Near Miss in the YMCA Pool this morning.
I hit the pool at the YMCA this morning while my boys were in karate. I suveyed the pool and saw 4 lanes worth of swim lessons 2 full lanes and one lane with two ladies doing water aerobics? (playing jumprope with the noddles). So I took the last lane. This is normally the adult activity lane (ie water walking, etc) but there was no sign this morning and there was circle swim only sing either. So I hugged the lane line and provided plenty of space for folks to come join the lane. Did a HIM swim and got about 1000 in until it got interesting. A group of swimmers took over the water areobics ladies lane and not so politely asked them to move to my lane and just about the same time an old guy walking joined my lane. So the water aerobics ladies joined my lane and we all peacefully coexisted. Then another dude come to the lane after the ladies got out, watches me for a few laps and then joins in. Obviously, I’m splitting the lane and hugging the lane line up and down. Well imagine my surprise when I nearly have a head on collision with this dude coming back. “Come on Man.” was all I said. Lets just say he gave me plenty of space for the rest of the swim. It charged me up for the rest of the swim and…
Categories: Swimming, Team, Training, Triathlons
100 Day Challenge
Sure, I wrote this post about overcoming a training slump a few weeks ago, but sometimes other people’s medicine is better than your own.
Because of that, I’m taking the medicine of of my teammate Jessi who recently started a 100 day challenge. 100 days straight of workouts. Any combination of swimming, biking, running, strength training, sweating or stretching/rolling counts. It just has to add up to 45 minutes each day.
Today was easy to check off since I came home to a brand new bike trainer! It is SO much nicer than the 6 year old bargain trainer that I got when I was in college and has see thousands of sweaty miles.
It is so quiet and smooth. Even more than I had expected and hoped. I bet my neighbors will love it almost as much as I do. I’ll have to do a review later on.
Day two, here we come!
Categories: Training
10,000 Yards Complete
I had many people ask for a report, so here it is. Swim-A-Poolooza 2011 was a smashing success! We had 36 swimmers in total. Some did 100s, some did 75s and some did 50s, but all had fun! I think we had 8 swimmers in each of the lanes doing 100s, but because they’re all experienced team swimmers, there were no problems.
This was the 4th year I’ve organized this event and it grows each year. This is the first year we held the event at the Lemont Park District’s The CORE. What was amazing was that we only had 5 “repeat” participants from last year. This means we had 31 NEW swimmers this year! Thanks to Suzi S., we had great music playing throughout the 3.75 hours. Thanks to both Suzi and Chris S., participants were able to stay fueled and hydrated through the event without having to get out of the pool.
I’ve done this swim about 8 times since I’ve been out of college. As told by the smile on my face, this was the most fun I’ve had. Usually, there is a “dead” point somewhere around the 70-80 rep time frame. And this year, I thought I took out the first 10 way too fast! But it was fine. Aside from a little bit of pruny…
Categories: Events, Swimming, Team, Training, Triathlons
Tags: Swimming
Tri-Swim Tuesday
They’re baaaaack! I’m thrilled that Tri-Swim has signed on to sponsor Team Trakkers for another year. This stuff is just gold! Since we are also back in the routine of Tuesday morning swim practices (we had a GREAT full pool this morning, if you weren’t there you missed out!) I thought it was time to post another Tri-Swim Tuesday workout.
Today we worked on upper aerobic endurance. (This is another way of saying little rest and hard swims.) If you do this one as written you should need your Tri-Swim to wash off the chlorine AND the sweat!
Warm up:400 – 500 total
200 – 300 easy
4 x 50 kick (25 hard kick, 25 easy) no rest
Main Set: 2100 total
4 x 50 [25 sprint, 25 recovery] no rest
4 x 100 [50 sprint, 50 recovery] no rest
4 x 150 [100 @ t-pace, 50 recovery]
2 x 300 [200 @ goal race pace for 300 pool swim race, 100 recovery] no rest
2 x 150 [100 @ t-pace, 50 recovery]
Cool Down: 100 easy
Categories: Swimming, Training
Tags: swim workouts, Tri-Swim
Sigh No More
I don’t really like to think of New Year’s as a special event. It’s just a day like any other, and frankly, I don’t do well with resolutions or “how I’m going to change my life in a day” hulabaloos. It’s the same reason why I don’t practice lent (that, and I’m not Catholic). But, even though I tend to disregard January first as a significant day of change, I do still have this feeling of starting afresh. Jan 1 (well, Jan 3, actually) marks the start of focused training, since I have attempted, and failed, thanks to the move, new employment, and holidays. I’ve struggled over the last few weeks to stay focused; I’ve struggled with coping with life. I have been sleeping a lot, I have been lackluster about running, and that’s just not me. Frankly, being an adult sucks, and I want to get whisked back to the time (about three months ago) when I wasn’t concerned about having enough money (because I could just take out a student loan and I split rent with a roommate). Without getting too mopey about it all, I’ve basically struggled with being alone, broke, and overwhelmed.
But, I can exhale now. I have a roof over my head, I have been paid, and I have food in my cupboards. I’m finding my groove at my new job, I’m committing to training runs and swims, and I’ve found a few people…
Tough Enough
I think a lot about whether I’m tough enough for the goals and races I want to achieve.
Where is my Pain Cave?
If you read any amount of endurance sport blogs (well, almost any exercise blog, for that matter), you’ll find the term “pain cave” easily and often. A cursory search of Google reveals how prevalent this phrase is in the lexicon of sport, as there were almost 7 million pages returned. Narrow the search to “Triathlon Pain Cave”, and you get 130,000 returns. You can read about how to “make the most of that little black place that emerges in your psyche,” purchase an episode of Spinnervals called The Pain Cave, or even “Learn to Love the Pain Cave”.
You might ask, as I did, what exactly is a “Pain Cave”? Frankly, that depends upon whom you ask or what you read. Often, a pain cave is described as a small room or workout area where athletes go in the off season to sweat like a manual laborer in the middle of July. Other times, the pain cave is described as a mental condition – a time and place where you are at your personal limit and must decide how you’ll proceed.
Either way, the pain cave is ubiquitous – especially in endurance sports. Ask any marathoner. Any Ironman. Any couch potato working to lose five pounds.
So what is a Pain Cave to Tri Madness? To me, the pain cave is a mental cave. It’s the self doubt and questioning that seems to creep into my mind in the midst…
Categories: Training, Triathlons
Recap: 2010 “Sophomore” Season
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that my 2010 season is wrapped up. I’ve even had two weeks of my post-season do-whatever-I-want awesomeness, [which really hasn't been that awesome]. Racing this year has been a blast! In my second season as a triathlete, I raced more and improved from last year. And, I felt strong in the run of practically every race, which made me happy.
I set some lofty goals at the beginning of the season, and although I didn’t make them all, I’m happy with the level I’ve risen. Anyway, it’s time to reflect on what racing in 2010 brought me:
* Two more marathons are checked off my 50×50 list (Utah and Michigan)- I BQ’d in both of these, too. Although I didn’t reach one of my goals (another marathon PR), I am still incredibly satisfied with where my run has made it. In fact, although I didn’t PR in the open marathon, I broke my marathon PR in the 140.6 distance by over 30 minutes. And, I also shaved off a minute from my previous best time in the 10-mile.
* I ran the farthest I’ve ever run before, in a training run no-less. Although I was registered for my first ultra, I bailed because of sub-optimal health/stress levels. The ultra world is still there, and I’m striving to make it a to-do for 2011.
* I broke 11hrs in the…
Categories: Athletes, Racing, Training, Triathlons
Is Yoga Tougher than IRONMAN?
Most of you know – I’ve been sort of out-of-commission with my running since JULY! YES, JULY! So, when a friend said to me, “Hey, I’m doing this 30 day Bikram Yoga Challenge, wanna join me?” I thought that might be exactly what I needed. For those of you that never heard of it, Bikram Yoga is a 90 minute session of the same 26 poses each session. Oh, and the room is 105 degrees (and I’m told it’s like 135 degrees with humidity).
What the heck, I can’t run, I know yoga is good for me – because as a triathlete, I’m quite inflexible – and, hey, it’s only 30 days. Right? Oh so not right… (sigh).
I joined my 30 day challenge at Bikram Yoga Burr Ridge. I joined my friends at 5pm on a Friday night for our first of the 30 days. It must be very quiet in the yoga studio. I have a hard time keeping quiet for 5 minutes, forget about 90 minutes! I walked in the room, sat my mat and towel down and nervously looked around. I’m hot. What the hell did I get myself into?
The first thing you do in this class is breathe. Yes, I said it. Breathe. I’m sweating. We are 60 seconds into the class and I’m sweating. I want to cry. I want to leave. I want to douse myself with water. …
Saucony AMP Pro Recovery Tight
If you’ve looked around in our sport, you’ve noticed this trend of compression. Compression shorts and especially compression socks. There are all sorts of companies claiming the benefits and importance of compression socks, and to be quite honest, I’ve been a bit of a skeptic and not very fond of the new fashion statement. They kind of remind me of the tube socks of the ’80s pulled up, or the leg warmers of the Jazzercise era…but science says it works. While I still may not be a fan of sporting the socks with shorts, I have become a fan of compression.
Saucony has released a new line of compression and it is amazing!! As of now, you won’t be seeing me in the compression materials walking around or racing, but I’ll wear them under clothes for recovery. I’ve been hitting some pretty big training blocks the last few weeks in my preparation for Ironman Florida, and have been sleeping in the Saucony AMP Pro Recovery Tights.
Since, I’ve gone to sleep with tired legs only to wake refreshed and ready for another big training day. When trying to decide on a size, if you are at the lower end of one size, you may want to go ahead and size down. When I first tried these on, I though my legs were going to get really hot, but they actually breath pretty well.
The video below from Saucony will…
Categories: Product Reviews, Tips, Training, Triathlons, Videos
Tags: compression, recovery, saucony, trakkers
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