enginerd's group - CLOSED (Page 11)

Yuck Syndi, that sounds miserable. Here in Illinois, temps in the 90s are not uncommon in the summer, and the humidity is rough to deal with. To some extent, your body will acclimate to the heat, but until then, you may have to lower your expectations somewhat. Run early in the day if possible, hydrate a lot, be prepared to take walk breaks if need be.

Some people like to wear a visor or light-colored hat when it's hot too.

Pattie

WTG on your race with some rough circumstances!

 I have a question for you race veterans - There is an rr up for a person on my May challenge team.  I guess in her race there was limited space for the bike portion and everyone got bunched up several times - a couple of people tried to get out of the bunch and go left so they wouldn't be penalized for drafting, but the refs had them get back in the group.  This woman stayed in the bunch, but then got penalized 2 min for drafting.  Is this just a situation where you have to stay back?

In my experience (which only includes 4 tris) there have been a couple times when the course was just crowded and it was nearly impossible to stay away from other people.  As far as I know the refs didn't get carried away with the drafting penalty.  Personally, I think the drafting penalty should only be applied when someone is actually trying to draft, and not stuck in a traffic jam.... but if they get an opportunity to leave the traffic jam, or they can drop back a little, they should, and if they don't, the penalty is deserved. 

On the topic of heat.... I live in a rather mild area, but tend to end up in hotter areas on my bike rides, and sometimes it does get hot here.  I find that I have to drink WAY more when it's hot, and if I do that, I'm ok.  Also, I wear light colors, including a hat.  I'm still not great at gaging my body's reaction to heat though... case in point, Wildflower, where it wasn't even that hot, but I paid for not drinking enough on the bike, and I know I would have been fine if it was colder.

So I went to the sports med doc yesterday.  Seems that my strange knee pain on Sunday was the start of an ITB issue.  Yay.  At least it isn't something huge (like requiring surgery).  I know this is managable.  Anyone here dealt with it before?  Suggestions?

Donato, hope your week is going well. 

Great job Donato!!!!  Way to go!!!

How is everyone doing this week?  I had a 4-day weekend and planned on training my rear end off.... however, on Sat I went to a BBQ and got absolutely hammered (oops!) so yesterday was lost to my hangover.  At least I did get in a nice brick on Fri and a decent ride today.

Ok, so I have been itching to make some changes to my bike.  I used to have a cheap road bike (sold it to my sis) and several months ago I bought a tri bike (used Cervelo One).  It is nice enough, 105/Ultegra, and feels fairly comfortable even though I have only made minor tweaks and haven't gotten a proper fitting.  So for all of this year I've been riding it, and it's great on flat ground, but on climbs and descents and winding roads with crappy pavement (which is most of my riding around here) I like having immediate access to both my brakes and my shifters.  I've put about 600 miles on my tri bike, but I just haven't felt that comfortable (mentally more than physically) riding in the aerobars.  So the way I see it, here are my options:

1.  Get a proper fitting on my tri bike (I think I could use shorter aero bars and narrower bullhorns), and stop being a weenie about climbing/descending in aero.

2.  Get a new road bike!  Then I can make a decision regarding the tri bike later (I would probably keep it for flatter races).  I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of dropping major cash, but I could tolerate parting with around $1500, maybe a tiny bit more if necessary to get what I want.

hmmmm... decisions, decisions. 

Hi peeps.  Guten morgen from Berlin (we're 9 hours ahead here).  Thanks for all of your support before my race and the congrats afterward.  it was quite grueling at times, but I survived.  I had a bit of a chest cold (thanks to my relatives) and I had somehow injured my big toe prior to racing.  Still I did it.  My toe, however, is quite swollen and painful, so I have to figure that one out.  my mom, dad, and sister's father in law are all retired M.D.'s so I get good care, but it's quite painful and I'm limping.  We're back to Bremen on Thursday and fly back to S.F. on Saturday.

Glad to see everyone is keeping up their training!  I'm looking forward to being back in the swing of things again.