Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 63)

I don't have bike fit numbers, but I will at some point this spring.  I got a fit for Christmas!  I also found out I may have a loaner bike for a little while this summer.  I'm doing Timberman Half relay as the bike leg and the runner is brother-in-law to a fitter at Fitwerx, one of the premier fitting places near Boston.  He said I could grab a bike from one of the many he is always putting together.  We'll see how long I get it; I'm would assume he understands I'll need to ride for at least a few weeks to get used to using it.

Jeff, it sounds like your recovery is really complete.  Very nice and pretty quick all things considered.  I agree that running a lot at an easy pace is doing some really positive things.  That said, I'm taking this week as a back off week.  I'm starting to feel some tinges on my inner right calf, not while I run but during the day.  Nothing bad at all, but I'm going to cut back a bit this week on the miles and build again next week.

Warren, priority #1 is to always avoid injury.  So cut back.  You will be ahead of the curve if you can keep a small daily run going though.  And it will often help to do that small run after either a swim or a bike because those activities amount to an impact-free method of warm up which helps.  And keep the runs on the treadmill as that surface is much softer than the alternatives.

Good luck.

What I would like to do is find one of you that doesn't yet have a TT bike and offer to give you my old frame IF IT FITS.

It's already established that it won't fit Dirk.

I am about 5'11.5", but have the longest inseam of anyone in the world my height.  So my bikes typically fit people 6' 2" and taller.

But if you are someone that needs a high stack, then a large frame like mine can work with a short seat post.  So it's not too likely it will fit anyone 5' 11" unless they either have a really tall inseam or have a high stack number (ie. elbow pads at the same height as the seat).

Jonathan, off-hand you are the best bet to fit my bike, but I think you already have a TT bike.

ps.  I also have a 56cm road frame.  I'm wondering if that might not make for a nice upgrade for Matt?

Thanks, I absolutely plan on continuing to run, just backing off the time a little this week and the pace even more.  I'll try to get on the treadmill as much as possible.  After this week and the obligatory crazy amount of Italian food, I'm getting serious about losing some weight. I know I'm fat when no one in my family comments on how deathly ill I look!

I'm 5' 11", but I have shortish legs for my height so I would doubt I'd be a good candidate.  As much as it pains me say that.

I Survived the Holiday gatherings and was even able to keep what resembled a training schedule!  Went for MTB ride on Monday that absolutely kicked my Butt!  Friend I started riding with loves to push it and our goal for Monday was to find every hill we could in town.  Took me to what he called the worst hill in town and I can see why, took me 2 attempts before I made it up.  1st time missed a gear and then kept slipping, 2nd time I started in the easiest gear possible and still struggled but made it to the top.  Small victories leads to great accomplishments, or something of the sort! 

Dirk:  I feel you on the whole smoking thing, as an ex-smoker I now know how disgusting of a habit it is.  I cannot even stand to walk into a room with people smoking.  Not sure I would make it in the "bingo hall"

Jonothan/Jeff: Nice work on the pace, I can't wait until I get to the point of running a 7:30 pace with minimal effort.  Still feels like it is a long way off.  I can get to around 9:30 but HR goes through the roof after that.  I am also still dealing with the pesky Knee pain, it eased for awhile but seems to be back full force.  I went out and bought one of the knee support bands that go directly on the patella tendon, we will see how that goes.  It has worked in the past but I think if the pain stays much longer I may have to make that dreaded call to the DR.    I want to get back to increasing milage but I am not going to attempt it until I figure out whats going on!

Jeff:  What do you have in mind for the road frame?  I am always looking to upgrade and place "Wally" into retirement!  How much were you thinking for the frame?  From there do you have a rough estimate on what it would take to get all of the parts and get it ready to race?

If it's the right size for you, it's a Christmas gift.

Parts will depend on what you can swap over from Wally.  Or perhaps you want to keep Wally completely operational to keep as a spare bike or 'pass it along' to someone.

I have a spare crank and bottom bracket that will go with it.  As well as the headset (oh and fork too of course).  And I can throw in the front derailleur.

For the rest, you can/should buy lightly used parts on ebay.  I would suggest shimano 105 components or equivalent.  Let's forget wheels for a minute.  Short of the wheels, you can probably put together something to be proud of for $300? (you can use the wheels from Wally at least for a while).  And it will creep up from there if you choose to outsource any of the work to a bike shop or splurge on parts.

Just a random thought.  I'm going to draw an analogy from Karate/Kickboxing since I'm familiar with that.

Let's say someone wants to become a professional kickboxer.  They look at a pro's training routine and figure they will pattern it after them.  It might mean that they begin by hitting the weight room, but doing 20% of what the pro does.  They do cardio training, like running, but 20% of what the pro does.   They spar full contact, but only 20% as long as the pro does. 

Not only would this get them hurt (imagine a poor slob stepping in the ring with a black belt on his first day of training for ONLY a minute of full contact), plus I really don't think it's the best way to get them to pro status.

I would start them with just 2 things.  A traditional karate class, that after 2 years will have them to black belt and a modest conditioning program that works their weaknesses. 

Then after achieving their Black Belt (having all the technique and theory ready), then it's time to start easing them in to full-contact sparring and beginning to climb another learning curve.  It would be a 4 year road to travel.

I'm drawing an analogy to triathlon training.  We tend to follow the example set by pro triathletes.  Someone who coaches elite triathletes is an 'expert' on training and writes a book on his/her methods.  Age groupers and beginners try to follow that plan and it just doesn't work out.

For instance, the 'ideal' running program for an elite runner may have 90 miles per week with 10-15 miles done at tempo, maybe threshold pace.  Probably 5 miles done above LT pace and above race pace... (depends on running event).  Does that mean a beginning runner just brings that down to 20 miles per week with an equivalent amount of threshold and interval running?

I don't think so.  Just like an aspiring fighter should just go to karate class to learn technique and power (but not fighting), you need to build a base and that's not just a few months.  I think that any runner should just be out there comfortable with 50+ miles per week of easy running before they should ever consider doing intervals.

I can even say the same thing about the bike.  crank out huge miles; not every ride, but be someone who can easily do 50 miles then cut the grass, or 100 miles and still picnic with the family that evening...No intervals needed....just ride.  And it doesn't hurt to push hard on the bike, but don't ever HAMMER for 20 miles in leiu of slogging through 50 miles.

I can't speak to swimming, but seriously suspect the same might be true there too, at least for triathletes who are targeting a 1500 meter swim.

Perhaps the training plans we should be using have nothing but easy volume until we begin to find ourselves poised to either out train elites in total volume, or to almost perform with them.  And THEN begin to train like them in regard to intensity?

Or more realistically, perhaps we should be within 80% of our performance potential before beginning to train that way.  For someone who can only hope, at best, to do a 2:20 olympic then maybe speed work should begin when they get to 2:30?

I don't know for sure.  My experience with easy volume isn't pure.  In high school I was thrust in to intensity at first and always had intensity 2 seasons, or half the year.  So I didn't do pure volume for year after year.  And even now, I still race.  And the racing itself is obviously intense and may be one of the factors in my improvement.  And I do think we should all race regularly.

What are your impressions? 

Jeff,at the highest level I think the theory that we shouldn't be training like elite pros makes perfect sense.  We don't share their genetics (I know that's a sore topic on this board); we don't share their freedom of time and therefore rest/recovery.

I'll let you know how the running part goes this spring, as I'm dropping ALL intensity until my half marathon.  I expect it to be true.  The key I think is that you have to increase load somehow, and with running I can increase load simply for quite a while by adding time.

In terms of biking, you may be right, but in practice it is very hard to get in enough miles.  I can easily do a 50 miler and feel very fresh if I take it easy, but that's a 3 hour event.  Since improvement requires some sort of increase in load, you have to either ride more hours or ride with more intensity.  I simply can't get in enough hours riding to improve going at a pedestrian pace.  So I think that adding shorter intense sessions becomes necessary to increase load at some point given the available time.

Swimming I have no clue.  I do know that every really good swimmer I know has swum a ridiculous amount of hours.

And of course the injury piece plays a huge role.  We cannot increase load if we are injured and unable to do any training, so staying healthy enough to continue training at all is priority #1.  This is also why for the running part at least, it makes a pile of sense to keep the intensity down for as long as possible.

I think the place where your analogy is a little lacking is that kickboxing (and other martial arts as I'm learning with my son in jiu jitsu) is insanely technical; many years of technique study and improvement is not only possible but absolutely required to reach even a very average level of proficiency.  Though biking and running have some technical elements, they are not nearly as technically dependent as martial arts.

You are right about the technical nature of martial arts.  It may be more analogous to swimming, but even then it breaks down. 
I think the main point I was trying to make is that with martial arts, a good approach is to learn technique exclusively for a lot period of time before integrating actual fighting.  I'm not referring to point style sparring or even Jui-Jitsu tournaments but the real bash-your-head-in-full-contact stuff.

So the analogy would just hold that (at least in running) you might be best off to devote a couple of years to simply doing a lot of mileage with no special focus on intervals.

On the bike, I think you can just ride hard, but steady-state (like tempo runs) and get all the intensity you need.  ie. no need for special 'intervals' of higher intensity.  Hills do that automatically.  It's not bad mind you.  If that type of workout is what gets you mentally through an indoor bike workout then good.

However...when I do set out to do an easy, long ride I find my legs surprisingly trashed.  For instance, I will go out with my cycling club guys on a Saturday morning and the pace is too slow and easy and I get impatient with waiting and slowing for them.  But after 60 miles I find that my legs really got a great workout as evidenced by feeling like jello even 8 hours later.

And you are right about the time commitment. Pro cyclists do this long easy stuff, but they spend 5+ hours a day doing it.

Swim?  All I'm doing are sprint oriented Master's workouts and I think I'd benefit more with longer, steady-state swims.  The right thing for me to do is to add these workouts on my own which would really bump up my swimming volume.

What a great start to the new year Matt.  Adverse conditions like that can really build some HTFU.  Glad the knee really co-operated, hopefully that will continue to be the story.

I've finished my "down" running week and my Achilles and calf/shin feel pretty good.  I really backed the pace off and also cut back miles.  Back to the build this week, though I think the pace will stay very easy - I'm buying Jeff's premise on running for beginners.  Though seeing Matt race makes me wonder if I should throw a few 5ks into my plan, but I'm leery to deviate from the easy pace runs while I build to get to HM distance (hopefully 40+ mpw by March.)

Nice race Matt!  The winds the past couple of days have been pretty fierce and I was glad I didn't have a run scheduled for yesterday when I saw the forecast.  The wind can definitely play havoc on pacing too, at least if it is real windy.  And yesterday was REAL windy!

I am back to a "normal" schedule of training.  I got my week 7 test done in Jorge's plan and I have a higher threshold HR than before.  Last test I had an avg. of 157 and this test it increased to 164.  I can't think that I have improved that much.  I figure I screwed the other test up badly.

My youngest called me the Black Samurai!  My wife just called me nuts, I called it wanting to get in a 5 mile run today

Looks like a great run!

So the bike thing....let me do just a bit more due diligence to make sure you get something that works for you.

Can you get me a side shot of you riding your current bike, Wally?  I want to check that fit.  If it's a decent fit, then I'll ask you to take some measurements for me.  I will then try to determine if you could get good measurements on my frame (or frames).

Just to be clear, I have a TT frame that is probably too large and I have a road frame that is probably right.  But let's check your measurements and see what we can learn.

You mentioned having aerobars.  What, exactly, do you have?

I posted this in the Jorge thread also, but the way I understand it, your HR at threshold is pretty much constant, but what changes is your speed/power at that HR.  So either your first test you left too much in the tank, or there was some other factor affecting your HR for one of the tests.

That's an awesome shot Matt.  Gonna be a good winter.  We've had ridiculously warm weather with no snow up here in NH, but it's starting to cool of a bit finally.

I would agree with that assessment Dirk. The first one is almost guaranteed to be thrown out the window.

I had a very disappointing workout yesterday.  I did the warmup, then 6 x 4 mins at 20 min power.  Based on my last test, my 20 min power would be 294.  I could not for the life of me maintain 294 for the 4 mins.  It was very frustrating and I was just angry after I finished.  My left achilles is a little tender too; I don't remember when that started, but it's lingering....And it was my birthday.  Crappy workouts on your birthday make it worse.

Have you made sure that your cleats on your cycling shoes are all the way back?  That's something everyone here needs to check.  Most shoes don't even allow your cleats to get back as far as I believe they should be.  Even as a pure cyclist you want that cleat back, but all the more for a triathlete who needs fresh calves when the run begins.

But add in all of the issues I've had over the years with calf cramps, plantar's fasciitis and achilles tendons and it's a double no-brainer.  Every one of those conditions were aggravated on my bike until I moved my cleats back.

Just shake off the bad workout Jonathan, we have ups and downs all the time and this 'down' was just a workout not a race.

Happy New Year!

Happy birthday Jonathan.  It must be something in the water up here: I had the same problem with my first 6x4' workout yesterday.  By set 4 I was seriously in trouble.  I kept thinking that I was able to keep this power up for 20 minutes just last week, and now I can't do it for 4 minutes!?!?!? 

I chalked it up to the moon phases or something.  I'm not near 294, but the concept is the same.  I figure like Jeff said, sometimes you just don't have it.  Take care of that Achilles.  And I'm checking my cleats the second I get home.

That's an interesting question.  I will definitely check.  I had my cleats installed by my fitter, but I will take a look.  I have a new pair of shoes that I need to put cleats on as well, so I'll throw those on there and see if that helps.

I know I shouldn't dwell over bad workouts, it just gives me a negative attitude.  I gotta shake it off.