Started running

Post Reply New Topic

I'm going to do my first triathlon next year so I had to force myself to start running. I've always hated running, it's slow, it hurts, it's slow, it's boring, it's slow... but since I started I've begun to like it. I really haven't done much running at all in the last... well ever so my legs need to get used to it. last week, my first week, I started with 5k, did 6.5k the next two workouts, and ended with 7.5k. Today I did my first 10k, took me a little over 50mins to do it and I had to take 3 1-2min breaks because of cramps or asthma, my asthma is worse in the cold, but I did it!

wow that's good time! I do about 9.5km in 55 mins last I checked :p

I really love running, it's not boring to me at all - maybe you should try running with music? makes all the difference to me.

shame that winter's coming, I'm seriously considering buying a treadmill but I'm afraid that if I do I'll never leave the house lol

good luck with the triathlon!

well I mean I used to find it boring, I enjoy it now. I run with music, I hate doing cardio without it. There's a canal that runs through our city right beside my house and there's a walking/bike path that runs along it. There are lots of other people who run on there so I find it easier to motivate myself when there are people. I'm also a very competitive person so I like it when I see someone running in the distance around the same speed as me and I try to catch them by a certain landmark. there also tend to be a lot of girls, more so in the summer but still now, that run there so that's a welcome bonus, plus I got a smile from one of them yesterday.

I've never been one for athleticism but two years ago I started mountain biking and more recently i wanted to try a race but the only local race was a duathlon. It's all Offroad, Run- Bike -Run. I also never liked running so I kept practicing the mountain biking and only did two practice jogs before the race. I didn't do that great on the running(but wasn't last), and of course did great on the Bike but I should have practiced way more on the running. I had a blast at the race! Now I'm getting ready for the spring duatholon and I'm joging once a week.

B.T.W. My lungs are a lot stronger now than they where when I started!! So Keep working out!

Good Luck with your Tri!

i started running for my asthma two years ago, it really helps btw (i think it has to do with the vibrating of the lungs, it makes all slimes (if that's the correct word) come off)

but i'm not competitive at all, like it when there is no one (which is quite often in the forest nearby) and i can do quitely my 12kms(it takes me between 1h30 and sometimes even more, i start extremely slow, only the last 5 or so kms i do run a bit faster, i'm also scared to death to fall or get injured in any way, cause that would mean i can't run for weeks or even months)

good luck !

If you think running on the ground is boring don't get injured. Try running circles in a pool for the equivalent time.

Since you are in the snow belt is winter triathlon out of the question for you?

I wish I had a skate-groomed track closer.

I'm not really finding it boring now, I used to. I like it now because I can actually run at a nice pace and I can run long distances, my fitness just wasn't good enough to be able to start running long distances before now. I'd say the farthest I had ever run in one shot before this fall was 2 miles, and that was for a fitness test for rowing.

I just bought a book this morning, training plans for multisport athletes, it's all about training for various triathlons, duathlons, etc. as well as just staying fit for people involved in multiple sports. I think I'm going to follow the 26-week half-ironman plan even though I'm going to do an Olympic distance tri, my aerobic fitness is my weakest link right now so I'll need more aerobic work and less speed work. The extra aerobic work will also help my rowing, which was what first prompted me to find another endurance sport that I could train for in the winter.

Sweet! Keep it up. I converted your civilized metric numbers into our backwards measurements and it came to about 8 minute mile. That is a very good time for a beginner!! ! (Did you stop when you took breaks, or did you walk? If you've walked then your pace calculations would be off and you are slower than you think.)

I walked a bit but I measured total distance and total time, I don't have a working watch at the moment, so they should be about right.

I also went for my first swim in a long time today. Looks like I'm going to have to work hard on pacing myself, I seem to have one speed when swimming, fast, so I wasn't able to hold that pace for very long.

I think if you concentrate on a 4-beat kick you'll have the 80% max effort under pretty good control. Granted some distance freestylers such as Eric Vendt can use a 6-beat kick for an entire mile; but, it's pretty hard to analyze the elite triathletes. You can watch their arm cycle and rotation from the shore and and not much else. I wish the race photographers could go underwater where the visibility is good.

Apparently ITU did not successfully get winter triathlon to exhibition status for the Vancouver Olympic Games. Since summer triathlon was 22 years old by the time it became an olympic sport so I'm optimistic.

I have no idea what you just said, I just started this stuff on my own so I don't know any of the terminology.

Sorry I mistook your experience level. Four-beat meaning two kicks per stroke/four kicks per stroke cycle. Usually more kicks go with shorter distances. You will probably do best to emphasize mostly drill in the early phase of your training. A couple of my favorite online resources for drills and are:
www.goswim.tv (maybe a little too advanced for novice, but it has good free footage)
www.beatyourpb.com (a British multisport resource)

The studies I've found suggest that 80% max (maybe less) effort for the swim produce the best overall triathlon time since the swim needs to be more efficient than fast. With a strong rowing base you must have good potential.

Winter triathlon is pretty new, but it's up and coming. (Run, bike, ski)
International Triathlon Union's section: http://www.triathlon.org/multisports/winter_triathlon/
Maybe Canada doesn't have a winter triathlon championship series yet.

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely be focusing on increasing my swimming efficiency a lot, I think I'm probably pretty good considering my experience but I've got a LOT of room for improvement. I'd really like to find someone to coach me at least until I get the basics down. I took swimming lessons when I was younger that taught you the stroke, but didn't go into details like beats or even head and hand positions, so I've got a lot to learn.

I think my rowing will help in more ways than one. In rowing you've got to be very aware of your body and you've got to make miniature adjustments to your movements, I'm talking centimeters, so I'm hoping that will help me with my swimming technique.

As for winter triathlon, I'll need to learn to ski first. I've been meaning to do it for the past couple of winters, and my rowing club usually has a once a week ski workout, but I never have the money or the transportation.

Get the Total Immersion DVD. It's helped me a lot. There are probably excerpts from the DVD on youtube.

Here is their first drill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhr59EGi6ao

TI is a series of drills.

I tried to get myself into it last summer, trouble was - my left calf has a way of separating on a regular basis when I had tried. I'd only have myself set to jog perhaps 1/3 miles and sometimes no more than a 1/2 mile in I would be stepping down with my left foot and for whatever reason two different layers of muscles (running parallel to my leg up and down) would come apart and I'd be in pain for at least a week trying to recover. I think from that point I decided to just get my cardio a different way, did elliptical instead. I'd like to try again maybe this summer, for now though I still feel like I have too many other things on my plate and my motivation is close to its maximum carrying capacity.

Well I emailed the varsity swim coach at my university to see if he could point me in the right direction to get some coaching, we don't have novice or junior varsity swimming like we do with rowing so I didn't really want to ask him for coaching since I don't think I'm very good. Anyways, the guy told me to drop by in the mornings when he's there and he'll have a look at my swimming and see where to go from there.

I'm both excited and anxious. I want to do well and I'm excited to start training for another competitive sport but I really don't like showing weakness or inferiority so I'm kind of anxious. I also know he'll be judging me so that puts a bit more pressure on since I don't like under performing.