Evondo's Group - FULL (Page 7)

Yeah I'm pretty excited.  I've found a Masters Swiming program just need to get to it.

The Minneman is a .3 mile swim, 13 miles bike ride, and a 5k.  I'm far from worried about the bike ride, run shouldn't be hard.  The swim will be interesting.  Looking for 1-2 more events for this year.  Minneman is on the 4th of July.

Any suggestions on what I need for swimming?  All I have now is a bathing suit not a particularly Fluid Dyamicaly efficent one.

Congrats on signing up for your first tri!!!  I also agree that signing up for a race is great motivation for training.

YAY!  So exciting.

As far as swimming goes, I highly reccomend lessons.  If you have a local YMCA they are usually pretty reasonable, and as a non-member you can take lessons without having to join (if you are not already a member.)  When I first started training/racing I could swim, but not well.  I took lessons for a total of 8 weeks (1 per week) and my comfort level in the water improved dramaticly.

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination fast, but I can get kicked in the face and swam over in a race without panicing, which to me was super important.

As far as gear, start with goggles.  If your pool doens't have them already, a kickboard and a pull buoy are helpful for drills.

Okay, everybody talk speed to me.

I am one of those people that could seriously run/bike/swim for hours at a slow leisurely pace, but gains in speed always seem to elude me.  Admittedly, I pretty much hate training for speed because it hurts and will only infrequently at best do any type of intervals.

I'm not even sure how to start building speed.  I do between 2-3 sessions in each discipline each week.

Can I work on speed for all 3 at the same time, or should I focus it to one sport at a time?  How should I structure my sessions so that I'm not exhaused from trying to build speed?

Finally, please dumb anything you say down as much as you can.    I'll get the abbreviations for stuff eventually... but right now spell it out for me if you would.

Feel free to send info via pm if you don't want to clutter up our thread.

Way to commit... You will love it!  Tri's are addicting...  Hi my name is Justin, and I am an addict!!!

Good job!

You can incorporate speed work into your regular training sessions with out killing yourself.  They are definitely not easy.  Running is my strongest event, and I still struggle to get these workouts in.  Eric will have to provide guidance on speed work in the pool, because I too am looking to make gains in that atmosphere!

Running... Speed work can cause injuries much more easily than average runs or long runs, so listen to your body very closely when doing these workouts.  Warm-ups, cool downs and stretching are very important as well.  Disclaimer: I am not an Elite class runner, nor have I ever been professionally coached in this discipline, so please take/discard my advice accordingly. I have done a lot of reading/research in an effort to self coach...   

There is a good article on speed work on the following site:  rather than type all this advice and workouts... take a look at what is listed and if you need clarification or questions answered...lets post 'em. 

 http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/105.shtml 

I have applied some of the same elements to my cycling workouts... I do hill workouts (parking garage - no hills in Houston), I work on big gear pushes, as well as spinning exercises.  Gym workouts... squats and lunges for leg strength on the bike.  Those spinerval dvd's may be more beneficial than what I do.

I use my Garmin 305 to really help my speed workouts as well... HR's, Lap times, Ghost races against my self...

Thanks for the link!  That was all actually very easy to understand...

Only questions I have- how do I determine my 5k pace?  It has been close to a year since my last 5k?  Do I just hop on teh treadmill and run balls to the wall for 3.1 miles, or is there a better way to do this?

Also- any thoughts on how to structure a training week?  I obviously wouldn't want to do two speed sessions in two differnt disciplines back to back, but I also wouldn't want to do a speed session the day before a long session, right?  I don't want to run out of days in the week.

I agree with everything Justin said for running/biking.  I just want to re-emphasize that be VERY careful when starting speed work, if you push too hard too soon in these workouts you will get injured! My general rule for knowing when you're ready for speed work is when your long slow distance run/bikes are no longer getting faster (man I loved those days when every workout was a PR!) 

So with that in mind, if you haven't sprinted in a while I wouldn't recommend going all out to get your 5K pace. You can do the 5K to get your time just make sure to negative split the race, take the first 1.5mi comfortable pace and build from there.  As you do more and more speed work you can readjust your 5K pace then (I normally have to readjust every 1-2 months).

For schedule, I put my speed work the night before my swim since my legs get the most rest that way.  I attached my detailed schedule which has the different types of workouts in there.

For swimming speed... this is a tricky one.  I think the best bet to increasing speed is improving your technique which is done by coaching, drills and time in the water.  Everyone including myself can improve on their swimming technique.  Doing swim speed workouts doesn't make much sense until you're able to 'change gears' in the water.  It's tough to describe but when you start out everyone pretty much has one gear, forward. As technique improves you're able to move forward with much less effort so you can go further. Once you're to this point you can start doing sets with repeats of distance X with Y rest between repeats.  Decrease the amount of rest the more comfortable you get.

Now you're to a point where playing with speed makes sense and there are all kinds of sets to do depending on what your purpose is.  One of the best things I think for triathletes to focus on is swim golf... do a 50 or 25 and count your strokes, add that to your time in seconds the lower the # the better.  Try to go a little faster while keeping your stroke cnt down will help you find the point where you're swimming your strongest with the least amount of effort. Doing sprints is also good if you're not just flailing your arms and kicking like crazy.

Well hopefully some of that made sense in that long rambling... questions?  

(schedule.jpg)

5K Race Pace... There are various ways to figure this out.  Jeff Galloway has a renowned program for running marathons and other races.  Try his calculations and see if that works for ya.  "miracle mile" estimated plan...

http://jeffgalloway.com/resources/gallracepredict.html

His site has some interesting info.

Thanks for the swimming info.  Counting strokes and taking time off seems easy enough.  I actually count strokes anyway as if I don't reallllyyyy focus I will drown and then the lifeguards will laugh at me.

Thanks for that sencond link Justin, that looks easy enough to do as well.

I think that initially I'm going to add in a hill/speed session on the bike, and one in the pool each week and save the running for a bit.  I'm still seeing gains in speed (not fast ones, but gains none the less) in running, and I tend to get injured the easiest by running, so I figure I will hold off on adding any serious speedwork until I see those gains subside.

Just do me a favor and if two months from now I'm still posting the same running times and saying how happy I am with my 12:30 miles, kick me in the and tell me to do some tempos or intervals or hills or something, k?

Haha, bored as hell too... so don't mind me as I hijack the thread.

I use the nutrition tool, but I have mine set to private.  I have 30 lbs to lose this year, have already lost 25 in the past 4 months.  Strangely, I reached my highest weight right BEFORE my wedding... I still looked good in my dress though.

Good job on dropping the weight.  It feels great.  I don't have any real weight LOSS goals.  I WILL lean out a little more in the coming months, for race readiness (10-15 lbs).  I log food & drink outside of BT... writing down my food & drink helps me stay accountable for all that goes in my mouth.     ** Post workout drinks - It ain't Starbucks, but I enjoy some Texas brewskies - Shiner bock (Helles Lager - new fave) & St. Arnold is always a good choice! **  I always enjoy the races that are sponsored by breweries!  Makes for gooooood post race festivities.

BORED!!! x 10... Why did I come to work today?  Oh yeah get paid to surf the net and hang out on BT!

Good job on dropping the L-B's as well.  I must add though... (I know women are wired a little differently then we are) but... If your avatar is an actual pic of you... you seem to be athletically proprtionate and do not appear to be in need of dropping 30 more lbs... that seems like a lot.   

Another decent article on running... Ah the 'ol DREADMILL...

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Treadmill_workouts_to_keep_life_interesting.htm

I am the farthest thing in the world from weird about stuff like that, so no worries.

That pic is me at my HIM 1.5 years ago.  I'm at my goal weight there.    Right now I'm 28 lbs heavier than that.   That's my daily motivation.  

Re: races sponsered by breweries...  I can't for the life of me remember what the race is called, but in the Midwest (either St. Louis or over in IL) there is a 10 mile bike race that consists of 10 1-mile loops.  The "catch" is that after every loop you chug a pint of beer.  I had a few friends who did that one... by the 10th one I don't know that I could stay on my bike.

There was also a second "race" that was a brewery/winery tour in which they gave prizes for last place as you were the one who most enjoyed stopping at each of the locations.

I have read about "beer" miles... I like "post-race" beer... I don't know if I could do the RACE and beer combo.  There is a Tour de-donut bike ride here, where the more donuts you eat the greater your time deduction from your race time... lots of "chewed" donuts litter the roadway.

Weight... Well, kudos for the motivating reminder of where you want to be.  Based on what you have posted thus far... you should be well on your way for succesfully reaching that goal.  We will try to keep you on task... don't let us slip either!   

I'm wondering if I did the right thing today.  My work schedule has been SERIOUSLY thrown out of wack these last 2 weeks.  Which also threw my sleep schedule out the window as well.  I work from 12:30 to 9:00 PM mon-thursday, friday's from 9:30am to 6:00pm.  So Thursday night is a rather important night especially seeing as Friday is a training day.

Today I had to have 2 cups of coffee (i NEVER drink coffee) at work.  I got to the gym and did my normal warm up.  I could hardly make it through 9 min of running (half of the planned time for today).  I walked some more then ran about 3-5 more min and called it.  As I got into the first session everything got tense and I could feel fatgiue set in at about 5 min, lots of fatigue (i ran the same speed I always do which is between 5.5 and 5.0 mph).  Last night I did have a pretty heavy family dinner; Curry Potatos, Salmon, Red Pepper soup, turkey, pork, veggies and white rice.

I was very suprised that I was so out of the grove today.  Monday was a total cake walk at the same distances.  Was I right to just cool down stretch some more and hit the road?  I feel kinda dumb saying this but I want to be sure that I was right and didn't cheat myself, or atleast not to badly cheated myself.

I'm right there with ya on Nutrition.  fast food all the time at work....I very much don't like it but I haven't been able to get myself into bringing my own stuff to work yet....

Some days things just don't go right, it happens to everyone.  From what you said previously you're entering the harder part of your training schedule and with work changes it's understandable to have a rough day.

I've bagged quite a few workouts before because it just wasn't there, just focus on the next workout you have and put this one behind ya. If you feel like this again during a run, slow the pace even if it's slower than you're used to so you can get the mileage in to help build your base.

Nutrition was a huge issue of mine that I focused the beginning of 2008 correcting.  I ate out for lunch daily with co-workers and if the food is in front of me it will be eaten.  Now I go lifting or pilates during lunch, its not that either of those burn many calories as my calorie intake is much less.  I bought a small fridge and put it in my office so I can keep sandwich meat, fruit, drinks and eat at my desk.

For dinners my girlfriend and I try to cook enough on the weekends so the leftovers last us most of the week. Then we only have to cook 1-2 times during the weekdays which is a huge time saver.