GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 7)

DARREN -

Your final sentence fits me perfectly, especially the last half: ".....how little energy I feel like I expend while swimming and how relaxed and fresh I feel when I get out of the water."

One of my triathlon keys is to use my legs as little as possible. I do not have a good kick due to poor ankle flexibility and dorsaflexion, so in races I just let them come along for the ride, buoyed by the wetsuit. I have enough decent body roll and balance to make this work -- although "work" is in the context of chronically mediocre swims.

Of course, the upside to this is that I expend minimal lower body energy, so I am very fresh for the bike.....and subsequently the run, as it is all cumulative.

If I ultimately had the ability to drop my swim times by, say, three minutes for an oly or five minutes for a half-iron, I would maybe consider pushing myself to do that. But my upside is so small, I've come to believe, that I really am better coming out of the water with fresh legs and grabbing back that time on the run and bike, whipping past the "fish".

I hear over and over that I have a "beautiful stroke" and am a "fabulous swimmer", and I can credit TI drills and stuff with teaching me how to swim seemingly effortlessly and with a long, relaxed stroke. That's all good.........but even with some subsequent workshops and one-on-one sesssions, something is missing in my neverending attempts to become faster. It's the damnedest thing!!

I also agree about Total Immersion.   After I had 'learned' to swim with the help of a local pool lifeguard/swim instructor, I enrolled at the Univ. of Guelph Triathlon Training Centre where they teach TI.  Told to throw everything I had learned out the window and was taken back to the basics.    I am still slow but they have given me the training/technique I need to be competitive in my AG.  

The coach was adamant that we could do strictly drills all winter and be able to perform well going into a tri WITHOUT any long distance swimming, and he did provide examples of students who had done it.   But I'm afraid I'm not that trusting and snuck some distance swims in.      Suppose this is something I shouldn't really be admitting to Steve.     I REALLY am a good student. 

Anne

ANNE -

You WHAT? You snuck in some distance swims??? That's it. No outdoor recess for you ALL WEEK!!

I couldn't believe what you said about your 'beautiful swim stroke'.   That's what people tell me all the time, but I am so slow compared to them.   And I come out of the water feeling great too; never tired.   I always thought that was a sign that I wasn't working hard enough, but maybe I had better keep things the way they are.    

Anne

That's a fair amount of positives for TI so far...I was planning on joining a masters swim group to get some coaching but the only one near me that comes recommended is 1 hour+ drive and at not so convient times for my current work schedule.

I'm very comfortable in the water but having not really swam laps in 13 years or so and never having the best form, I'm at a good time to re-learn a bit. The biggest thing I fight is depriving myself of oxygen. I'll regularly go with 3 breaths in 25m or 1 breath every 5 full strokes. Latest drill I am working on is rotating my shoulders down through my pull and getting more rotation out of water to breath while breathing more often.

Anyone have multiple years of swim lessons (via lifegaurd at local pool) behind them and no fear of swimming have a recommendation for a TI book or drill set?

Also, very nice to hear I am not the only person who at one time in the recent past was at a point of hating to run. I couldn't stand it yet since I got to the point of comfortably completing 5k (on a treadmill anyways) I have a new appreciation of this abuse.

Someone earlier mentioned only having a mountain bike and was wondering about doing tri's on it. This is my plan through a couple years and probably Oly distance. I have a set of slicks for it, so I will be swapping those out and locking out my fork on a tri. This also gives me the ability to try out a X-Tri (stony creek metropark) or an Xterra to see if I enjoy that more than running down city streets.

ANNE again -

Okay! Here goes!

I have just spent quite a while taking notes - literally! - on your long post from a day or two ago. I first printed it out, read it, thought about it for a while, read it again, thought about it some more, and finally realized that I needed to dissect it, picking out the most salient of all the salient points. So that's what I have done, and I think I'm ready! (Taking a deep breath......)

I see a lot of me in you, or vice-versa, in that enthusiasms can take root quickly and grow explosively. It's kind of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!", right? In your case, there has been running, which morphed into biking and swimming, which piggybacked on hiking and canoeing, which was augmented by hockey. And from your account, you NEVER seem to do things halfway -- the Effort Glass is always up to the brim, overflowing, even. Yes?

On the surface, of course, all of that is great. Approaching life with unbridled enthusiasm is something most people would kill to have the time and inclination to do, and it seems as if you are in the upper 1% of all humanoids in your willingness and ability to not only tackle myriad challenges, but to pull out all the stops in doing so. Have you ALWAYS been a perpetual motion machine??

What is interesting about your account is that you realize Mistakes Have Been Made. If I asked you to list the top five mistakes you have made in the past five years, you could do that in a heartbeat. But another way we are similar here is that we do not learn quickly - or maybe it's explicitly - from our mistakes, which for me comes from enthusiasm (I'd prefer to think it that way, as opposed to "stupidity" ), which I'm sure is also the case for you. I think it was Will Rogers who said "Anybody can make a mistake, but it takes a damn fool to make the same mistake twice."......and if that is truw, then I am a fool countless times over.

It sounds like you have learned a lot about yourself and training over the years:
(1) Winter training is good, as it prevents you from doing mostly nothing for 4-6 months and then diving back into heavy training.
(2) Going from a race immediately (well, after a few hours of driving) to an arduous hike is NOT a highly-recommended recovery plan.
(3) Disobeying the 10% run-increase rule is something done at your own peril. Caveat emptor, indeed!
(4) Over-racing, combined with over-training, usually puts one on the shelf for a while.
(5) Attention to the body in different ways (for you it's Bikram) can reap huge benefits.
(6) Hockey may not be compatible with triathlon training! (??)

Those are all good, honest mistakes, as they come from the wellspring of zest for life that seems to gush from you at all times. And becasue you are ware enough of them to put them down as part of your case history, I am certain that to the best of your ability you are trying to heed some of the lessons learned.

Big ones for me in the past are #3, #4, and #5. Number five -- I never do near enough of. I am terrible at stretching, and am too far away from any Yoga place. I lift 23X a week off-season, and it's not for bulk, so that's good....but it's not enough. Number three is one I have gambled with for years. I have gotten much better at obeying the 10% rule(s) over the years, but still need to work at it. And as for #4, iused to make my coach crazy with trying to schedule more races than he thought it was wise to do, given the quality and quantity of work he was giving me. He mostly won those battles......and he was right. (For the record, my last three seasons have involved heavy over-racing, but in the process I have not killed myself with over-training as well.)

Over the years you have done a lot of things right! The biggest one is building your distances of races very gradually. Yopu now have a huge amount of experience behind you, and as I read it there is only one oly so far. But you have gone beyond that, with the HIM aquabike, so overall you have been laudibly prudent about not catapulting yourself into the longer distances. The other big one is to follow programs and also receive some coaching along the way. I'm sure these have worked to give you some structure and to "keep you honest", and that is all to the good. You are certainly open to suggestions.....but let me guess that you are also pretty quick to "think outside the box". (How do I know that? Uh, maybe it takes one to know one? ) By that I mean that you will never be constrained by any given program, and that if you feel that you are not doing enough....and if you have the time....and if the body seems willing.....that you will do that extra workout, or extend an already-existing workout. (That's why you lost your outside recesses for the rest of this week! )

I'm panicked that I will somehow lose this post before actually posting it, so I jsut deleted what I had next written, will post this now, and continue in the next post.

See you soon!

ANNE once more -

Whew! Sent before being lost! (If there is inteliigent life Out There, I like to think that they are endlessly amused by all the missives, and fragments of missives, that end up in their laps in the form of emails and blogs and other random cyber-writings that were accidentally launched into oblivion.)

I wrote all that stuff without recommending a single thing, but I do have some thoughts. Most come from the six-point list, which comes from things you said, so I think you know what I'm going to say, mostly.

(1) It is good to maintain some degree of training throughout the winter. It is definitely good if the alternative is to go from 4-6 months of no training to suddently heavy-duty training in March or April.
(2) BUT -- Alow yourself a decent off-season!! Give your body time to regenerate damaged tissue, to recover as fully as possible from the demands you put on it. In your case, it is not just about swimming and biking and running, but also your extensive hiking and canoeing.
(3) Follow the 10% rules: don't increase the total distance from one week to the next by more than 10%, and don't increase the distnace of your longest run by more than 10%. So, if you did 25 miles last week, don't amke this week more than 27.5 miles; and if your long run last wek was 5 miles, don't go beyond 5.5 miles this week.
--- As I've said, i'm historically bad at the 10% rules (but gettin' bettah!). For the fall training I did for my aborted marathon, I played kind of fast and loose with thr 10% rules, but I always made sure that if I psuhed things a bit one week, I backed it down appropriately the next week. (Honest!) And for what it's worth, I do NOT think that poor training was responsible for the ITB problem that jettisoned the marathon.
(4) Keep up with the gentler stuff (Yoga or stretching or Pilates) which, for you, is obviously working. It might be that an extra Bikram session throughout the winter will be far more beneficial for you than another "junk miles" run or ride.
(5) Don't over-race. Or if you do so, don't also over-train. (It's silmilar to "If you drink, don't drive.") My past three years have featured 17 races in '07, 11 in '08, 13 in '09. That is pretty huge, WAAAAY out there, and generally not for the faint of heart. Almost all of them were successes, however, and for me it was just about training around those races. There were very few I explicitly trained for, so overall while my race efforts were substantail, the training for them was not. It works for me because the big base is there, i guess, but I wouldn't recommend it for too many other people. And for the record, I am returning to a schedule of serioulsy focused training. While my results have been very good, I know that I can bring it up a few more notches by choosing races vey judiciously, and training for them very seriously.
But that was a digression about me, and getting back to you I suspect that when you did the four races in arow, you did NOT cut back on training, or even reduced some of the other stuff, such as hiking and canoeing. If that's the aces, then it is a Perfect Storm for injury and/or burn-out (you never seem to be affected by burn-out, though, do you?).
(6) If at all possible, try to separate your races from your canoeing expeditions and - esopecially - your hiking. You are a warrior to even attempt those combinations, but I think at least twice you returned from a run-hike combo barely able to walk. So you spent a few days frantically recovering, and then it was back to training for the next race.
(7) Periodization would work wonders for you -- if you can follow it, and if you can schedule all aspects of your spring/summer/fall recreational season to accommodate a periodized training plan. If you understand periodization, raise your hand! If not, LET ME KNOW and I will gladly go over it for you. (In fact, I should probably post a general summary of it for the whole group.)

Um, is that it in a nutshell? I'm sure ther is other stuff I've skipped over, so there is likely more to follow on the heels of this. ***At the very least, there will be some thoughts about your various injuries, which I will address when I've fully caught my breath. (This have been a very tough workout you've put me through, Anne! )

Finally, Lisa from my previous group ("hooslisa") has had hip problems that she recently had surgery for. I will tell her about you and your hip woes, and once she is done with her exam and the fallout from it (like, the party tonight), I'm sure she'll be willing to share some thoughts with you about those pesty hips!

Bye for now!

SHAUN -

I now owe you for two posts: The more recent one, above, and your bio for a few days ago. But right now I'm attached to a ventilator after my posts to Anne, and I'm limited as to what I can do. So, please be just a bit more patient, okay? Thanks!

Hi Darren:

I don't care about being fast - I just want to survive it! I will check out this Total Immersion thing you speak of.

Just curious, why does it cause so much controversy?

Thanks,

Tracey

Smarx:

I think that was me who mentioned the mountain bike. I'm going to wait to decide whether to switch out the tires or just get a tri bike...

Tracey

STEVE B - CCU (coronary care unit, a bit more specific than critical care). And my daughter moved to NYC in September '08 at the age of 19. The city suites her well and she loves it up there. Currently, she's living around 57th and Lexington. We just celebrated her 21st birthday yesterday. I'd love to do Lone Star but told my niece's fiance I would do a tri in the Woodlands with him (it will be his first) and I think it falls the weekend after Lone Star. I've got to get out my calendar and take a look at things. I'm not adverse to doing a race in New York and even looked into one last week, maybe it was the NYC Triathlon? Can't recall at the moment.

DWAYNE - Thanks so much for the use of the bike, very thoughtful. I actually think you may have been referring to Diane (FoxFire TX) as she lives in North Texas, isn't that where you are? I'm actually in Spring, north of Houston. Again thanks for your thoughtfulness. 

LISA A - Thanks for sharing my bio with your mom! Let her know that I actually decided to take up triathlon after seeing a 70+ year old women complete her first race. Her daughter was training and asked her sister if she'd be interested. Her mom said she would be, and the daughter's just kind of disregarded her at first. She told them again she was interested and she is now a triathelete.  I figured if it wasn't too late at the age of 70, maybe I could do it. You need to give your mom the book Slow Fat Triathlete to read, if she hasn't read it. And tell her she is more than welcome to touch base with me.

JESS - Congrats on passing the bar!  I'm a legal nurse consultant at a firm here in Houston, have been since '92.  And I think there is someone else in the legal field in our group, M?

DENISE - Ah Lady North. Will you adopt me for the summer? I'll pass on the winter. I know exactly where Pine River is, and I am oh so jealous! Fished many a time in the Whitefish Chain, played bingo at the fire station in Ideal Corners, gone to the turtle races in Nisswa, eaten lick in Pine River. Such wonderful memories of my times up there. Haven't been up that way for a number of years but we vacationed many times at Clamshell Beach Resort.

Now, better get back to making my daughter's belated birthday cake that I didn't get done yesterday.  More later.

DWAYNE - Thanks so much for the use of the bike, very thoughtful. I actually think you may have been referring to Diane (FoxFire TX) as she lives in North Texas, isn't that where you are? I'm actually in Spring, north of Houston. Again thanks for your thoughtfulness.Yes it was Diane

Edited by Dwayne 2009-12-21 12:18 PM

No hurry Steve. You get better on us!!

Thanks Anne.

I found a TI coach located about 45 minutes from me. I may give her a call after the holidays. I could probably use some coaching for the running and biking as well, but where I'm struggling with the swimming so much I may focus just on that for now.

Thanks!

Tracey

Ahhhh, the critics are all like "Phelps and all the other Olympic swimmers don't use TI". True, but Olympians for the most part are natural genetic freaks with large hands and long limbs and slight builds and train 4 hours a day and blah blah blah. But....I think the general conclusion is that it won't help you go pro but it will get you out of the water without killing yourself.

Hey Tracey! 

(Steve, if I'm overstepping my bounds - or more importantly am just plain wrong -  don't hesitate to publicly smack me down!)

I had the same problem, and and was given two points of advice:  slow down, and stop kicking so much.  Turns out that my turnover was way too fast, and I wasn't getting any glide from my stroke, which just meant I was churning in the water.  And second, I was kicking so much (again, concerned about keeping myself moving forward) that I was burning all my oxygen up.  Once I slowed down my stroke and stopped kicking so much, I actually moved much better in the water, and needed less oxygen.  Seems counter intuitive, but it worked for me.

Congrats Lisa. Mark

That's my Ranger Dawg !! As you can see she has a very hard life (probably as hard a life as your Eli does )

Congrats on passing the Bar exam.  Does this mean we can tell lawyer jokes now?

Edited by DeputyDawg 2009-12-21 7:27 PM

GROOVERS AND SHAKERS!

I jst got back from a full day and evening in Ottawa. There was a swim, the wee matter of panic-mode gift-buying, and dinner and a concert with Lynn. The concert was a chamber music one --- part of Lynn's never-ending attempts to instill some High Culture in me. (I've been a Delta and Chicago blues person since about 1966.) It was good.....enough....I guess......but it's better to be home catching up on the goings-on here! Call me a cretin, but there you have it!

LISA A -

Here's a second round of congrats for you, the first being over at the other place! Three cheers to follow the abundance of mojo cast your way earlier!

Further thoughts on wheels - and this is a VERY personal preference!

I am now with Hed 60 front and back, and have been very happy. However, if and when I replace, I will go with 50, largely becasue the 60s require a 80mm valve stem, and it turns out that not all of those are actually 80. So, sometimes, the valve can barely accommodate the nozzle on a pump, and that is a huge nusiance.

However, it is better than my old Hed set, the back wheel of which was a very deep rim that required a valve extendxer, which in turn require PFC (?) tape to fit over the valves threaad so that the extender would have a tight enough fit to inflate quickly. That required carrying the extender and the tape with me, which were too more things than I really wanted to worry about.

I said "personal" above because we all know how many people deal with this, or have a disc that requires one of those "crack pipe" gizmos. And I know Ryan had the wheel cover during the summer, so somehow he is dealing with whatever inflation hassles there are. (But then again, neither of you two ever seem to get flats, do you?)

For me, being (a) a guy prone to flats, and (b) a guy who struggles mightily with anything evn remotely "mechanical", I just like to keep my infaltion procedures as simple as I possibly can.

We also all know that most people prefer Zipp wheels, with Hed a fairly distant second, I think. I stumbled onto the Heds back in'02, and am now on my second set. When I broke a spoke at mooseman in '06, not even the aces at my LBS could get the new one back in - and that was the "official" new one that was sent to me by Hed! So, I had to package the darn wheel and send it to Hed in MN so they could do it themsellves. Now, that sure wasn't optimal....so why do I stick with Hed? Well, they've given me good customer service, and at heart all I rewally want to be is loyal to the nth degree. People.....teams.....wheels.....I just like being loyal.

Perfect world, then? Hed Jet 50 -- deep enough to provide some extra advantage, while being shallow enough to allow me to change one of my signature flats quickly!

And which martini are you on right now -- 10:53, eastern time?

STEVE A -

First, nobody can overstep bounds, as there aren't any bounds to be overstepped!

Second, I agree with your and your approach, by gum! Check out my response to Darren, which is the 11th post on the previous page.

Also, here are my splits for Lake George Triathlon (NY) in September:
S - 31:28
T1 - 1:38
B- 1:11:20
T2 - 1:25
R - 45:54

Do they look pretty close to a certain someone's Malibu times???

Dwayne, thanks so much for your offer!  I definitely need a bike and don't even know what to ask about it.  I am somewhat on the short side at 5'3".  Haven't been fitted for a bike for at least 20 years.  I am in Fort Worth so definitely close.  And I am also the total newbie here.  Thoughts?  This is very generous of you!
Diane