Brian and the Tri Tarts Group - Full (Page 20)

I recently made a breakthrough (from 2:00/100m to 1:45/100m). A big factor (I think) was incorporating body position drills (one-arm, catch-up, side-kick with fins). Fingertip drill is great also to keep that elbow high on the recovery.  I think a stream-lined body is "free speed" in that it reduces drag and increases performance without increased effort. That is, you don't have to be more fit, just more efficient to get faster. I guess, work more on drills and form and worry about faster effort later.

So, every workout should have

1. warm-up (20-25% of total distance)
2. drills (25-50% of total distance)
3. main set (15-50% of total distance)
4. cool-down (5-10% of total distance)

The "main set" can be speed and/or endurance.  Only do "speedwork" (25's, 50's at a hard effort with longer recoveries) if you feel like you're not sacrificing form.  If, by really pusing the effort you feel yourself getting sloppy, stop immediately.  You could make the main set mostly endurance sets like one of these

• 1x400
• 100,200,100 (20sec between each)
• 3x150 (20sec between each)
• 4x100 (15sec between each)
• 3x200 (30sec between each)
• 10x50 (10sec between each)
• 2x300 (30sec between each)
• 50,100,150,100,50 (15sec between each)

Once you get comfortable, begin adding repetitions to the above sets

• 6x100, 4x150, 3x300...

JUST DON'T LOOK AT MY LOGS LATELY - I HAVEN'T BEEN SWIMMING MUCH, BUT PROMISE TO DO MORE ONCE THIS 1/2 MARATHON IS OVER...

Recovery after a race.

Typically with races, we go hard.  We test our bodies and push harder than any of our training.  Your muscles are chocked full of microtears, it looks like WWIII amonst your connective tissue.  You need rest and nutrients to recover.  Drink, eat and sleep... that is your job for the 24 hours after a race.

You are most prone to injury at this time.  Thus, be sure to take some time off.  Maybe swim or take a leisurely walk the next day, but ideally, do very little or nothing at all.  Swimming is great, due to the low impact, to loosen things up.  Definately no high intensity stuff for several days after a race.

Here is Brian Dunn's log two days after WINNING HIS AG (M40-44) at an olympic distance triathlon (yeah, I'm 3 years younger and would likely finish 20-30 minutes after Bryan).  Note that he rested the day after, had a recovery swim and lifted two days after.  He typically trains 10-14 hours per week.  Notice that there was no running the 48 hours after the race.

I haven't seen that book, but have heard of it. Some of that really makes sense.  I become much more aware of my body (form, aches, pains, breathing, etc...) when pushing the pace; like during those 1600m intervals the other day.  I tend to "check out" on longer or easier runs, but occasionally check back in to relax my shoulders and try to quicken my cadence.  However, I generally just run easy and veg out on my long and easy runs.

I am a big technology junky so I have used a HRM since I started running in '03. It helped reign me in early on when I would push it too hard and blow up.  Today I use my HRM to make sure I am keeping easy runs easy or to look for signs of overtraining on easy days. I am not a slave to it for tempo runs or intervals, but rely more on pacing.  I do have a good sense of what I can sustain and for how long. Early on, I would push too hard, go anaerobic and miss the point of the work out.

I will periodically check my HR during races because I know I need to keep it in the mid 160s for a good long time for 1/2s but more importantly for marathons.  I would say in my last half, I made the error of focusing too much on HR and may have given up some time.  I had not raced this distance since the fall and did no fall marathon so my racing savvy was still out to lunch.   I think it is back now .

I think you can learn an awful lot from listening to the body and I definitely recommend that.  There will be races where your GPS burps (mine didnt work my first duathlon) or you have such lousy weather where you cannot catch a signal and you need to use your internal wisdom to guide you.

Me again.  I am just catching up on all the posts the group put out yesterday.

Regarding Kims' question on swimming.  I totally defer to Brian and Judi as the experts.  At the beginning, I spent a lot of time on drills, but my only caution is if you are not doing them right they don't help.  I think I was in that camp for a good long time--drilled my brains out, but with no basic improvement.  I think the careful eye of a coach, even for a couple of lessons is the most valuable.  For me, Mark has been instrumental in watching me and giving me correction points based on me. Those little tweaks apparently add up over time!

There were two other things that helped me a lot.  The first is long sets with the pull and one or two focus points.  While I know it is controversial with some, it helped me get a better sense of balance in the water and work on stroke issues.  I would also say doing his work outs which include a lot of things that have been in my logs the last two weeks have been helpful. Instead of doing longer sets (long for me anyway), I am doing shorter distances, multiple reps and some speed work which to Brian and Judi are probably similar to floating on their backs with a pool toy!

Hope this makes sense.  Judi, what do you think?

I don't think speed work is "floating on your back with a toy" (cute)  it's hard.  You can see in my logs where he pushes the intervals with me that I get to "puke factor" pretty quick.  I really need to push all three sports past my comfortable pace but haven't quite learned how to do it without hurting myself. 

I've seen some people stop doing drills and do what they refer to as a "focused swim" just thinking about one particular aspect of the stroke at a time.  The argument is "when I do drills I get good at the drill but it doesn't translate into my swim" so the focused swim is thinking about say head position for a few 100's then perhaps the catch or rotation if that makes sense to you.

BTW, shorter sets are good because if you are having a stroke issue (like crossover) that predisposes to injury you have oppotunity to stop between them, get correction if you have someone to correct you or to think though fo yourself "this hurts/doesn't feel right. what do I need to correct?"  When I first started swimming I frequently went into the pool on a third day alone and would stop when I was unsure if I was doing it right simply because I didn't want to practice the wrong mechanics.

FWIW, my coach has always been reluctant to give me a yardage goal for the month--even when I'm doing swim challenges.  He would much rather I spend the month working on a particular aspect of the stroke than rack up yadage for the sake of yardage.  Probably like the different type running workouts (strides vs long distance vs tempo run) where each workout has a purpose and rationale for practice.

Hope I'm not rambling too much, multiple interruptions here...

I don't think speed work is "floating on your back with a toy" (cute)  it's hard.  You can see in my logs where he pushes the intervals with me that I get to "puke factor" pretty quick.  I really need to push all three sports past my comfortable pace but haven't quite learned how to do it without hurting myself. 

My point was both you and Brian would think my speed work was the equivalent of you floating on your back with a pool toy and an adult beverage!  While I have improved, I am definitely aware of people in the other lanes nearly lapping me.  It doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  At least I can make it back and forth without croaking. 

I'm slower than anyone in my swim group but the one guy has been swimming since he was a little child (maybe 4 or 5 years old) and the coach has been swimming since he was about 12.  I need fins on to keep up with them but I keep at it.  It is really hard to learn to swim correctly as an adult so for anyone who didn't grow up in the pool it does take longer than the other 2 sports to master. 

 I still need to work on my bike handling skills and learn to hold the pace on the road that I can easily maintain on the trainer b/c there's a huge difference between the trainer and the road!

Hey tri experienced people....

How often do you practice swim-bike bricks?  I have done plenty of run-bike or run-bike-run, but never from swimming to bike so am not sure what to expect.  Any tips before we hit the season? I started thinking I will be this dripping mess trying to take off a wet suit and then I need to jump on my bike as that same dripping mess. Girl question, what shape is your hair in at that point?  isn't my seat going to get soaked?

My coach, Mark is offering OWS classes this summer.  Worth it?  I am a little concerned I will be with a bunch of IMMOO people who can swim circles around me, literally.

S

My hair is short so I don't worry about it.  However, if you have longer hair a nice braid or pony tail works for most women.  Keep the hair under the swim cap pulled up but in a way that you can comfortably get the bike helmet on or change to a running hat if you wear one.  Additionally, if you feel like it's too tight a baid and it's giving you a headache  it will need practice to get it at the level where you won't have hair in your eyes but it won't give you a headache.

If you are planning an OWS race than by all means get as much OWS practice in as possible. Even if you're thinking about it for next year I would start now. OWS is insane.  It's like being in the washing machine with elbows flying everywhere then you're all aiming toward the same bouy.  It's easy to get off course with OWS if you don't practice sighting and then there's current and wind to contend with...Other than that it's a blast The IMOO group may actually be good because of the tips they can offer to help you get comfortable in OWS setting.  I have never experienced a group in training or races that is so snobbish about being above where I am that they won't offer help/encouragement.

Hope that helps!

From a muscular adaptation, its not as big of a deal as a bike/run brick.  However, I think a lot can be gained working through the transition.   Rather than a 30min swim + 30 min bike do something like a 6x(5min swim + 5 min bike).  The things to work on include getting out of your wetsuit, sunglasses on, helmet on, shoes on, getting on the bike, keeping cadence up and getting HR down during those first 5 minutes.  Running from the swim, struggling with your wetsuit, jumping on your bike can get you really huffing and puffing.  By practicing this you will get faster, more relaxed and able to have a solid bike split.

Early on I noticed that my calves cramped up a few times during T1.  Things I learned to help with this is more kicking in the last 100-150m and running to T1 before taking suit off, both to get blood pumping to my lower legs before forcing that rubber suit over my heels.

Definitely take advantage of OWS practice.  This is a big deal for some people.  I've seen folks fly in the pool and freak out in open water.  The more time you spend in open-water, the better.  Even more so if it's a clinic, because you will work on stuff that just isn't covered well in the pool (swimming in groups, drafting, sighting, etc).

Don't worry about being wet.  You'll sweat as much as you drip lake water onto your saddle; pleasant thought, I know...

One thing I realized when I first started running is I could not eat everything I wanted all the time without gaining weight.  For me, Fitday.com was a godsend.  It not only helped me track calories, but also really watch my nutritional intake.  I am not sure how many calories you need, but if you start with getting a lot of vegetables, fruit and lean protein and supplement it with high quality carbs, I think you will be surprised how much you can eat to fuel those work outs.  We are heading into fresh fruit and veggie season so it makes it so much easier.  One rule, I try to live by is no junk until after I have eaten at least one serving of fruit and vegetables.  I am in the mode of trying to eliminate fake sugar which is HARD!  Let's keep each other honest.

Nice job on the work outs by the way.

Hey Jen and Kim

Have you ever had your basal metabolic rate measured?  I had mine done years ago using a bodygem machine through a nturitionist, but health clubs also have them sometimes.  The test was like $40 and it told me exactly how many calories I burned if I sat in my bed all day long.  For me, it was 1330 calories.  To that I added a modest number of daily activity calories since I have a desk job and work out calories to get my total.  I think most people over-estimate how many calories they burn doing day to day activities and most especially working out.  At 100lbs, I burn about 60 calories per mile of running and about 30 calories per mile of biking, not much for all that sweating.  At 150lbs a person would burn around 100 calories per mile for running.  I find that my GPS really overestimates calorie burn.

One other thing I started doing when I was trying to lose weight was to buy a food scale.  I weighed almost everything to see how many nutrtients I was eating, but also how many servings.  I nearly died when I realized eating cereal out of the box while working was over 500 calories. I started weighing by grams everything for a while to get on track.  I am a constant snacker working at home so it helped me some (but not always!). 

Hey Kim, care to share why fake sugar is bad?  I feel like a crack addict.  I crave a sugar free popsicle. Problem is when they are in the house I can eat the whole box in a day.

why fake sugar is bad?

They make you hungrier.  Is that a word?  I don't think there's good, conclusive evidence of a metabolic change (see this).  However, the Pavlovian effect has been documented (here).  They mess with your head, not your metabolism.  Then, when eating real sugars, your mind doesn't know when to say when...

Ding that's one answer.  The other thing is that our country's obesity epidemic seems to go right along with when high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and other additives became popular by food companies to put in our processed foods.  I believe the two are related.  The more fake low fat and reduced fat and sugar free food that was produced, the fatter we got.  I believe part of that is people eating larger portions but I think the other is a chemical process.  The body is made to digest real food and we bombard it with chemicals and wonder why it's not working optimally, we are getting sick, all these weird bugs we get.  I think that stuff is ALL related.  The last thing - dude splenda is sugar (sucrose) with chlorine added to make it sucralose. I feel like it's the equivalent of drinking pool water - water with chlorine added.  That stuff makes me sick.  Yeah I know it's not *really* the same, but my mind made that link and it kind of makes me sick to think that the stuff used to keep pool water sanitary is used to trick the body into thinking sugar is "sanitary" so our body ignores it.    

I think that if you look at what you actually use sugar for, you will realize that you really don't need it as often as we think we do when we use splenda.  I use sugar in my oatmeal (about 1 tsp) and honey in my tea.  That's about it for me and sugar unless I'm baking.   

Yup I got my RMR tested and it was around 1500.  Pretty low considering I weigh like 2x your weight.  My total range was 1500-1900 with the nutritionist picking 1700 for weight loss + calories burned during exercise.  My HRM is pretty accurate I think, I burn a lot of calories just cause I'm a big girl.  But I think my biggest problem is just that my metabolism is SO low that I just struggle to eat the right amount and not feel hungry.  Then the  other problem is that since I am so heavy, I burn a lot during exercise, so I am hungry then.  I try to balance by eating those extra calories all day and that helps.  The last problem is burnout I think.  I started WW in 2005 and lost about 45 lbs and then hit the plateau of all mother plateaus.  This is when the nutritionist recommended the RMR after about 1.5 years of WW total and not losing a single lb in the last year.  Now, it's over 2 years later and I think I'm just burned out on counting points or calories and all that.  I'm trying to get back in the habit of journaling amounts and will work to be more detailed, but I just got so tired of doing all that tracking and not really seeing results that I got frustrated and stopped.  Which is NOT the answer either.   

Mine is really low for my height and age for some reason.  Yeah I'm 5'9 and the daily activities and what not get me to the 1900.  I dunno, I need to really focus back on it.  My weight is not going the right way and with my birthday coming up, the desserts and free lunches are flying at me  

Well, my plan was a negative split and I got that much.   I hoped to beat last years time but didn't it was wet and running on wet cobblestones (part of mile 1 and most of mile 5 are cobbled) just isn't much fun.  Did have fun meeting up with Kristen though!

Go get 'em tomorrow Brian!