Training for a triathlon - I need a montage

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

A montage won’t do it. You should be tapering for your event at this point. You can’t add muscle or endurance in any way in these two weeks that will make it of benefit to you on race day.

Attempts to overtrain will actually have a net negative effect on you, and increase your risk of injury leading up to race day, as well as making for a more painful experience.

If you’re not in that great shape, my best advice is 20 minutes of moderate activity every other day. So for this week, do a 20 minute jog, take a day off, than a 20 minute swim, than a day off, than a 20 minute bike ride than a day off.

For the final week do 10-15 minutes a day pretty light to moderate for 3 days in a row. Run, swim, bike. That should take you to 4 days before race day. Take a day off, than go for a walk the next day (20 minutes, moderate pace) and take the rest of the time off until race day.

To ensure maximum energy on race day, you need to start thinking about what you’re eating a few days before. Stay away from fats (they will slow you down, and go for complex carbs and proteins.)

I’ve found the perfect race day breakfast to be a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar and milk, a banana, and a corn muffin (with a little jam or butter for flavor,) washed down with orange juice, and coffee, and a big glass of water two hours before the race

Caffeine on race day is a good thing.

You should plan on sipping water and gatorade (I like a 50/50 mix) during your bike ride and halfway through your bike ride you should eat something. The energy from what you eat will be coming on line when you start your run.

I run with this guy who’s a cardiologist and he kicks my ass and his secret weapon is… dried apricots.

Don’t know why, but they work.

Don’t go out hard. For a race the secret is supposed to be to conserve energy for the first half of the race and finish strong. You’ll make a much better time with this strategy than if you blow your wad at the beginning and limp to the finish.

Good luck!
Trust me about the apricots.

22

On the topic of race day nutrition, the GB rowing nutritionist swears by flat warm coke with salt in it. Its got me through a few Iron Mans so I guess it works. Definitely agree with the tapering, its way too late now for montaging/overtraining.

If you are still having trouble with your breathing doing front crawl I would go with backstroke, it’s faster than breaststroke but you can breathe all you want.

23

Never underestimate the benefit of finishing but with a really crappy time.
Just think how great you’ll look when you vastly improve upon that time in your next tri!
Only partly kidding there. You are taking several huge steps in improving your health. Don’t worry overmuch about your time at this point. It’s only a number. And however slow your time may be, it will be infinitely better than all the folks who are sitting on their couches firing up another fag.
Swimming, take it at a pace you can finish without being completely whipped. You can rest a bit on the bike - at least to start as you recover from the swim. (It is the only leg that allows you any possibility of coasting!) :wink: You have to make sure you get off the bike with enough in you to plod 3 miles home.
Good luck, and let us know how you do!

24

For that matter, don’t underestimate the difference between a did not start, and did not finish.

My Wife had run a number of marathons, and was working on the tri’s. She had been training for about a year and wanted to the the Silverman (aparently one of the hardest ones).

Her sister in law was concerned that she wasn’t fast enough (she wasn’t as it turned out).

But she did it, and she felt great about it.

25

And remember

always fade out in a montage…

26

…if you fade out real slow, it seems like more time has passed in a montaaaaage…

27

Eh, as I’d alluded to previously, backstroke is one of those strokes that poor form will make you work even harder for. People unfamiliar with swimming backstroke tend to let their hips and legs drop – and that creates a whole lot of drag. It’s like they’re swimming with a sea anchor attached, because their lower back and legs are adding to their resistance in moving through the water.

If you remember to keep your hips up and kick, it’s not a problem, but otherwise you can end up even more exhausted, no matter that you can breathe all you want. Crawl strokes (and butterfly) can suffer the same from poor technique, but breaststroke and sidestroke tend to be a bit more forgiving of bad technique – and allow you relatively unlimited breathing.

If you don’t know if your backstroke is low drag, swim a few laps and pay attention to where your body is. Your hips should be at the surface of the water, and your toes should occasionally break the surface of the water in your kick. Your head should be back (so your back arches, slightly) with the waterline between your eyebrows and hairline (or where your hairline used to be, for us older gents). If you want to see what drag can add to your effort, stop kicking for one lap, tuck your chin, and let your legs dangle down.

28

Yes, sorry, I was assuming a basic knowledge of swimming technique. Also I am biased by my irrational hatred of breaststroke.

29

Understandable; I have a similarly irrational mislike of backstroke. :slight_smile: I had to work hard to get mine acceptable, and still have to think about it, so I tend to notice bad form on that stroke.

Also: be careful doing backstroke in an open-water triathelon. An old boss of mine did that on his first triathelon, where it was a lake swim.

Someone had to take a rowboat out to let him know he was swimming in circles. 'Cause everyone else had already moved on to the next leg of the race.

I giggled for weeks after he admitted to that.

30

Less than 12 hours to go.

We timed our swims Wednesday night - we have to tell them our approximate swim times to determine when we start. I came in at 8:33 feeling pretty good. A tiny bit winded but energized and I felt like I could jump on a bike and zoom away. My wife did it in 8:03 and it didn’t even seem like her heart rate changed.

When I started this I could not even do 1 pool length without stopping to catch my breat.

31

Less than 12 hours to go.

We timed our swims Wednesday night - we have to tell them our approximate swim times to determine when we start. I came in at 8:33 feeling pretty good. A tiny bit winded but energized and I felt like I could jump on a bike and zoom away. My wife did it in 8:03 and it didn’t even seem like her heart rate changed.

When I started this I could not even do 1 pool length without stopping to catch my breath.

32

Good luck.

Good luck.

33

Well, I finished. I did not do so well, however.

Couple facts of the day:

-I did not train hard enough. I realize this now. I slacked off all of last week and I was sick all of this week so I more or less blew 2 prime weeks of training.

-I did not push myself quite hard enough. I pushed myself hard for sure, I’m tired and sore, but I kept saving a little something in reserve, especially during the bike, that I never needed.

-The big toenail on my right foot came 3/4 of the way off during the swim. It was excurtiatingly painful to kick, so I powered most of my way through the swim with my arms and it was very exhausting. I came in at 10:30 (significantly worse than in training.) Since I wasn’t fully commited to my kicks, I wasn’t planed out and I ended up swallowing a lot of water. I really thought I was going to puke until about halfway through the bike.

-Final time was 2:14. Dead last :(.
BUT . . . ! I finished.

I’m going to do another one on February 18th. I will train harder and learn from my mistakes this time. I’m also going to take some heavy accessories off of my “lead sled” bike and put some road tires on it!

Overall it was a great experience and I’m glad I did it, but I’m a little bummed about missing my goal by almost 15 minutes and coming in dead last.

34

Let’s see:

  1. Finished.

  2. Didn’t throw up

  3. Only lost one small body part.

Dude, that’s a victory!!!

35

Very good and congrats.

My Wife just did not finish a full Iron man length tri in Vegas. Got pulled after 85 miles on the bike. But she did it.

She almost didn’t try. This was a very, very hard course. We talked about it at length. I’m not her ‘trainer’ per-se’, I am the pit crew. I understand that. She and I felt that it is much better to start and not finish, than to not start at all.

As worried as I was for her, I knew that she would feel better to give it a shot. Then to not even start. She had the energy to do it, of that I am sure. She was just not quite fast enough to finish before the course shut down.

You finished. Not ‘dead last’ you where in front of everyone that did not do it.

Congratulations again.

enipla/Doug

36

Not really, you didn’t know what to expect. I’ve found this out when doing longer swims, you just can’t push the whole way and you can’t keep any back, so you have to learn it. You trained enough, you did make it.

Honestly you don’t need to kick much in the swim, though if you can’t keep yourself flat in the water then the kick does help. You want to keep your leg strength up anyway for the other two. If you learn to keep your legs up more the swim will be better, faster and you will not be as tired.

Nope, someone pulled out I’m sure. I wouldn’t worry about your time, I’ve only done one tri, I didn’t like it much, but I found out later that I had a flat tire, but not totally flat. I was wondering why I was so slow. And I can’t run at all. I was ahead of almost everyone after the swim, and got passed by everyone by the run. You’ll do better next time because you know more of what to expect.

37

Thank you all for all the positive comments. I’m slightly bummed but more than anything I’m motivated to do another one and do better.

1 guy got a DNF because of a flat tire and about 3 guys got DQ’ed for skipping the 2nd loop on the bike. Dead last is a little hard to deal with but it’s easier when I think that most people with my atheletic experience stayed home. It also makes my goal for the next race a lot easier - all I have to do is finish before somebody :D.

38

You finished! You also said yourself that you came a long way since you started training, so that means you’re in better physical shape! You also now know what will be required for next time. Sounds damned good to me.

39

That’s what I did on my first marathon; I was annoyed, because my friend didn’t pace himself, and beat me. And then puked all over the finish line, and then passed out in his vomit.

Better to do the former than the latter, trust me.

Yeee-ouch! Flip turn accident? Or already a dodgy toenail from the start?

Congratulations; you’re now a triathelete. If anyone asks how you placed, just ask them how they did in their last triathalon. :slight_smile:

40

I busted it swimming in a river about 2 months ago. It just picked the perfect time for the bottom and right side to come detached. It’s all bloody and throbbing now; I’m thinking about taking one of the vicodins that the doctor gave me when it originally happened.

Thank you! I think this will be the first of many.