  Almost at the 1000 mile mark for the year which already crushes any previous yearly totals.  Enjoying periodically viewing the live feeds of IM Mont-Tremblant.  A former mentor of mine, Fred D just killed the bike course. 

Jim

Congratulations Randy and congratulations Nick!

Today is the first day that I am feeling somewhat decent. I have been sick since last Sunday and its really rough not being able to work out for that long. If I still feel good later tonight I might do an easy spin on the trainer. This has been a really rough week. 

Hope everybody else is doing alright. 

Hey gang-made it home this morning. No reason to hang around at the beach with windy/rainy weather.  Had a fun time. Enjoyed the race and it always adds something when there are lots of friends/teammates racing. My MPI team had a great weekend with a 2nd and 3rd place overall finish as well as a bunch of AG podiums.  It was a really good race for me. I'm always anxious in the days headed into a race and wonder how I will be able to "compete". Then, after a solid race, I can't wait to race again.

Had fun with my daughter. Had a nice lunch and dinner yesterday, did some shopping and hung out at the pool. She missed me finish the race as I apparently was wearing a different "costume" than what she thought I would be wearing. :)

Race report: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=456582&posts=1#M4370271

Randy

Congrats Randy!

First check-in for me this weekend.  My whole family apart from me got sick starting Friday evening.  That plus rain mostly killed training.  Nothing serious, but bad, bad timing.  Work is killing me -- more later.

Great job Randy and Nick.  Impressive all around!  Hope the Daddy-Daughter time was excellent as well, Randy.  Speaking of which, just back from some Daddy-Daughter time of my own as we went to a weekend music camp in West Virginia.  Brought some running stuff, but never got out.  No room at the inn (kind of last minute and my daughter wanted to camp), so I ended up sleeping in the back of the Element for two nights after staying up late (technically early) playing tunes.  Totally had a blast, but I'm a tired pup this evening.  52 may be a little too old for sleeping the back of the car :-)  I'll get back on track this week after a good night's sleep.  Time with daughter is always #1!

Night all!

Stu

Great job Jason! Sounds like you had a great race.  How did the new bike feel?

Randy 

Sounds like everyone had some great races this weekend! Congrats!

I'm currently in the Indianapolis Airport waiting for my flight back home. Not much training while I was here. I got 2 50+ minute runs in the first few days, but had events Saturday and Sunday so couldn't squeeze anything in.

Hopefully I can get a ride in today when I get back. Looking forward to some good training again, I've been all over the place lately!!!

-Nate

Race report is up: West Point Tri

This race reflects my year so far: a mixed bag of results. First the negatives:

1) I was 12 minutes slower than last year - about evenly distributed among all three legs and the combined T's. This is ironic because last year I intentionally went slow yet, ended up faster. This year I tried to stay within my comfort zone and hoped my training would result in faster times.

2) My number belt came apart in T1 so I lost some time fixing it. I also left my front brake release open after re-attaching my front wheel. Didn't realize this until I tried to slow down for the first turn. Luckily I didn't panic and fixed it easily so it only cost me a few seconds. I normally check all my equipment before a race but didn't this time.

OK. Now the positives:

1) I felt good throughout the race.  My pacing was spot-on because at no point did I wish the race to be over. I finished with a little left in the tank.

2) I didn't panic during my equipment failures but was able to focus and quickly think through them.

3) It was a beautiful day (no rain!!!!) and I got to spend it at a well organized event.

I'm at a point where I feel I know my fitness level and can pace myself so I finish strong, which is important to me. Now I need to increase my speed.

Mark-nice job.  Enjoyed the race report.  You make a good point about pacing.  It is a huge component of having a successful race. Too hard/fast too early and the rest of the race suffers.  The more we race the better we get at controlling our pacing and managing a race.  We cant get hung up on what we want our pace to be going into a race as conditions and situations may dictate a change in pace.

Glad you had a dry race for a change!

Randy

My next tri is in three weeks on Sept. 8th.  It's a bit shorter than the one I just did at:

Swim: 1/4 mi.

Bike: 14 mi.

Run: 3 mi.

My results from the last two times I did this race:

What would be a reasonable performance goal given the race is three weeks away?

My times from last weekend are sort-of in line with the above. What do y'all think is possible in such a short amount of time?

Thanks!

-Mark

Mark-that's a tough one.  I think the most bang for the buck would be to do a bike focus until the next race.  Throw in some hard intervals.  If you train with a HR monitor do the intervals in Zone4.  They don't have to be long but it gets you accustom to the feeling of pushing hard and mentally dealing with the effort.  Something like 4 min Z4 with 1 min easy.  Try to do 4-5 of these initially and build up to 8-10.  You don't have alot of time before the race so I would not try to ramp up the swim or run training too much as doing so could lead to an injury.  Try to ride more with a few hard bike sessions and see if you can improve your bike split at the race.  Of course, you can't predict the weather or conditions come race day so do what you can to prepare and hope for beautiful weather.

Randy