What Was Your Work Out Today?

mtaratoot

I went diving.

I went all the way to eleven feet below the surface. I started two feet down and over 90 minutes scrubbed my way to the bottom of the exhibit.

Djproulx

nossmf wrote: »

I have no experience to draw from, was just using logic and asking a question. Back in my school days we'd train hard for track or cross country running Monday thru Thursday, easy day Friday, then compete Saturday with Sunday off, rinse and repeat. But that was doing 5k runs, not triathlons or marathons, so just assumed that since bigger events require bigger training, they also involved commensurately bigger rests immediately before.

@nossmf, you raise an interesting point about going too hard during race week. This has hurt many athletes, even pros like Lionel Sanders, who admitted to going way too hard the week before the IM world championship in Kona.

I also agree with your comment that longer events typically need a longer taper.

The tricky part is that not all athletes react the same to a taper. Most coaches use a tool such as training peaks, to track an athlete's fitness and fatigue during a training build. The "art" that comes into play is figuring out how much fatigue to shed (via rest) without sacrificing too much fitness. With experience, athletes often develop a preference for racing either a bit "fatigued" (not quite enough taper) or "flat" (a bit over tapered)

@DiscussTank5 - my two cents: Trust your training plan! And on race day, race YOUR race, as opposed to chasing an athlete or group. (Many of us have learned this from painful personal experience! )

Looking forward to your report.

Djproulx

Gym session yesterday morning, tempo style run today. Went for 40 minutes alternating between 4 minutes at my tempo pace, followed by 1 minute of easy jogging recovery. I'm still painfully slow, but Garmin is calling the workout productive, so we'll see.

DiscusTank5

@Djproulx, I was hoping you'd give your 2 cents / triathlete's perspective! And thanks for the question, @nossmf. Really kind of you to take an interest. Back when I was training for my first half-marathon ten years ago, I made sure I ran 14 miles even though the training plan called for 12 miles as the longest run. Why? I'm an anxious type and I needed to know for sure that I could do 13.1 miles. Today I ran the run portion of the tri, including a killer hill at the end. This may well count as over-training, and maybe I won't run as well on Sunday because of it, but I needed to experience that hill before the actual race for psychological reasons.

nossmf

Well do I remember hill training for cross country! lol OMG, our coach was brutal about it. We lived an hour away from a ski resort, which during the fall is snow-free and closed. Once per week we'd load up on a bus, drive there, and spend our workout busting our chops sprinting uphill on the steepest ski slope, walking back down, repeat.

Worked, too, (though we'd never admit it to coach). Come race day, there would always be at least one decent hill, though never as steep as our training hill. Our entire team would break from race pace and sprint up that hill, passing other school runners left and right, before returning to race pace once we hit the peak. Interesting psychological truth: the people we sprinted past almost never re-passed us after the hill, no matter how much we slowed down, because they were psychologically beaten when they were struggling up the hill and we appeared to easily breeze past them, so even after we slowed down, in the back of their heads they simply KNEW we were faster, so why try to catch us?

nossmf

Today was upper body hypertrophy day in the weight room, lots of sets of 10-12 for chest/back/shoulders/arms. Found a little-used machine in the corner of my gym designed for lat raises (the outside of your shoulder), which has the lifter place their elbows against the inside of a padded arm connected to cable weights. Same arm motion from shoulder to elbow as when doing DB raises, but without strain on my elbow tendon I was able to literally double the weight used, get my sets done pain- and worry-free. Bonus!

DiscusTank5

nossmf wrote: »

Well do I remember hill training for cross country! lol OMG, our coach was brutal about it. We lived an hour away from a ski resort, which during the fall is snow-free and closed. Once per week we'd load up on a bus, drive there, and spend our workout busting our chops sprinting uphill on the steepest ski slope, walking back down, repeat.
_

That's a great anecdote! I doubt I'll be sprinting up the Mayfield hill on Sunday, but I'll think of you and your fellow XC teammates running up the ski slope.
Today is a rest day, so I walked my dog and then a couple of hours later took a pretty slow walk with a friend.

spider_mark51959

spinning

mtaratoot

I spent a few hours picking up trash from a local river. I volunteered to row a raft, so mostly I was just rowing, which I love. It involved maneuvering and sometimes rowing up against the shore to hold the boat while someone tried to remove abandoned stuff from where it was partially buried.

Sad to say, the situation will get worse as the nice weather season continues. The organization I volunteer with does these things once a month, but for a while we'll start doing it twice a month.

ilfaith

Played tennis for about two hours this morning. When I got home I put in another twenty minutes or so working abs, swinging some dumbbells around, and stretching.

Djproulx

Rode my usual weekday hour long bike ride. 16miles in 58 minutes. Somewhat windy and chilly, but still great to ride outside.

AnnPT77

Bike ride on the trails, about 24.5 miles at the usual "li'l ol' lady on a hybrid bike" pace/intensity (moving average speed 11.2mph).

So many things on the route smelled really nice: Fruit trees, lilac bushes, even the (bleep) invasive exotic honeysuckle that's spread everywhere. Then I got home to a living room that smelled nice, too - the sort of sweet baby-powder scent from a Hoya (wax plant) that's blooming in my house.

nossmf

Woke up, gym bag packed, ready to go pump some iron. But wife told me last night to expect a phone call to setup a payment plan for some medical bills, caller promised to call before 11. So I waited by the phone (wife's phone, couldn't take it with me to the gym) all morning. Sure enough, no call, wasted morning, no workout. I'll go lift tomorrow morning since not expecting calls on the weekend, but it was still rather annoying.

AnnPT77

Ultra relaxed Friday-easy pace (85W for 63 minutes) stationary bike ride that I talked myself into doing after a gloomy, rainy day limited the fun of my usual recent outdoor options. At least it was something!

nossmf

Leg day in the weight room, hypertrophy day meaning lots of sets of 12-15 reps. Left knee started to pain me halfway through the squats, but a little massage and I was able to push through, and by the time I got to the step-ups my leg was cooperating again.

drmwc

Finger boarding 10 hours after a hard climbing session is um... interesting. I'm enjoying the two times a day approach, so I'll continue with it.

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. Another good session.

Saturday
I dropped my drysuit off for repair. I used the train to get there, and shared a junction with Twickenham at Clapham Junction. There was a rugby tournament on, so it was quite busy.

So I decided to come back a different route. I walked along the Thames Path from Chiswick to Richmond, where I went through Richmond Park. I then got lost, and went to Putney Heath (I was aiming at Wimbledon Common).

I decided to climb some trees at this point. One tree had a hard dyno. I failed to make it about three times, and somehow covered my arm in blood on the final go. I seem to be very mature now I am in my 50s: I moved onto an easier tree at this point.

After this, I found Wimbledon Common and made it home for tea and medals.

Fitbit reckons it was 15 miles. It was a lovely Spring day

Djproulx

I did no training the last two days due to normal life conflicts and some pouring rain. Got out this morning for a 90 minute run. Used a 4:1 run/walk method that kept my HR low (120-130). I love my Fenix6 display that gives a color coded icon next to the BPM as you run, plus the color bar to keep track of time in different HR zones. My 7.5 miles in 90 minutes was a slow overall pace, but that isn't a concern. I just need time on my feet over the next 7 weeks to be ready for the HIM in July. (Oh, and more weight loss wouldn't hurt either, lol.)


Looking forward to reading @DiscusTank5's triathlon report.

DiscusTank5

Here it is, @DJproulx!

Sager Creek Triathlon 2023:I thought about what you said while out on the course, about running my own race, not anyone else's. I had to stop once on a really steep hill during the bike section and catch my breath, and I walked for a few seconds here and there on the run part. I race intuitively but if I ever want to increase the distance, I'll need a heart rate monitor. I got the nutrition spot on this time (.5 banana and .25 Builders bar one hour before the swim started, with one GU and plenty of water and Body Armor fruit punch on the bike).

I finished FIRST in my age group because . . . I was the only one in my age group. Race stats: 300 m. (12 lengths) Swim in 9 min, 22 sec; T1 was 2 min, 45 sec. Twelve, er 13 mile Bike took 65 min (yes, I went off course and took in an extra mile); T2 was 2 min, 13 sec. The two mile Run took me 27 min, 11 sec and was actually my fastest of the three disciplines, compared to everyone else. I improved my overall time of 1 hr, 46 min, 54 seconds by 10 min. over last year's Ozark Valley Tri (also a 13 mile bike ride). Some of the guys doing the International distance passed me on the bike--their second lap--and were surprisingly chatty. That was nice, especially as four of us faced the most daunting hill at once, in what was otherwise a pretty spread out race.

"The Way" by Fastball was playing after I finished this race with these triathlon-appropriate lyrics: "Where were they going without ever knowing the way?" "Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold" (ha!); It's always summer, they'll never get cold . . . they'll never get hungry, they'll never get old and gray . . . they wanted the highway, they're happier there today." Love the post-race feeling and the new friends. I chatted up another mom and an older couple (he was racing, she wasn't) for about half an hour as we watched the swimmers in the pool for the International distance. I really enjoy getting to know other people who "TRI."

Djproulx

@DiscusTank5 - Big Congrats! Well Done. And first place is first place! The real goal in triathlon for most folks is to simply make it across the finish line with a smile. You certainly did that!

It sounds like you executed your race plan very well and enjoyed the positive vibes of the race participants. That's one of my favorite parts of the sport. There are very few experiences that come close to the race day feel of triathlon.

Now you'll need to find a suitable place to display that first place bling! And sign up for your next race, lol.

drmwc

@DiscusTank5 Congratulations!

I went climbing yesterday. It was odd, I felt really sleepy and sluggish. (I napped on the train en-route to the gym, which is the fist midday nap I've had in over five years). However, once I got moving I was not too bad. I wasn't brilliant, but I wasn't terrible. I got a couple of v4s, flashed a few v3s and actually had decent power on overhangs.

3 hour session.