Eriq's Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 8)

Brian K
what kind of knee pain are you experiencing? is the pain on the medial (inside where your knees would touch) or lateral (outside towards your arms if your arms were at your side)?

i'm no doctor, being married to a PT and just reading a ton, i'll give my two cents. medial pain could be weak glutes. weak glutes can lead to your pelvis tilting forward and cause your knee to drop inwards when running. lateral pain could be ITB syndrome. bust out a foam roller and work on loosening up those muslces.

Jana
if you're worried about being outdoors, then start slow. find some grass that you can practice clipping in and out. and don't worry about falling, we all do it. i remember teaching my wife how to clip in and out and i totally fell over. HAHA! =P

for simulating hills... your body doesn't know the difference between riding flat or hilly terrain. all it knows it that more work is required. so to simulate climbing, just put your bike into a harder gear and go. sure position might be a bit different because of the incline, but really most people just slide a bit further back in the saddle. harder gear, lower cadence = hill training. TADA!

sufferfest, no input here. never tried it. i have my own workouts that i do on my trainer.

Okay so finally got around to looking over some training logs...

Danelle - looks like your swim is getting a bit better. not sure about the sucking in water rather than air. happens to everyone i guess. could also be a lack of body/head rotation. hard to say though without seeing your stroke. and i'm jealous of your run. i wish my tempo runs were at 7:15s. sheesh! =P

Thomas - good work on the 100s and 200s. don't worry so much about the breakdown. happens to everyone. with time and more work in the pool, you'll be able to swim longer distances and maintain that stroke. just keep with it. with the pec soreness, it's usual but if your keeping good technique, usually it's in your lats. but hey, at least it's not your shoulders, that would be a bad sign.

Jana - you 100% after your cold yet? jump squats, eh? how about some wall squats?! cool to see some short intervals on the bike. on those intervals, just don't focus purely on pushing a harder gear. make sure you keep a good natural cadence as well. i know people that will just grind out a super tough gear but at a very low cadence like 60-65. from my understanding, that's not the right way to do power intervals. garmin swim?! how is it? make sure the firmware is up-to-date as well.

Jeff- good consistency. that will get you places!!! i'm looking at the paces for your run and there's big jumps in pace, almost 2 mins/mi from your short to long runs. seems like a lot but not too sure. how are you figuring out the paces for your different runs? maybe HR? i use calculator going off of a run field test. 2 mi easy warm up with some strides near the end. then a 1 mi MAX effort, best done on a track. from there i can calculate my running paces.

Brian (not Brian K) - all i see are the bikes. some good 1hr efforts. if you can keep that pace, you should get to your sub6.

Tony - pretty good week so far. some bike intervals on monday. how'd your brick go yesterday? then followed up with a run today. those legs tired? i'm hoping you don't have bike or run tomorrow...

did i miss anyone? those are the only logs i have saved. if i missed you, send me a link to your log whereever it may be. that's it!!!

yeah i hear you. get in what you can when you can.

and i'm always buried in spreadsheets and databases. somehow, i became known as the excel/access guy at work so all the questions/requests come to me. i'm always writing formulas, coding VB, and linking databases to spit out all sorts of reports. =P

Hi all,

So I'm about 2 weeks into training, and I have to say I'm really enjoying training for multi-events rather than just running or football.

At the moment I'm struggling to do any training in the evenings or weekends due to family commitments, but the weekdays are going well and I feel I’m making improvements in my fitness.

If I get some time at the end of my long swim session I might try to work on my technique a bit. I’ve noticed from previous posts in this thread that I don’t point my toes enough, and probably a number of other things.

I have to say it’s also great reading whatever one else is doing, I’ve trained pretty much on my own for the last 20 years, so even though we don’t train together I love the team spirit and the ability to bounce ideas of each other.

Eriq, Yes the legs are pretty exhausted I did a brick session of swimming and bike today, so I’m looking forward to a rest day, although we have snow here in the UK, so my kids will want to go sledging. That could be more work that another brick session.

Tony.

Ah thanks! So just looking back a few days back...

What's the purpose of running hills on Sat and then another run on Sunday? Just want to know your thought process on this.

Swim looks like it's coming along. How's the feet cramping? Have you been in the pool since? Anything we could possibly help with this?

Good brick on Thurs. How do the legs feel when coming off the bike?

Quick peek at your totals and something that stood out, schedule looks run heavy, light on the bike. I'd have to read through previous posts to get a refresher on your experience and goals.

Eriq,

Don't forget Allie (if she opens up her logs)....

Thanks for the comments, trying to build a good base before building up speed so consitency and time is key now.  My history is to focus on speed without a base so trying something new this year.....

Run paces, since we are doing a half marathon in mid march with only 3 months training we are trying to build a base slowly with run/walks.  This has been less stressfull on the body and allows us to do multi sports.  We started out with 5 min walk and 5 min run 'x' 3 or 4 and we have slowly reduced walk by a min and increased run a minute.  Over three weeks we are doing 4 min walk and 8 minute runs.  We did 8 miles last week, that hurt but my recovery was almost the next day as we went snowboarding with the kids and it didn't really hurt.  I through in a 2 mile full fun and did 9:15's or so to work toward the race.  We are planing for a 10 min mile for half which will be a portion run and walk.  As I get to have a base of 6 miles all run, we will need to talk speed work and bricks.....but I am not there yet.

Thanks  - also helpful to read your comments for others.

Just did a 1,000 swim and have plans for a run and ride today.  Enjoy!!

Great reading how everyone's training is going. I am just happy that for the past 2 weeks I've found time to do 2 spin classes a week along with a 30-40 mile ride and swim twice a week, although for now one swim session is a short 25-30 workout followed by a spin class. 

Still have running committments to take care of before I can really do tri training, and got one of them done today-had a blast pacing the 4:25 group for the Arizona Rock n' Roll marathon. It's my 5th year doing it, and every year I've met great people and heard amazing stories of their athletic journeys. Reminds me why I do this and it's a chance to give back a little by doing a race where I'm not all concerned about me and my goals! I have a 50k I'm thinking of doing in 2 weeks, and then Phoenix Marathon a month later, but I might be pacing a friend doing her first marathon so it wouldn't be racing either. THEN I'll be looking to cut back the running some and increase bike and swim. 

Thanks again for everyone posting questions and even just a workout for the day-it really does help motivate me!

Danelle

Awesome job. Always great to give back to the community, whether it be volunteering, pacing, etc.

If you decide to do the 50k, good luck! And have fun running the Phx Marathon. =)

Allie, looks like you've been putting in some consistent work. Good amount of mileage in the runs. Some handful of 45 min bike rides. I know you are building a base so keep up the good work.

Then about two swims a week. Question about the swim. What does your 600-700 yards look like? Continuous swim? Broken up?

Before I found triathlon, I spent a few years golfing. My golf instructor would always talk about the Four Stages of Competence. You can look this up for yourself if you are unfamiliar with the idea, but I’ll cover stage 2 and 4 briefly…

2 – Conscious incompetence: a person understands that there is a deficit in doing something, but doesn’t know how to address the deficit

4 – Unconscious Competence: through practice, a skill has become second nature and can be repeated easily without even thinking about it.

We can all agree that swimming is highly technical. For many of us starting triathlon with little to no swimming background, we’re at stage 2. We’re conscious that we have to improve our swimming technique, but incompetent on how to go about doing so. And of course we want to get to stage 4 where we’re swimming fast without thinking about it. To get there, you have you learn about what it takes to swim well. I’m sure many of you have watched some youtube videos, read articles, gotten advice from people, etc about better swimming. Let’s put that to the test and see how much you’ve learned regarding good swim form.

I also used to tutor and prep kids for SATs. One of my favorite ways to see if my students had learned the lesson was to have them teach it back to me. So here’s a short video of my wife swimming and there are quite a few things that could be improved about her swim.

What are they? Ready. GO!

swim vid

Thanks for posting your schedule, Stephanie (SweetClaire); you're right, it is motivating and fun to see what everyone is doing. Here's mine:

(My weekly schedule is a little different since I think I should recover a little from my marathon yesterday, and I have to pick up my daughter around midnight Wed (Thursday am) when she arrives home from her inauguration/DC trip. Don't think I'll be getting up at 4 to hit the pool Thursday am!)

Today- 1850 swim (1:02) and 20 mile bike (1:12)-love having a day off!

Tues-am 55 min spin class; pm 60 minutes masters swim 

Wed-am 45 min run?

Thurs-off

Fri-am 60-70 min. tempo run, around 7-8 miles

Sat-usually long run day, 10-15 miles. I might cut it short around 10 and swim later in the day

Sun-long bike, usually around 30-40 miles. I would like to get in a short run (20-30 minutes) after my ride this week.

Now that I've thrown it out there, we'll see how it goes!

Danelle

I’m after a bit of medical advice.  I know no-one here is a doctor, so don’t worry I won’t take anything anyone says as gospel, I’m just looking for suggestions.

Around mid-Oct I had a chest infection, which kept me from training until a couple of weeks ago. 

I could still feel a slight tightness in the chest and cough but nothing much.  I trained in the gym
without any problem. Then last week I went for a 30 min run outside in the cold. 

Since then my cough has gotten worse and the tightness in my chest is back.

So I’m going to stop training for a couple of days, but other than honey & lemon – does anyone have any suggestions.

It’s not bad enough to go back to the doctors as it’s only a problem when training outside.

Any suggestions greatfully recevied.

Thansk - Tony.

Tony - from what you wrote, it seems that running outside is the issue.  Cold weather doesn't always agree with exercise and it's common, at least in my experience, to feel some *slight* tightness due to breathing in cold air.  Coughing too.  That said, there is a big difference between slight tightness/wheezing because you're out in the cold, and actual chest tightness.  

My suggestion...stay indoors for a while and see how it goes.  

I do not know what type of temperatures you are talking about but anything below 20F gives me a different feel. To avoid it I run with a face mask over my mouth. Somehow it works to warm the air before entering the lungs. If you fit a mask or scarf correctly it wont change the way you breathe, just minimize the effects of cold air. Hope this helps.

I know it's still early in the new year (and damn cold in some places, like here in the NY metro area), but who has an early spring race?  My races don't start until June, so I'm base building now (that is, when work 'allows' me to...).

Anybody racing "soon"?