Ernesto's group (third season) - CLOSED (Page 98)

Well, I bit the bullet and signed up for a coaching group.  Tonight was trigger point therapy and then my first swim class with the group.  It was awesome.  Can't wait until tomorrow night for spin training and Thurs AM for running.

Glad to hear everyone is still working out and overcoming challenges.

March Challenge is coming at a good time.  Feb started slow and ended slow for me.  No motivation the last couple of days and legs just felt tired.  Don't know if it is life and work getting in the way or what - but nothing like a good challenge to dust the cob webs off.

March Challenge Rules:

"The winner is the one with the most workouts in a month, each workout at least 30' each.

A "week" is Sunday to Saturday. March has four weeks preceded by three days (Thursday March 1 through Saturday March 3). During each of the official four weeks, you can only count the workouts from 6 days. You can work out all seven if you want, but the workouts from only six days (your choice) go toward your total.

S/B/R is a workout. Supporting stuff (like weights) does not count.

You cannot break a workout in 30' blocks to get more in one day (example breaking a four hour ride into eight workouts). Not more than one session of each sport in a day, so the max for one day is three workouts, assuming you did a swim, a ride and a run each longer than 30'. 

You get one point per session. Max points possible for the month will be 3 x 27 = 81. Tie breaker is overall training time."

Proposed reporting format:

Mitch - Swim X; Bike X; Run X; Total X; Minutes XX:XX:XX

Participants as I found them

Participants (pls add your name as you complete your 1st workouts if your name is missing)

How's your son?

I'm looking forward to the March challenge, but it's going to be interesting to see how I cope.  After a big weekend (for me) of cycling, I've been incredibly fatigued.  As a result I've had 2 days where I've done little to no training, in the interests of not killing myself.  As a general rule I tend to believe more in under-recovery than overtraining, but I think this weekend was probably overtraining. 

I'm struggling to find the balance between doing what I feel I "should" be doing (I'm getting a little panicked that I'm not going to be ready for IM), and doing what my body is actually capable of.  I'm trying to find the happy medium between doing enough, but not too much, but I guess the last few days have shown that I haven't figured it out yet.

So any tips from people about how to figure out the right amount to do?

Hey Mitch, I started using the Advanced Endurance Nation IM Plan because that was what 5 other tri-friends that I found were also going from Guatemala to IM TX were using.  However, after a few weeks I realized that the plan was a little too technical for my experience, since every workout is based on HR zones and very specific.  I could see that it made sense for the other friends who were using it because they all have completed IM's before (b/n 2-4 each) and felt comfortable with the plan and knew already what to expect.

So I decided to go with a coach/buddy who help train me for the Chicago Marathon and am following a plan that he puts together for me every week.  He has done a good job training other local athletes for recent IM and 1/2 IM tris and I like the on-going support that I'm getting from him, especially since it is a whole new experience for me.

For future IM's I will probably consider the EN plans, since I like the strategy of optimizing every workout and getting the highest ROI out of each workout and limited time.  

Cheers!

Hey, March here already and this morning at 5am started with a 56min MTB ride.  It gets too hot later on, plus I have to go to work too.

Rachel, I don't think there's such a thing as balance... and the body is capable of handling much more than we think. For me the danger is mental burnout. To help, you need regular dose of motivation material. I don't know if you're familiar with this guy, but his blog  helped me.

March Challenge Rules:

"The winner is the one with the most workouts in a month, each workout at least 30' each."

OK - the lawyer in me has to raise the following question:  Does 30 minutes mean 30 minutes of active exercise? So, for example, should rest intervals during swim sets count towards 30 minutes?  My feeling is that it shouldn't, but I wanted to put it out there.

The problem if it doesn't is that it would be a pain to calculate swimming time. I think time between interval SETS should not count, but time between intervals should.

BTW, Mathews, do you know that March doesn't strat until tomorrow, right?  Mark should be in the lead as he is the only one officially in March (Is it still 2012 in Australia?)

MARCH CHALLENGE

I think that was more than a hint...LOL.  

I knew that I could track my swim time minus rests but was thinking that others may be using the clock at the pool or not have a water resistant garmin, etc.  I'm fine either way and yes, you are right - I need to start swimming with consistency.  That is one thing I have never done!  That is my goal for this month.

Ernesto is right, and to facilitate the challenge he has garciously decided to donate a new Garmin 910XT to all of us poor souls that are living in the past using antiquated equipment, such as my Garmin FR305.

Funny thing - I was most worried about my swim, still think that is the limiting factor of me moving to olympic distance, and yet by rank vs. rest of my AG, the swim was my best modality...go figure

Woohoo! I'm on top! See how long this lasts... We actually have to do everything upside down here with Matthew. And in the heat. Oh, and the water in the toilet swirls the other way. Yeah. 

Chris, this cosmic calculation puzzles me, I have this feeling it will be more than 1000 years before we are in sync... but I could be wrong