Newbz'z summer mentor group is FULL!!!! (Page 85)

Man, looks like everyone is crashing their bikes this summer. Please don't jinx me Glad everyone is ok.

First day back at work tomorrow for the teachers (kids start Monday). We'll have to be out the door by 6:30am. Hope I can convince everyone to go to bed early tonight or we will have a rough morning. I'm glad I continued doing the masters swims into the fall, cause it will force me to get a good workout in. It's gonna be really easy to justify skipping workouts once I go back to work, so I'm trying to do as much as possible to not give myself excuses.

On the bright side, I'll have very little time to eat with all this racing around. So as long as I plan ahead and have healthy, low-cal stuff with me, it should be super easy to stay on track with my eating. I've now dropped a total of 12 lbs since the beginning of June, so I'm coming into the home stretch. Not too much more to lose, so it's gonna be slow going as the last pounds are the hardest to get off. 

Oh yeah, forgot to add that I did my 1st OWS without a wetsuit Sat. This is big for me because I'm really freaked out about swimming in OW without a wetsuit. The wetsuit is the only thing that protects me from the scary things in the lake like the monster that's waiting to grab my foot and pull me under or worse yet...a FISH or some SEAWEED. So I did it and survived. 

Great progress on the weight loss!  No skipping workouts allowed!!  Good luck balancing things. 

balancing things with kids is sometimes difficult, especially when they're old enough to be involved in sports.  The beginning of last school year, my first year of tri training, I freaked out every once in a while that I missed a workout here or there but I think looking backward everything worked out fine.  When I could I would put the missed workout somewhere else in the week, while other times I simply had to skip it.  I think the big thing is get the workouts in as much as possible but don't let it tear you away from the time you spend with your husband and kids.  I think I have had a decent balance but my wife and girls would have to provide the real answer.

Again, just try to get in what you can and allow family and other important reasons to be your excuses for missing workouts.
Good luck at school today.

I just finished a 5k tempo run and felt amazing.  This is one of the fastest runs I have had at this distance (for training) and I felt great.  I tried not to look at my watch and focus on my pace or HR until I was right at the 3 mile mark and I just ran a comfortably hard pace.  Sometimes I will get focused on those things and lose track of the joy of running, so I thought I would just run.  It worked and I loved it, especially after I got home and saw what my pace was.

I am feeling really good right now and I am considering adding another run to my weekly schedule but I am unsure if it will actually help my cause. 

David, what do think?  Will it help me to run another 2-3 mile run each week leading up to the marathon on Oct. 31?  This would be 5 days a week I would be running.  I have 9 full weeks, including the taper, before the race and I would like to make sure I have some good speed for the race.  More volume?  My knee feels good and I feel pretty good after last weekends rugged workouts that I actually think had more to do with lack of nutrition than anything else.

ME THINKS YO A RUNNIN' FOOL!

I am getting annoyed at just sitting around.  My upper body is still very sore from the crash, but my legs want to go go go! 

you say that now, go ride your bike and let me know how your legs feel...

absolutely add it in if you are ok with the extra run. you are working towards a marathon, ANY mileage you can add without getting hurt will help you.

Dirk- Man, I hope to love running someday as much as you do.

And, don't worry about me with work. There is no way my husband and kids will let me ignore them (believe me, I've tried ) Little kids can be a lot of work, but I can't even imagine what it will be like when all 3 of my kids are doing sports/activities. I guess it doesn't get easier, just different.

Today was good at work. I'm REALLY glad I went in Mon and Tues to get a jump start on setting up the classroom. I'm still adjusting though. I forgot how fast paced it all is and how little down time I have (both at work and once I get home). 

After all this racing around, I didn't even make it to swimming tonight. I got stuck on the 95 for over an hour. Turns out there was some kind of chemical spill and part of the 95 had to get blocked off and traffic had to be redirected. So, I ended up turning around and heading home. Oh well, I guess things like this happen sometimes.

Other exciting news, the baby is now officially walking

Edited by jpbis26 2010-08-26 12:30 AM

It took time to begin to enjoy it like I do now.  Wen I first started running it was to get into a shape other than round, now I greatly enjoy the competitiveness of racing and knowing it is the training that makes me faster.

See now you're gonna get your runs in in a different manner.  Sometimes I miss the days of having little girls, their little giggles, the cooing when they were infants.........Enjoy it!  Once it's gone, it's gone.



Edited by DirkP 2010-08-26 4:38 AM

Jackie - glad to hear your work is going well!  Also, congrats on the weight loss - that is awesome. Balancing things will be difficult, but do what you can, when you can. I think it helps greatly if you actually enjoy the training - which it seems like you do.

And lastly big congrats to the little one for walking!!!!! Now you can look forward to the terrible twos (again) - which actually I think starts when they begin walking.

Dirk - weren't you just asking if you were overtraining?????  

I looked at your logs and I think if you feel good go for it. Just listen to your body, get lots of rest and eat well.  Any additional miles you can add (smartly) will help. Now - if I could just get those extra miles in!

Yeah yeah.  I know.  I'm probably going to get an easy swim/ride in tomorrow morning.  I won't push it if I feel like crap.

that's what i would do, the frist week-10 days back are normally just getting in the time and not worrying about how hard i'm going till the legs are 100% back to normal.

What's on hand for this weekend guys?  I'm heading South to CT for a friend's wedding and then up North to VT to see my new little niece.

i actually just signed up for a sprint race on the spur of the moment.

My weekend started last night, but then it's that way every week for me.  I love the 4-10 hr days!!!!  For weekend starter workout I finished my long run this morning of 16 miles (2:16:40) and felt 1,000,000 x better than I did last week after 14 miles.  I was pretty sure the nutrition was a factor last week and now I am even more sure of it.  I made sure I ate more carbs last night.  Last week's pre-long run meal was a PBJ and a banana, this week I had some chicken and potatoes and threw in a couple of cookies for good measure.  My legs are tense and sore right now but............well duh!  I just ran 16 miles for the first time in my life! 
Tomorrow is the 52 mile ride I have been doing.  How my legs feel Sunday afternoon will determine whether or not I add a 5th run to my weekly schedule.  However, next week is a recovery week so I'll keep it simple and may not add the 5th run until I pick things back up in a 2 weeks.

Dirk - awesome job on your run!!!! Have fun on your long bike ride tomorrow. I ran 2 miles today! But....  I did it in 20 minutes - slowly getting faster. Also, I hiked with a friend this morning for a little over an hour. 

Not much volume planned for this weekend.  I am taking tomorrow off (first day off in 9 days) to recover from all the non-tri related exercise I have been doing. Actually, I feel pretty trashed right now - I assume it is the 1:45 min. mtn bike ride last night. Sunday will be on the trainer as hubby is out of town.

About to head out on a 40ish mile ride.  Yesterday was a 75 mile ride.

I'm getting really anxious as my road race approaches next weekend.  Our club has a lot of people participating, and team awards go to the team/club with the most finishers as well as by ranking of the top 5 men and top 3 women.  I think it's cool that we have a team strategy that I will be a part of to get the last 2 women across as fast as possible.  I have no chance at top 5 men in our club, but getting the 2nd and 3rd woman across in a good time is just as important.

Sounds like a a good time.  I actually just said something to someone about a road race this morning.  I would like to do one sometime but I am real sure I couldn't hang with the road cyclists.  They have a road race here in town but I am not sure when it is.  I also don't devote nearly enough time to it to get any kind of decent placement out of it.  I have been thinking about trying to work on some serious cycling over the winter on the trainer but I am not going to commit to anything until after the marathon is complete.

I did my long ride yesterday and it was mostly uneventful other than I was doing a new route that I wrote a road name down wrong and had to make some adjustments but nothing that really affected my mileage.  I did get a headache for most of the back half of the ride but it was almost completely gone with in 10 minutes after the ride was over.

Now I begin a recovery week.  A 2 mile run is in store for tonight plus an easy swim, probably 2000 yds or so.  Really my swims are in a maintenance mode since my last tri anyway.

X2.  I have lots of room for improvement on the bike.  I'll be looking at Jorge's winter plan.   I also want to slowly increase my weekly running mileage during the off season - hoping my knees will cooperate.

x3!

hey all, popping back in after some time MIA.  I've got a question for the power guys.  I just picked up a powertap as my "last thing I buy myself before saving for a wedding and house" gift to myself.  It was now, or in 3 years, so I chose now (before my fiance has a say of what I do with my money!).

Anyway, it should get here this week and I'm trying to get spun up on it, basically the test protocols then how to make my zones based on those tests.  I've heard 20 min and hour.  I also saw this one here: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/hunter/thresholdwattage.asp which seems good (and easily repeatable, not sure if I'd do a full hour test often enough).  Can someone comment?

Also, I'm planning to do most of my riding this winter (at least the hard, intervally stuff) on a trainer, so does it make sense to do the tests on the trainer?  How would that compare to road?  If I get out over the winter, it'll just be maybe once a week and a longer Z2-ish ride probably, so for now, I'm not hugely concerned with those exact zones, if they are different.

Anyway, I've got a book on the way, but the meter will be here before it, so if anyone knows any good resources on the web to get spun up, especially tests and zone determination, I'm all ears.  Any software suggestions too?  I'm using a garmin, not powertap head unit if that matters, and on a Mac (so WKO+ is out).

Thanks!

thanks.  I hope to get real familiar with a spin on the trainer when they come in (hopefully Thursday) then a nice long 3-4 hour really hilly ride Fri or Sat.  If I can make Thursday's spin a test, I would.  Learning from HR tests, I think I should ride it completely blind of my power, so that it doesn't affect my perceived all out effort (I think in HR testing, once my HR gets up to where I think it should be, I may let up slightly.  If it gets over that I'll worry I'm buring out.  It's really bad science there, letting old outdated results drive me collecting new data).  i've found some more resources and think i'll do a 20 min test and a 5 min test and get critical power from the slope.  They say it should be different days, so maybe I'll do the 20 min thursday (and use the 95% FTP estimation) and get the 5 min next week. 

What did you get for a powertap again?  I talked with wheelbuilder and i think they suggested what you have - the Kinlin and the Pro+.  I ended up asking about the HED Bastogne too.  They said it was a very nice rim as well and recommended it.  Basically, it was about $50 extra and i get to see what this new hype about the 23mm rim is all about.  I also splurged again on the spokes, paid the extra $5 for lighter spokes.  i know, i know, weight makes no difference in tris...blah blah blah.  When a lot of my rides have around 100ft/mile elevation change, $5 for 100 less grams seems like a good deal, even if it's only mental.