Penn State's mentor group - CLOSED! (Page 95)

zionvier - 2010-08-05 9:20 PM

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JoshKaptur - 2010-08-05 7:42 PM Re: 2 IM's in a year.

I'm reluctantly not doing a second.  Part of me feels like I have a lot of fitness and it's a shame to "waste" it on one race.  In my mind, I REALLY want to switch to IM maintenance training (no more builds, just consistent volume at the level I was doing in prep for IMLP) and then race Beach2Battleship in November.

But I experienced a lot of success this year by having VERY conservative training.  I built up slowly and didn't go hard when I wanted to.  And I'm basically deciding that what works on the micro-level (run training) really should apply on the macro-level too... ie I shouldn't push my luck and should be happy with one IM this year.

JoshKaptur - 2010-08-05 7:35 PM

Hey, I know "that guy" -- race report here.

I haven't read the thread on the forums, but it would be hard for me to overestimate just how important the mental aspect of my IM prep was.  Once the cannon went off, it was all execution - no thinking allowed.  But I was able to do that based on months of strategic and positive thinking.  I don't do ipods or other distractions on my workouts... I spend almost every single workout envisioning the race, mentally rehearsing.  Even though it was my debut IM, I felt like I had done hundreds of others.  I really BELIEVED I was going to be in the low 10's even though a lot of veterans who watched my training predicted otherwise.  Anyway - I haven't read the thread but I'm guessing I agree with you that positive thinking is key.  My emphasis would be that the positive thinking has to take place all through your training... it will make your training better, increase your motivation, etc.  But if you start your positive thinking on race day but are unprepared, reality will chill that optimism real quick. 

When I say no thinking during the race, that really means I had already decided what kind of thinking I would do if it was necessary.  I had mentally rehearsed, in a positive way, how I would respond to things if they didn't go my way.  I was ready for all sorts of trouble I never encountered (mechanical, draft pack, bonking, GI troubles, etc).  When my cramps came late in the run, they didn't discourage me at all... they just hurt!  But it's an ironman... it's supposed to hurt.  So I dealt with it and carried on.  There was positive self talk going on, but it had been pre-programmed into me for months leading up to that whenever I had gotten into an ugly place on a particularly long/difficult workout.

PS - I will have lost 70.3 pounds by the time Savageman rolls around

calimavs - 2010-08-05 12:38 PM So my second day of marathon training was yesterday and I'm already running into some challenges, and am hoping everyone might have some advice for me.

In the past when training for my half marathon I used Hal Higdon's novice plan which only had me running 3x a week. This way I was able to spread my runs out and not do any back to back. The plan ended up working great which lead me to decide to use his novice marathon plan for my December marathon. This plan has me running 4x a week which means I have to run on back to back days once a week (Tues/Wed). I did my Wed run yesterday and it was AWFUL. About a minute/mile slower than normal on this route and it felt really hard. Aside from being patient and taking it easy on my Wednesday runs, is there anything else I can do to get my body use to running on back to back days?

kenj - 2010-08-06 10:21 AM

My experience is that you will get more comfortable with the extra day after a couple of weeks.  That said, and I am not real familiar with Higdons plans, is there an effort/workout prescribed to his plans?  The Pfitzinger plans that I use for full marathons get to 5 days with three days back to back, but the middle (wed) run is at recovery effort.  I am thinking that one of those days would be the same.  Most of us have a hard time running at recovery pace (myself included) as we can't deal with the disappointment of a slow run.   BUT, these runs serve a purpose and should be done at the appropriate pace!

JoshKaptur - 

 if today's workout requires sufficient recovery such that tomorrow's workout is compromised, then today's workout was either too long or too intense or both. 

JoshKaptur - 2010-08-06 10:26 AM

Forgive me while I get on my soapbox for a second, but this is one subject I'm pretty opinionated on...

I think most of us would agree that the key to IM or HIM training is consistency in training.  No single workout is going to make or break you.  The triathlon community (by that I mean, the BT community based on what I read on the forums) is starting to realize, slowly, that consistency is impossible to achieve without repeatibility.  In other words (I think this should be a training mantra for many people), if today's workout requires sufficient recovery such that tomorrow's workout is compromised, then today's workout was either too long or too intense or both.  That applies on a weekly and monthly level as well.  If at the end of the week you are just exhausted and feel like you NEED a rest day or you'll get injured or sick, then your overall training load in the preceeding several days was probably too great.

The secret is that you will actually be able to do MORE is you back off on the volume/intensity but increase the frequency/repeatibility.  A 22 mile long run with 2 days of no running afterwards averages out to about 7 miles a day.  Anyone who can run a 22 mile long run could have run a 7, 15, 4 over the same 3 days, gotten in more quality miles (for a greater weekly training load through consistency), and needed less recovery after the workouts.

Bottom line, in my humble opinion, is that 3x a week running is never going to get you that much better at running, unless you are starting out with very little run fitness.  Embrace the plan that has you running more times a week, and be conservative in the workouts so that your next days' workouts are never compromised.

hth,
Josh

phxphotog - 2010-08-06 10:25 PM Who's doing Boulder 70.3 this weekend? I have a friend, Chris Schauble #773, that is racing this weekend. He's a tv anchor at KNBC in Los Angeles. He's doing Kona this year. You should say hi to him if you get a chance. He's a super nice person.

Good Luck to all our Boulder 70.3 people.

zionvier - 2010-08-06 11:55 PM

Kathleen and I are both doing it.

Kathleen = #1557 (6:40am start time [8:40am Eastern Time])
Pete = 149 (7:20am start time [9:20am Eastern Time])

In addition to the normal Ironman tracker, I'll have the MyAthlete GPS on as well.
http://www.trackmyathlete.com/VEmap.aspx?name=050083

One usability thing that may help people with it... there's a check box on the left for "daily history", so perhaps the day of you may want to try checking that box to see where I've gone.  I actually haven't had the chance to play with the web site while the GPS is actually moving for obvious reasons.  So if you have feedback on usability let me know and I'll pass it on to the owners of the company.

zionvier - 2010-08-07 12:55 AM

Kathleen and I are both doing it.

Kathleen = #1557 (6:40am start time [8:40am Eastern Time])
Pete = 149 (7:20am start time [9:20am Eastern Time])

In addition to the normal Ironman tracker, I'll have the MyAthlete GPS on as well.
http://www.trackmyathlete.com/VEmap.aspx?name=050083

One usability thing that may help people with it... there's a check box on the left for "daily history", so perhaps the day of you may want to try checking that box to see where I've gone.  I actually haven't had the chance to play with the web site while the GPS is actually moving for obvious reasons.  So if you have feedback on usability let me know and I'll pass it on to the owners of the company.

PennState - 2010-08-08 11:32 AM Pete swam in 37 minutes and Kathleen 42:58.

The pro's are in with VERY fast bike splits. All have 2:0x bike splits, so likely a pretty fast course.