Manatee Mentors 2014--CLOSED (begging & bribes MAY work) (Page 74)

Chris! I see you are considering rev3 Florida. I am too. Still deciding if I want to do it and, if so, the oly or HIM. I'm leaning toward the OLY now cuz I'm not feeling the bike right now, but that may change.

I'm going to start to log my mileage with an abacus.

In all seriousness it sounds like I heavily rely on my log for a lot of the stuff you guys use other resources for. So, if they did sell I'd be SOL.

Google Calendar?  5-10 minutes every two weeks.

My only color coordination is Training Plan is green and Personal calendar is blue.

It is ever changing, according to my needs:

2014 Training Calendar - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhkrLV2FGufadEFsQzJES0xxSjJ2SG9uTlhFZnEySEE&usp=sharing

I am trying to figure out more detail entries for speed days, hills, etc. But the google calendar may solve that.

I am considering the Oly, because I need to get better in the water. That distance puts more premium on swimming, which would force me to train more on it.

Dinner again if you are here? Bring your bros next time.

TLDR:  I bought a book - Friel's Your Best Triathlon - and use his plan as the backbone for my season.  I then look at my A races and which other ones I want to do and try to line them up with "rest and test" weeks, and use a few other sources for the details of individual workouts.  But it's mostly the Friel overall plan for the whole season (worked OK for me last year, so I'm using the same backbone this year).

Details…  

By using the overall backbone he provides, but modifying where I want to, I'm able to modify within the season for a sport focus or an individual race (a HM or a 10k, etc.).  But it keeps me on track for the whole season.  

For the individualization:  If it's a running event, I'll usually use a Higdon plan for the actual workouts in the run slots of Friel (with some personal spin to make it fun).  I have recently been  using Bernhardt and Hansen's book Swim Workouts for Triathletes (and really like it), selecting the type of workout that fits the general description in Friel.  For the bike, I look at what Marc, Ben and Arend are doing and totally pirate their workouts from Strava!  Although with lower W's...  (only kinda kidding - I do look at what others do and try those, as well as creating ones that fit the Friel plan).

I never stress too much about what's coming up.  I pretty much know the schedule and can always just flip to the Friel book and see at a glance what my week and month look like.  The only thing that took any real thought was lining it up with my race schedule (which never fits perfectly, as I would race every weekend if I could!).

As for logging, as opposed to just organizing, I log here and Strava, predominantly.  Once a month or so I'll also load up to Training Peaks and Garmin Connect (out of some weird concern that I'll lose the data - as if losing the data means I'll actually lose the fitness!  Crazy, but me).  If Strava figures out the swim, I'll really only log here to be able to have training discussions on BT, as I like the Strava interface (although it's not got any fora).

Matt

Hahaha! Done

I'm dying. Please tell me you didn't actually cycle in that. It might be worse than how I usually dress. *might* Although it is giving me new ideas for wedding outfits ... BA HA HA. Voted and plugged for you on FB. Hope that's OK. Well, too late now.

Speaking of weddings--Kingsley and I will be legally married sometime this year (possibly on the Busselton IM course!) in Australia. I absolutely refuse to deal with one more item of Indonesian bureaucracy (which, like Hydra, means 3 items, each of which will spawn 3 more ad nauseam).

In the meanwhile, the first wedding ceremony/celebration will be in Jakarta on April 17. That's awfully fast. Oh well! With Mutti in steady decline, the sooner the better. I will be taking her to Germany in May to visit her remaining brothers and family--it'll definitely be the last possible time.

As most of you know, I haven't been on BT much (for me) this year because of extremely demanding family and professional matters, and then I've also been insanely busy with the Indonesian triathlon and endurance sports tidal wave. Oh, and a few Ironman attempts and injuries

It concerns me too that even my requests/input haven't been replied to. Now if I write Ron personally, I always get a reply--but he/someone needs to address each concern, particularly from paying members, particularly from members who have done a lot of free work for him (beta testers, moderators, writers, etc.) I will be writing Ron personally but including many of your observations, stressing the fact that it AIN'T about me personally.

HOWEVER ... as far as TT, it seems to me, sometimes has a critical mass of core respondents and things are swinging. When it drops below that critical mass, it severely slows down. Definitely not naming any names or calling anyone out, but a few people have made it clear that it irritates the hell out of them when I post in TT. That alone makes it worth it for me to do so . Seriously--I barely have time to post, much less post frivolous shyte (although that's a lot of what made the old BT fun), so I see great irritation = lively debate. Maybe I'm delusional. (Well, I certainly am, but maybe or not in that respect).

As for Indonesia and triathlon--I've somehow become an elite triathlete (this happened entirely without my knowledge or consent) but I have my first fully sponsored (air and ground transport, accommodations, race + all events) tri on April 19 (yes, two days after the first wedding and yes, Kingsley is also doing the tri). I hope there's a world record for slowest oldest fattest pro triathlete, or I can set it.

In the meanwhile, I've struggled with lingering fatigue, apathy, weight gain. All "normal" stuff post-IM as well as post-viral. After Jojo (jobaxas) posted a great article on FB--premise is that "normal" medical metrics are a statistical likelihood of absence of disease, but by no means indicate normal health for an individual, much less optimal health, much less optimal health for an endurance athlete--I went and had some more tests done. In any case my shrink insisted on it because I've been dragging azz for a couple months now.

Anyway, the results were interesting and some changes are in order.

Enough vomit from me? Yessirreemaams and bless your heart.

I am keeping up with the thread, reading everything, and will try to respond to as much as I can--bless your hearts indeed in the non-Southern fashion for checking up on me and your amazing support. I love you all. All of you to your very last corpuscle. Of which I have fewer than I should right now!

Yanti - You continue to amaze. Congratulations so much on so many positive things, primarily on finding and keeping Kingsley. If we have to lose time with you, it better be for a good reason. And there is no reason better than love! And you being sponsored truly rocks! That couldn't happen to a more deserving person, I know you pour your heart and soul into this sport from many different angles, not simply training and competing.

Congrats, I'll go fight this onslaght of allergies I've just run into 

Yanti!!

A wedding date  YAYYYYYYY!  Very happy for you and Kingsley!

Traveling with Mutti to Germany will be difficult at best....my thoughts & prayers knowing that once her routine is switched up that things could get crazy(ier) for you.

As to the TT issues....I have come to the conclusion that most of the forums are just not worth investing a lot of time into anymore.  TT threads are either a brag on the accomplishment de jour or a "critique this"  or downright tossing out a gauntlet.  The old guard left the challenge forum and it isn't any fun any more.  CoJ  well---I rarely posted there to begin with because people got so argumentative....only mores now.

Yanti, it's so awesome to hear from you and so glad to hear you have many great, happy things going on in your life.  You are very deserving - I've said it before, I love when good things happen for good people.

Just to add one final thing about my BT gripe, other than I'm sorry I opened a can of worms.   I've been a paying member for the majority of my time here, it's only recently (last month or so) I've let my membership slip to 'free' status.  I do enjoy BT for the social aspect (manatees!), the logging, and while I do browse TT and COJ and a few other forums, the topics don't seem to grab me like they once did.  The friendships I've made with this group keep me coming back and help keep me moving forward; there are some very inspiring people in here in many ways, not just athletically. Is that spelled right?  Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to the manatees for being all kinds of awesome!

Yanti, congratulations!!!  That's awesome. 

Sounds like taking Mutti to Germany is a good plan, although I imagine it will be a tough trip.

It's totally ok that you plugged the contest.  I need all the votes I can get.  I was super entertained.  Oh, and I TOTALLY rode for a day in that!  I was doing a 2-day ride in Wisconsin in July, so I only packed sleeveless jerseys.  The morning we left it was like 50.  I was cold and that's all I had!!!

First off, great to see you Yanti!  It's been too long!  We all understand that you've been not feeling yourself and that you are out of town/in your second home. 

Huge Congratulations on the Wedding!  I'm sure that I speak for the group when I say we are so happy for you!

And congrats on becoming an elite triathlete.

Sorry to hear about Mutti.  Not unexpected but it still sucks.

Manatee hugs and flipper swishes.

Take care!

P.S. My first reaction to the wedding news was "for reals?!"  I didn't want to be punked (again).

Agreed.  It seems to be a lot more ST style than before.

Janyne, I tried the Google calendar idea this morning, actually I set it for all of next week. Day 1 is a success, I set it to pop up as a reminder on my phone, and viola`, I have success. My "training for the day" and any details on the workout are readily available. Thanks!

I was thinking about the Google Calendar thing yesterday while I drove. I like having my training in BT and I do get the reminder emails (as long as I keep paying, I suppose) but I like what you were saying about tentative/definite races.  Right now I have a countdown app that I use as my tentative but I'd like to have a better system.

Speaking of races... I still have the 7k in just over a week and a 12 mile (to be split somehow between me and DS2) a week after that.  the 7k will be slow as we will be going at the pace of my SIL and DS1 who've not been training regularly.  The 12 mile is the One Run For Boston and we are supposed to maintain a minimum 10 min/mile pace. Hopefully I'll be able to manage that.

I saw the oral surgeon this morning and he agreed that there are no complications, I'm just one of "THOSE" people (my emphasis, not his) that has trouble with this surgery. He complimented my restraint in not trying to train through the pain but letting my body recover. He said he has a patient that did a HM the weekend after the surgery and is having complications weeks after.He did give me a new scrip but it came with a LOT of warnings so I'm a bit concerned for my kidneys if i decide to use it!

Glad I'm not the only one

CONGRATS YANTI AND KINGSLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I let myself slip to super slacker status for about two weeks. Only got in one run and a bike ride. On the other hand, I did lots of running around getting my house fixed up after my FIL spent days painting during their visit. You cannot imagine how many times I've been to Marshall's, Ross, Target, Kohl's, WalMart, Big Lots, B,B and B in the past ten days.  I've gotten the kids' bathrooms done, Mak's bedroom almost redone in "big girl" style (Taylor is jealous of her double bed), and the downstairs living room rearranged. Moving Mak out of her toddler bed involved hauling a double bed upstairs and king mattress downstairs (alone, cuz I'm too impatient to wait for help when I get an idea), then switching bed frames with my son and assembling head/foot board. Was tired at the end of that day.

I've basically not been on BT til last night, and I don't even know how far back I've missed! Read RRs...Then my eyes started drooping when I tried to do some more catching up. A short run and first swim in months wore me out yesterday. lol  But good news is that my log is looking so colorful this week!!

Her bedroom so far, and why it was worth it.

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Nope. That makes at least three of us.

Awesome "for reals" news!

Wow. You've been busy!!!!!!!!!

I had a hell workout last night. It's been just pouring here in Seattle. It rains here a lot, obviously but it rarely pours.

Anyhoo, I was supposed to do WU/CD and 4 miles @ 6:38. I was wearing all black and the main group of girls were doing 4 @ 6:40 so I opted to run with them until we got to the trail around the lake so that I didn't get hit with a car, then to run a bit ahead so I could hit my pacing (I know, it's just 2 seconds ...)

The trail had like 1-2" standing water about half the time. At first I was avoiding it then, about the time my shoe filled with water I said screw it.

Anyway we did like 6:36, 6:40 then I hit the trail and did 6:34 and finished with 6:30. Just total crap pacing. I felt like total shyte afterward, too.

It just doesn't having me feeling very confident for the HM this weekend. Nor does the 15K race from last week. I hope I can get some mojo back here soon.

How far back does this thought process go? Things seem a little different on here now as compared to about 2 years ago when I first came on, but not sure it's really any more or less like ST. Out in TT at least. Only been in the forums outside of that main bundle in the past year or so. I think some of why it seems different (for me at least) is that I'm different from back then. I'm looking for different things. Or rather, I'm being more selective on what subjects to follow and discuss. Things like training methods and techniques interest me the most, so that's what I'll be involved in more of the time. Other things may or may not have actually changed at all, but are less appealing now which can skew my view of how things seem in general. Don't know what the challenge forum used to be like, but do see where it could be utilized a lot more. Kind of surprised it's not as the ones I've been in have been fun.

Well for starters... it was in some crazy conditions. So 2 seconds or 4 seconds in those conditions is going to be (hopefully) different than what you face this weekend. Secondly, lets be real, you always BRING IT! And, of course, it's not Boston. That is your primary goal, right?

Of course, my attitude these days is based on a forced week+ rest so i'm trying to remind myself that running will still be there when I'm able to get back to it.