Asphalt Junkies Spring 2013 - Closed (Page 115)

^^^^Just confirmed Jeff is crazy.

Guess what?  I just looked clearly at my race calendar.  I race next weekend on the 18th.  That is the first in 7 straight weekends of races.  I'm exhausted!

And they aren't all close to home either!

18th - Pelham, AL

26th - Gallatin, TN

1st - Tullahoma, TN

9th - Eureka Springs, AR

15th - Boonville, IN

22nd - Hendersonville, TN

30th - Gallatin, TN

Wish me luck. 

Jeff good luck with the races and man you have a busy race schedule this season I'm tired just looking at it. I feel like such a slacker with only three races on the schedule for this season.

Jonathan you're still cool in my book regardless of what anybody here thinks. I would really like to solve that problem and take one of those 910XT's off your hands, that is a great price to get them at however unlike Matt I'm not sure if my wife would let me do it. I just spent a bunch of cash on accessories for the bike. That is assuming you were looking to sale it.

Pretty interesting, WTC is modifying swim starts at select IM events. I knew this was coming and had heard about. Some are time trial and some are rolling starts. They are also grouping waves by age as well. I guess they are going to see what works best.

http://www.ironman.com/triathlon-news/articles/2013/05/swimsmart-initiative.aspx#axzz2SnhE5WWu

This whole conversation has made me laugh.... Double watches... Double the cost.... Jonathan - I think you should wear both, one on each arm and tell people you are calibrating them for accuracy purposes.

This is very cool.  I read an op-ed written by Dan Empfield (Slowtwitch) months ago where he laid out these very suggestions to help to minimize swim tragedies during triathlons.

What do you think about the changes?

Jen, I love your new avatar photo.  You look like a rock star!  You're a pro triathlete!

I think this is a good thing. I think that they were doing this with safety in mind. I know the mass starts are a big part of the Ironman lore but if they can make the swims a little less stressful it might go a long way to making them safer.

I like that they are at least listening and reacting to athlete's suggestions and attempting to make the events more athlete friendly.  I think there are a lot more things they could do, but this is a great start.

How honest do you think people will be with estimated swim times?  Since it's chip timed with a timing mat to start, it really doesn't matter where you begin, though it would be beneficial for drafting purposes to seed yourself accurately.

I read and contemplated their wording very carefully.  It seems that the swim cut-off and the race cut-off clocks BEGIN counting when the last athlete enters the water.

So people in fear of not making the 2:20 swim cut-off or the 17:00 race cut-off will be very tempted to get a head start on those countdowns by starting in the front.

So be it.  They will get run over!  And are precisely the people that are most vulnerable to that.  But at least any disaster they encounter will have been at their own hands.

Now those ubiquitous finish line photos will sometimes be seen reading 17:34:02!  which will really take getting used to, but they will still represent someone that officially finished an Ironman.

Not only that, but it's not just that a person's real finish time isn't reflected in that overhead clock, but they actually CAN finish in MORE than 17 hours and still be an official finisher I guess....either that or they will let them cross the line, call their name, say "you are an Ironman!" and then they have to check the official chip-timing results to see if they are going to have to give up their finisher medal?  I doubt that.

It's just always been nice to know that in all cases, for everyone, 17 hours is the line in the sand.  Now it's not.  And the amount of time it can take someone to officially finish will vary from race to race.  When that last swimmer crosses the mat to start the race they will only then have an official time limit for the race and it will vary at each race.  Sometimes the official finish time will be 17:25:34 sometimes it will be 17:34:12... 

But it's worth it to introduce safety and save a few lives.

I don't think it's that bad. If you don't seed yourself properly that is your problem and you do that at your own risk. I think this is good for certain races. CdA is a good example of this, the start gets very crowded because the entry to the water is narrow and not very accomodating. People get beat up in the swim there. I think in that case it will help.

I think out of the three different options they proposed I like Mount Tremblant the best starting everyone in waves by age group. That is pretty typical of what I've seen in the smaller races. I don't have anything against the mass starts I think they are pretty cool and where there is sufficient room I think they should keep them.

I guess the biggest change would be as Jeff pointed out the race going beyond 17 hours. That would be strange to see. I'm wondering why that would be much different though then what they do today with Louisville. That is a time trial start so how does the clock work there? They are throwing people into the water every couple of seconds so would the same apply there?

I am not sure what I think just yet.  The attempts to make the swims safer is obviously a good idea but the timing of the self seeding is my question mark.  Self seeding is going to be very difficult to control.  People will seed themselves in places they have no business being and that will cause some congestion to some degree.  The solution I would see would appear to be simple, as I think someone else stated, require a time from a race of at least 1500m or longer.  If there is no time fro one of those distances than they would be required to start toward the back of the field and allow self seeding after a certain point.

I see this same type of thing at Tri-Indy each year.  It is a self seeding event and I have seen many, many athletes in line ahead of me that I knew would struggle to stay with me at all, and I don't consider myself to be all that fast.  During the actual swim I have nearly run over a few of the swimmers because I came up behind them so quickly that I had no idea they were there until I had a foot in my face or grabbed a leg.

The other thing is the timing of the race.  The accepted standard of 17 hours to be an Ironman could all but be erased if some type of change isn't accepted.  I think it has been said that allowing the timing chip to determine your 17 hour time limit could be checked very quickly prior to being given the finishing medal.  And to hear; "_______, You are an Ironman!" and not hit the targeted deadline feel a little cheap to me. 

Making a check for people to cross the finishing line in the "ironman" time would actually be a fairly easy thing to check.  The placement of a timing mat at a fixed distance away from the actual finishing line, but not too far away, to allow your chip time to be calculated and approximate your finishing time to be at or under 17 hours would go a long way to keeping the race the same.  With the results of a race being able to be seen via timing chips at most other races as quickly as they can be seen currently this, on the surface, wouldn't appear to be all that complicated to achieve.

Just so everyone knows, I gave Brenda permission to jump into this thread and begin posting.  She's so ambitious to get started and I've been waiting four months for her to rejoin the group.  If anyone has a problem with this they will have to take it up with Jeff at a head to head race this season and if, IF they beat him then we will hear their arguments.............I didn't think anyone would have anything to say.

Jeff, Have a great birthday leading into your racing weekend!!

Brenda welcome back we missed not having you around here. Glad to hear that you are ready to jump back in.

Jeff happy birthday.

Jonathan that looks like a pretty hardcore race. I'm not sure I could deal with the water being that cold for that long a distance swim. It looks like a great course though.

That looks like one Xtreme race!!  I can imagine that if you got through that one you could do just about any race after that point.  I'll do an Ironman first, hit the lottery and then think about paying for the trip and training.  But it would be pretty awesome to complete that race!

So.......

I did another 1500 yard TT in the pool today and it was a little slower than I would like.  I had planned to do a 1650 (as close to a 1500m length as I could get) but I hadn't done any of these other than races and the timing wouldn't compare when in the pool.  I was looking to see if I had gained any swim fitness since the last one but this one is non conclusive. 

My best 1500 TT was 22:30 and today's was 22:50.  It is only slightly slower than the first one I completed on January 5 this year.  The Jan. 5 swim was probably not a good time to go with for a PR because there were 4 people, including myself, that were swimming in the lane for parts of the TT, so I suppose there was some type of drafting going on at times.  There was likely an offset to the drafting too because I would have had to have been swimming at the wake created by other swimmers too. 

Either way, today was not at a high enough effort.  But completing a TT at this long of a distance is pretty challenging to find the sweet spot for pacing.  It is much easier to TT a 500 because you can simply make yourself suffer for 8-10 minutes but less likely to suffer for 20+ minutes.

We had some really awesome weather here today. It was in the 70's nice and warm for a change so I took a half day from work and got out for an afternoon ride on the bike. Initially I was disappointed when I finished but after thinking about it some I think it was a pretty solid ride.

I wanted to get going at 2 pm but started about 15 minutes late and I wanted to do 60 miles or 3:30 something along those lines. I wound up doing 52 miles in 3:05 today. I stayed local so I did five 10 mileish loops down to the marina and by the bay. The wind was blowing hard as usual which was great. I get a much better workout and it makes up for the lack of hills.

After the 5th loop I was going to go back out for a 6th but I had to relieve my daughter from watching the dog so I cut it short. I was pretty fried too after the 5th loop so that's what I was disappointed about. Not riding longer and feeling as spent as I felt after the ride. I am thinking I did not do a very good job with my nutrition today as well. I only drank about 38 oz's of powerbar perform and did one bonk breaker bar after the third loop.

While it was warm out it really did not affect me as the wind kept me cool and the temp by the water was definitely cooler but I still think I should have drank more and probably should have eaten earlier. In any case it's some thing to take note of for the next ride. So all in all a good ride even though it was a little shorter than what I wanted it to be I'm glad I was able to get this one in especially with the great weather.

Take into consideration the effort you were putting into the equation too.  Remember your long rides should have a mix of hard and moderate efforts while allowing some recovery too.  Pounding out 50-60 miles for every long ride may drive you into the ground a little quicker.  And the wind can be deceiving if you are like me.  I get caught up in seeing my speeds drop and I allow my effort to go higher than planned if I'm not paying attention closely.  Don't worry about speeds and stick to the planned ride type.

I actually think riding on the trainer allows for a better focused work out because everything is static.  You have no wind to fight, no hills to climb or descend and no traffic signals to navigate throwing your tempo off.  BUT, there's only so much trainer time I can take.

Still.........A good ride today.  Congrats!