PNW Tri Novices

[salsabike]

Whoof. Glad to hear it, Wahine---thank you! Sheesh. If only we could suck in our butts the way we can suck in our guts...

I also went back to my new favorite book, Slow Fat Triathlete, and was glad to see she got pretty sweaty (not a good thing) and took about a half hour. Thank you, Jayne.

For those of you who can use some cheap entertainment tonight, I put on my sunglasses and one of Chris' hats, and made him take a picture:

Attachment 6247

[Wahine]

Cool!! Thanks for the photo Salsa. You look like you're ready to roll. A little word of advice tho, save the sunglasses for T1 and the hat for T2, got that?

[Sprocket's Mom]

Just a mild word of caution.....while I know that I've heard of people using Pam to get their wetsuits on, I have also heard that it can potentially break down the material in the neoprene so it's best to use bodyglide or something along those lines.....
Just a thought, maybe I'm way off base....as usual.

[MM_QFC!]

Whoof. Glad to hear it, Wahine---thank you! Sheesh. If only we could suck in our butts the way we can suck in our guts...

I also went back to my new favorite book, Slow Fat Triathlete, and was glad to see she got pretty sweaty (not a good thing) and took about a half hour. Thank you, Jayne.

For those of you who can use some cheap entertainment tonight, I put on my sunglasses and one of Chris' hats, and made him take a picture:

Attachment 6247

wowie-zowie...SalsaHotMama!

[Wahine]

It's true about the Pam breaking down neoprene, but it's OK for occasional use. It's a matter of convenience for some... Pam sprays on while body glide takes a lot longer to coat your legs etc. But if you want your wetsuit to last a really long time, I wouldn't use Pam. Hence the reason why I don't.

[Sprocket's Mom]

I just wanted people to be aware of the potential downside before they went to Costco and loaded up on cases of Pam!
Once ya know the scoop, then you can make informed decisions. Like you Wahine, I want my suit to last a long time. Of course at this rate I'm not the one getting the use out of it....but oh well, at least it's getting some good races in while I cheer from the far far off sidelines!

[Wahine]

But if you keep telling people this stuff my stock in Pam is going to go down in value!!

Seriously though, it's a really good point that I should have mentioned so thanks for catching it.

[salsabike]

I meant to post on here Sunday night to say that I'd gone that day to a Mary Meyer pool clinic in Seattle, and it was GREAT. Just what I needed. All the basics of what makes for an efficient freestyle, and drills for an hour. Uh, it really HAS changed since they taught me at good old Camp Yowochas in 1963. So that was an excellent thing to do.

Today I spent starting to create the muscle memories for all that. I didn't worry about fast or even about extending how many laps I can do without stopping. I just practiced everything they'd told me, probably about 18 laps' worth of practice. I plan to do that again Thursday, and then do the pool clinic one more time on Sunday. I don't have anyone to tell me exactly what to do, but I THINK that getting the stroke/form correct and into muscle memory comes before worrying about endurance, and that doing it correctly will help with endurance/pacing/breathing/whatever it is I'm trying to say! Then, I plan to do one of their OWS clinics on July 12.

Then I hiked down to the beach and back up, just a couple of miles. Set to take a four hour chi running workshop this coming Saturday. Still have no idea whether I'll like running or not, but will find out.

I would dearly love to hear from other newbies here on how they are doing with their training and what they're working one.

PS Arggh. Water in my right ear, staying longer every time. Earplug?

[dex]

Sounds like things are really on track for you, Salsa. Very cool.

(WARNING: Lots of whining ahead...)

I'm feeling a little blah about anything related to exercise lately. (Except weightlifting, but that's not going to help me much with the whole getting ready to swim-bike-run thing.)

I can't seem to get interested in the swimming. I think this is partly a logistics thing--it's a hassle to get to a pool--but also partly just a frustration thing. The last few times I went, I just felt uncoordinated and kind of, well, dumb. I'm not sure what happened. I didn't have these problems in the early part of the year (when swimming was all my PT was ok with me doing), they've just cropped up in the last few weeks. Maybe I should try one of those clinics. I mean, it can't hurt. (Except the embarrassment of looking like a way out of shape, uncoordinated dumb thing in front of other people.)

The bike. Eh. I'm riding occasionally, but not as often as I probably should. Definitely not as much as last year, but then again I'm not trying to get ready for the STP like I was last year. I'm not overly concerned about the bike part, I just wish it was more *fun*.

Running. Well, I try not to think too much about running. I walk. I have occasional short bits of jogging mixed into the walking. Realistically, that's probably about as good as it's going to get for me. If I try to walk too much (or mix in just a bit too much of the short jogging bursts), my knee gets cranky and starts to swell. So I just try to avoid that. Right now, three miles is my upper limit for walking without incurring the Wrath of Cranky Knee. My hope is that will improve a bit as summer progresses--the weird spring weather put a bit of a damper (no pun intended) on getting outside and doing these things earlier. But it is discouraging sometimes to think that I may *just* be able to complete this event, and it's probably going to hurt a little.

Ok, I'm done whining. Sorry 'bout that. I now return you to your regularly scheduled TE awesomeness.

[Wahine]

I don't have anyone to tell me exactly what to do, but I THINK that getting the stroke/form correct and into muscle memory comes before worrying about endurance, and that doing it correctly will help with endurance/pacing/breathing/whatever it is I'm trying to say! Then, I plan to do one of their OWS clinics on July 12.

....


PS Arggh. Water in my right ear, staying longer every time. Earplug?

If there's a question in there the answer is ... Yes, yes, yes and yes. Great plan.