(PS–At that price and weight, don’t expect (m)any features: No pockets, no drawstrings, no extra zips, not necessarily the best fitting. I prefer that, in order to keep the weight and price down, but YMMV!)
lionfish90
Forum Replies Created
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ParticipantParticipant
I’m not a racer, but I like carrying DriDucks or Frogg Toggs as a backpacking and climbing raingear option when I don’t really expect wet conditions (CA Sierra Nevada mountains in most seasons). Like here:
https://www.froggtoggs.com/the-frogg-toggsr-ultra-lite2tm-19709/
They’re not very durable, but the reality has been (for my use), they’re fairly tough, waterproof, light weight (about 6 oz. jacket + 4 oz pant, IIRC), CHEAP, and surprisingly breathable (much more than Gore-Tex-like fabrics in my limited experience).
Hard to beat the price to try them, US$25 for jacket + pant. They can feel somewhat papery, but mine have withstood even occasional not-too-dense bushwhacking and rips or holes can be repaired in the normal way (tape, duct or otherwise 🙂 ).
I’ve seen them in a couple of weights (targeted at hunters/fishers vs. at backpackers); you’d want to lightest one. The others are tougher but quite a bit heavier (and I imagine less breathable). Mine were totally waterproof (when new) and still mostly waterproof after many years of sitting stuffed in the bottom of a pack and being used as a wind layer when surprised by conditions.
Good luck in your race!
Rene’Participantlionfish90 on December 22, 2017 at 8:12 am · in reply to: Aerobic base training vs. supplemental swim training #7279Oh, and to get back to the original poster on how his other training would relate to his swim training, I also ran into this, which may be interest (or frustration):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11774068
Modelling the transfers of training effects on performance in elite triathletes.
“…Swimming appears to be a highly specific activity, which does not gain nor provide benefits from/to other activities (i. e. cycling and running). The present study shows that cross-transfer training effects occur between cycling training and running performance in elite triathletes. A similar cross-training effect does not seem to occur for swimming performance.”Participantlionfish90 on December 22, 2017 at 8:07 am · in reply to: Aerobic base training vs. supplemental swim training #7278Yes, I got a little carried away ? . I’m amazed, like many before me, by the specificity of training. Even now, many of the factors responsible for why general training or cross-training does not transfer to specific sports are still unknown. Like here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19114741
“…Using sprinting performance as an example, exercises involving bilateral contractions of the leg muscles resulting in vertical movement, such as squats and jump squats, have minimal transfer to performance. However, plyometric training, including unilateral exercises and horizontal movement of the whole body, elicits significant increases in sprint acceleration performance, thus highlighting the importance of movement pattern and contraction velocity specificity….”I mean, what the hell, that’s been known for probably over 2000 years, even in an organized way, such as in ancient armies. I guess I am mostly surprised at how this lack of transfer appears to be true metabolically as well, as your example shows. But how else could it be? Clearly, some aspect of biking is taxing your system in a quite specific way which all of your prior training has not done much to optimize. On the other hand, you can tool along for hours because of that other training, while I would keel over way before. (And presumably, you could sharpen that with a sport-specific training period that would be possible only because of the previous work you have already put in to be prepared for hard, sport-specific training.)
How little do we actually know about physiology that we do not have a straightforward explanation of the pathways involved to explain that, other than saying, “Ah, it’s the neural aspects and highly specific contraction velocity control”? I’m in science, so I feel I have some understanding of how difficult it is (and then some) to figure out exactly how something works in a biological system with all its complex and multi-layered interactions, but sheesh.
Anyway, I can’t lose sight of the perhaps the main message of TftNA for me, which is that I have had way too much inconsistency (which I knew, just not the magnitude), too many rest days, too much giving up and time off, and some of that is from exercising too much in that “no man’s land” area: going too hard to recover well to go again tomorrow, too hard to efficiently train aerobic capacity, and not hard enough to at least efficiently train the anaerobic side of things.
So thank you for confirming the recommendations here and in the book on using ventilatory markers as a good way to monitor intensity!
Best wishes, and Happy Holidays!
RenéParticipantlionfish90 on December 21, 2017 at 7:58 pm · in reply to: Aerobic base training vs. supplemental swim training #7268Great info, much appreciated! Yes, because of my spotty on-again/off-again exercising history, I’m back at the point where just increasing my training is going to help. But I need to be more conscious about it this time and keep the intensity down so that I stick with it. That’s the plan, anyway, which is why I’m trying to get this HR vs ventilatory marker question a bit more settled in my head.
After writing the stuff below, I just found a paper that says that ventilatory thresholds match lactate thresholds. It’s here:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0163389
“Lactate threshold tests can be a valid and reliable alternative to ventilatory thresholds to identify the workloads at the transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism.”Funny how they put it in reverse of what a person training might want, because they are the researchers usually looking at lactate! But your experience agrees with what they report.
This may also be useful or interesting if you have not seen it:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165%2F00007256-200939060-00003
“Lactate Threshold Concepts: How Valid are They?”—–
My MAF HR is 131 bpm (180 – age), but I use 135 as my TftNA Zone 1 top HR (from using an estimated max HR of 180). I’ve been only nose-breathing while biking (mostly bike trainer) and jogging the last couple of weeks, and my “labored but comfortable” nose-breathing is matching that HR pretty well.My “labored but uncomfortable” nose-breathing (where I’m having to consciously keep my mouth shut) is about the top of my Zone 2 (144 bpm), so the TftNA Zones seem to be about right for me now. I’m going to watch both as I train this winter and hope the HR creeps up with the same breathing along with increased pace (please). I think it’s going to be a very slow process for me.
—–I really don’t understand what reason is behind that 50 bpm difference you mention between biking and uphill hiking/running (why such specificity?). I looked at some of the literature on lactate thresholds, but it’s a big, confusing (to me) field! (The papers appear to be mostly about AnT, what seems to be called the “MLSS”, maximum lactate steady state, which can be maintained for 30-60 min). I know some of the physiology but certainly not to the detail required.
They do mention how it is commonly known that heart rate at threshold (I think it was both AnT and AeT) is lower in cycling than in running (presumably on cycle ergometers and treadmills). But it wasn’t 50 beats with such a difference in perceived exertion!
Maybe it’s about “poor” recruitment/poor efficiency (with poor being relative to that amazing hiking AeT you have)? But you said you have significant previous experience biking, and the brain remembers that stuff. With that hiking AeT, your ST fibers must be aerobically very efficient, meaning they can process a high lactate delivery from themselves and from any working FT fibers. So what recruitment pattern would cause a high lactate load at a lower exertional stress/lower physical load of pushing bike pedals vs. hiking?
Is that “poor economy”, where the brain recruits larger units to do a lower work load, and maybe it’s much higher FT recruitment during cycling? That sounds like the opposite of what is normally said, that one has to do a load causing high perceived exertion to maximally recruit and that novices are training that at the beginning, leading to quick strength gains that are due to neurological reasons and not muscle fiber development. Instead you are highly trained and have low perceived exertion on the bike.
Yes, the muscle mass use (higher for hiking—stabilization and bodyweight support) would explain the disconnection between heart rate and exertion. (i.e., your CV system is efficient and can provide a lot of O2 to working muscle, and you need less on the bike). So that should mean you do have less muscle working on the bike. But that would explain heart rate but not lactate levels. Why is it that with fewer working motor units/muscle fibers, those fewer fibers are generating much more lactate or generating lactate in such a way that it is not metabolized by your other fibers/ST fibers, which the hiking AeT shows are very highly trained and efficient at doing exactly that?
I don’t get it! Well, clearly I may not have the framework correct and am not looking at this correctly either.
Maybe it is max strength? And that on the bike max strength is limiting, which is not true on the hikes? But I imagine you are plenty strong and not the stereotyped weak-marathoner but more of an all-around strong mountain athlete.
Maybe it is just economy and that biking economy is much different than running economy, but that runs into problems as above.
Lactate is reported to be a major heart fuel during exercise, so maybe your heart, which is not working hard when biking relative to its capacity, is not removing much lactate, leaving more for the other tissues to process (and so get overloaded). I don’t know if that is a reasonable possible explanation or not, and still I would think your ST fibers could handle the load, as they seem to be very good at it based on your hiking AeT.
Lactate is also a pH buffer, protecting against (instead of causing) acidosis (because it takes protons to create lactate from pyruvate, which is what happens in the body). So maybe that’s one use here, and so you need the lactate during the less-trained activity (cycling)?
It’s an interesting problem. I do realize that the main point, however, is that you said your breathing follows your AeT and not your HR. Maybe I can ponder lactate use during my long slow runs (which turns into walking during uphills or I quickly move out past AeT). For me, they are slow!
Thank you for the info on your direct experience!
RenéParticipantlionfish90 on December 20, 2017 at 9:38 am · in reply to: Aerobic base training vs. supplemental swim training #7239Scott Semple: Awesome, thank you! You are in a great place to answer a burning question–
**In your experience, is nose-breathing a reliable AeT monitor for multiple training activities based on your lactate testing?
**In other words, Would you say your breathing more closely follows what your lactate level or what your heart rate is saying about current (or average) intensity of effort when running and biking? (given that the HRs are so different at AeT)
I don’t mean for my blah-blah-blahing below to mask that main question 🙂 .
I’m a flatlander who does a couple of 1-week mountain trips per year (only talking Class 2/3 up to easy 5th, mostly in the Sierra). I try to replace much running with biking b/c of sore knees, niggling pains from impact, nursing a torn meniscus that flares if I run too much. Not surprisingly to me looking at my training logs, my fitness has not been good enough for even these relatively straightfoward objectives; it’s obvious to me my training has been much too haphazard and flaky. So I am (re)committing to Transition/Base consistency for next summer’s trips.One truth is that some people (such as myself) are far enough on the unfit side of the spectrum that the reality is I do not necessarily need to sweat the details but just need to sweat–put in the effort and be consistent. THEN I can worry about these things. The basic message of TftNA I need to take is 1) stay at/below AeT for long hours, 2) include strength training at all stages (general, max, ME), and 3) be consistent. Together, these mean have a plan but don’t be beholden to it and remember–to be consistent (train again tomorrow), I can’t train too hard today (Death by Threshold).
What you say (50 bpm lower!) is some serious specificity! The human condition, sometimes a bummer. Or, more optimistically, I suppose one could be happy about how malleable our physiology is, how adaptable to a wide range of demands (given the time, commitment, and effort to train for them), and how trainable different specificities are (just not really at the same time!).
Thank you for your insights on gauging intensity to remain at/below AeT in multiple modes (biking, running, and rowing, in particular).
Rene’Participantlionfish90 on December 19, 2017 at 8:39 am · in reply to: Aerobic base training vs. supplemental swim training #7208Scott Semple: You said, “[M]y AeT on the bike is far lower than when I’m running or skiing.”
How did you determine that? Is your breathing at that point “labored but comfortable nose-breathing”, labored uncomfortable nose-breathing (which for me means have to much more consciously keep from mouth-breathing), or unrelated to breathing and more about heart rate or perceived exertion based on a lactate or other lab test?
Ben: What is your breathing like at your AeT of HR 107? Good luck with the slow runs; I’m there myself!
Thank you,
Rene’ParticipantThose are excellent points. Yes, in that case, bonking is not the right term. It was definitely going from “doing OK, if getting hot and tired” to “holy cow, I have to stop and sit on the side of the road” in a short time period (maybe 15 minutes?). I would stop to rest and not push into the “weaving around on the road” stage, which I could feel was on the horizon. And these episodes stopped with carbohydrate fueling.
Dehydration is also a likely culprit, good idea. This is generally in the summer in south central Texas, where it will get to the high-80s by 9am or 10am (with dawn already around 80degF, give or take). I lose a few pounds on these rides, which must be due to water loss, but I don’t think I increased my intake of fluid, just switched from water to Gatorade (first in one bottle, then in both, and feeling better with it in both) to fix this. (Not the “tired and slow” from fatigue part but the “have to stop” part.)
If fatigue, I suppose it just was that I was (and am, unfortunately) not in very good shape, meaning that my spotty training consistency (too much breaking from plan) was not able to support my weekend-warrior 3+ hour rides in the heat, even though I was monitoring intensity by heart rate. What I am trying to do this fall/winter is that I have re-started a Transition period and am being more consistent. My “long” Z1 efforts aren’t that long yet, so maybe when they get there, I will be prepared and will realize I was doing the “weekend warrior/taking too long to recover/train some but not effectively/repeat” that the book and this site describe.
You know, that sounds pretty likely. Consistency is key but is surprisingly hard. I think I must have been sabotaging my aim to get fitter. So sticking to my Transition plan will be equivalent to dialing back the time and intensity for individual efforts that you suggest; my training time has increased, but it is spread over more efforts during the week (more day to day consistency in training, which has been my bugbear).
Thank you for helping me talk through this. Apologies for the length and if this stuff should be obvious (“be consistent, duh”), but I think this is really helping me understand some things. Now I just need to test it over the next several months by sticking to the plan!
René
ParticipantThank you Adam and Scott. Those are enlightening comments. Especially in the summer, I do my long weekend “LSD”, which are mostly bike rides, in the mornings to avoid the Texas heat; now I think of these as Z1-2/AeT/nose-breathing instead of LSD. But I usually eat first (and during) and will try not eating. My experience with that is that I bonk!
My question is:
Are you saying that in order to avoid bonking (i.e., draining the glycogen stores, I assume), it is better to train through or up to that point to train fat-burning? And that that is a way to increase volume, that when adding time to the Z1 workouts, one metric is to add time as capability to do so without fuel and without bonking goes up?I’m already doing most of my aerobic work at a heart rate of 135 bpm as top of my Zone 1 (TftNA scale), and this correlates pretty well with my “deep but not too urgent nose-breathing” pace. (My MAF is 131 bpm, but I use 135.) My “urgent nose-breathing”, where I’m actively/more consciously not mouth-breathing, is pretty close to my TftNA Zone 2 top end of 144 bpm.
Uh oh, I suspect I am not much of a fat-burner (no surprise there from what I’ve learned lately from the book and the UA site…). I usually do longer rides, basically anything 2 hrs+, with sugar (Gatorade in the bottles plus a granola bar at about 1.5-2 hrs in) because I have bonked from mildly to quite hard right at about 2 hrs, typically in the heat.
It was a long 12 miles remaining into a headwind on that hard bonk, too! Not fun, and I didn’t realize I should aim to train that away; I instead starting fueling with carbs during the ride and no more bonking (just tired and slow with a rising heart rate because my fitness and consistency have not been that great).
I also do a lot better when hiking in to Sierra peaks with a pack (25 to 40 lbs depending on ropes/gear or not) when I have M&Ms and gummy bears or whatever at rest breaks. Well, what you say explains that!
There is that story in the book of trying to do a long traverse/link-up solely fueled with peanut M&Ms, which I was surprised didn’t work. I’ve also seen the stories of Kilian Jornet (way out on the far end of the curve, for sure; he’s earned that) hardly eating anything on his long, fast (!) treks, such as taking only “4 Snickers bars” on that 7 summits all-day traverse in Norway by foot and ski. Those sound like opposite ends of the fat vs carb as fuel spectrum that you are talking about.
Slaying the carb-craving dragon is tough, tough work! The one time I’ve done it for real, deep into my CrossFit phase over a decade ago now, it took about 10-12 weeks of constant Zone-diet vigilance to drive it away. I was the leanest and strongest of my life (which is not saying much). It only takes a couple of weeks of falling off the wagon into a sea of delicious sugar for it to come roaring back!
OK, sounds like I have a lot of work to do here. Thank you for your insights, input, and time, which is much appreciated.
ParticipantOK, this UA article says about 12 hours:
“When you awake in the morning you will have presumably not eaten for about 12 hours. Your glycogen stores will already be somewhat depleted, even if you did not engage in a heavy training session the day before (more so if you did). Glycogen depletion has been shown in numerous studies to be one of the most powerful aerobic adaptation stimuli by signaling an increase in aerobic enzyme activity. So starting a workout in a semi depleted state kick starts the fat-as-fuel-adaptation process….”
So I guess I will just need to experiment with 6-8 hours (i.e., lunch, evening workout, late dinner) and see how it goes and how I respond.
Thanks for any feedback on whether shorter times than 12 hours still carry some of the benefits!
Rene’