Jmk-brooklyn's mentor group- FULL! (Page 7)

13.1 training run!!!  Man I have to get in gear.

3 weeks away from first OWS so I need to figure that out...How often do any of you get in a TRAINING Open Water Swim?
I love the pool workouts, but I know it will be much more difficult in the surf!

Some races will let you practice on the swim course the day before the race.

Before my first race, I had done zero OWS training. In fact, I hadn’t even put on my wetsuit other than the time I bought it until the day before the race. Luckily, the race had the open water practice session, so I got a little wetsuit time, and got the chance to get comfortable in the colder water with the currents, but I think I would have been ok without it.

Other than my occasional beach trips, where I’ll try to squeeze in an OWS workout, I don’t do any open water training. Every summer, I tell myself that I’m going to take the train out to Coney Island and go for a swim with the army of triathletes that are out there every weekend, but it never seems to happen.

I’ve always been pretty comfortable in open water, though. I went to the beach a lot growing up, and the town where my dad lived was in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, so there were tons of large and small lakes, rivers, and gorges to swim in. I think that unless you’re really skittish about swimming in open water, it’s not mandatory to do a lot of OWS training. Obviously, you should try to train in as close to race conditions as possible, but it’s not always possible or safe to practice in open water. I think as long as you have a general sense of what the conditions are going to be like (current, waves, chop, sighting, etc.) which you can get from reading race reports and talking to people who’ve done the race, you’ll be fine without practicing OWS before race day.

Make sure you practice sighting in your usual workouts, practice starting to swim without being able to push off the bottom, and incorporate some short burst of acceleration into your long swim sets—they’re helpful for developing the ability to burst past someone or to jump from one draft pack to another in the water. I often find myself drafting behind someone and then decide that I want to zip past them to pick up another draft pack. So, for example, when I’m doing a 1000y set, I’ll swim one length of the pool at a sprint, touch the wall, and go back to my slower pace. I’ll do that 3-4 times spread out over a 1000y set.

Wow - just went out and ran a half mary. No biggee.  Good for you!  Sounds like your training is going really well.  You have any smaller races scheduled before your HIM?

Those are good points...the current and waves have me the most concerned.  Can never make the group swims here on the weekend mornings.

I was in shape for half marathons when I started training for tri's but that was the longest training run I've ever attempted. It went well, and I'm glad I didn't get any shin splints b/c it was a pretty good jump from the 4-6 milers I run during the week. I'm trying to find a good Oly and maybe another sprint or two before the Augusta HIM. My biking and swimming are way behind my running, as I have a good bit of prior experience in running before I got into tri's.

Do you have any sort of training plan in mind? 

Hi everyone!

Feels like I've been away forever. We came home from vacation a couple of days ago. While on vacation I was a big slug. soooooo LAZY. but it felt good until I remembered on my way home that I have a 10 mi super hilly race on Sunday. UGH! so I have been up and running a couple of mornings since coming home. Hills are on tap for tomorrows workout.

Sounds like everyone has been doing well - keep up the good work!

Yeah I'm modifying the silver intermediate BT HIM plan for my base (basically just not doing as much) and when I'm 20 weeks out do the plan to the T. But the plan goes about like this most weeks.

Mon: 1 hour Easy spin on the bike or trainer
Tues: 40 min Run, 1 hour Swim
Wed: 90 min Bike, 1 hour weights (I don't really have time for the weights)
Thur: 45 min Run, 45 min Swim
Fri: 45 min Bike easy, 30 min run or swim
Sat: 3 hour long ride
Sun: 2 hour long Run

Yeah, my plans is going to be more or less as follows during peak training.

M-off
T-run 60 min with speed work + swim
W-brick ride 60+run 20-30,
Th-ride 90ish min with speed work,
Fri-swim + potentially a run,
sat-brick=ride 3 hrs then run 30-40 min,
Sun-run 90+min + swim (swims will be a max of around 3,000).

Great workouts, everybody. I'm especially impressed by anyone who can just throw down 13 miles. That's awesome.

My 100m ride (the Montauk Century) is drawing ever nearer. I got my t-shirt that I pre-ordered in the mail today which brought it home a little. Pray for warm temperatures and fair winds. Last year, it was low 40's and raining when we started out and never got much above 50 all day. And the winds were hellishly unpredictable. I swore I'd never do it again after that. Silly, silly me.....

I will say this--if I wake up the day of the ride and it's 40 degrees and raining, I'm rolling over and going back to sleep.

I have a 100 miler this weekend.  Last weekend we were like, arm warmers?  No arm warmers?  (I went without).  This Sunday, the day of the ride, it's supposed to be 87 out.

I'll definitely be thinking good weather thoughts for your ride!  Would 70-80 degrees with a light breeze and low humidity be acceptable?

Edited by jmkizer 2010-04-28 7:55 AM

A century in my mind seems alot tougher than a half marathon. I rode for 60 miles the other day and my quads were on fire and killing me when I was done. I held 17.4 mph and I was at the limit to about how far I could go. Kudos to yall for getting after it on the bike! I just need more time in the saddle. I have an hour long ride this afternoon! 

At the moment both of those seem a long way off for me!

Where does the ride start? Babylon/Bayshore area maybe? I'm originally from the South Shore on the Island and it's flat but it's also WINDY!! Especially out by Montauk. To get home, do you hop on the train does the organizer have buses?

Tried my first interval run session today and, although it was tough, I have to say I was impressed with my average pace. I can see how it can help improve running performance.

The Montauk Century starts at the Babylon LIRR station. It’s generally a very flat ride, except, in a cruel twist, all of the big hills are in the last 15 miles or so. Two years ago we had a tailwind for the whole ride and I averaged about 18mph for the whole thing. Last year, between the rain and the wind and the cold, it was more like 16, I think.

When you arrive at Montauk, they feed you and there are showers and massages. They load your bike on a truck and take it back to Penn Station and you take the LIRR back to Penn and pick up your bike. It’s a fun event, but you actually spend almost as much time on the LIRR than you do riding. It’s about 90 minutes to Babylon from Penn, and then 3.5 hours from Montauk back to NYC. The ride itself takes me between 5 and 6 hours.

The century isn’t a race, so in that sense, it’s easier than a half-mary. That said, I’m definitely more beat up after the 6 hours or so of riding than I was after the 2h of running in the half-mary that I did a few years ago. I don’t typically go that long, so my back and shoulders are all jacked up by the time I get to the finish line.

Last year, I rode through those nasty conditions and all the way to the finish line. As I reached the dismount line, I didn’t unclip quickly enough and toppled over right onto my friend and her brand new Cervelo P2C. Luckily I didn’t damage her bike, but I tore a hole in my saddle and had to replace it.

Yeah, it's apples and oranges for me too.  I am doing this century with a group of friends and we'll probably average about 18.  There are three rest stops where we stop and mess around.  I don't think that I have another century until August but several metrics in there, often with the same group.  Right now I am doing two group rides a week and two solo rides a week plus a morning spin class (which works out well schedule-wise).

So what did your interval session involve?  I want to get past my first race, then I hope to work on getting faster.

I am with you - I despise 40 and rain. Give me 0 degrees and snow any day. In all seriousness, hope the weather turns out ok and you have fun.

Those group rides sound great! You sure are lucky to have a group to ride with

No idea if I did it correctly but I basically did 2 mins at an easy pace then 1 min at a fairly hard pace and repeated for 15mins with 4mins easy run at the end to cooldown a bit.

That sounds good to me. Another thing I do sometimes is I’ll run at my normal pace, then speed up to a faster, near sprinting pace for 10 strides, back to normal pace for 10 strides, then fast pace for 20, normal for 20, etc, until I’m running at the fast pace for 100 strides. I try to do this towards the end of a long run, and depending on how I feel, I’ll either stop after the 100 stride interval and continue the run at the normal pace or pyramid back down to 10 before resuming.

I’m sure it has a name, but I don’t know what it is.

I'm getting excited about the century on Sunday.  Right now, the forecast looks hot, dry and windy (15-20 mph according to one forecast).  

What's everyone else doing this weekend?

I'm Housebound again, mind you I'm feeling pleased with my self as i replaced my brake leavers and handlebar tape yesterday depending on work im sort of planing a 120k ride next week 60 there and 60 back

Son's tee ball game was cancelled, so the wife and are doing a 20 mile bike ride and then some swimming.