Ironman USA Lake Placid : Official Thread (Page 12)

I am doing the May camp. Only thing you may not be doing is swimming the course due to the cold water temps. It is a smaller camp vs the June camp, so I am not sure how fast it sells out.

Every have one of those mornings where you wake up and suddenly realize that you're training for an Ironman?

Does anyone have a link to the Fireman camp?

 http://www.firemanironman.com/

We stayed at Northwoods when I trained in 2008 for two different weekends...prices are good on training weekends. 

I'd stay someplace else....rooms are pretty old, elevators take forever, beds are great though...bar on street can be noisy at night depending which side of the building you are on...sleep number beds if I recall right.

If bunch of folks are going to May camp we might be able to get a place through Vbro that is cheaper or share.  Depends if you want to cook or not where I'd suggest staying.

For training weekends I don't think you have to put down a night's deposit if they are doing the same as they did in '08.

This user's post has been ignored.

Hey Guys! Still on a bit of a break off biking and running. More or less just swimming. Have a meet in 1.5 weeks... I think I would like to try and get a second swim out of something, but it will be tough. It's my club's meet so our high performance people and the other club's high performance people will all be there...basically time's will be really fast. It is a meet run in heats and finals format, so you have to qualify in the morning to swim at night. I think top 16 will get a second swim...so we will see.

Did some broken 200's yesterday at 200 race pace and my estimated time for 200m fr is 2:25ish and 200m bk is 2:40ish...I guess I'll have to wait and see!

Official IM training starts Dec 20 in MAUI!!! (going there for Xmas/NYE...so I figure I can start there...haha)

very nice! have fun!

thanks for stoppin by Fred.

continue to do so.  Having someone like yourself give advice is great for the people in this thread.

I don't stop by nearly as much as I should. 

I need to post more in this thread as I valued the advice I got from yourself, Byran, James and others who had LP experience.....time for me to pay it forward.

You should be this years Byran....the dude with experience but not racing! ....though I wish Byran would drop in as well....he always provided a nice spark and an element of trash talk that was fun.



Edited by cusetri 2010-11-24 10:50 AM

Has anyone ever stayed at the Best Western right by the swim start? Is it nice? Crappy? Looking for a hotel for a couple training weekends that will have at least a microwave and minifridge in the room and is right in town.

Hi Fred, what did you use last year?  I've got a 50/34 and have a 11/23 and 12/25 that I cycle through but am thinking of doing something like an 11/27 or something to really cap the effort on the hills and I find I run out of gear on a lot with the 50/12.  I've read some ST threads on it and I think this came up in an earlier page but not sure.

How about you Mike?  What are you running for LP?

I think it dovetails into if you subscribe to the high cadence riding or the lower cadence riding as well a little bit. 

Sort of depends if you are a 5:30, 6:00, 6:30 rider to I guess....



edit:

Fred's post from the other thread so you don't have to repeat yourself too much:
Just thought I would throw in some basics in case anybody is new to all this.:


1. Front Gearing... Standard is often a double ring with 53 teeth on the big ring, 39 teeth on the small ring (53/39)

2. A compact front implies some changes in the rings. Less teeth in front means easier to peddle... like uphill. 50-53/34 is a common ratio. If you bike on big hills you might like this.

3. A triple in front allows another even smaller ring in front to make for even easier gearing. A lot of cyclists are snobish against triples in front, but there was a great thread on ST before Lake Placid by a guy named Paul Devashi about this. He is a usual Kona qualifier and he was saying that at least half the field should be using a triple at Lake Placid.... especially if you are riding over 6.5 hours for the bike (which is more than 1/2 the field at LP).
My tri bike has a 53/39 in front and I have enough gearing for anything in Central PA. My road bike has a triple. I don't use the smallest front ring much, but I don't feel dumb for having it.

4. Gearing in the rear cassette. less teeth makes for a HARDER gear... ie; faster. 11-28 is the usual range that the cassettes will be made. Common combos: 11-23 12-25 12-27 . A top cyclist like Rick (Daremo) will use an 11-23 (I think?). I use a 12-25. 12-27 is a very common and good choice as well.

Again, refering to that ST thread, Paul said (and I agree) that most people are improperly geared... that is they ride a 12-25, when they SHOULD ride a 12-27. Here was his post:

5:30 or less 39x25
5:40 or less 39x27
6:00 or less 34x25
>6:00 34x27
>6:30 GET A TRIPLE
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=18494...

Yet many people ride a 12-25 in back and a 39 small ring in front (as I do, but I did ride in the 5:20s at Lake Placid), and they should be riding much easier gearing.




Edited by acumenjay 2010-11-24 12:55 PM

I was going to go compact, but in the end went with a 170mm 53/39.

I will use a 12/26 or 11/28.  I didnt use the 11 much at all at LP.  I expect to be stronger, so may use the 12/26 for tighter gears.  I did use the 28 often at LP last year.


first year at LP I would bring a 11/28...you may want  need it 2nd time up 86 on 2nd loop. 

You really can't hurt yourself with a 11/28 (assuming 53/39).

with a compact I think you will be fine with the 12/25.

I am switching to a compact for Placid. I ran the gear ratios and with a 50x34 and 12x25, I can get lower than an 11x28 on a 53x39, without the large jump between the 24 and 28 on the 11x28. Plus, I get to keep my "sweet 16" if you believe in that.

I am not too worried about the bigger gears with the compact, as I will probably be coasting down most of the Keene descent, and the 50x12 is about the same and even slightly better than a 53x13. I rarely used my 53x12 last season on much flatter courses.

This user's post has been ignored.

This user's post has been ignored.

I have compact on both my road bike and my tri bike and plan to experiment with various cassettes between now and July. I used a 12x28 for Savageman but LP has nothing like Killer Miller, Westernport, or Big Savage Mountain. I rode one loop of last year's LP course but had a triple at the time. Only used the 30 a couple of times on that ride, but don't recall what I was in on the rear (12x26). I know I never went 30/26.

Gearing depends on your strengths as a cyclist and your power to weight ratio as well what your normal cadence is.

In '08 rode compact with 11-28 and spent more time in my 34-28 than any other gear combination. In my last AG MOP does 7:30+ and suspect since I'll age up next year MOP time is even slower.

I will ride compact with either a 11-32 or 11-34 cassette using a MTB derailleur on my bike which allows me to keep my power under my ceiling for the ride better going up hills. My goal is to keep my vi (normalized power/average power) much lower this year and not spike my power up hills as much.  I'd be better off with a triple but gearing that I choose is almost the same but triples often don't fit on many tri bikes and the investment is steep.

Right gearing, losing weight, increasing power so my power/weight ratio is better will hopefully help me.

I look at my wko+ graph from LP vs FL. Lake Placid I had zero power about 51 minutes vs 6 in FL. Spent the biggest amount of time at LP going 6-8mph climbing the hills. Very different courses with different challenges.

For IMLP in '11 it seems most of the BTers racing are men where last couple years more women were doing the race.

I just recently swapped out to a compact.  And from what I hear along with my 12-25, I should be set.  I'm shooting for around 6 hours.

I also swam today for the first time in a couple months and it was not good.  However, I'm excited because that means I have all the progress in the world to make.

All of this talk about gearing makes me realize how much I still need to learn about cycling. I couldn't even tell you what kind of gears I have on my current bike. Haha. Is this going to be a problem. I actually am in the market for a new bike... I might sell my road bike and upgrade to a big boy tri bike... although I'm not sure... I might still want the road bike for training, but if I kept it, I would have 3 bikes in a very small studio apartment!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

It's actually not very hard to learn about bicycle gearing.  Sheldon Brown's website should have a pretty good explanation.  I'm pretty sure I realized I needed to learn myself after lurking in this thread a while back.

I'm thinking about trying out an Adamo saddle.  I've been tweaking my position constantly and my nethers can never seem to be comfortable.  I know that it takes a while to feel comfortable on a saddle, but I really don't think putting such pressure on the perineum is healthy.  19 is too young to start developing ED...

Anyone notice that yesterday was 8 months to IMLP?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Anyone notice that yesterday was 8 months to IMLP?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!


Now that is scary! Not the Thanksgiving part, but the 8 months to IMLP part!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is hard to fathom that between now and 8 months form now we will transform ourselves from our turkey and stuffing filled, pro football watching selves into machines that will complete an Ironman.


Last night David Letterman had Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta (Medal of Honor Recipient) as one of his guests. Dave asked him about what it was that allowed him to do such a heroic thing. Staff Sgt. Giunta replied saying that it isn't him, it is the training and the fact that you do it with the soldier to your left and to your right knowing that together they can do whatever they must do to get the job done. They refuse to let each other fail.

So I raise my glass of warm apple cider to all BTers out there. Let's get the training in and continue to support each other through the next eight months.

Happy Thanksgiving!

8 months? Well I sure added an extra layer of "oomph" to my mid section of "extra fuel" for that race today