Asphalt Junkies Spring 2013 - Closed (Page 9)

Samantha - Thank you for sharing your experience, or better yet, your on going experience. I can only speak for myself, but hindsight is 20-20. During my competitive snowboarding years I suffered several concussions, only I didn't realize some of them were concussions till later on. Then, I separated my shoulder one season and refused to go to a doctor for weeks. Here's another thing... I broke my wrist and waited two days to go to the doctor cause I was trying to play down the pain- When I finally went to the doctor I ended up in a cast for almost 20 weeks.

Sounds like Dirk was an excellent mentor in recognizing that your pain was more than a minor ache due to training. I think you are pretty amazing to have kept pushing through the discomfort and pain.

Tony- Glad to know that I am not the oly one who ate way too much and almost threw in the towel on getting in a workout this morning. I did eventually hit the gym/stationary bike and pedaled along for 90 minutes. First day back in the saddle after a few weeks and am still tending to a tightened IT band, so I concentrated on riding with less resisteance and tried to maintain an easy 14 mph pace. My stomach decided it was starving 60 minutes into the ride and it wanted nothin but cookies and sweet potato souffle. Glad I was able to push through that craving. I am supposed to hit the weights with my husband this afternoon for a session of back & biceps; we shall see if that happens.

You have the right attitude Jen, and I'd say you can't make a wrong decision here.  I would imagine as you train and progress this won't be your last chance at Nationals.  Having fun in this sport is the key to staying with it.

You also hit on another important topic.  Knowing the difference between pain and injury is so critical to staying healthy, which is so critical to staying in triathlon.  It can become very frustrating to be on the sidelines to due to pushing an injury too far, and as Samantha said it can also lead to more serious issues.  One thing we've been very good at in this group is modifying workouts to compensate for injuries.  Not that ALL injuries can be worked around, some simply require rest and healing.  But Jeff especially is the master at modifying a swim/bike/run while you have a niggle.

Seriously Matt, you need to back off a bit.  Maybe gain a few pounds and cut your running down to about 15-20 a week.

Matt, 40 mpw for any period of time and you'll hammer it next year.  Are you planning an early year half marathon again?

I have a question for the group about scheduling.  My end of year looks busy and I think manageable, but I wanted to bounce it off everyone and get some opinions.  My current plans look like this:

Bike leg of a HIM relay.  One week later, Aqua bike HIM.  Two weeks later, 70.3.

I'm really thinking that if I were only doing a 70.3, I might do hard 60 mile ride 2 and 3 weeks out so I think this schedule should be no problem, but I wanted to get some opinions.  All three are "important" races, but if pressed I'd list the priority in the order they happen (bike relay is "A+", Aqua is "A", 70.3 is "A-"). 

Are you planning on really peaking for one or more of these? If you peak and taper for the first one you are going to lose some fitness by the 70.3 for sure. You may want to consider trying to make the 70.3 a "B" race and focus on crushing your first two events.

You know you're a Junkie when.......

You make your kids wait to open their stockings until your finished with your bike & run .

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Jen glad to see you got your workout in. I did in fact swim this afternoon even though I was not very motivated to do so and it was not long or my best session but I got it in there. I also got my bike workout in as well. I will say that this workout was especially tough tonight. I knew I was a little tired going into it but man those 4x10's are HARD! I was in a world of hurt when I finished tonight. At least I am making progress however progress can be very painful.

Warren seems like it is doable to me. For the relay you are only doing the bike so that's almost like a hard training ride. The auqa/bike could sort of be the same like a long brick training session without the run. That gives you two weeks to recoup for the HIM so I think you'd be fine. I think David makes a good point though about when you peak and for what races. If you want to kill the first two races and peak for those you may want to lower expectations for the HIM but I don't think you should have any problem doing them all in that span of time.

Jen glad to see you got your workout in. I did in fact swim this afternoon even though I was not very motivated to do so and it was not long or my best session but I got it in there. I also got my bike workout in as well. I will say that this workout was especially tough tonight. I knew I was a little tired going into it but man those 4x10's are HARD! I was in a world of hurt when I finished tonight. At least I am making progress however progress can be very painful.

I'm thinking about trying a longer ride on my trainer tomorrow. Can I jump from 1:15 min as my longer ride to 2 hours or is that too much? I do lots of 2 hour rides outside when the weather is nice, just never that long on the trainer.

And what should the focus of a ride of this length on the trainer be?

I've got a short swim followed by a 2 mile treadmill run on tap for today.

Also wondering if someone can stop by my blog and see how I'm doing progressing to 6 days a week running - mainly that I'm not adding mileage too quickly. I'm planning 6 runs for this week if I can stay motivated. I have a hard time with all of these short runs as they just remind me of what a struggle running is for me. Running 3 days a week I get a little mental break.

And maybe now that I type it all out it is not the best idea to add a 2 hour ride while I'm trying to progress to 6 days a week running and I'm always on the verge of hurting myself.......

Welcome some input .

Thanks Dirk, my foot - the cyst is swelling again but is not causing me any pain. My back is ticked after a ride on my tri bike followed by trail run I did earlier this week but still much better than last year.

Hope your daughter feels better soon! Your family has had a lot of illnesses to deal with this year.

And take it easy on the bike. I'm not too sure if I want to try one of your rides if it's so bad it's firing up your asthma.

Dirk that workout is worse then the two hour rides I have been doing via Jorge's plan. If this is derived from that plan please don't tell me I don't want to know LOL!

Also, I agree with you on the long run. Dina if you are doing any kind of long run I would keep that as far apart from your long bike ride as you can. Sounds like all your runs are short though so you shouldn't have any problems with having fresh legs for your long bike ride.

Tony my "long" run is only 3 miles so not actually long at all .

One more thing, I'm looking for some suggestions of what I can eat quickly during my T/Th mornings. My schedule is 9:00-9:45 swim, quick shower, treadmill run of 2 miles or so, change quickly, set up equipment for my toddler gym class, teach class, clean up. I'm finished with all of that by 12:00. I'm starving in the middle of all of this. I usually bring a banana and some almonds but this does not fill me up and honestly - I'm just tired of eating the same thing.

Does anyone have any suggestions - I need something I can grab and go, eat while I'm walking from one thing to the other or even in the van on the way to the Y. Maybe a granola bar or something but I'm trying not to eat sugary treats.

Warren I'm no expert but I also think you can handle those races with no problem.

Dina normally during the weekdays while working I usually snack at about 3 PM. I always have a cup of coffee, can't help it I'm addicted to that stuff and I usually go with the mixed nuts. I typically eat the Planters heart healthy mix. They can be bought in indvidual packs or a bigger bag or can. I usually throw in sunflower seeds and I know you are trying to avoid the sugar but I will also get my chocolate fix with some dark chocolate M&M's and/or some peanut butter Reeses Pieces in the mix. That seems to fill me up and hold me over through my evening workout which is usually the trainer ride on the bike or a run.

Do you eat anything in the morning before you go for all of that?  If that were me, I'd definitely try to fit in a good meal in the morning!

Have you ever tried a boku bar? It is basically a protein bar with a bunch of other good stuff in it like almonds, strawberries etc. This guy who sits right next to me at work is addicted to it. It does taste delicious and its all organic but I found it a bit too heavy for my afternoon snack and also a little pricey at $4 a bar. May be it's worth a try? http://shop.bokusuperfood.com