Sparrows Experiment

flyinfree said:
HA! prove it! :rolleyes:
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Good Gawd FF-when I wrote that I KNEWWWW knew knew you were going to be the one to post that. I'm not kidding! hahahaha.

Okay, here we are making marshmallow fondue (with a few chocolate covered bananas to boot). A favorite family pasttime. This is LIFE, yes? :) LOL
 

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Swim
400 RPE 3
4x100 RPE 7
200 RPE 3
2x100 RPE 7
100 RPE 3

We have wind gusts up to 40 mph here today so this swim wasn't a lot of fun. It also simulated a lake-lots of crap in the pool

Run:
60 min tempo run- 6.7 miles. I varied (increased) the pace every 5 minutes. When I was at 8min pace I'd decrease the pace slightly every 5 minutes. This helped me not get in a rut.
 
you are starting to get into some nice workouts.

I sat in front of the post office this morning and considered the'road to ironman' and it is deep. Some of my greatest moments were in open water swim training. You are a swimmer and you know all abotu that stuff. Or during a long day on the bike, 3 hours in- no event, all alone, and just me THIS iron visor and my tunes. Or on a long run, hoping that passer-bys knew what that symbol was. It's 80+ degrees, 3:pm on a Sunday afternoon, most are watching football or whatever, and here I am running in the blazing heat, hoping to finish a 70.3 with some composure!

The road your on can not be fathomed by one who has not traveled it. When you tell people what you are plannign to do, they will compare you to a marathon runner- LOL! they wil say things like, oh my bro-in law did a marathon a few years back. OR, my Dad rode a bike for a full day one time, blah blah blah. You will learn to just hold your tongue after awhile, because you realize they don't get it, and trying to explain makes us feel ego-tistical. And Ironman is anything but that.

It is a REAL deal event. It is humbling. The training becomes 2-3 hours a day, 6 days a week - OF SWEAT! and peeps have no clue. It will be a part time job worth of time, with no pay, and only physical pain as a reward. THEY will never understand what it takes to get off that bike and run like that. Or to set up a transition area and know how many things can go wrong. To questionm the health of your joints constyantly, wonder if your hydration is deep enough to keep your hips from cramping/.

But you remember honey- I DO! and it is out of my R.E.S.P.E.C.T. for you that I send that stupid dumb worthless visor. I wore it thru my entire training. when I was at the pool swimmin, it sat next to my water at the head of my lane. WITH IT comes my BELIEF in you Kate!

you can do this!

FF
 
Thank you FF. It means a lot and its humbling.

I don't think I even get it yet. I train for this thing but I don't have a clue what its worth until its finished. It has my respect from one who is ignorant of its path. Soon I will be on the other side and just shake my head in its wake and say "wow I had no idea".

Bring it! I have to conquer my fears in every form.

Today was a lousy workout. I felt great but I had no time for what I needed to do. I'm missing some heavier workouts of biking this week. I missed 2. One 75 min tempo ride, and one 1.5 hr ride/30 min run combo-I still hope to do that one on Sunday-Lord willing. The tempo ride I just can't make up. Tomorrow I go run hills for 90 min with my friends pushing a baby jogger. That should be loads of fun :rolleyes:

so here is the lame workout:

15 min stairs level 12
15 min eliptical level 14
30 min spin class-as hard as I could go for the brief time I had-then I had to go coach

I'd planned to swim, but too many people showed to my class (not a huge problem, but still!) so I didn't and instructed instead. It is what it is.
 
90 min hill run. I had mostly rolling weenie hills but there were 2-3 significant ones. I felt very very strong on them. It was encouraging.

90 min: 11 miles: 8:14 pace

not too shabby today. I may add a workout tonight if I have some extra time after church since I'm short one this week
 
it is not BEST to make up workouts on such an intense plan. It is better to feel strong like that during the base weeks, you can spend it in Build weeks, and you can CONTROL yourself in recovery weeks. The length of owrkouts doesn't change a LOT, but the intensity should.

SO- depending on what week you are on, should make that decision for you.:p

yer doing great.

p.s. any advice on the psychology that I understand does not bine me to BEHAVING in such manner, in any way at all. LOL!! :yelrotflmao:
 
yes I find when I go outside the lines too much I get injured. This plan seems just about right for me overall. Even though it was a long run with hills, RPE was written to be only 3 which I of course challenged. I can't just do RPE 3 very well, I have to get endorphins going ya know! So it was probably more like a 6 most of the run. I did struggle a tad at the end since I'd not brought water with me, or taken a pit stop. Its amazing how much, and how fast dehydration affects ya.

The workout tonight probably won't happen but I will get in something tomorrow-something I wasn't sure of-so thats great.
 
Swim:

500 freestyle warm up
5x50 different strokes
1500 continuous, RPE 4-5
4x75 kick

right into a run: 30 minutes-about 3.5 miles...note: need more water

Parents are here so it had to be a fast workout. My plan called to ride for 45 minutes and then swim but I think I did what was smarter for me today. I was so happy to get a worthwhile brick in today, especially since the run was last. It does make such a difference to put the run AFTER stuff. I finally felt more like me in the water today, after 3 weeks of being more consistant.
 
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Sparrow,

I counted my strokes today at 23 / 25 yards with the pull buoy, which I know is high, but is down from 27 - 28 before my surgery. I am trying to lower it by increasing my power and efficiency with each pull. What is a realistic stroke count short term goal be with a pull buoy? What should my long term goal be?

Also, I made a concerted effort to keep my head deeper so my goggles are below the surface when I make a non-breath rotation. I asked my daughter how much of my head was out of water and she said it was generally below the water except when I breath. I didn't notice my legs coming up, but maybe they did. Is this what you were recommending?
 
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g8r80 said:
Sparrow,

I counted my strokes today at 23 / 25 yards with the pull buoy, which I know is high, but is down from 27 - 28 before my surgery. I am trying to lower it by increasing my power and efficiency with each pull. What is a realistic stroke count short term goal be with a pull buoy? What should my long term goal be?

Also, I made a concerted effort to keep my head deeper so my goggles are below the surface when I make a non-breath rotation. I asked my daughter how much of my head was out of water and she said it was generally below the water except when I breath. I didn't notice my legs coming up, but maybe they did. Is this what you were recommending?
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Thats actually a pretty good stroke count and you should be pretty proud of that! I think a short term goal should be to get it around 20 and long term ultimate goal is 15-16.

Your breathing work was what I recommended. One goggle eye is out, one is below the surface. The more parallel your entire body is to the bottom of the pool, the faster, smoother and easier your strokes will be. the higher your feet will be too. Imagine you have a metal rod going through the center of the top of your head. All you can do is pivot side to side, you cannot move your head up or sideways. When you breathe simply pivot your head to get the breath keeping in mind the rod through your skull! Maybe you could get someone to video tape your swimming download it, and send it to me. Get a side view and a head-on view. That would be sooooo much easier to figure out!
 
Back to the grind eh? For some reason, even though this Tuesday is like a Monday, since most of us had the day off yesterday, its still functioning like a Tuesday. I'm so glad we just bypassed Monday altogether! I had a GREAT day yesterday. Just fun with family. I hope everyone else got a nice day off as well.

We are having unbelievable weather here in CA compared to just a few weeks ago when we were hitting record highs and tripple digits. I'm loving it. I wish I could be out IN it more doing what I need to do, but its okay. What I'm doing gym-bound seems to be working just as well. Its just horribly boring.

I'm friends with most of my favorite spin instructors and the one on T/TH is one I'm currently doing swim lessons for, for her 2 boys. A few days ago I realized I needed to be doing a hill workout today. Of course I can't get to the hills so I emailed her and requested selfishly that she do a hill workout-like hills and steep ones constantly for class today. She likes to mimic road riding in her spin class and she calls each class something different "The Sonoma to San Francisco ride" has been my favorite so far. I asked her to leave out Sonoma and just get us to "ride" around San Francisco. I'm not sure what I was expecting but that woman KILLED us. I mean it was crazy. I cranked my resistance up to the max. I was pushing only 60-70 rpm at best on my steep hills and sweating bullets and blood. It was AWESOME! She gave the class options to periodically hit flat roads or "smaller" hills or else to just stay on the steep one. Of course I chose to keep on keeping on. I thanked her a ton.

One interesting thing to note on this ride...and I've noticed this out on my bike too. Initially hill riding HURTS and legs seem to hit a point of fatigue beyond recovery. Like anything the more you do it, the easier it is until you're pushing a load you never thought you could for a time period you never thought you could. Your legs just settle into the weight of it and maintain themselves. Its easy to feel this at first and back away "oh man, ow, that hurts, its too hard". Its usually at a point when you're about to make a difference in yourself that most people will give up and never experience the cool stuff beyond that. But if you keep with it your legs literally just get used to pushing HARD and you realize you can push through the fatigue, and pretty successfully!Guess its hard to explain, but its cool to note that after pushing so hard for a whole hour, anything less than hard felt WAY too easy. I craved more but my bike didn't go any tougher without stopping the wheel! INSANITY

So it boiled down to:

60 min hill ride

30 min HIIT (2 min at 10 min pace/1 min at 6:30 pace...10 times)-I think this qualified for my 2 miles at 10 min pace for the day FF :) pretty snazzy way to do it.

weights: bi/tri/back 3x15 on everything, 2 exercises each muscle group.
 
Some info

hey there Sparrow, how r u doing these days? U've got a lot of pages girl and it's impossible to sit down and read all of them. How many calories do u eat on average per day now? How much do you weigh, how tall r u and what's ur age if you don't mind me asking? Is everything going well 4 u now? Sorry i only managed to read 4-5 pages of your thread:azzangel:
 
fit4life1976 said:
hey there Sparrow, how r u doing these days? U've got a lot of pages girl and it's impossible to sit down and read all of them. How many calories do u eat on average per day now? How much do you weigh, how tall r u and what's ur age if you don't mind me asking? Is everything going well 4 u now? Sorry i only managed to read 4-5 pages of your thread:azzangel:
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yipes thats some good personal info yer beggin for ;)

You missed all the "good stuff" in the journal. The first half of it isn't much fun.

Here are your answers:

1. I don't know, I don't count
2. I weigh 128-133 depending on a whole lot of things. Currently 129
3. I'm 5'6
4. Just turned 30 stinkin years old
5. I'm doing great and things are awesome :D
 
50 posts, I have never seen them, and they wants "cold stats?" no emotion? that was a weird interaction....

do you already knwo that person or something?

I thought you were 38? ;) ahhahaha

Sweat Daily
FF
 
Wow, I didn't get the memo about the new Ask Sparrow show. Let's see - What's your shoe size? How long is your hair? How many miles do you run in a week? How often do you have cheat meals? How many pullups can you do?
 
stingo said:
Wow, I didn't get the memo about the new Ask Sparrow show. Let's see - What's your shoe size? How long is your hair? How many miles do you run in a week? How often do you have cheat meals? How many pullups can you do?
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ha. yes, you missed the memo..apparently, so did I :)

long, a lot, more often lately, more than FF on his good day :D
 
Today was my day "off" according to my plan. So I just did full body weights-tri style.

My little man is 7 today. I pulled him from school early to go golfing with his daddy ;)

Here is a pic of the cutie pie. Oh-I'd better stop saying that..It's not "cool" anymore huh? :cool:

oh boy :bncry:
 

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Run: 90 min
(75 minutes at RPE 2-3 8:57 pace, 15 minutes at the end at 8 minute pace with 2 strides tucked in there at 6 min pace). 10.5 miles

Swim: 4x400 even split RPE 2-3

The run was glorious. I felt great, hard at first to hold back to the almost 9 min pace but eventually felt controlled and then got itchy at the end to go faster. My written plan had the 15 min at the end going RPE 5 but I just wanted to bust out so I threw in the strides to appease my need for speed.

The swim was fine. I was bored more than anything.

I took swigs of a 24oz NUUN electrolyte solution every 20 min on the run and finished it by the end, got a gu between the run and swim, and drank 2 bottles of water after the swim.

Tomorrow is a mini tri 3 hour workout
 
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