Gray Guys/Girls Master's Focus Triathlon Mentor Group--CLOSED (Page 8)

Dan,

Have you done any climbing in Yosemite?  Back in college I did both a Half-Dome and El Capitan assent plus climbed just about every minor climb in the park at one time or another.  Then I lost all sense of sanity and became a triathlete!

x2

Thanks Randy, you beat me to it.

Karl,

My hat's off to you my friend.  It was a MAJOR challenge to get my wife to agree to no processed foods, etc.  She is a meat and potatoes girl so giving up her spuds was a BIG deal.  There isn't anyway in this lifetime that she is giving up her occasional Prime Rib.  If I were to try and bring your diet in to the house, I suspect in fairly short order I would be getting a phone call from an attorney representing my wife.  What's that old saying?  Choose your battles?

That said, I have considered going with a diet similar to yours, just not sure I am ready to cook multiple meals every night . . . or be single again.

Yeah, I don't care for large crowds either, and fortunately there wasn't to many people on the Muir Wall of El Cap!

Yikes!  Things move really fast here, eh.  I'll try hard to keep up.

Jo - I did wonder about nutrition and stress in particular being in part responsible for your adrenal trouble.  Nutrition is so important and so personally specific so it is really important to control.  Sometime I'd like to hear how you've changed your nutrition and/or how you get your nutrition during a long training event or race.  Also, how do you like to get your electrolytes?  

My wife makes some vegan "energy balls" which are really tasty and would be easy to snack on while riding.  If I ask her nice I'll try and get her recipe to post for everyone to try.

Stu - I'm going to put my Weight Loss Challenge info into my training log later tonight (if I get this post finished in time).

Luvschips - Apparently some butters are better than others so ask people who know which ones are better.  I live in a small town so I got the only kind available and apparently it has to be reapplied every 90 minutes which is a nuisance on a long ride.

Karl - I showed my wife your sample menu in your post.  Some of it sounds really good but she might get mad at me for wasting a beer for cooking.  I'm not good with veggies but I do eat some of her foods and I am getting better.  I'm still a carnivore though.

Edwin - where in Canada are you?

Scott - I visited your website "Freestyle - From the Beginning" and I really loved the video.  I bookmarked the site to return to often and to refer it to some beginner swimmers I know.

Our local pool is quite cool to jump in at 81F but if it is 81.5F it is quite warm.  We move out to a local lake in mid-May when it warms up to 17C/63F (wearing wetsuits) and swimming at 22C/72F it is quite nice in wetsuits.  By August we might get up to 24C/75F which is too warm for a wetsuit.

Rod - Good luck with your knee rehab.  

Barry,

Sorry, I should have remembered that you said you were only swimming 50 yards in your intro.  With that being the case, I would suggest you visit both the "Freestyle-From the Beginning" article, and then look at the Novice Training Plan.  The Novice Plan is for someone like you that is early in their swimming career and is interested in "doing it right."  It mentions what I am about to say in the article but I will mention it here for others that may be interested, I suggest you go to swimsmooth.com.  On the home page of swimsmooth.com you will see an animation showing "Mr. Smooth."  While Mr. Smooth's perfect freestyle differs a bit from my perfect freestyle, the two forms are close enough that if you learn one you can easily do the other one.  Mr. Smooth is handy because you can visually see what good technique looks like from an "underwater" perspective.  You can slow it down so you can really focus on various aspects of the stroke.  I encourage you to watch Mr. Smooth until you dream about him . . . OK, maybe not that much, but at least until you can close your eyes and visualize perfect technique.  The real trick is taking that mental image to the water.  That is where video comes in to play.  The first 5-weeks of the Novice plan are dedicated to improving technique.  Once you get to the end of week two, if you have someone take some video of you in the water, I will be happy to take a look and offer some advice.  Just let me know and I will send you a link to upload the video to.

Thanks for asking, SCOTT K!     I'm at 2:25/100 yd average pace.

That's where I'm at with my swimming and have been for years even after multiple lessons and instructors.   I can knock down about 10 seconds per 100 by using a pull buoy. Yes, I'm faster with a pull buoy which means my legs sink otherwise. Don't know what to do about it and there's obviously other problems too after swimming for 9 years and still being slow. I got on your website and it's a bummer you're in SoCal instead of the frigid Midwest. I'd like to sign up for lessons. Can I talk you into coming back to your roots and setting up shop? BTW we're having white-out conditions here today and with the wind chill it's supposed to feel negative 26 by tomorrow morn.   Yikes!   Seriously, though, please don't spend any time on me and my swimming yet. I'm heading to surgery on Friday and won't be able to put anything into practice for another couple months. I'll hit you up when I get back to the pool.   I have a friend who just got a GoPro and she said she'd tape my stroke so I think that would be helpful. In the meantime I'll follow your advice to others and take it in.   Thanks for the time you're putting into us, though!

Scott,

I finally got back in the pool yesterday afternoon.  Felt good to be back in the water again.  I was doing the first workout from the Novice plan (16x25 on 60" rest) and I think you're right - it might be going a little too far back for me.  The RI's just seemed too long - I felt like I was just standing around waiting for the 60" to go by.  I ended up shortening most of the rest intervals to about 40-45" - so more like week 2 of the plan.  I think I might go ahead and try week 4 (I like doing ladders anyway) and see how things go.  If that still seems too easy I'll adjust from there. 

My screen name comes from being a "soccermom" for almost 10 years.  My DD played from age 5-15 (she switched to cross country/track as a HS sophomore) and her uniform number for most of those years was "15".

Janet

Hey Everyone -

Here is the more detailed breakdown I promised for the Weight Loss/Workout Challenge.

How you earn points -

• +5 points for no weight gain
• +/- 1 point per pound lost/gained, or fraction thereof
• +1 point for every 30 workout minutes

A couple of examples for clarification:

You had a good week, lost 2.3 pounds, 421 minutes working out -

• +5 points for no weight gain
• +2.3 points for weight loss
• +14 points for workout minutes (421/30 = 14.03, rounded to nearest tenth)
• Total points for week = 21.3 points

You had an OK weak, no weight change, 129 minutes working out -

• +5 points for no weight gain
• +0 points for weight change
• +4.3 points for workout minutes (129/30 = 4.3)
• Total points for week = 9.3 points

You had a bad week, gained 1.6 pounds, 47 minutes working out -

• +0 points for no weight gain
• -1.6 points for weight gain
• +1.6 points for workout minutes (47/30 = 1.5666, rounded to nearest tenth)
• Total points for week = 0 points

The challenge week will go Monday - Sunday with the weigh-in at the end of the week, so we will do our first official "weigh-in" this coming Sunday.  I suggest you weigh-in at the same time on the same scale every week.  Next Sunday afternoon/evening or Monday morning (1/18-19) we all post our weight change and our workout minutes and then every week until the end.  For the purposes of the challenge, we do not need your actual weight.  You are welcome to post your weight if it will help you stay accountable to yourself or will help motivate you.  Once everyone posts their numbers, I will plug everything into my magic spreadsheet and will hopefully post the results sometime Tuesday.

We'll end the challenge on March 31st.  The "winner" will be the person with the most points and will receive a coffee mug from San Diego, CA, commemorating the birthplace of the modern triathlon as we all know it today.

Good luck everyone!

Hmmm, let me think about this for a minute . . .

Yeah, that pretty well answers THAT question! 

Hope all goes well with your surgery.  Your friend's GoPro will come in handy when the time comes.

Hey Greg,

First, my apologies, I incorrectly made the assumption you lived down here in California not all the way up there in the cold northwest.  My bad!

I still say you might check in to wetsuitrental.com.  They send wetsuits all over the country and you can get it early so you can use it a few times before the race.  If you are comfortable in the wetsuit you can turn it into a purchase.  They are experts at fitting you so you will know that you have the correct size.  It would be worth a phone call.

Time swimming in a wetsuit will help you get comfortable with the tight neck and feeling of chocking.  I really think some of the problem before may have been an incorrectly fitting wetsuit although, when they fit properly, they will be TIGHT.

As to the butterflies, it just means you care.  I have been competing in races of one kind or another since I was 11, so over 45 years, and I still get butterflies, the bigger the race, the larger the butterflies.

Donna,

Thank you for the kind words about my website.  My site really grew out of BT.  Pretty much all of the information on the site I have shared at one time or another in nearly every mentor group I have been in over the past few years.  I finally figured if I just put it all in a website, maybe I wouldn't have to re-write it every group and perhaps it could help some people outside of the mentor groups.  Thanks again for taking notice.

Feeling awkward when you are pulling is likely one of two things, either not enough training yards/meters, or there is a stroke technique deficiency.  Without having seen you swim it is difficult to know but I suspect it is likely a combination of both not enough training yardage and a stroke technique issue.  What generally's happening when an athlete is having some difficulty with the swim is they are putting in a good deal of work and they don't really develop much forward momentum.  Typically the inefficiency of the stroke is interpreted as an awkward feeling.  If you ask the question over in the main forum, you will likely hear, "kick more," or "you need to swim more yards."  The simple truth is that attempting to beat the water into submission for more laps isn't the answer.  If there is a technique flaw you can swim hundreds of thousands of yards and likely all you will do is increase your frustration.

Do you have someone that can shoot some video of you in the water?  Doesn't have to be anything of professional quality.  Cell phone video will suffice to get an idea of where your stroke is at.  If you can make that happen, I will be happy to give you a link to upload to and then take a look and offer some pointers.  In the meantime, if you go to my site, click on 'Resources' then select 'Stroke Technique' you will be taken to all of the articles currently on the site regarding stroke technique.  At the bottom of the page there are four categories - novice, beginner, intermediate, and advanced.  I suggest you read all of those articles in order, novice to advanced.  Yes, that is going ALL the way back to the beginning, however many adult swimmers either never learned or have forgotten the fundamental so going all the way back isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Then go to swimsmooth.com.  On the home page you will find an animation of Mr' Smooth swimming freestyle.  If you watch that long enough you will get an idea of what proper stroke technique looks like and that may help you when you get in the water.

Right now we are in winter, so this is the time to work on technique issues.  If it were me, I wouldn't be worried about pace at all for the next few weeks while I was training.  I would focus on improving my technique and then beginning to build an aerobic swim base.  I am happy to help if you like.

Glad to hear you're back in the water.

Yeah, I expected as much.  The novice plan, and specifically the first 4-5 weeks, was written with the assumption that the individual has poor stroke technique so is anaerobic from the outset, and has poor or no swim fitness.  In that case, at the end of a 25 the person would be gasping for breath and would need 60 seconds to get their heart rate and breathing back under control.  Also, the idea is that they have the time to consciously focus and think about stroke technique during the rest intervals.

I really think you will be better served by jumping over to the Sprint Base plan, assuming you can swim a 400 non-stop.  The first workout of the Sprint Base plan is an STP test to establish a baseline.  If you can't comfortably go 400 today, then I suggest starting at week 5 of the novice plan and continue on until you can swim the 400, then move over to the Sprint Base plan.