Ernesto's group (5th season) - Closed (Page 90)

Thanks all for your valuable feedback and encouragement!  My marathon training has been good enough for what I have put into it, but not perfect since I have also been training for my HIM (Vineman) in July.  However, I do believe there are potential synergies from the tri training that better show-up for my upcoming marathon, so I will push for my 3:30 goal and see how it goes (as most of us usually do )

Joe, congrats on your great duathlon performance, well done on a hard race.  I'm still smiling at how we say we are going to go for a "fun, moderate race", but the little competitor inside of us always gets the best of us on race day.

Jim, good luck defending your 10k title today!

Robert, 

Thanks for your feedback and its great that you are shooting for a BQ on your next marathon.  Which marathon in Spain are you running and have how many marathons have you done so far?

In my case this will be my 2nd Mary.  I just checked the BQ time limits and I think we are in the same age group since I'm 44 but turning 45 in December. I believe that puts me in the 45-50 age group with a time limit of 3:25.  Maybe if I eat all my veggies and stop drinking too much wine from here to race day plus with the adrenaline from the race I could go also shoot for a BQ, hahaha 

I wish I was running in Spain! I am in the Western suburbs of Chicago. I am in the 45-50 (just turned 47 last week) age group. I believe the age you are on the day of the marathon is what you need to worry about. Not the age you are when you run your qualifying time. So you are correct..you would be in the 45-50 age group.

I have run 2 mary's but I ended up injuring myself before my first one and then pulled a calf muscle in my 2nd one last year. I can't wait until fall of this year to run again so I'm doing a Spring marathon for the first time this year. I have cut back on my expectations this year. My goal is to run a "healthy" marathon with the belief that a healthy marathon will lead to a BQ time.

Robert, 

Thanks for your feedback and its great that you are shooting for a BQ on your next marathon.  Which marathon in Spain are you running and have how many marathons have you done so far?

In my case this will be my 2nd Mary.  I just checked the BQ time limits and I think we are in the same age group since I'm 44 but turning 45 in December. I believe that puts me in the 45-50 age group with a time limit of 3:25.  Maybe if I eat all my veggies and stop drinking too much wine from here to race day plus with the adrenaline from the race I could go also shoot for a BQ, hahaha 

3:15 for Boston 2014 for the 40-44 age group.

I defended my title and didn't get chicked, this time.  I was 3 seconds slower. 52:13. I was a little lazy on the second lap when I saw next closest was a mile behind.  Weather was horrid. 40 F 35 mph winds and spitting rain.

My oldest daughter was 12th overall in the simultaneous 5k, daughter #3 was 19 and my son was 29th and the first under 14 to finish. 

Congratulations to team Bacarella, you all did great!  So how is the celebration going?

My first marathon was Chicago in 2011, last year I ran the Fox Valley marathon out in the western burbs of St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia. I am running the Schaumburg marathon on May 19th and I also won a lottery spot for Chicago again in the fall. In between I have a sprint tri, a 5k, a HIM and a 20 miler. This is my first year of multisport. I have no expectations for for tri's, just really to finish, establish a time and then have something to beat in subsequent years.

I looked and couldn't find anything about Antwerp being a BQer.

Good luck in Antwerp, if nothing else you run a qualifying time and know that you can do it at the next one. You'll have until mid-October to run a BQ time for Boston 2014.

Robert, thanks for the update and glad to see that we are on the same age group, now the only challenge is that I don't think that the Antwerp marathon counts as an official marathon to BQ.  

The Chicago marathon has been the only one I've done and I loved it, even though the wheels came off during the last 5 miles.  I wen't to B-School in Evanston so it was extra special to run in Chicago.  I also made it to NY for the marathon at the end of last year, but was one of the victims of Sandy and the cancelled race.  So which Marathon are you doing then?

What a day for training. Put in bout 13 miles running. Kept the HR down to an average of 132 yet sustained avg 8:17/mile on my run. I felt light on my feet considering the last 3 days have been pretty hard workouts. Towards the end it started to rain so I ended up riding the drainer for an hour.  

Sad thing is that about 40 minutes in the drainer ride I got nauseous. I think I can attribute that to the cliff gu I took while running and took without water.  Still trying out different fueling ideas and strategies in case what I am hoping to do doesn't work out in my favor. Obviously not taking water with that GU might not of been the best thing.

Thanks. The celebration is going great. The daughter who couldn't run works at a chocolate store and she brought home chocolate dipped strawberry's.

Nutrition dialing is essential for Ironman races, especially on the bike. Make sure your body gets used to taking 300kCals/hour or somewhere in the ballpark, all this while pedaling at a low effort. Keep in mind that if you're going hard(er) your body shunts all the available blood to your muscles making nutrition difficult.

If your nutrition is only gels and it's not accompanied by water, your body being such an efficient machine will "steal" the water from your muscles to put it in your stomach. At that point, you cramp and throw up which is a sport within Ironman. I have seen people vomit yellow Gatorade and I'm not talking pale yellow, I am talking canary yellow. It is obvious they drank Gatorade only and no water.

Ironman nutrition should look like this (kinda sorta):

- First 1/2 hour plain water until HR goes down.

- Next three hours: combination of salt pills or endurolytes, complex carb mix (like Perpetuem, Infinit, CarboPro, Cytomax, etc.) and one third of the drinking water and Ironman Perform (given to you at the aid stations).

- Next two hours (or whatever it takes to finish the bike): gels, water and Perform. If you feel bloated it means you took too much or you're going too hard. Solution, relax and water it down slowly.

During the run, nutrition is very self regulating. Your body will crave fast absorption sugars like Perform, grapes, oranges and gels. Same applies if you feel bloated, water it down and slow down the pace until it clears your stomach. Coke is miraculous on the run, so is the chicken broth.

HI All - lots of great stories this week end, whether training, racing or relaxing, congrats to all!

I just got back form my first fast run after three months of MAF - last year my SSR HR range was between 172 and 180 HR which equated to ~8:30m/m. Today running 8:30m/m I was holding steady at 163 :-) something seems to have improved! I decided to push it up to 7:30 m/m and HR held at 173 - not strict lab testing but made ne happy!

Question on HR: I have noticed that first thing in the morning I struggle to get my HR up to usual workout range. Typically this is minutes after falling out of bed onto the bike trainer. So I tend to follow RPE iso HR during these times. Is this normal/safe?

thanks, Mark.

Hi all! I have been MIA in the last month. I had a tough work-related 2 weeks at the beginning of march that limited my training; then with 1 month to go before my first race I was ready to kick some behind and BAM! Flu followed by sinus infection (first time I am sick in over 3 years).

I recover from that and only had 2 week to train for my first race - was not too worried, its a short sprint (400 yrd swim, 10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run). Began training again and BAM part 2. I believe I aggravated a hip flexor strain. So the last week has been quiet, and with the race this weekend, it's up in the air.

I will bike tomorrow and then run on Wednesday and then make a decision on the race after that. If I end up racing, it's going to be easy effort, almost a glorified training brick. Also planning a visit to my ART guy. Through all this I learned something. I am very cranky and moody when I do not train. If you don't believe me, you can ask my wife.

So I am back with my sights on my June 1 Olympic (B race) - need to start swimming a lot more for that one.

Congrats on the improvements!  I like to look at HR the other way...in the afternoon / evening I have trouble keeping my HR lower.  90%+ of my workouts are in the early AM.  When I workout midday or later my HR is always higher than in the AM.  I attribute it to the digestive system being in full operation (I don't really eat before morning workouts (Gel and go and fuel on the way), caffeine, or something else.

When you are saying 1/3 of the drinking water and ironman perform what do you mean by that specifically? Are you saying grab perform and a water at each aid station or do water at one aid station and perform at the next? Perform I am not a huge fan of nor am I am I a huge fan of gatorade either.

I haven't gotten it mapped out totally but I do plan on having a 24oz bottle of perpetuem at least for the first part.  The second part I have been thinking that I might want to get more from special needs and use that for the second part.  

With supplementing the perpetuem I am planning on using powerbar performance bars for the first 3 hours and then switching to gels and energy blasts during the rest along with the perpetuem gotten at special needs.  

Intake wise I am thinking 1/3 of a bar every 30 minutes. For the gels I'd be doing 1/ 30 minutes. this would in conjunction to the perpetuem. I'll be using endurolytes as well. 

Water -- was thinking each aid station I would grab a new water and fill up my PD aero bottle and drink on that between the stations. 

This is similar to what I did for my HIM at Lake Stevens and I felt like I had plenty of energy and was not experiencing cramping of any sort. I am more or less just going to double what I did for that race although I'm not sure that is correct or right?  

Would what I have above be ok? I've got a 3 hour ride this weekend followed by 50 minute run so I am planning on trying out what worked for me last summer at Lake Stevens.

Bike ride this morning went well. No issues with hip or hip flexors. Will run tomorrow and make a decision regarding the race on Sunday. Having said that, I better get cranking if I want to look half decent for my Oly on June 1st. Bike and swim are way behind where they should be.

Congrats on the improvement. Isn't it awesome to be able to track progress?