Erin's "Insanity is Relative" Group - CLOSED (Page 7)

I have my 5K Saturday morning and I just picked up my race bib....

I'M NUMBER 1!!

which, of course, only means I was the first to pay last Fall, but still kinda cool.

Wow, Jamie... that is definitely an 'unexpected turn' to say the least. I hope the rest of your week went better and I hope yesterday's race went well.

~  ~ ~

Last week's goal: get in the pool twice, two bike rides, kettlebells (Tues) and 1 run.

Didn't do so great. I'm still battling with a lot of work / personal (some are intertwined) issues. I didn't really do anything last week. I did make it to kettlebells though.

This week's goal: 2 swims (Mon, Tues), Kettlebells (Tues), 1 bike (Wed) & 2 runs (Thurs, Sat).

I've decided that I need to focus more on my weaker areas.  I'm going to make myself do more swimming and running this week.

I'm not going to neglect my cycling but I'm going to work more bricks into my cycling days and shorten my rides some.  I started last Thursday with that.  I did 600 yards swimming then went for an 18 mile ride.  There was a few hour break between the two but it's a start.

I'll keep you posted on how it works for me.  Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thank you all for your good wishes!  It was a great race yesterday. It was only my second open water swim but I felt very comfortable in the water.  The bike course was interesting with a lot of turns and just a little wind.  The run was brutally hot, but I had not pushed really hard on the bike so I felt relatively strong and passed a lot of people.  Probably had a little too much energy at the end, actually, which told me I could have gone a bit harder, but pacing at this longer distance is a big challenge for me and I think I need more experience at the distance.

There was one issue I want to get some advice on...in my wave of women 0-49, a big group (at least 25 people) cut the swim course.  I'm sure it wasn't intentional but the main pack missed the first buoy.  I realized the mistake, yelled, and then went back and around the buoy, but no one else did.  They didn't have a kayak or anyone at the turn to direct people, or disqualify them.  Afterwards, people were quite aware they had cut the course but did not seem to report it or disqualify themselves.

Should I email the race director?  I don't want to be one of THOSE PEOPLE who gripe and complain after a great race where the RD worked really hard.  It's not the placing... I don't think I would have placed even if all those people had been DQ'd, nor would it make me happy if I did so because it just makes the results invalid.  Who knows who I would have beat if everyone had done the same swim course?  But I do think the RD should maybe do something to try and prevent the issue next year, maybe post a kayak in that area for example.  My friend who accidentally cut the course was also very unhappy, because she felt that her results were invalid right off the bat.

Interested in what you all think.

How did you guys do with meeting your goals last week?  What are your goals this week? (is this helpful to anyone... just checking)

Congrats on a great race Jamie!  I would say that it doesn't hurt to email the RD about your concerns.  There are so many details that go into running a race that sometimes a detail is missed.  In my experience, RDs mostly want to make their race the best experience possible and they're open to feedback.  There's probably no way the results will get adjusted for yesterday's race, but I'm willing to be that they'd take steps to make sure it won't happen next year.

Cynthia - how'd your 5k go?

Discussion on "weaker" areas and training.  I'm a strong swimmer and in the beginning, it was very hard for me to admit that swimming 4x a week (with a team) + tri training was not going to work.  I've finally had to cut my swimming back to 2x a week and also be ok with the fact that I'm swimming slower than when I was ONLY swimming.  And really, I'm ok with that.

When I was starting out, I definitely focused most on running, as that was my greatest weakness.  I got good results, too, and my running improved a bunch.  With my IM training last year, it was more bike-focused, probably for 2 reasons:  1) the key to a good IM is a good solid bike.  The goal was to get through the bike and feel good. 2) more running during training = more potential for injuries.  I ran just barely enough to keep me trained and healthy for my race.  Now that I've moved down to 70.3s this year, I'm staying with the bike-focused training and I've found that my run speed and endurance are just fine.  But as always, your experience will vary.

I had some HTFU this weekend - cold and rainy, with a visit from my mother in law.  We told her about 4 times that May/June is REALLY bad because we are so busy (and offered to buy her a plane ticket in July) but she decided to visit us anyways.  Just really, super awesome of her.  I actually like her, but this "I know you said this but I'm just going to do what's best for me" attitude really rubs me the wrong way.  I planned on running off to Boulder for Saturday to get in a 60 mile ride, but it was cold and rainy.  So I sent my husband and his mom to the museum while I spent 3 hrs on the trainer.  Blech.  But I got 'er done.  Then Sunday I had a 3.5 hr brick.  It was cold and humid, but dry, so I escaped the house to get it done.  I met my group and all but one person was standing around, being too wimpy to ride in 40 degree temps.  They got a good laugh at me with my "I have to leave the house NOW".  I did a good 30 miles of hills then ran 8 pretty fast miles.  First run in 2 weeks due to my (now hopefully fixed) shin splints.  No time for a nap after, as we had to drive 1.5 hrs to her sister's house for a family dinner.  You know, because I have time for a 6 hour detour in the middle of my heavy training month.  UGH.  But we left her at her sister's house, so my committment was only 2 days.  In summary: HTFU on getting my training done in icky weather AND I don't think I was too snappy at my MIL.  Successful weekend.

Goals for this week:   1) recover  2) run, bike, swim X 1 each and none of those workouts are very hard  3) get organized and plan training for the summer  4) Santa Fe Half Century on Sunday!  My first ride over 44 miles and my husband's first organized athletic event ever. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what apps people use, because I don't really use any. 

My race was loads of fun - I met my goals - pace and "run every step."  Yippee!  It's an all-women event that is put on by a great organization.  

Tonight is datenight and my husband asked me out for a bike ride!  Not sure where/what we will do for dinner, but I'm looking forward to a ride on real roads!  Now, do I do my morning scheduled trainer ride in addition to the date night ride?

Sunday I have my first ever Du.  I'm feeling a bit daunted by the bike (only 7 miles) as it has some sustained climbs and I don't have that much .  we'll see how it goes, I'll certainly learn my gearing!!

Jamie- I would contact the RD.  I'm surprised there were no kayakers there to catch the accidental re-routing!  How could the RD not have boats at the turns?  that's always a congestion spot where swimmers can get panicked in the churning mass.  Seems a safety issue. 

I have not joined the new age and have a dumb phone-- but BT has a droid app for syncing your phone-training to the BT logs.  That would seem ideal!  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bt&hl=en

I haven't had chafing issues, but recall girls in highschool having issue with armpit/arm chafing.  Even then they just slapped on body-glide (or then it was simply petroleum jelly) and kept going.  That said, a different cut of shirt may help.  I just got a sleeveless shirt that I like - has the breeziness of a tank, but underarm cut of a Tshirt.  

Cynthia

Droid apps... I have no idea.  I have a Droid but I use my Garmin for all my workouts.

Kelly - I have some tanks that really rub me and I just don't wear them anymore.  You can try some Body Glide.  I also try to keep my arms loose and not tacked to my side.  Doesn't always help though.

Date night bike ride complete-- first ride on real asphalt!  A 10 miler with about 200' climbing.  Good prep for my Sunday Du.  

I like my new bike!  She rides well off the trainer

Here was my swim workout this morning - its a good one!

Warm-up - 500 choice (I recommend 200 swim, 200 pull, 100 kick)

Drill - 8 x 25 distance per stroke (smooooth swimming)

Main set - repeat 3x.  1st and 3rd repeats are swim, 2nd repeat is kick.

4 x 100 moderate

4 x 50 descend 1 through 4 (meaning 1st is moderate, last is FAST)

4 x 25 FAST

200 cool down (I recommend pulling)

3000 total

To modify, you could make all those 4x's 3x's or 2x's, or you could cut out a whole set of repeats.

Happy swimming!

Recovery weeks...On the one hand, it's kind of nice to not be working out twice a day.  I can't believe how much free time I have. 

On the other hand, I am going CRAAAAAAZZZZZYYYYY. 

And the really bad part is I am filling the free time with researching tri bikes. Guess what?  I want one.  BE CAREFUL.  If you stand too close to nice bikes at a race they start whispering to you.  I'm pretty sure that's why they rack us so close together.

Jaime

LOL!  thanks for a laugh to start the day!  I heard some of those tri bikes whispering to me at the bike shop when I got my roadie a month or so back... but then the price tag screamed at me and that, despite the rudeness of yelling, overrode the polite whispering.

Enjoy shopping!

Cynthia

So I've spend the last few days thinking a lot about how to improve my next race, and especially where the most "bang for my buck" might be.  It appears that my weakest area is still the bike.  For example, I finished 7/15 in the swim (with course issues!), 5/15 in the bike, and 13/15 on the bike.  I have a good carbon fiber road bike, so even though I am currently drooling over tri bikes, I don't think there is a quick equipment fix.

I am bummed because this is the case even after serious concentrated work on the bike over the off-season.  I suppose my volume might have been a little low for the oly distance but I was doing plenty of hills and interval workouts.  My training buddy is having the same experience and she even did a very intense "time trial" spin class for the past 3 months, as well as much more volume than me.  Why aren't we getting better on the bike?  Can anyone recommend approaches or training plans that might help?

Or do we just need new bikes? 

I've been doing some thinking on this (and am in a similar situation).

Couple of questions to ponder:

Are you training on the same terrain that you are racing on?  Flats, wind, hills?  I trained for 3 years in Houston (flat, windy) and was a decent cyclist (I would hold my position from my fast swim).  Then I move to Denver and these dang hills destroy me.  I even did a pretty focused bike trainer interval plan + weights this winter to get better on the hills.  I can't really tell if I'm better.... I'm still back of the pack in my training rides, but the hills feel easier.  My true test will be how I do on the Boise course.  Last time I raced, I lived in Houston and that dang bike course killed me.  Now I train on hills bigger than the Boise course, so it should feel comfortable.

What kind of training are you doing?  All the same distance and speed?  Are you mixing in hill repeats or HARD interval training?  I try to get an even mix of distance, hills, and intervals so I can handle whatever is thrown at me.

I've also heard the only way to get faster on the bike is to ride the bike more.  I think there's a pretty long learning/improvement curve on the bike and you just need to keep riding and be patient.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

Cynthia- how'd your do go?

Everyone have a good weekend full of lots of training?  How'd you do against your goals.  Have any new goals for this week?

I'm less than 3 weeks out from the Boise 70.3!  Did a half marathon yesterday, told myself to just treat it as a training run and not push it (I don't have time to recover from a hard half mary).  At mile 10, I noticed that I could easily PR and went for it.  I PR'd by 1:50.  Sweet!  But I have some race carnage.... I jammed my ankle last week and running yesterday re-tweaked it.  So I'm doubling up on the aleve, RICE, etc.  There's no bruising, it just hurts.  Hopefully a few days of babying it will do the trick.

I did my first half century ride with my husband yesterday (his first organized athletic event ever!) and we had a blast.  My legs felt kind of dead from the start so I just spun easy up the hills but it was lots of fun. 

This is kind of a lull in my season.  I have a half marathon in a couple weeks so I need to run, but otherwise my plan is to recover from triathlon and figure out my training plan for the next 3 months.  Still trying to figure out the bike issues, thanks for your advice, Erin.  My season is potentially so long here I think it helps to take a mental few weeks off in the middle.