Mermaid Diva + Ping Pong =????

A Game of Ping Pong Always Helps!

I watched the swim turn videos AGAIN and realized I was missing a major detail! I went out to the pool this morning (in the lovely spitting rain) to work on the swim turn. After making my correction, I could feel how much easier and faster the turn actually is. I was so excited about getting this technique figured out that I started playing ping pong in the deep end of the pool. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, tiny rest, back and forth, back and forth... What a fun, but exhausting game! I didn't know I had been in the pool for over an hour when Coach Rich came outside to watch while drinking his coffee. He saw the big difference! It feels so great to officially say, I know how to do the swim turn!!!! I'm soooo excited!!!

What's my next challenge?
I have a date with Coach Rich on Monday for my 400 meter swim test. How far and fast will I go???

Splish Splash!!

The goal this week was to swim another 100 meters or more if I could. My schedule told me that I was supposed to swim last night. We all know that feeling after a loooonnnnng day that you just ease into laziness--yep it was one of those evenings. Wednesdays are my rest day of doing no physical activity, so I ended up having two rest days in a row. Was that a bad thing? You be the judge! I swam a comfortable 200 meters (and could have gone farther!), jumped out of the pool right into an hour long challenging yoga class...and feel great!

I'm moving along faster than I anticipated according to my workout schedule...time to revise the schedule to crank up the workouts a tad!

On a side note, I remember reading about how swimming will make you become disorientated. I felt a little bit of that tonight, which felt like the beginnings of being drugged. Hey, at least I stayed straight in my lane and didn't run into anyone!

-The Mermaid Diva-

Thoughts from the Running Diva!!!!!

My first goal is to work on conquering the miles then I will work on increasing my speed. Currently I am running 1.5miles…halfway there! I even ran while I was on vacation (visited my hometown in Iowa and ran on the farm roads!)!

At home I work out on the elliptical- I had to figure out how to track my mileage since the machine measures flywheel rotations, not distance. Below is some information I found on this subject (thank you WikiAnswers!).

I’m training with 3 different girlfriends- the support and motivation is very helpful to my training.

Cycling Diva has been nagging me about contributing to the blog…I told her that I can either spend my time blogging or training...she very quickly responded “TRAINING”!!

-The Running Diva-


Ellipitcals measure flywheel rotations, not distance, but there is a rough way to estimate distance as if walking.
1. Rotate one pedal until it has achieved its most rearward position without starting forward again. Do use the pedal and not the flywheel. The wheel rotates in a circle, but the pedals rotate in an elipse with a greater maximum change in forward/backward distanc than the diameter of the flywheel.
2. Position a ruler or stick vertically at the pedal's front, the bottom of hte ruler/stick marking a place on the floor.
3. Rotate the pedal until it reaches its most forward position, and mark that point as well.
4. Measure the distance, which is actually the estimated distance travelled in on half of a flywheel rotation.
5. Multiply the figure by two to get the distance for a full rotation.
Now you have a ROUGH estimate of linear distance traveled in one rotation -- but at WALKING SPEED (more on this later). You can use this to calculate how many rotations are necessary to travel say a mile. Example: my elipical has a linear distance per "step" of 17.5 inches, which means 35 inches per two steps or one rotation of the flywheel. A mile has 63,360 inches.
(1 mile = 63,360 inches) hence: 63,360 / 35 = 1810 rotations = 1 mile
(1 km = 39,370 inches) hence: 39,370 / 35 = 1125 rotations = 1 km
The Problems of Thrust/Inertia and Speed
When actually jogging or running, your stride length elongates and your thrust and/or interia increases. There are split second instances where both feet are off the ground while running, and you travel forward a little farther than your actual stride length. This cannot be accounted for on an ellipical. There are complicated equations that can estimate this, but they aren't really necessary. Rough judgement will be adequate and give you fewer headaches. I use the following to modify Rotations per Target Distance at subjectively labelled speeds.
Walking: 100% x rotations
Jogging: 90-95% x rotations
Running: 80-85% x rotations
Sprinting: 65-70% x rotations
Other people may have different opinions on change of stride length and interia/thrust. The two points relevant here are:
1. there's no way to be certain.
2. we're only looking for an estimate.
With these figures, you can even break down your target rotations (estimated distance) by how much time you spend at particular subjective speeds. You can use this to plan out a regime of speed changes after a certain number of rotations given a target distance you wish to "travel." Or, if you can remember the rotations per speed change you made in a session, you can back track through an figure the rough overall distance you travelled.
In the end, it doesn't really matter that much. Putting in the time at your own pace for your health is what it's all about.

Thoughts from the Mermaid Diva

I had two workouts yesterday:
In the morning I tested myself for cycling time for 3 miles. I got on our recumbent bike, set it to the hardest setting and frantically pedaled for a total of 12:25 minutes. According to the chart, I'm on the borderline for beginner and fit athlete. Do keep in mind that a real test would be out on the actual road with less hills. Since I was at the hardest setting, I was burning my legs going "up" hills on the recumbent bike. Even if this is not a total apples to apples comparison, it's still a starting point and l'll use the same setting when I test again next month. After burning my legs, I thought...I'm gonna cool down in the pool. YEAH RIGHT! The pool was hotter than me! I was hoping all the clouds we had this past week would help bring the temperature of the pool down, but no. So, I ended up doing a "baby" brick. A brick when you do two types of exercise together, such as cycling and swimming. People who train for triathlons will do bricks throughout the week in training. I plan to do official bricks at the end of August.

Last night, I worked on swimming techniques. Coach Rich was in California last week, so he had not seen me swim for about 1 1/2 weeks. Coach Rich noticed that I'm swimming with the right arm reaching higher than my left arm. I was correcting this form by doing a fingertip drag to make my arm strokes even, which I'll keep working on to get the muscle memory ingrained in my arms. This is definitely something I would not know unless I had a coach! He noticed that I looked more confident with the actual swimming part, but doing the turns is another story! I watched the videos again before swimming. I know what I'm supposed to do and how a turn is to feel, but getting the coordination of timing is not there yet. I still have a lot of work to do. Coach Rich had some encouraging comments on my graceful turns, such as, "...um, was that supposed to be fast?" I love my coach!


Working on the turns last night reminded me of when I spent hours every day with a volleyball beating up the house and barn trying to learn to serve overhand in 9th grade. All my teammates and coaches knew I couldn't serve--it was so embarrassing, frustrating, and I felt like such a weakling. My strength was playing the back row, but I would have sub for serving. I just hated being the only one on the team who could not serve overhand. My hours of daily beatings on the barn FINALLY paid off, towards the end of the volleyball season! I'll never forget the first day in practice I served overhand over the net. Our coach walked by, did a double-take, and said, "was that you Lori???" YES, THAT WAS ME! Our coaches (including the varsity coach) and teammates helped me celebrate my victory at that practice. After that, the coach still had me playing back row, but I got to SERVE in games. I had that serve down (...and still do! :) In fact, I had all perfect serves for those games. I was so proud when I received an award after the season was over for...you guessed it...SERVING!

I WILL CONQUER THE SWIMMING TURN!!! Anyone up for a game of volleyball???

Diva outing!

Cycling Diva and Mermaid Diva spent the weekend in Munds Park. Cycling Diva rode the Taylor House metric century on Saturday. Friday and Sunday both divas hiked; Crystal Point and Schnebly Hill.

Lessons learned:

Lesson #1: What goes down, must go up. Schnebly Hill was a beautiful hike (see attached pic)! Approx.2.5miles down became a rough 2.5 miles UP! GORGEOUS scenery though!! Cycling diva learned that hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works can also be used as bug repellent (good idea Mermaid Diva!). The Divas used their cell phone GPS apps. to track their mileage.


Lesson #2: Cycling Diva hates yard sales! The Taylor House event signage was neon green signs with black arrows (the arrows indicated when we were supposed to turn). Well...there were also a bunch of yard sales that used the same signage. At least I wasn't the only idiot cyclist who visited a few yard sales during the ride. Mermaid Diva worked as Cycling Diva's roadie for this event. Thanks Mermaid Diva!!


Cycling Diva was surprised by two very special fans at the last 3 miles of the ride...on the side of the road were mom and dad cheering on a very tired Cycling Diva. Without mom and dad's truck to follow...Cycling Diva wouldn't have found the finish line...why???...because someone moved the final arrow!! GRR! The lame map the cyclists were given wasn't specific enough either.

In Summary...the divas had a LOVELY weekend of hiking and cycling!

Mermaid Diva conquers the pool!

FOR 7/22/10:
My goal today was to swim at least 100 meters non-stop. Well folks, not only did I swim 100 meters once, but swam it twice tonight! I am so proud! I only swam with breaks for about 30 minutes total, but MAN am I beat! I did some stretching and off to bed I go! I'm celebrating my victory, just in my sleepy state tonight!

Lori

Have your kleenex ready

this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen...if you are lacking motivation or inspiration in your life....this will change everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH943Az_lPQ

"There is a bee in my bonnet "

So today I tried my new route and loved it! Not as much debris in the road and less traffic. My goal is to do 20 miles in 1:05. I am currently doing it in 1:09:47. Shaving off that 4 minutes is going to be very difficult...but I believe that it is important to always have goals.

As I was flying down the road at 21mph a flying bug found its way into my helmet. I began to shake my head it attempts to release the bug from my helmet. This flying bug was the size of a small hamster! I was not having any success so I pulled over...unstrapped my helmet...and threw it into the bush. I peeked into the helmet to find the little demon still in my helmet. All of the sudden I hear "are you ok Senorita"? Two of the construction workers from across the street had been watching my little freak out...*blush* and came over to assist. One of the construction workers took the flying hamster out of my helmet and released it (why didn't he just kill it!?). I thanked the kind gentlemen and was on my way again.

Mel

Mermaid Diva has grown legs!!

I ran like crazy for my first test this morning for 1.5 miles and came up with a time of 13.52. According to my chart, I am considered a solid "Fit Athlete." (This makes me laugh.) Here is the kicker; I would have probably done better except I ran for about .25 of a mile and looked down at my Garmin and saw it was not keeping track of distance. I guess you could call that an extra hard "warm up," but it sapped a good chunk of my energy. I also looked at my Garmin as I passed the 1 mile at a time of about 8:15. I was so shocked, especially after having to stop and start over. So, let me rephrase how I actually ran today. I ran like a crazy jackrabbit for the first mile and ran liked a sick cheeta for the next half mile.

So, I learned two lessons today folks: 1. DO NOT TURN ON YOUR GARMIN INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!! 2. I have always done a very light warm up with running, but I think a little jog before actually hitting the time button does benefit.

Lori

Triathlon Training With Chopin

The NYTimes
July 15, 2010
Triathlon Training With Chopin
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN


After all that preparation: Participants in the 2008 New York City Triathlon swimming in the Hudson.

The water is seeping into my goggles, swishing back and forth. I am trying to turn my head sideways to gasp air. My arms are alternately thrusting forward and pulling back, but they don’t leave enough time to get my mouth above water level. I am not sure what my feet are doing. My body doesn’t seem to cohere. It seems composed of random pieces. I’m starting to lose any sense of rhythmic motion. Everything is happening too fast. This is swimming?

I’m training to race in the New York City Triathlon on Sunday. Maybe it’s a foolhardy attempt to recover lost youth, or a simple desire to share an experience with my son and daughter, who are also in the race, or even a sign of perverse addiction to pressured performance. My son and I have also enlisted in the race to raise money for an organization called Zero, which is dedicated to fighting prostate cancer, a charitable ambition that alleviates slightly the sheer narcissism of the training. But have I pushed things too far?

For months I have thrust myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and stumbled into the water or onto a track or a bicycle. The race demands a swim of nearly a mile in the Hudson, followed by a 25-mile bike ride up the West Side Highway and finishing with a 6.2-mile run ending in Central Park. I know I can handle the bike and the run — at least in theory — but at the beginning of April, I can only swim half a pool length without panting to a stop: not 1,500 meters but 12.5 meters; not a mile, but the length of a house.

Yet there is something familiar about the sensation I have when finding myself so far out of my depth. I recall it not from a pool but from the piano keyboard. Feeling as if I can’t catch my breath? Losing a sense of poise and coordination? Overwhelmed by complicated events? Those were the sensations, I also remember, when learning the coda of Chopin’s first Ballade (as well as many other difficult pieces).

I may have known how the music was supposed to sound. I may have trained my fingers, arms, breath and ears for countless hours, learning how to leap over octaves without strain, how to shape Chopinesque patter into liquid sighs, how to weigh the notes of a chord to emphasize inner voices. But my wrists are tense, and the rhythms readily grow slack or stiff. And I am racing, yes racing, to try to keep up with the pace the music demands. There is too much to do in too short a time.

This might seem strange, thinking of a rigorous artistic enterprise while training for a purely physical challenge, but panting for breath in the pool, I cling to the comparison for comfort and instruction. And I recall, too, the importance of a teacher who could examine the bodily and sensory chaos from the outside.

Of course, the race is a much simpler activity. Each of its segments — swimming, biking, running — requires little more than repetitive physical movement. There is no team strategy that needs to be considered; no subtle maneuvering is required. It isn’t soccer or tennis or even billiards. I just need to go through a series of motoric motions, as if engaging in Czerny exercises for the piano or a sequence of scales and arpeggios cascading up and down the keyboard. The physical movements required by the race are almost brutishly simple: up and down, side to side, round and round, in and out. Just do it fast enough and regularly enough without tiring, and you’re done. With music, of course, that’s only the beginning.

But that’s also why the race seems to isolate an essential aspect of how we teach our bodies and minds. Watch someone who is at home in the water, or comfortable running or biking, and the activity seems perfectly natural; there is no excess movement; nothing is jarring or out of place. It is as if the human body had been made for these activities. A swimmer’s body can plow the waves like some Homeric vessel guided by the gods.

In actuality, though, can anything be more unnatural? Free-style swimming is devised for movement through an alien element. Ordinarily we are not aware of our breathing; in swimming, breathing is the determining factor. The movements of the arms and body are designed so that the mouth can regularly be raised above the water’s surface without disturbing forward thrust. Bicycling is also pretty unnatural: what animal moves by leaning over and moving the feet in tight circles? Watch a beginner — watch me — and the peculiarities are obvious. The beginner demonstrates the unnaturalness of it all, the perversity of the enterprise.

Part of the appeal of watching races is that we see that perversity overcome. The unnatural becomes natural, the difficult turns simple. The motion eventually makes sense. It feels as elegant as it looks. I know this, too, from the piano: is anything less natural than moving individual fingers up and down or arms from side to side to create music?

Practice is partly physical training: teaching the body to feel comfortable with the artifice and its intricacy. Ultimately, the playing must seem effortless; all the tension, the strain, the struggle must be dramatized in the music, not in the body. And when I have practiced enough, I no longer have to be aware of every minute finger motion or position of my elbow. Movements mold themselves into phrases, becoming supple and poised. My body’s once uncoordinated parts cohere; the body can be forgotten.

So this is what I must do. I find a teacher, Earl Walton, and learn that in swimming, the head isn’t really lifting up to breathe; actually the body is constantly rotating, swinging around an axis, bringing the mouth above the water to breathe at the same time as the opposing arm drops and thrusts. The body rocks through the water. Breathing becomes effortless because it is an incidental part of the stroke.

Of course, the drama of a race is that this naturalness of the trained body is then subject to extreme strain. It is distorted by the sheer force of competitive will. The body is pushed to its limits; the natural is turned unnatural. A competition is a bit like pressing down on a thin layer of ice: how hard can it be pushed until it gives way? And what happens when you have more than 5,000 people doing this at once? At the triathlon more than 100 racers at a time leap into the Hudson in assigned “waves,” so that the arms and feet of others threaten to disrupt whatever poise you have worked so hard to achieve. And then you follow two completely different competitive rounds on wheels and earth.

A race is a risk, a testing of limits and limitations. Maybe it’s a bit like what happens when a pianist has learned a piece well. During a performance great risks are freely undertaken: tempo is increased, dramatic gestures expanded. The excitement of the music presses against the limits of virtuoso control.

So there’s the pattern: first limits and limitations; then transcendence; then pushing at limits yet again. In swimming and in racing, as at the piano. In my triathlon training I have also tested that final stage. But alas, prematurely, and alas, disastrously.

Having built up to the demands of the race so that it is almost beginning to seem natural, I relax my attention one day on a run through Central Park. On a piece of broken pavement, my ankle turns, pain shoots through my body, ligaments tear; I am fitted with an Aircast.

And limits again assert themselves. I may have finally made swimming almost seem natural, but I am doomed, for this particular race, to feel clearly the boundaries of human possibilities. Instead, on Sunday morning, I plan to watch others put those limits to the test. I will be gazing at the triathlon (and at my children racing) with envy and appreciation. Then, it’s back to Czerny, until I get it right.

Connections is a critic’s perspective on arts and ideas.

The New York City Triathlon begins at 5:50 a.m. on Sunday in the Hudson River along Riverside Park, at 99th Street; nyctri.com.

Mermaid Diva's plan of attack!

Okay, so today I spent time putting together a detailed training schedule for the next six weeks. This schedule will be focused on my swimming technique, but will get me started on endurance training as well. I also spent time watching very good swimming videos that gave tips on getting the right techniques. I'll be watching them over and over and over again. Coach Rich will be doing the same. :)

I will also be doing a running, swimming, and cycling test these first three weeks to compare to a fitness scorecard. I'll be doing this testing about every 4 weeks to see my progress--well at least I should see progress.

Here are my short term goals at this time:

1. Establish proper swimming technique by August 28th.
2. Swim continuous 200 meters by September 18th.
3. Run a 5K in less than 30 minutes by September 25th.

I think these are pretty realistic and I may achieve them before the dates.

I'm ready to start tomorrow and I am ready to tackle swimming!!!

Lori- the Mermaid Diva

Triathlon vs Triathalon

Although miss-spellings are common, the proper spelling is Triathlon.
Here are some common miss-spellings:

* Triatlon
* Triathalon
* Triatholon
* Triathon
* Triathalons
* Traithlon
* Triathelon

Mel- cycling diva

My Tue/Thur rides are always difficult...not because of the 10 miles of incline or the two big hills...because at the start of the ride I have to pass Bashas'...and smell their delicious freshly made donuts. Then...at the end of my ride...I have to ride past McDonalds and smell their delicious breakfast food...just to come home to my "delicious" bowl of organic oatmeal. Today I saw a bunny (as usual) but no snakes today! phew! I did have a flat...I'm thinking of changing my route...this route has a lot of caca in the bike lane which always = a flat. It was incredibly hot and humid (even at 4:45am!!)...I'm looking forward to being back in Flag and cycling in the cooler weather.(picture was taken last weekend while cycling in Flag)

Lori- mermaid diva

Okay, so I swam over 30 minutes at the gym this evening to see how I could do. WOW! I have a long ways to go. I did swim a full 50 meters at once, but that was about all I could do at once. Ah! I took many breaks and did a few hard 25 meter runs, but that is about it. Yikes! :)

Redneck Divas in training

So here it is...our very first blog! The Redneck Divas are in training for the Anthem Sprint Triatholon!! December 11, 2010.

We thought it would be fun to blog our training experiences!

Jacque: running
Mel: cycling
Lori: swimming

Thanks for following!! :)

Hugs,
Mel