first triathlonites 2006-07

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Originally Posted by Offthegrid

MD, I know this is a little late, but did your coach say why you should be working on your kick for triathlons? In tris, your legs are more or less along for the ride. I'm obviously no expert, but everything I've read and heard says that triathletes kick only a little to conserve energy and their legs. (Hey, if swimming were about strong legs, we'd all be able to do 3,000 meters by now.) But it is important to make sure your feet are together and not dragging.

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She did not explicitly say, but I can figure it out from what she did say:
1. you need some kick to keep your body from "fishtailing"
2. you don't want you legs causing drag and holding you back.

I used fins for the first time last night and they make a huge difference. It's almost impossible to kick wrong with them on. I've got a long way to go and lots of work to do on my breathing and endurance. As we agreed last night, I know how to swim but I'm not a swimmer ;)

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Originally Posted by Offthegrid

I'm almost up to the minimum required to be able to join masters (1,600 meters), but I don't think if I'd join anyway. I watched one of their practices, and they were doing 4 x 100M IMs. I can't swim fly and have no interest in learning because it's not going to help me in a tri.

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Are they that rigid that they don't modify for people's goals?????

I wish we had masters swimming here. (our group was kind of a loose knit masters - not official) Our coach modified EVERYTHING for whatever level people were at.

Any one know how master swimming gets started? I would like to see a good lap program started at the Y (I suppose I could probably do it but HEY I want to SWIM!)

But then I suppose it is good they don' t have it - I would then be torn between swimming and cycling (cycling probably would win out) :D

Well, the Masters program I am in is certainly skewed towards the competetive side of things. I joined partway in between the first and second session, so I missed the very beginning, but they definitely eased into things, with each set of 2-3 classes being spent on a stroke skillset, with the beginning of the night broken into warm-ups, drills, and then middle/end of the night with a good chunk of lap/drills and warm downs. By now we've moved on to no drill skillset, a pretty standard warmup and each class focusing on one thing, whether it be distance/speed/IM/other. We did an IM class the other day, ended up doing about 20 IMs in total, and I was completely dead. By the 8th or so I just started swimming laps because I couldn't get my arms out of the water for the fly anymore.

My class is pretty laidback, with about 3-4 people per lane, and those of us that are non-competetives (tri-training for ~3 of us) try to stay in our own lane "the slow lane". Now that we're out of stroke drills, we're mostly just doing training for competitions, and though that's not what I'm in it for, I find that it has benefits as well.

For example, I couldn't do the butterfly when I started class, but now I can almost do it. And I can almost do several laps of it! (Not in a row, of course). And while I will never do a lap of butterfly if I don't have to, I find that it has its benefits, particularly if you want to develop shoulder flexibility and strength which is of interest to me as a climber. Oh, and the cardio! I find the butterfly the most taxing stroke out there, but that could just be because I suck at it (I can only do 25 m at a time vs. almost infinitely more than that of free).

Also, we learned flip turns. And while I shouldn't need these in a tri, I think they will be useful in swimming laps because they give me a more 'sustained' feeling when I do large sets of laps, whereas if I do the wall-turn thing (3 point turn?) I have a tendency to linger a few seconds if I'm tired. When I do a flip, I get even a bit of increased effort effect in the core area, which I like (and find to add some difficulty, so yay!)

Anyway, I still pretty much refuse to do any block starts. If we do those I may do backstroke starts or something, but usually I and those in my lane will just swim laps on our own, and our coach is ok with that, because we're not on the masters team.

I guess it all depends on your coach and how strict they are, and if you discuss the fact that you are just taking this for a tri training program, and not to compete.

K.

thanks for all the great info Kimmyt! Oh how I wish we still had someone to coach here. AND I would like to train and swim competitively - I was torn between trying a tri and competing in just swimming next summer. I thought since I love to swim and love my bike and want to lose weight so why not learn to run, the Tri won out and I am really glad it did.

Got my Eric Hann book yesterday BTW - stayed up too late and now am tired all day - but will probably stay up too late again tonight :p

It is "strongly recommended" that swimmers can do at least 1,600 meters before joining the Masters group. (I did 1,400 this morning, but it took 50 minutes. :( ) I have not talked to anyone about it.

The morning group doesn't seem to have a coach. They were working off a printed workout sheet, but I didn't see anyone offering or giving any instructions or help and certainly no one was watching from outside the pool. One of the morning times conflicts with my spinning class.

I have heard the evening group is more competitive, but my schedule wouldn't let me attend the night group anyway.

I would like to learn to do flip turns, but I'm not there yet. And I'm so slow that even the slow lane would be too fast.

One thing that probably would benefit me more than anything else is swimming with another person in the lane. The turbulance won't simulate the amount of waves in open water, but certainly would be a start.

Is there a contact person for the Masters class? They might be in charge, but still in the water so it'll be hard to tell who it is. If you can get in contact with them, maybe ask them if they think you will be able to keep up. Keep in mind that most 'drill sheets' have different levels in them. i.e. they'll say do 4/3/2 100 IMs so you can do either 4,3, or 2 depending on how fast you swim.

If the class is self-propelled, then you may just be able to do your own thing.

Also, just because it says you should be able to swim 1600 meters, doesn't mean that you will be doing 1500 meter chunks all at once. In our class things are broken up, taking 20-30 seconds between repeats of a drill, and we only do long swims about 1x a month. Otherwise it just gets monotonous.

Good luck, and hopefully you can find a solution!

K.

Interesting info about the master classes - so there isn't always a coach. Just MAYBE I could get something going eventually then. We swam at the high school and our coach wouldn't swim but would write up the workouts on the boards, set the lane clock for different times for different people, explain how to do everything and watch and correct our strokes if we wanted her to. I think I was very spoiled :)

OTG
to get us started doing flip turns she had us:
- first stand in about chest deep water, tuck, turn, stand up in the same spot
- then swim to the wall tuck, turn, come up on your back and kick off the wall, on your back, underwater, w/ arms extended out (I wore a nose plug for this one)
- when you are comfortable doing that you then add the twist to your front
The way it is done you are actually twisting to your front after you have kicked off.

Sounds sooooo easy. I can do a decent one about every 4 times, my breathing/rhythm/arm stroke always seems to be off - you have a great start because you are just about always 3 count breathing.
I do the best ones when I have short fins on and am coming up to the wall w/ some speed then it is just zip and I am around!

1,400 in 50 minutes is nothing to shake a stick at! that would be about 1900 in an hour! Do they expect 1600 in 50 min? that is booking it and would leave most oldsters out of the loop unless they were wearing fins.

As Kimmyt said our amts. varied depending on what we were doing. I never got much done when it was "leg" day. Other days we would do 200's w/ a full minute rest or 25's w/ a 10sec rest.

YOU ARE DOING GREAT!!!!

I am finally thinking it may be time for a HR monitor

I have searched this forum and others, compared models, compared features, compared prices and now I AM TOTALLY LOST.

I swim, bike and try to run. I would like a HR monitor that would work for all 3 and not cost an arm and a leg. (not over $200, preferably a lot less) I don't need it to download to a computer, but I would like a cadence monitor on it.

What models does anyone recommend and what do they do? I am soooo bad at this stuff. Knowing me i would blindly get something, figure it out and then wish I had gotten something else

Hi gals

Finally decided to check in here. I got my first race (a reverse sprint tri) on Sunday and it looks like... rain. :mad:

I've been getting training advice for the past few months from a friend who is a certified USATri/USACycling/TI swim coach and have finally decided to hire him to coach me. I felt too guilty using up his free time with my pesky questions. Actually, he's been really nice and offered me free advice on basic training and won't start billing me until I get into specialized OD training in the spring :D

So... here's my schedule leading up to my first race:

Friday: BIKE / 30 miles
Saturday: SWIM / 45 minutes
Sunday: BRICK / spin bike 1 hr. + 5k run
Monday: rest day
Tuesday: BIKE / spin bike, 2+ hours
Wednesday: RUN / 4 miles

Next up:
Thursday: 30 minute run followed by a 30 minute bike. Focus should be on form, fast leg turnover and a fast transition (race day prep).

Friday: Get on the treadmill or spin bike for 15 minutes, then quickly get to the pool for a 30 minute swim. Focus should be form, nice and relaxed the first 20 minutes, hard and fast the last the last 10 minutes.

Saturday: Relax and make sure you have all your equipment together and that you're ready to go (with check list). Lunch on Saturday will be your most important meal for the race, measured carb/proteins.

Sunday: Race day :eek:

Bluetree, that's so exciting -- your first race! I can't wait to read your race report. I'm hoping that you won't get rain. *crosses fingers*

Eclectic, see my response in the HRM thread. I may have the answer for you, but it is on the expensive side.

But the more you tell me about masters, the less interested I get. I have no interest in doing leg work in the water. I do enough of that with weights, cycling, spinning and walking, thank you. I haven't even looked into joining, so I have no idea how fast they want you to swim the 1,600 meters. All I know is that when I started swimming again in October, I started at 400 meters entirely with fins and it was a goal to work up to the minimum to join masters -- not because I WANTED to join masters, but just to have a goal.

Maybe when I get to 2,500 meters I'll work on flip turns. :D But now if I try I run out of breath and get water up my nose. I could probably do them with a nose plug, though, so maybe when I want to start doing them I'll swim some workouts with that and then gradually phase it out the same way I did with fins.

BTW, are we starting another TD? TE gals sure do love big threads. :p

Hey girls...

I'm officially WORN OUT... One week from the tri.

I've got Tendosynitis or something in my right foot. It hasn't been treating me well PLUS my new bike doesn't like me. ;_; It keeps bucking me off.

Even though i've reached my swimming, running and Cycling distances... I'm to exhausted to continue training in the week that's left.

Meanwhile I've got the Amy Gillet RIDE tomorrow. 45km round surfers. HOORAY... Gonna do it on my hybrid cause I'm still not confident on experienced enough on my roadie.

GOOO bluetree!!!!

I thought you were supposed to be tapering in your last week?



A guy from work suggested I do the local tri in August which is supposed to have a "participating is everyting" atmosphere. It starts off with a 2.5 km downriver swim.:eek: He said it takes about as long as 1K in the pool. then 35 / 9 k.

Yes, Alpine. I was told to “tone it down” for the last week. There’s not much I can do with my fitness levels in one week. However, I’m doing a reverse tri this weekend and once my coach saw my training diary, he said I had to do some short reverse-transitioning drills.

Up to now, all my brick workouts were bike-run. I thought that run-bike would be no big deal. Well, run-bike is supposed to be easier, but I just found out it’s not exactly easy.

Yesterday, I came off the run in good shape, but once I got on the bike, it felt weird. It felt like I was riding someone else’s bike. My quads were pretty “active” from the run, and I had assumed it would be great to get into an easy spin. Again, wrong. I found out it’s much easier to start riding in a slightly bigger gear and let my quads/gluts get gradually accustomed to lesser resistance. Okay, got the point.

In my bike-swim drill this morning, I got off the spin bike all gangbusters and eager to hit the pool. I was out of breath and puffing 15 minutes into the swim. Lesson learned: keep the heart rate down and don’t bolt out of transition. Oh, and don’t forget to eat. I forgot to eat dinner last night and breakfast this morning, and paid for it today.

Forecast for race day:
Low: 40°F / 4°C
High: 56°F / 13°C
Chance of rain: 56%

Whoo Hoo ladies ! ! ! ! GO! GO ! GO ! Hooray ! ! ! clap clap clap

that is me cheering for you as you go whizzing by. GOOD LUCK!

Bluetree: a reverse tri sounds really interesting can't wait for the full report :)
I've always thought doing the swim last sounded more logical but I suppose if people are too tired it would be easier to drown than to just collapse at the finish line :p

OTG : thanks for all the good HR info now to just make the final decision. I think for me having one would be a good idea now that in less than 20 days I will be hitting the big 5-0

Re masters swimming - I think swimming would really have to be a passion to put that kind of intensity into it. It was my first love since I was 3 years old until I started cycling a couple of years ago. But around here there just wasn't anywhere to go do serious lap swimming until 5 years ago when our HS girls swim coach started a program. Now she has quit but I learned enough to do it on my own.
We don't have any community indoor pools - they are tied in w/ schools or you have to join the Y for mucho buckos and then all the aerobic ladies get mad at the lap swimmers for infringing on a whole 2 of their lanes.

Try flip turns - they're fun. At first I couldn't hold my breath all the way around either, so would only do them once in a great while. Now that I have started training for running I can easily hold it all the way around - cool!

- I've turned into a major water weenie now that I am older - I've gotten so I HATE water up my nose and in my ears so I wear earplugs and a nose plug. When I was younger I didn't care - it just came with the territory