Life of an Age-Grouper

It has taken some time and overcoming being too confident, excited, ignorant, naive and a noob but I have reached a point of enlightenment (not absolute enlightenment). Since Matt has started coaching me he has preached building aerobic fitness and that without a sound aerobic base your body will not be able to endure the high intensity and volume needed to be successful in long course racing. Fortunately I just came to realize was the true importance of aerobic fitness based on my recent reflections on my swimming. I have made steady progress with my swim that has become a catalyst for motivation. Every swim session I have schedule I go into it with the expectations of killing it, and there in lies the problem. I do the prescribed yardage and drills but I tend to swim faster than I should (at times way too fast). I obviously thought there was no problem with this since my muscular, aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels were increasing and my splits were decreasing. With in the la...

This past weekend I had a good amount of training to do, a 1 hour swim, an hour and twenty minute trail run and three hours in the saddle followed by a twenty minute transition run.  I figured this would be a great litmus test for Ignite Naturals' products. On Saturday morning I woke up early and decided that my swim and run sessions would only be fueled by GSH Ignite and Reload Energy Gels.  I helped myself to two scoops of the Coco GSH Ignite about 30 minutes before jumping into the pool. Starting with an 800 yd warm up, through my interval work, to the last lap of my cool down, my energy level never wavered.  I felt just as strong and energetic from my first stroke to the last.  As I exited the pool I was nervous that my current energy level would dip or crash or worse, not carry over to my run.  I would soon find the answer after a 15 minute drive to the trails. I threw on my watch, sunglasses, shoes and grabbed two Reload Energy Gels.  I hit start ...

I was finally able to string together a solid week of uninterupted training.  This marks the first week where I felt solidly strong.  I'm not saying I'm in race shape but, I'm slowly getting there.  I had a big swim session on Friday that I crushed and was fired up about. For the first time ever I swam a few hundreds without thinking about my stroke.  This is huge because all that I think about while I swim is my stroke. It was very relaxing just to swim in a mentally relaxed state. One question that did pop up while swimming was in the middle of my main set.  I swam the first half of them with a Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) of 3-4.  I thought I was working too hard and shifted my focus to my form and technique.  Amazingly my RPE went down and my splits decreased.  I was working less and going faster!  So the question I have is how to judge my pace while racing.  Obviously I'm not going to be able to check my watch while in the ...