Manatee Mentors 2016 - Closed (Page 63)

Awesome post Karen!  I really like your explanation of "chunking."  I call that getting to the next water stop because that's how I ride things like BikeMS and Cycle NC -- just worry about the 20-30 miles until the next stop, repeat.  In fact, I do that when I run all of the time.  I get a few miles in and then start doing math.  I'm a quarter of the way, a third of the way, etc.  Let's see, half of 14 is 7 and half of 7 is 3.5.  Hey!  I'm already more than a quarter of the way done!  Woo hoo!

Olive oil

Avacado

Coconut oil

Fatty fish like salmon, herring, sardines

Nuts

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by RookeyDavid Regarding the bike - probably a mixture of both. More a mindset of "that feels like enough, let's not push through the barrier". Swim-wise, I can jump in the pool and kick out 2000yds immediately. It's probably the intensity and variation of the workout sets that gets me and when I can't complete one aspect of it (for example, the kickboard stuff kills me), the rest of the workout seems moot so I call it a day. In talking this out, it seems like it's more a mental thing. Any ideas on how to break through that?

Sometimes when motivation is lacking, it can be helpful to go back and revisit WHY you picked your goal. If you aren't able to find a satisfactory answer, then you will likely have a hard time with motivation. If you do find your answer, hopefully the soul searching will have rekindled your motivation. Barring that....suck it up, buttercup.

Sometimes it's as simple as the bold.  When training in an endurance sport, where the goal is to make you tired so that you become less tired the next time, you're going to have some days where you want to throw your shoes out the window, sell your bike, and cancel your gym membership.  This is doubly so when starting out or training for an IM. 

Enjoy the peaks and endure the valleys.  If you can do those two things, then this sport gets a lot easier and more fun.

ETA: and everything that Karen said was really good.

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by RookeyDavid Regarding the bike - probably a mixture of both. More a mindset of "that feels like enough, let's not push through the barrier". Swim-wise, I can jump in the pool and kick out 2000yds immediately. It's probably the intensity and variation of the workout sets that gets me and when I can't complete one aspect of it (for example, the kickboard stuff kills me), the rest of the workout seems moot so I call it a day. In talking this out, it seems like it's more a mental thing. Any ideas on how to break through that?

Sometimes when motivation is lacking, it can be helpful to go back and revisit WHY you picked your goal. If you aren't able to find a satisfactory answer, then you will likely have a hard time with motivation. If you do find your answer, hopefully the soul searching will have rekindled your motivation. Barring that....suck it up, buttercup.

For me at the moment i am having some mental blocks and just getting it in is the most important part. So often i'll get started and tell myself that i only need to do 5 minutes and if after that i still don't want to do it, i can stop. And, I am letting go of the idea of doing the 'right' workout or 'good enough' works. Getting going can be the toughest part. There are a thousand and one other things to do. 

I do this too.  Thinking about a long workout or race can be intimidating, breaking things down into smaller, bite-sized pieces really can help.  In races like HMs I generally  think just get to mile 5, then 6.5, then 8 etc.  I even tell myself i just have to get to mile 12 cuz anyone can run 1 mile  

Originally posted by juniperjen

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by RookeyDavid Regarding the bike - probably a mixture of both. More a mindset of "that feels like enough, let's not push through the barrier". Swim-wise, I can jump in the pool and kick out 2000yds immediately. It's probably the intensity and variation of the workout sets that gets me and when I can't complete one aspect of it (for example, the kickboard stuff kills me), the rest of the workout seems moot so I call it a day. In talking this out, it seems like it's more a mental thing. Any ideas on how to break through that?

Sometimes when motivation is lacking, it can be helpful to go back and revisit WHY you picked your goal. If you aren't able to find a satisfactory answer, then you will likely have a hard time with motivation. If you do find your answer, hopefully the soul searching will have rekindled your motivation. Barring that....suck it up, buttercup.

For me at the moment i am having some mental blocks and just getting it in is the most important part. So often i'll get started and tell myself that i only need to do 5 minutes and if after that i still don't want to do it, i can stop. And, I am letting go of the idea of doing the 'right' workout or 'good enough' works. Getting going can be the toughest part. There are a thousand and one other things to do. 

A lot of good workouts have started out with mixed feelings. I'll get through the warm-up, which is typically 10-20 minutes. See how things are going from there. Nearly always I'll be feeling a lot better, but sometimes may still need a little more before being ready to really go after a workout.

Originally posted by juniperjen

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by RookeyDavid Regarding the bike - probably a mixture of both. More a mindset of "that feels like enough, let's not push through the barrier". Swim-wise, I can jump in the pool and kick out 2000yds immediately. It's probably the intensity and variation of the workout sets that gets me and when I can't complete one aspect of it (for example, the kickboard stuff kills me), the rest of the workout seems moot so I call it a day. In talking this out, it seems like it's more a mental thing. Any ideas on how to break through that?

Sometimes when motivation is lacking, it can be helpful to go back and revisit WHY you picked your goal. If you aren't able to find a satisfactory answer, then you will likely have a hard time with motivation. If you do find your answer, hopefully the soul searching will have rekindled your motivation. Barring that....suck it up, buttercup.

For me at the moment i am having some mental blocks and just getting it in is the most important part. So often i'll get started and tell myself that i only need to do 5 minutes and if after that i still don't want to do it, i can stop. And, I am letting go of the idea of doing the 'right' workout or 'good enough' works. Getting going can be the toughest part. There are a thousand and one other things to do. 

True.  And, I always tell myself I have never regretted doing a workout, but I always regret missing one. 

I'll do that too. Take in more manageable size pieces of the workout. That doesn't mean stopping at these 1/4's or mile points, just only thinking more about that much of it.

Good point on the not stopping. 

For me, it's also important that I phrase it to myself in the positive.  "I'm already a quarter of the way done!" and "Only 5k to go!"

Oh yeah, definitely no stopping!  And, I also do the "only x to go!" or "halfway there!" mind tricks.  I imagine when you do IMs these things are even more important. 

I saw that too. Much of the training time should not be pushing anywhere near that. it's at an easy effort.The majority of the workouts should be easy to do. Not because you need to toughen up necessarily, but because the intensity level for them is rather low. You are not trying to set a PR, go hard, or even moderate much of the time. Just putting some time in and then in a select few workouts at most you'll be going hard.

At the beginning, maybe go at what seems too easy. Let the work come in and see how you feel after a little bit. This is another reason for longer warm-ups for me. Sometimes I go the other way and have a lot of energy to start. I need give some time to let the resistance come to me.

Curious where the plan is from, a BT one? Someplace else? 200 isn't nearly enough warm-up for me. The 200 pacing is 5" slower per 100 than what's likely your "mile" pace, so shouldn't be more than a moderate effort. The first one might not bee too hard at all. For the kicking, slow it down and just get through it. Don't take it out like you're escaping a shark. That's too much for you. Most people are awful at kicking and really don't have the conditioning for much of it, so it will become hard simply by the duration of it. Let the difficulty come to you on this one. I don't understand the "last 200 ez to c/d". It's in the set at the pace specified or the set becomes 7 x 200 plus a 200 c/d. I don't really understand what is meant with the 2,200 pace given (the 2:03) or the 1,000 pace. There is a substantial gap between them.

What are you using for effort? What's the 80-90 rpm supposed to signify? This is something you should be able to do every day of the week in almost any condition, so trying to figure out what's going on in making it that hard to do. It could very well be just going easier in the early going.

You very well could be. The 70% or so effort is something you'll work up to doing like 5 hrs on the bike and hopefully it isn't difficult to get through then. The first hour of these rides for me tends to feel too easy even though I'm actually working fine according to other means. I have a power meter to help with that and show what's going on. HR is there too to help, but power is more immediate.

So, ummmmmm, would Reese's cups count?  Maybe not - just Snickers?  <snicker>

As for chunking and the like - love it.  The Better Half often says, "Run the mile you're in."  Shorthand for similar thinking and bears directly on race mentality - during a race or a hard (mentally or physically) workout.

It's not every workout where this happens, thankfully, and many are expressly the "run easy" types (of the "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" plan).  However, when you have to suck it up, you have to suck it up, and thinking small is something I find VERY helpful in getting through the big stuff.

Note - DO NOT suck it up to the point of injury.    Bad idea (speaking from experience). 

Matt

I was thinking about this conversation yesterday as I was DREADING my hill repeats.  I used a couple of the methods mentioned here: a) suck it up and get going and b) give myself the option to bail. But I didn't bail. Once I was going I just kept telling myself "only 5 more, only 4 more..."

I got an email from Coach Scott yesterday inviting me to Hot Yoga for endurance athletes. It's this Sunday from 1600-1715. I accepted the invitation. I've never done Hot Yoga before. Could be interesting. Especially with Scott and his crew.  I'm surprised he scheduled that late afternoon on Valentines day, but that's his problem to figure out

No bacon?!?!?!?!?!!??!

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by amd723

Originally posted by jmkizer

Originally posted by Hot Runner *Once you've spiced up the workouts, do what I call "chunking" when I work with kids. Don't think about getting through the whole workout, just that particular repeat, then the set. For example, today I had a workout with 200's, 150's and 100's. It was a pretty long workout, and I wasn't feeling that great. (Not sick, just cramps and maybe some cumulative fatigue, plus water was colder than I like and I was feeling a bit uncomfortable.) I would have quit if I thought, "Okay, I'm going to go swim 3300m." Instead, I thought, "Now I'm going to swim 200m easy. Now I'm going to swim 200m medium. 200m medium hard, 200m hard." It's much easier to focus on doing a good job on one repeat than contemplating a whole workout. I

Awesome post Karen!  I really like your explanation of "chunking."  I call that getting to the next water stop because that's how I ride things like BikeMS and Cycle NC -- just worry about the 20-30 miles until the next stop, repeat.  In fact, I do that when I run all of the time.  I get a few miles in and then start doing math.  I'm a quarter of the way, a third of the way, etc.  Let's see, half of 14 is 7 and half of 7 is 3.5.  Hey!  I'm already more than a quarter of the way done!  Woo hoo!

I do this too.  Thinking about a long workout or race can be intimidating, breaking things down into smaller, bite-sized pieces really can help.  In races like HMs I generally  think just get to mile 5, then 6.5, then 8 etc.  I even tell myself i just have to get to mile 12 cuz anyone can run 1 mile  

You even break up a run into multiple different runs as seen on strava!!

True!

I often wonder how the takeaway for a lot of people became almost exclusively about the shoes (or no shoes.) 

To me, it seems that he is a little all over the place and not really grounded in any real data in trying to relate his examples to his theories.  Like the tie between compassion and competition? What? 

But I think a bigger overall theme in his book is that for the Tarahumara, running is just a part of daily life. Shoes, no shoes, toe shoes, cushioned shoes - I bet if everyone ran daily, as a means to survive,  they would become very efficient, have an excellent understanding of their limits and get injured much less. 

Oh awesome! I'll bet that is a huge weight off your shoulders! 

Originally posted by Jet Black

Originally posted by amd723

Originally posted by jmkizer

Originally posted by Hot Runner *Once you've spiced up the workouts, do what I call "chunking" when I work with kids. Don't think about getting through the whole workout, just that particular repeat, then the set. For example, today I had a workout with 200's, 150's and 100's. It was a pretty long workout, and I wasn't feeling that great. (Not sick, just cramps and maybe some cumulative fatigue, plus water was colder than I like and I was feeling a bit uncomfortable.) I would have quit if I thought, "Okay, I'm going to go swim 3300m." Instead, I thought, "Now I'm going to swim 200m easy. Now I'm going to swim 200m medium. 200m medium hard, 200m hard." It's much easier to focus on doing a good job on one repeat than contemplating a whole workout. I

Awesome post Karen!  I really like your explanation of "chunking."  I call that getting to the next water stop because that's how I ride things like BikeMS and Cycle NC -- just worry about the 20-30 miles until the next stop, repeat.  In fact, I do that when I run all of the time.  I get a few miles in and then start doing math.  I'm a quarter of the way, a third of the way, etc.  Let's see, half of 14 is 7 and half of 7 is 3.5.  Hey!  I'm already more than a quarter of the way done!  Woo hoo!

I do this too.  Thinking about a long workout or race can be intimidating, breaking things down into smaller, bite-sized pieces really can help.  In races like HMs I generally  think just get to mile 5, then 6.5, then 8 etc.  I even tell myself i just have to get to mile 12 cuz anyone can run 1 mile  

You even break up a run into multiple different runs as seen on strava!!

I should count therapy work as strength training, then log everything there to give you some competition.