QUEEN ZIP & KathyG - CLOSED (Page 8)

Hi folks,  Got in a 30 minute swim today.  I am hoping to add 5 minutes to my swim each week in January so I am happy to get going.  It also put me at 110% for my December limiter challenge.  Tomorrow I'm planning a 4 mile run, outside hopefully.

In regards to morning workouts, my daughter is a college runner and she has trouble keeping her weight up.  Since she practices in the morning she tries to eat a very hearty snack at bedtime so she is not too starving before practice.  She also eats a banana slathered with peanutbutter as soon as she gets up.  Hope this might help your situation RedSoxChick.

Oh yeah- Polar Bear Plunge on tap for noon 1/1/2009, film will follow!

I love the name and glad you are doing Patriot. I plan on doing it solo and more BTers there the better

Congrats on pushing your Limiter!

I was thinking about joining the L Street Brownies in Southie for the Plunge... until RedSoxChick smacked some sense into me with the forecast of Real Feel around 1º F!  (Actually, just looking it up now it says Real Feel -6 due to 27mph winds!)  I think I'll try to join on a year where the air temps are a little closer to the water temps. Brrrrr!

Hey Ya'll!  Just checking in.  I'm all good here.  I've been following the Sprint swim focused plan pretty well. I'm off from work this week so I'm taking advantage of the free time to work out.  Tried Yoga for the first time this morning.  That was nuts, but cool.  Later I went back before dinner for a 18 min swim & 13 min run.

I'm going again tomorrow for yoga.  Then I'll go back to the gym for the 22 min swim as accoring to the plan.  I hate swimming!  How do you stay positive about something you don't like to do?  I know my attitude is self defeating.  I'm just MAKING myself get in there and do it.   Like punisment or something.  I hope in time I'll like it better. Any advice?

Look at it like your least favorite house chore (ie the bathroom or finding UFO's in the fridge).  You hate doing that chore but know you also hate having a gross mess in your house and you go do it. 

I use my trip to Starbucks for coffee as a reward post swim --getting up before dawn to hit the cold water needs rewards  

I used to struggle with certain workouts.  Hard thing about not liking swimming is you need to be relaxed to swim well so being frustrated doesn't help. I have often gotten frustrated with swimming so I do understand. To train for IM and doing 1-2+hour swims I bought a swim MP3 player to keep my mind busy...really helped me with my swims.

A mental trick my coach had me do is to rename my hardest workout of the week "my favorite". It was at times run intervals...I got my whole family into it and they'd ask when is your favorite workout...how was your favorite workout, etc. What it helped do is made it light hearted and silly a bit. For me it did make a huge difference for me getting workout done and did shift my mind some about it.

I came up with a name of an animal to be like in the water..I picked a fish...Pike...as they are strong, lean and fast. It became a big joke with me, my family, my coach and my BT friends. My coach named all my swim work outs Bad Azz Pike swims, when I raced I wrote Pike or Iron Pike on my swim cap. It truly became a fun thing with me. Many BT friends mentioned  they thought about the Pike while doing a hard swim like doing a race when it was 55. 

Can you swim with someone? Meet someone at gym if they don't swim and hang out afterwards? 

I used to reward myself with going out to Panera after my longest workout of the week with IM training.

So ideas might be train with others, meet others after wards, rename it to a goofy name, distract yourself.

Morning everyone! I'm really sore this morning...did my long run on a treadmill   yesterday. My hips took a beating, and that doe not happen when I run outside. The weather made it impossible to get outside, but maybe I would have been better off skipping it altogether. I  am training for a  half marathon coming up at the end of February. My goal is to beat my previous time by anything!

 Time to go torture myself on the foam roller......

Love the visualization stuff and being a body double for Dana Torres would rock! Don't forget she is 40+!  I was thinking about why I like the swim even though I am still really learning proper form.  I realized that I like feeling relatively weightless, I like the quiet associated with the water and mostly I think that even though I am in a chloriney pool I imagine myself in a beautiful tropical lagoon somewhere and I am swimming peacefully through aquamarine water.  This sensation really helps me to slow down and relax which helps my swimming.  I know it sounds crazy but whenever I am in the water I think tropical even if it isn't.

Off to do my morning run.  It is most untropical and no amount of imagination will overcome 27*, windy and heavy snow.  It will be quiet though which does put me in a Zen place.

Have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

Greetings!  Boy, that lentil soup sounds terrific.  I, too, am a big fan of lentils and brown rice.  I can't wait to try it.

I swim with the Rose Bowl Masters, but I can't say that their workouts have helped me any as I keep getting slower and slower (in one of the articles there was the phrase "terminal mediocrity" and that describe me).  So, in January I am really going to focus  on the swimming drills found here (and on the TriSwimCoach DVD).  My problem is that the RB Masters program doesn't really encourage you to be doing your own thing while everyone else is doing the workout.  I can't keep up with the workout so I am not sure why it matters.  I pay the high fees to swim at the Rose Bowl so that I can swim in a 50 meter pool.  They also have a 25 yard rec pool with ust lap swimmers and no coached workout, but that pool is a whole lot warmer and even a short swim just wipes you out so that isn't a practical solution.  I am going to talk to the coach on Tuesday and let him know and see if he will be OK with me just working on drills for January.  Wish me luck with this.

As for my bio.  I am 53.  Non-athletic.  Would like to lose 15 pounds and 15% body fat.  Not sure how those two will correlate.  I enjoy doing triathlons and did my first in 2000, but have slacked off in the last few years, but really want to get back into doing more of them.  I would love to have a friend to do them with, but alas, I have no one and do them by myself.  I am a back of the pack kind of person, but comfortable with that.  My goal for this year is to do the LA Triathlon in 3:30 (instead of the 4:20 of 2008).   My significant other is mildly supportive, but also resents the time my training takes away from being at home with him.  He did get into the whole "peach" thing and was always asking me what I was going to do to get my peach so that was helpful. 

I weigh in at Weight Watchers today and I am expecting it to be a really good number. 

Have a good day and happy training!

Leah 

I had to google Dana Torres to see those abs since I've only seen her in a full suit before... what a hottie! Maybe I need to not ignore my pool workouts so much!

Got my last run in of 2008. It felt sooooo good! Well, actually my knees hated going out at first and I have this weird pain in the outer right foot (wearing new sneaks and orthotic inserts for the first time together... probably need to go back to the regular insoles or just break these in a little more) but the snow is BEAUTIFUL and my honey made me a playlist that is perfect for running (and some of the songs made me nearly weepy). I love this town, too - snowy and slushy and I still ran by 4 or 5 bike commuters!

Such a perfect day to get out and get my HR up and reflect on the past year and what's coming next. I'm grateful for being with someone supportive of my training, of having an inkling of a plan and a group that'll help encourage me and keep me on track. I got a little bit of a sweet zone out there today and was thinking of you folks when I realized I hit it. We're gonna kick a lot of butt in '09... even if it is only our own!

Good morning everyone. It's going to be another low key day. I've got a run planned for the day. My husband and I are going out to dinner tonight but nothing much more, he's still sick and we won't be staying up late.

Kristin I'm sorry that the kids aren't feeling well. I hope they get better soon .

Happy New Year's everyone.

Have a great New Years Eve.

Thanks for the advice.  I lke the visualization idea - tropical. That's nice.  Looking like Dara Torres wouldn't be a bad thing either!  I'll have to think of a type of fish I can be something other than a flounder (ther just lay on the bottom w/ their eyes all crazy - how I feel).  I'll also need a good reward - Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk sounds real good!  I do have a coworker that's coming around to my side slowly on working out.  I can probably talk her into hanging out with me at the pool while I train.  I'm beginning to see a light.  Thanks Ya'll!

Yogaed again today - more like CardioYoga!  Tried to swim but they closed the pool 10 minutes into my swim.  Don't see a return trip back today.

 Happy New Year!!!

I'm having a hard time counting my laps swimming and while researching ideas to help I found the article.  It cracked me up!

http://www.active.com/story.cfm?CATEGORY=swimming&NUM=2&CHECKSSO=0&STORY_ID=8608