How Does 1 Smartly Combine C2 W Triathlon Training

[old] tkleff · Post by **[old] tkleff** » April 16th, 2005, 4:42 pm

Hi All, I am a triathlete who has recently picked up the C2 bug. In fact, I purchased a model C on 03-14-2005 and have already put in 250,000 meters. I am curious how others use the C2 in preparation (and even during) triathlon season. I've purposefully replaced some (~50%) of my running time (miles) with erging for the past month or so. This seems to be going pretty well, as it seems to be much easier on my body. My hard weeks are generally something like this: Swim: ~5-6,000 yards; Bike: ~70-80 miles; Run: 10-12 miles; Erg: 30-40,000 meters. My easy weeks I try to keep to about half of these distances. If I wasn't doing the erging, I'd probably try to move the running miles to the 18-20 mile range. Soooo. . . what do you other triathletes do with the erg? k

[old] JaneW. · Post by **[old] JaneW.** » April 17th, 2005, 10:13 am

Hi Tkleff, I don't consider myself a triathlete but I do love all three sports individually. I might just do an event one day. Where I live are many fit triathletes and marathon runners but the common problem is their swim portion. Is swimming your strength or your weakness during a race event? What has helped you in your swimming? I have noticed that the best triathlete are usually those who have competitive college or high school experience in either cycling, running, or swimming. Can you also answer another question for me? Are you still at 5'10', 228 lbs, 22% body fat because from you don't look like a typical triathlete. Areyou more musclebound? This is not meant to be a negative except for me to realize how genetics and training can vary from person to person. I use the erg mainly to complement my aerobic conditioning before I do the interval work in my runs. How is the erg helping you in your swims? NIce to meet you. Jane

[old] tkleff · Post by **[old] tkleff** » April 17th, 2005, 5:19 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Hi Tkleff, I don't consider myself a triathlete but I do love all three sports individually. I might just do an event one day. Where I live are many fit triathletes and marathon runners but the common problem is their swim portion. Is swimming your strength or your weakness during a race event? What has helped you in your swimming? </td></tr></table> Hi Jane, Thanks for the note. Swimming is probably my relative strength. I typically finish in the top-25% of the all triathletes within the swim (i.e., with faster times than 75% of all competitors). I attribute this to several factors: 1. Real comfort in open water. I can easily sight on buoys and swim directly to them. It may not be that I'm necessarily faster -- but using the "the shortest distance between two points is a line" racing strategy -- I tend to outswim many. 2. How to attain real comfort in open water. There's nothing like open water swimming to make you more comfortable in open water. I've now completed something like 50-60 triathlons, almost all with outdoor open water swims. This is an immense help. Furthermore, I spent a few summers swimming across Walden Pond in Boston -- that exercise of constant sighting, allows me to swim directly across and back. 3. Of course, swimming, in the end, is all technique. The best way to get faster at swimming is not, per se, to get stronger -- it's to attain more efficient technique. I could certainly become faster at swimming, but I'm pretty comfortable with my current capabilities. If I really wanted to become faster, I'd join a Masters swimming program and train with them regularly (focusing upon technique). But in the end, given my already full schedule, it's one of the things I've simply chosen to not pursue. <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I have noticed that the best triathlete are usually those who have competitive college or high school experience in either cycling, running, or swimming. </td></tr></table> Typically trained swimmers make the best triathletes. But, then again, triathlons are a very accepting bunch -- they even take trained high school wrestlers like myself

. IF the swim team could see me now!

. <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Can you also answer another question for me? Are you still at 5'10', 228 lbs, 22% body fat because from you don't look like a typical triathlete. Areyou more musclebound? This is not meant to be a negative except for me to realize how genetics and training can vary from person to person. </td></tr></table> No negatives taken. Put simply: I'm overweight. My healthy weight probably begins at about 175-180 pounds. I could easily go as light as 165 (i.e., a lightweight rower -- which lurks in the back of my mind). In fact, I wrestled 167 pounds as a senior in high school (18 year old -- and I didn't grow much if at all afterwards). In fact, at 21 years old, I ran the New York City Marathon and I weighed approximately 170 pounds. Having said all that, I'm down about 40 pounds from last year (I weighed 268 pounds) last year. I am sort of muscular, but I'm still realistic: I'm far from single digit body fat, therefore, I am overweight. .. but probably no longer obese. You might be surprised by the way: I've noticed that triathletes seem to come in many more shapes and sizes (particularly toward the slower times) than common wisdom may indicate. <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I use the erg mainly to complement my aerobic conditioning before I do the interval work in my runs. How is the erg helping you in your swims? NIce to meet you. Jane </td></tr></table> I do use the erg as interval work at times. But I've only been using it about 6 weeks. So far, I've mostly used it to compete and find a baseline for all of the events. I think my overall purpose for the erg is to generate more caloric consumption to assist with weight loss. Because, there seems to be a straight line curve (for me at least) which directly coincides: lower weight = faster run times. Indeed, in a triathlon in March I shattered my previous minute per mile pace, dropping from 9:30 mpmile in my prior triathlon 1.5 years before, to approximately 7:30 mpm (though I think the run was a bit short). I firmly believe this is due to me being lighter than before. In fact, I also can easily tell that training miles are faster too -- it's now easy for me to run a 8:40-9:00 minute per mile pace for 3-5 miles -- that used to be a VERY hard run for me when I was heavier. I suppose my philosophy at this point -- though certainly evolving -- is that I should also substitute long rows for long runs. I think heavier (i.e., overweight) runners are much more susceptible to injury -- and if the goal is firstly weight loss, it seems like a sensible low(no) impact workout. I've already done 3 half marathons on the erg -- which I think for me at least, is roughly the equivalent of 8-9 mile runs -- and the erg produces few (if any!) muscle/tendon/body soreness. If (when) I run 8-9 miles, my body gets pretty beat up. Indeed, I ran 6 miles yesterday and my left knee is a bit sore, as is my right ankle. These are sort of regular running pains. So my philosophy at this point is instead of running 15-25 miles a week, I'll run something like 10-15 miles per week, and try to convert the other 10 miles I would have run into some smart erging -- if nothing else it'll burn up some calories

. tk.

[old] JaneW. · Post by **[old] JaneW.** » April 17th, 2005, 6:36 pm

I appreciate you sharing this info. with me. If anything else, I would love to learn more about open water swimming from you. I plan to send you an e-mail with two detailed questions in regards to swimming. Carole Mac, the wonderful woman and great athlete she is, was kind enough to answer the first part of my queries. I am indeed very happy to have met a traithlete such as yourself and yes, the erg is nonimpact and helps with the running but I know that during my cross country competitions, the only activity to have faster times is to run a lot , close to six days a week. However, what you're doing seems to be working well and I wish you the best of luck. Who knows, maybe we'll bump into one another at an event and share injury stories. Jane

[old] FrancoisA · Post by **[old] FrancoisA** » April 17th, 2005, 10:46 pm

Hi TKleft, I am also training for triathlons, even though my main focus is on swimming. I also use the C2 and find it more and more addictive! Presently, my hard weeks are as follows: Swimming: 10 hours (30,000 m) Biking: 5 hours (~90 miles) Running: 3 hours (~24 miles) Erging: ~ 30 km My best events in swimming are the 200m breaststroke (2:51) and the 1500m free (19:50). Like you, I find that running is hard on the body, especially on the knees; that's why I do not run on consecutive days. In fact, two days ago, after 10 minutes of running on my treadmill, I had to stop because of an accute pain on the inner side of my left knee; I immediatly jumped on the erg, and rowed for 30 minutes without any pain! I am not sure if rowing helps running, but I find it quite compatible with swimming, especially breaststroke (a similar explosiveness with the legs and a long recovery). Running and swimming do not mix well: the faster I swim, the slower I run and vice-versa! This summer might be my last triathlon season. I would really like to concentrate on swimming and erging. The extra 15 pounds of muscle to reach 165 lbs would be very helpful both for swimming and erging (and my look!), but would be disastrous for running! Good luck with your triathlon training!