Category Archives: Challenges
2015 Plans
I haven’t posted in weeks. Not that I don’t have anything to say it’s just that finding the time to type it out is more than I can handle most days. Next year want to be in the position to do more video posting. I can talk with out a doubt and without a problem! I will be tweaking this blog process and getting myself ready to take my blogging to the next step. So be patient. I shall return!
Wetsuit or Not?
Do you wear a wetsuit for open water swimming (OWS)? This past season I borrowed a wetsuit from dear Roz and used it for my one and only open water training swim. I was so busy focusing on the process that I can’t say how the suit felt. I decided not to wear it for either of my first two sprints. Would it have made a difference? I’m not sure. My swim performances were less than stellar. Especially since I swim four to five says a week in the summer. But I wasn’t tired in either swim. Just slow. They both took longer than they should but I attribute that to poor training on my part. I was so freaked about riding that I concentrated on that and let my swimming kind of go.
The people who I know that swear by wetsuits see swimming as the necessary evil of triathlon. Like I feel on the bike, I just want to get it done. Don’t care how it looks just do it. So would the added buoyancy have made me faster? I doubt it. So will I get a wetsuit next season? Probably because I intend to do one earlier and one later that last season and the water may be chilly. We’ll see. What do you think? Read the rest of this entry
Maintaining Fitness in the Off Season
Today I went to the park for the first time in weeks. Actually, I’ve been lazy since Iron Girl on September 7, 2014. Once the day was over I had nothing to train for. My next event whatever it will be won’t be until next summer (if my knees cooperate). So I just haven’t had the urgency to get out there. So this morning I decided if it wasn’t raining I would take a quick walk and come home. My second round (1/2 mile track) I ran into an old friend and started walking with her. Did three miles and called it quits. Well I hate to say it but my legs have been sore all day. Wow! I know that I have to get back in the groove and put together an off-season schedule. I may not start formal Triathlon training until spring but there are lots of things I can do until then. For sure I can’t go weeks without walking again.
What do you do in the off seasons to keep fit?
You Know Your Addicted When………
You off and on watch Ironman Kona on-line from early morning until late night and are thrilled watching people finish. Now an Ironman is out of my realm of possibility but it is still thrilling to think about what it takes to do one. I see now how people escalate from sprints to olympics to 70.3 to full Ironman events. How far can we push ourselves? I look at olympic distances and say to myself I can train for the swim and ride but I can’t run so walking 6.2 miles is out of the question. Or is it? OMG what am I saying. After both of my events this year I swore that I was finished. As the day wore on I had rationalized that I just needed more training. Well that’s true. But I am way ahead of myself. Let’s just get through the winter and then…..
Training Makes the Difference
Today some of the members of a Facebook page I follow did and Iron Man triathlon. For those of you who don’t know that entails a 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a marathon run (26.2 miles). I believe that most have a time limit in which you have to complete it. Anyway people ask you do you do that and the answer is the same as the one for sprint triathlons like I do, you train for it.
Being the best swimmer in the world doesn’t help you on your bike. Being a marathon runner does not prepare you for the swim. You have to put in adequate time in each sport to stand a chance of completing the entire event.
I know of a few people this year that were not successful in their triathlon attempts and several of them had medical issues that arose and kept them from being successful. I think that if you talked to the rest of them you would find out that they just didn’t get the right amount of training in. It’s a delicate balance and other than doing the distances in training you are always unsure whether what you’ve done is enough.
If you watch your elite athletes, they are constantly training to stay in the game so to speak. So when you are getting up in the dark to get your training in visualize the finish line!
OMG the Post Season Lazies have struck!!!
I can barely get off the couch. I am waking up between 7:30 and 8:00 am. Not even sure I remember the way to the park. Good grief. Just a month ago I was setting my phone to wake me at 5:45 am so I could get to the park and start my ride/walk. I was at the pool by 10:00 am daily like I was getting paid. Now making coffee makes me tired. I teach online so I don’t even get dressed for God’s sake. I know that I have to adjust and get back in the swing of things. I can’t afford a season off for a variety of reasons. Weight control, arthritis, boredom all come to mind. Today though I’m going to sit here and contemplate my garden and enjoy a pretty fall day. Check back with me later.
Out of my garden
The Athletes Solitary Mind
One of the things that took a while to sink in for me was that no matter how many people are around and no matter how supportive they are, when the horn goes off and a triathlon begins, you are on your own. If your mental game is not right all the cheering in the world won’t be enough. I go over this in my mind often because once I began to swim I started hearing all the negative things possible in my head. I lost focus on my swimming and concentrated on how far in the distance my exit point was. As I was leaving the water I began to be uptight because I had struggled so on my bike the month before. The ride was tough for me without a doubt but when it was done I realized that I had trained fairly well. Since I don’t run the walk was the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. I practiced in my head saying that I was through with triathlons all the way to the finish line. I told my friends that I was never doing it again and that I was going to sell my bike the next day.
Wow! I can carry on. The fact is I had the wrong mindset through the entire thing. My planned mantra went out the window or in this case floated out to sea within two minutes of the start. After that I was fighting myself for three hours.
So I have about ten months to get it together. Planning for a better mindset next year!
My kid, his kids and his mother-in-law. They drove 4 hours to cheer me on
Lost in Fall. What Now?
I am lost. I have nothing to train for. My season is over. I can’t run, don’t enjoy riding really so swimming is my main winter activity and my pool is shut down for draining and cleaning. I have to get the motivation back because I need to be active all year-long. I am fighting the couch potato lure.
What now?
Athletes are Liars
So let me explain. I was a triathlon newbie this year. I am a pretty literal person so when you tell me a course is flat I take your word for it. So here is what I learned don’t ask a real swimmer about the swim in a triathlon. They will tell you something like ” it only a 3rd of a mile you’ve done that in the pool. True. Lesson one the pool is not the ocean or the bay. I swim four to five times a week in the summer and could do the distance that I needed for the tri’s. I was not however ready to swim the distance with waves, wind and people swimming over my slow head. Plus something touched my foot and there were no people near me.
Lie number two, bikers don’t count hills that don’t make them stand up while they are riding. At Iron Girl they said a little wind. What? I felt like I was riding into a wall for a mile or two and had to do it twice.
This time the runners didn’t lie and the course was flat and pleasant.
This past February though I did a 5K with my buds. We all walked it. Could anyone have told me that Morristown, New Jersey is built on a series of hills. I was talking to my self out loud by mile three.
So whatever an athlete tells you ask them first how fast they run, ride or swim and then multiply what they say by at least three.
Words to the wise!!!!
First Steps the Hardest 