stevebradley's Mentor Group FULL (Page 7)

I hate to admit it, but I never used a gel until my first Triathlon. Used 2 during the bike...both caffeinated. Had sports drink too...by the end I had a migraine. No stomach issues, but too much sugar or caffeine. Think I was dehydrated.

What's everybody got on the ole workout agenda today?

All I have is a swim, BUT I am going to try to start swimming without my nose clips. Now, if you are the type of person who has never needed them, you probably don't get it. Swimming without them is MISERY for me.

There was a thread on the main forum that brought up noseclips earlier in the week. A few recovering noseclip addicts gave me the push to try it. from what I hear, it took them 3-4 weeks of painful workouts to finally get comfortable with it. So that is my challenge for the day. You can hold me accountable to keep trying it until i get it. past attempts to break the habit have lasted 15 minutes.

fyi: my workcomputer went kaput earlier this week and I won't get the replacement part until tomorrow. that's why i've been able to post so much (personal computer). Next week, though, I'll need a little help from the peanut gallery

steve,

what are the "baseline" test for the hrm and how do I do them?

thanks,

lisa

If I remember correctly, you go max intensity on a 400m or longer interval and use that to find your max HR.

 

I believe LT is found by a longer run, but I can't remember off hand.

My workout agenda today has been altered. The main focus of it was to be a swim, but my pool is 30 miles away, we're having a blizzard, and it's just not worth it.

I have done one 28-minute ski, and will soon do another. (Can I include also one 25-minute shoveling job, with a repeat likely in an hour or two??) This evening I will hop on my bike, either the trainer for about an hour, or the rollers for 20-30 minutes. If the trainer, I will do some single-leg drills, some tough-gearing out-of-saddle work. If the rollers, I will just work at staying upright; this will be my first time on them this off-season!!

I am heading to Toronto for a few days, and that will dramatically slow me down -- which is probably good, as I'm on day 27 or so of multiple workouts/day. I might run down there, but that will be it. Mostly it will be a time devoted to Lynn's struggling parents.

Hi everybody.

 

I finally posted my race report from the marathon this weekend.  If anyone cares to read...there are some lessons learned for sure in this one.

CARLSBAD MARATHON RACE REPORT

Neil

LISA -

There are several, of which Nathan's example is one that is workable - and far more reliable than the standard "quick and dirty" one, which is to subtract your age from 220 and calll that number your maximum heart rate.

A pretty simple one for you would be to do a series of short, intense (i.e., all-out) efforts, with the goal to be to get your heart rate as high as possible by about the third repetition. This will be very close to your max. h.r. This method works best if the person is highly motivated (that would be you, Lisa), and if it can be repeated a second and even a third time just to make sure that the first result is not somehow skewed.

After this, you just work through percentages of the max h.r. valure to arrive at your zones. Usually these fall into 90-100% for Zone 1, 80-89% for Zone 2....and down to 50-59% for Zone 5. These are good enough for starting points, and if you are more committed to working through RPE parameters than through actual heart rate, then you can just apply an equivalent zone for each set of 2 RPE units. When RPE 3 and 4 came up earlier, that would ROUGHLY be Zone 2, or 60-69% of your max h.r.

The above is NOT perfect, however, which is why lots of people will go to the Cadillac of testing, which is a metabolic or physiological assessment known as the VO2max test. I had this done in '02 (I think I mentioned '00 to Nathan, but that was wrong), first time running and a week later on the bike. These are killers to do, breathing into a mask thing, offering a finger every few minutes for a blood sample, and working your way through higher speeds and efforts until you can't do it any more. (That maybe explains why I did it just once!!)

The quick results for this were a max h.r. of 180 (my VO2max was also determined, but I won't go into that hee.). As I did this when I closer to 54 than to 53, my max h.r. using the "220" method would have been 166 -- which is a far cry from 180 in terms of actually working at 90-100%, and of course then will have a trickle-down effect when setting the h.r. zones. HOWEVER, the people who tested me set my zones much higher than with Zone 1 being 50-59%. For me, it was a h.r. of 127-143 for Z1; 144-160 for Z2; 161-165 for Z3; 166-175 for Z4, and 176+ for Z5 (and I have gone above the 180 "max" on my more masochistic treadmill efforts).

So, you can see that not only is this whole thing not a perfect sytem, but that it can also be fine-tuned many times over if one has the money for testing and the Tolerance for Suffering that is required for proper metabolic testing - which would be yearly. It IS hugely valuable, however, and just remind your husband that it has been clinically proven that this type of testing makes a GREAT Valentine's gift!!

Edited by stevebradley 2009-01-28 2:19 PM

Neil - Those are some hard lessons to learn indeed.  I had a friend train for her first marathon last year in Boston.  After months of training, plane tickets for her family, etc., they stopped the race for the first time ever due to weather.  (Too hot, people were dropping like flies.)  To not be able to finish when, like you, she felt good (having trained in the south and was used to the heat) was a huge letdown for her.  You know that based on how you were feeling you probably would have definitely beaten your goal, but that doesn't seem to make up for the fact that the race got screwed up.  I think you did a great job.  I looked at those courses and how did they expect anyone to keep them straight with half marathon and marathon runners all running together but on different courses!  I would definitely complain to the organizers and maybe they can improve for next year!

Edited by mindymcc 2009-01-28 2:22 PM

Neil - I can feel you on being lost without your Garmin - at Chicago this year, I forgot to turn off the 'auto-pause' feature. Since the first part of the race is all downtown under big buildings, my Garmin wasn't picking up the fact that I was actually moving - so it paused itself and I had no idea when it turned itself back on.  I spent the next 20 miles doing math in my head at every mile marker, but I really had no idea what my time was going to be! I was about 7 minutes off of where I thought I was going to be (in a bad way...) 

 I'm sorry you got off course - I can't imagine how frustrating that must be, especially since you prepared and were ready for the full 26.2! At least you got in a good long run and you're going to be really ready for IMCA 70.3.

 Lisa - yup I'm on week 2! I think these first 4 weeks are all pretty similar. I was going to get my swim in today at lunch, but then we had a delayed opening because of the weather and I had to go to a meeting over lunch. Sooo, I'm going to the pool between 6-7 before my night class, which I HATE. In the evening, they have the middle school swim teams there, and there are only 3 lanes open for 'regular' people. It's really crowded, and then the locker rooms are overflowing with 10 year old girls... Haha, I sound like an old grouch don't I? Enjoy your swim!

 

 

MINDY -

I think it was Chicago for your friend, not Boston. But what you say is right about disappointment. I have never had a race shut down or be cancelled, per se, but several triathlons have had to change the swim to a run, thus making it a duathlon. And you should hear the howling about that! But we all sign the waivers that talk about acts of weather and acts of god, and that the organizers reserve the right to cancel or alter the race as they see fit, keeping the health and well-breing of all competitors foremost in their minds.

The Chicago thing was so huge because it is a huge race. It is just about the quintessential first-timers race, due to a pancake flat course and all the bells and whistles anyone could hope for. The double-edged sword with this, though, is that an awful lot of people enter Chicago less than perfectly prepared, and when that decision was made, much of the focus was on those competitors. And, of course, it is the first-timers who will feel the sting the most when a race is cancelled, as SO much of their identity is caught up in completing the race. (All of the people hoping to use Chicago as a Boston qualifier were also deeply aggrieved by that decision.)

Being the RD that day must've seemed like the worst job in the world. He had over 30,000 people on course, and he essentially had to "round them up" -- not to mention all of those who needed medical assistance. Part of the rounding up process involved trying to inform everbody on the course that if they continued past a certain time, they would do so without aoid stations. And, as you might imagine, many competitors carried on, just because they wanted to say that they had completed the 26.2. The RD caught a ton of fire about the decision, but ultimately he was exonerated for doing the absolute right thing. It was, however, an enormous pill for thousands of the competitors to swallow.

Just a week or so before Chicago (or was it the same day??), I did Bassman half-iron in New Jersey, on an extremely hot day (as with Chicago, uncommonly so hot for october). I wisely availed myself of every aid station on the run, often taking at least two cups - one to drink from, one to douse with (and maybe, a third, split half-mouth, half-head). I finished pretty high up in the overall placement, with several hundred people finishing after me, and I felt fine about this ----- until I learned that water for many of the later finishers was gone, that the race organizers just couldn't keep up with the demand. Then I felt very guilty. That same sort of thing happened in Chicago, where the faster runners - the first couple thousand who actually managed to beat the emergency course-closure cut-off time - used water like it was going out of style. So, the hot weather emergency was exacerbated by a water shortage created by runners who maybe went through three cups of water at each aid station, figuring - as I did at Bassman - that the race has things covered. I didn't mean to be greedy, and neither did all the "water hogs" at Chicago, but ultimately we contributed to a situation in which many fellow competitors were put in undeniably uncomfortable and maybe even dangerous positions. Just something to think about!

LISA -

Ta-da! Success! Thank many times over for teaching me something ---- although at this end it was my wife, being cued step-by-step by our daughter, who did the actual cropping and file-storing duties. But it was YOUR directions that enabled me to get the thing on the pages here! Again -- ta-da!

Cautionary tale for all you young pups there, however, about how YOU may look when you hit 59.8 years old. (And I think the deterioration has continued apace in the three months since. Argghhhh!)

NEIL -

Many thanks for posting the comprehensive race report. I hope this was a good, cathartic thing for you to do!

I told you my thoughts on the whole situation in those emails, and what happened to you has stuck with me pretty tightly over the past few days. I hope that everybody here takes the time to look at it, as there are some good "lessons" in several different areas. I will probably mention a few of these as tri season approaches, but for now I'll just let it all settle.

From the tone of your report, you sound as if you are admirably comfortable with what happened, and just being able to view Sunday as a long run (and don't forget at "race intensity"!) is pretty damn positive - as well as accurate. I think that's big money in the bank for you for 70.3 in April, which really isn't all that far away. That distance, at that intensity, is definitely something that you can - and will - be building on between now and then.

Illegitimum non carborundum!

Yay!!!!! a picture. look how tech saavy (and handsome) you are now!

Edited by hooslisa 2009-01-29 6:43 AM

if you are going to learn how to do flip turns, then you may as well learn the right way (w/o clips). otherwise, you will learn to do the flip turn, and then still have to figure out the breathing thing anyway to get rid of the nose clips. imo.

Steve & Nathan,

thanks for the HR info. I will do the tests sometime next week (have a hectic weekend), until then I will stick to the rpe's.

thanks for all the input! I really appreciate it.

okay, here is my update.

I (intentionally & sadly) left my nose clips at home yesterday when I was packing my swim bag yesterday so I wouldn't be tempted to use them if things started going downhill.

i'll spare you the details, but I was able to complete my entire workout without them. it was misery at first, but at the end it was very tolerable. not great, but tolerable. i dare say I will never use them again. yay!

Great picture Steve!  I hope I look as good at 59.8!

Um, thank you for the "support". To me, I look about as I feel these days - old as the hills and twice as dusty. I'd like to be able to say with confidence "this too shall pass".......but one never knows, does one??

LISA -

When things are hectic, that is definitely not the time to do these types of tests. Wait until the dust has settled a bit and you are feeling quite fresh. And, if after the first rep you feel flat, either put it off until another day, or continue just to see how the results will change under different physical and physiological conditions.

As for nose clips, i'm afraid I know nothing at all about them. In fact, everything that has been said here is new for me, and that's always a useful thing. I'm just sorry that I can contribute nothing more than a blank, dopey look!

LOST WORKOUTS AND GUILT-ANGST

Lisa asked us all yesterday what we had scheduled for workouts, and I told her that due to the big old blizzard here, I had bailed on my central workout, which was a swim. I did not mention that, had, the weather been glorious, I also would've done a lifting session in the morning, but for the same reasons I bailed on that as well.

I then regrouped, fitting in a ski and planning an evening indoors ride -- along with stints of snow-shoveling. By early eveing, I had done TWO skis, totaling 60 minutes, and two+ shovelings, totalling 75 minutes. As the evening wore on, I just didn't have the energy to climb onto the bike. So, I bailed on that, also.

All in all, I "lost" my three more important workouts, and gained something, I supppose, with heavy-duty shoveling and light-duty skiing --- but that wasn't part of The Plan. And even though I keep my plans pretty flexible, there are basic expectations with which I enter each day, and I swung and missed on the two I had set previously for yesterday, plus the one I substituted in for the two that were missed! Sum effect - GUILT!!!

Dealing with this is difficult, and I don't have any quick solutions on how to work through it. Over the years, however, I have learned that it is best to "let lost workouts go", and not try to make them up at a later date - which usually turns out to be the next day! The only exception to this is maybe with "key" workouts that are followed by either a rest day or something along the lines of recovery work. When I had my schedule set for me by Erik Cagnina, he almost always had things arranged this way, and thus a lost "key" workout could be substituted in for the rest day or the easy workout of the recovery day - if absolutely necessary!

It is also important to keep in my mind (and I am terrible at this) to remember that (1) at this time of year, especially if you have no races on the near horizon, that nothing is truly all that important, and (2) that even a missed workout - or two, or three - is unlikely to have any effect at all on your overall fitness. There are all kinds of data out there that support the idea that a person can have a week-long flu and be barely able to breathe and walk, and yet lose only a small amount of fitness during that time.

So, try hard to not allow guilt to consume you. Stuff happens, and life continues to pulse and cascade around us even when we try to isolate ourselves in the cocoon of our training and workouts. And I will try to practice what I preach and shrug off the yoke of guilt that is currently weighing heavily on my psychological shoulders!

Just something to think about?