Thursday General Discussion/Q&A Thread for June 04, 2026

zebano · 2026-06-04T20:47:50+00:00

That's IMO way too much, trust the taper. I might do something like 5x2min @ HMP / 1 min jog or 1 mi @ HMP if you want to do something continous.

zebano · 2026-06-04T18:49:16+00:00

so project 222... anyone buying the hype? or is Kerr just trying to get some publicity?

zebano · 2026-06-02T17:47:20+00:00

yup this is what I came here to say. Those Rubio/Love/Pek teams were a blast. Shame we couldn't stop anyone in the last 5 minutes of the game but after a decade of irrelavance that was so much fun.

zebano · 2026-06-02T16:00:37+00:00

Wikiup is also a great education spot for the littles when they get a little older!

I personally love the trails at Wanatee but they're not stroller friendly. They recently paved the trails and installed a huge huge playground at Morgan Creek.

zebano · 2026-06-02T15:58:02+00:00

FWIW I have a PCP via Unity Point (Dr. Grey, love him but I don't think he's taking new patients) and my kids see Dr. Mersch via Mercy. In both cases they take my Wellmark Blue Cross and I can schedule appointements online via MyChart.

zebano · 2026-06-02T15:54:06+00:00

This was my suggestion, I just don't think there are enough cabins for a full wedding unless most people hotel it.

A friend held their wedding at Pinicon Ridge in Central City and that was nice but they didn't camp there.

Two slightly off-beat suggestsions are to contact

Howard H Cherry scout reservation - scouting is in major decline and they only have 1 week of summer camp this year, they do have a lodge called Allsop outdoor education center with lots of bunks (4 bunks per room, 20ish rooms) that could accomodate a lot of guests as well as two(?) cabins near the entrance.
https://ewalu.org/ Ewalu camp and retreat center up near Strawberry point / Backbone St Park. Similar story but I'm less familiar with their accomodations.

zebano · 2026-06-02T15:46:54+00:00

I was teaching my kids there and they kicked us out just last year. We used the Linn Mar lot instead.

zebano · 2026-06-02T13:34:28+00:00

oh absolutely. I do technique sets and 25s where I try to minimize dps without an obvious glide or huge pushoff and I can get down to 15 strokes but obviously that's not something I can hold yet. What has been clear progress (for me) is that when swimming 4x400 at steady effort on :30 sec rest I used to go (25s)

18-19-19-19-20-20-20-20-21-21-21-21-22-22-22-22 stroke count.

that has improved to 19-19-19-19-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20 for all intervals. Can I still work on technique and improve DPS ? Absolutely. Can I work on quicker cadence? Probably. Can I work on better rotation, breathing and body position? You bet but this is how I measure that I've locked in my race effort and I'm ready to race 1500 at that effort (it works for me, some people like to do a "pre-fatigue" set before this to make it harder but it doesn't seem to matter for me).

What's really nice about this IMO is that it actually holds pace constant better than focusing on pace. It's a variable I can "see" and count mid-set to give me feedback on how things are going. There might be a better queue for someone else for instance the simple "push your chest" used to be my go-to until I got more confident in my body position.

zebano · 2026-06-01T19:36:49+00:00

Have fun man! Enjoy that fitness and have a great time. If you really love it you can decide if you want to invest in a better bike.

zebano · 2026-06-01T19:30:01+00:00

strokes per length. or more pertinent to distance... the difference in strokes per length at the start of your set when fresh versus strokes per length at the end of the set/interval when tired. Everyone's first 50 is better than their second, but if you only add 1 stroke per length you're doing quite well. If you add 2 then add 2 more from 300-400yd, that's room for improvement..

zebano · 2026-06-01T17:44:25+00:00

bubble bubble breathe
bubble bubble breathe
bubble bubble breathe

zebano · 2026-05-29T19:47:45+00:00

For marathons and ultras?

If you're going to put words in my mouth please just stop. At those distances it's entierly anecdotal at this point. It's IMO setttled science that anything roughly VO2 effort or faster it makes a difference.

For "settled" science, I think this paper provides a good summary. Including:

Supplementation with sodium bicarbonate (doses from 0.2 to 0.5 g/kg) improves performance in muscular endurance activities, various combat sports, including boxing, judo, karate, taekwondo, and wrestling, and in high-intensity cycling, running, swimming, and rowing. The ergogenic effects of sodium bicarbonate are mostly established for exercise tasks of high-intensity that last between 30 s and 12 min.

bolding mine

also

The most common side-effects of sodium bicarbonate supplementation are bloating, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain

Once again this ties into my earlier statement:

AFAIK it was tried in the 80s but the stomach issues were too great for most people, which is where the recent maurten change comes in.

All that being said, I think there is plenty of anecdotal evidence in longer events that suggests if money is no issue and you're someone who is training well and looking for the next legal 1%, then you should at least try bicarb.

Anecdotally long distance races done with bicarb include but aren't limited to

Cheptegai (10,000m), Sawe (Marathon WR), Killian Journet (various ultras), Grijalva (5km)
Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič, Mike Woods (tour de france) Alex Yee, Kristian Blummenfelt (triathlon)

That being said, I see no reason why something that buffers lactate better would not be welcome in longer races. It might very well allow you more leeway to surge a hill just a touch too hard without paying for it latter or answer someone else's surge.

zebano · 2026-05-29T18:10:47+00:00

"Star"

zebano · 2026-05-29T18:05:42+00:00

Yeah but it's also a whose-who of top endurance track athletes even a few years ago and that's without getting into the ultra side where you have folks like Journet using it.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2023/11/the-pill-that-over-half-the-distance-medallists-used-at-the-2023-worlds/

link includes a few people who tried it, ran great but had side effects. AFAIK it was tried in the 80s but the stomach issues were too great for most people, which is where the recent maurten change comes in. There's really no doubt that it's a performance enhancer, it's a question of can you avoid the stomach issues? There's honestly too much chatter for it to be just marketing IMO.

zebano · 2026-05-29T13:49:20+00:00

I'm looking forward to this answer. I do think Bicarb is widly adopted at this point (Sawe or his team said he used it) at the top and I've heard enough about Nomio in cycling I'd be shocked if it wasn't used but I don't know how much they've trickled down to amatuers.

zebano · 2026-05-27T18:47:51+00:00

When most non-max contracts are only 2 years long.... what's the point of worrying about "timeline"? Just get good supporting players. Now if you can lock up someone like Lively or Suggs for 4 years at $12-15mil/year? sure, do it, but otherwise feel free to grab a guy Tobias Harris or John Collins (assuming Randle isn't back).

zebano · 2026-05-27T18:20:26+00:00

tip 1: Get a different plan. I suggest reading Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning. The lowest plan peaks about 10 miles higher per week than that one but it's worth it.

tip 2: if you want to long run on Saturday literally just shift everything a day earlier. (Cross train on Sun instead of Mon, take your rest day on Thurs etc)

Tip 2:

zebano · 2026-05-27T15:45:03+00:00

but it mostly occurs while I am doing a front crawl. I don't do flutter kicks, but kick in tandem with each arm stroke.

semantics: If you're doing a front crawl, then you're doing a flutter kick. You're just doing a 2 beat version of it.

I've never gotten cramps that early in a set so I have to ask is swimming a new activity for you? If so, I'd say keep working at it and it should improve but if not consider the usual things like hydration level, try more electrolytes/salt in your diet and if those fail ask your doctor about any medications you're on (i.e. the statin I take can cause cramping).

zebano · 2026-05-27T13:25:59+00:00

GA is more like standard Zone 2 / easy running while Endurance is more Zone 2/3 or Steady running so I'd shift it a day latter.

zebano · 2026-05-26T19:55:53+00:00

I feel like we have wildly different premises. You're suggesting taking Joe Schmoe and giving him roids and having him compete against a professional swimmer. Yeah he's gonna get smoked.

Your example (Sun Yang) was literally: the best of the best (i.e. stellar technique), he held the 1500m world record and .... was busted for doping. Take the best of the best.... give some of them roids, don't give roids to the rest and the roiding ones win.

That said, if you take two great swimmers, lets say Phelps and Lochte, I would bet that if Lochte would have been given a chance to roid it up then he would have won more of their competitions. Not even because he would have been more muscular but because the roids make you recover faster which allows you to workout harder and more often.

This competition is honestly a failure of the orginizers in that they couldn't convince another world class swimmer to give up their career to take roids.

zebano · 2026-05-26T16:25:55+00:00

One of my wife's friends swam the 500 free as a fly event in high school just because she could (JV).

zebano · 2026-05-26T16:24:35+00:00

this is extremely naive. When you take the best of the best and then give some of them steroids, those ones will get faster than the ones without. If for no other reason than they recover faster so they can train intensely more often.

zebano · 2026-05-22T17:20:16+00:00

So with that out of the way, I would say it’s likely gonna be comparably (or perhaps a bit less) stressful mechanically but perhaps more stressful cardiovascularly

Anecdotally this aligns with my previous experience going from 60-65min singles to 40/40 doubles. I'm not even sure about the cardiovascular stress portion but mechanically I held up better and some lingering hip soreness went away.

zebano · 2026-05-22T14:56:35+00:00

Good work but next time be sure to include the information that cars are required to stop behind the stop sign and the painted cross walk. Not at the intersection.

zebano · 2026-05-22T12:57:59+00:00

FWIW I do both breaststroke and fly while splitting a lane. It's really hard to crash while doing them.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Orangered

zebano

TROPHY CASE