McFuzz's New Athlete Group (CLOSED) (Page 9)

Kate,

Congratulations on the consistent effort to watch your nutrition.  It's also good that you recognized how weighing frequently was impacting your mental health and so you stopped that unhealthy behavior too. 

Signing up for a race should be both exciting and overwhelming.  You have time to train and be ready for the race, so use that race commitment to keep you motivated to swim-bike-run. 

What are you typically trying to do to swim?  How consistently do you swim? 

If you're trying to swim 500 or 1000 yards continuously, it can be hard to keep track of laps.  If you're swimming 6x100, it may not be so much tracking "laps" as much as tracking intervals/repeats (is this the 4th repeat or the 5th?) 

You can break up your swim to make it easier to remember.  Instead of swimming 600 yards (12 laps) straight, swim 150 yards front crawl and 50 yards breastroke and repeat that 3 times.  You don't need to count higher than 3. 

You can take a bag of pennies and move/flip one per lap or one per interval.  If you take a water bottle, you can move it around.  Start with it on the right lane line, then move it next to the outside of the block, then to the inside of the block, then to the other inside of the block, then to the other outside of the block, then to the left lane line.  This lets you track 5 laps/intervals. 

Check with the lifeguard, but you can probably use the floats on the lane lines.  Slide them away from the wall, and then slide one float towards the wall each lap/interval. 

If you swim consistently, you can use the pace clock.  When I was swimming regularly, I'd pay attention to time.  If I was swimming 500 yards, I knew it would take me 8:00--8:30 for 10 laps and each lap would be 9-12 seconds less than a minute.  If I lost track of laps, I'd check my time and know where I expected to be to guess which lap I'd just finished. 

When I saw Charlotteville, I thought NC and that I'd be able to drive over to meet you IRL. 

3 more days and I can sign up for my OD too!!! I'm counting hours

One thing that helps me count is to remember odd and even lengths. Going down the pool is always odd and coming back is always even. This helps me if I am trying to remember if it is length 3 or 4 for example. I find that counting lengths instead of laps is easier.

Indeed, i just count 1, 2 ,3. Its way easier and if you forgot if you are at 4 or 5, one side is indeed always even and the other is odd. And in case of doubt, take the number which is lowest. That way, if you are wrong, its extra hidden training :D

I just remembered i got subscribed in a Bike + Run event the 16th of february. Its not a duatlon. You start with two ppl and you or your partner has to run the first 800m alone. After that, you come into the changing zone. From then on, you and your partner are together but one the team is always on MTB. And you can change as much as you want to. So you are basically running very fast intervals and then hop onto the bike and try to rest while your partner next to you is running his lungs out. 50% off road. I'm curious how this will work out. Sounds like a lot of fun though. And of course a good training. 10km in total.

800m = 0.49 miles

10km = 6.21 miles

Quick question: about 4 out of 5 times i bike to work. Its 13km/8miles from my home to my work. so 16miles/day I ride with my city bike and normal clothes tough i keep a good steady pace. Can or should I consider this as training too?

Not really, I try not to sweat to much because i don't want to start working all sweaty. :D I'll start registrating my actual bike times from now on with my smartphone and add the bike rides from the first of january till now.

I'd count it as training (and I did when I commuted to/from work in Utah).  I know another BT'er who gets most of his bike training by commuting. 

Well, i put it as training. Any activity that makes your heart rate goes faster and makes you sweat, even if it is a bit, is training to me.

Today is rest day. Sore throat and rain outside makes me stay inside and go to bed early.

Kim,

Thank you for opening up on this topic. 

You say you feel strongest and healthiest when you're below 125#.  What does this allow you to do?  Those things are your reward and you absolutely have earned it when you achieve it.  More importantly, it is within your control, and you need to accept gracefully that success just like you did earning your teaching degree and other accomplishments in your life. 

I may add more later. 

Make sure to show us some pics of your new gear when its finished!

You sure got me thinking on this one, as you always do when I have a question like this.  Your question regarding my success and what does it allow me to do seems to be a mixed bag of answers.

Being at my best training weight allows me to:

Have awesome training sessions where I feel strong and powerful

Wear anything I have in my closet without having to wonder how tight they'll be this week

Walk with a confident pep to my step

Feel and know that I look fit

BUUUUUT...

it gives me attention "You look so good, what are you doing?  You're so thin...how did you do it?"  But people want to hear a magic bullet.  They don't want to hear talk of training sessions and lean protein and veggies.  I don't know how to respond.

I *feel* like I get the dagger eyes from female coworkers--'look at her thinking she's all that'

And there are days where I honestly feel like I should apologize for feeling and looking good.  Before triathlon I was in the group of always complaining and commiserating with other women about those last 15 pounds.  Now those pounds are gone and I don't know what group I belong in!

I do feel sassier in the last few months though...like dammit, I'm 43, I train my tush off, I look better than I ever have in my life--I should revel in it.  But then I get all wussy about it and go back to the above negatives.