Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 127)

Catching up after a busy weekend.

We had a great day for the bike tour Saturday. The weather was so nice and the ride was really pretty. Every Amish farm looks pretty as a picture. It was kind of funny because if you remember Tiff had emailed the event coordinator and asked if we could ride our tri bikes since she loaned out her road bike to a friend. When we showed up to register he said he thought she meant a tricycle . Needless to say we were the only people there on racing bikes. We saw a lot of couples riding tandems so I told Tiff that should be our next bike - just think of the power we could put out both pedaling together LOL!

Then we were off to visit with my family in Belleville for the rest of the weekend. I got to visit with my parents and my sister that is expecting and her hubby/kids. If you all think of it will you remember her and they baby in your prayers? They are brave and accepting whatever comes and have declined all the tests for birth defects etc recommended for a woman her age. The doctor told her "The odds for a woman your age are 1 in 33 that everything will be ok and those are still really good odds".  I never thought of all of that and now I'm just a little worried for her/them.

Tomorrow is our day for preschool with some of Gracie's friends at the house so I'll have kids from 7:30-5:00. Not much time to get online so have a great start to your week everyone!

Tracy,  I'm checking it out right now.  I opened an account but I'm not sure I'll use it much having BT and Garmin Connect.

Dina,  it sounds like the organizer was a little behind or their bike knowledge.  But I would have loved seeing a picture of you on a tricycle, helmet, race bib and all.

You've got my prayers for your sister and her family.

Garmin input needed, there is a used 310XT for sale in the classifieds for $175. I already have a 305 but it does not seem to hold a battery charge for very long anymore. I've also wondered if that might be because I have it in multisport mode and don't know how to change it back .

Anyway, I'm wondering if this would be a good upgrade and if that is a decent price? I only paid $75 used in the BT classifieds for the 305 so what is $100 better about the 310XT I guess is what I'm wondering.

And is Jonathan married yet?!

Hey everyone, I had a great weekend away.  I went on retreat with my church buddies, and had my first total senior moment.  Even though I'm a bit of a loner and an introvert, I do a lot of speaking so I often mc these type of things.  On the Sunday morning intro portion, I had a total brain lock and completely lost my train of thought literally could not finish the sentence.  It was very strange but humorous at the same time.  None of the tomatoes they threw hit me.

Dina, I assume you meant 1 in 3 odds of having no issues.  Is that right?  Seems strange the odds would be that high of something being "wrong", but our prayers are with you.  And I can tell you from first hand experience that although I wouldn't wish a special needs child on anyone, what you think is a disaster can turn out to be a blessing.  It's challenging and certainly adds complexity and difficulty to what you thought would be the winding down years, but it keeps things interesting and there's never a boring moment!

I have now had my requisite time off from the tri season, so I'm back to training and planning and having my head in the game again.

The 310 would be a pretty good purchase at that price provided it's not a couple of years old.  Depending on the age you could begin to have battery issues sooner rather than later if the watch is a couple of years old.  The problem with your 305 is likely age as that is what happened to mine.  As cold weather approaches the battery life with get remarkably less too.  Having your 305 in multisport will have no impact on the battery life either.

Jonathon is getting married this weekend, I believe.

It's 9:55 and Boston registration opens in 5 minutes!!!!

I'm going nuts right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to find out if I'm in!!

I'm a nervous wreck!!

I am going to be a basket case for the next few days.  I was able to register for the Boston Marathon but I don't know if I'm in yet.  They will need to check my official time to make sure I'm not a liar.

And I  realized I put the wrong race down for my qualifier.  I sent an email telling them my mistake and I hope they catch it before they ditch me.  I am even more nervous now than I was before registration!!!  I put the Columbus marathon down rather than Indianapolis!  I was way to wound up to out in my own registration.

Pray for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I need a psychologist!!

Good luck Dirk, hopefully that race typo doesn't kill you.  I'm getting my guest room cleaned up in anticipation of your trip.

Yeah, Jonathan is getting married this Saturday.

Not sure if that's a good price or not, but I know the two biggest things people talk about for the 310 upgrade is that it's water proof, instead of water resistant, and it has a longer battery life than the 305, though the 305 should have a pretty long battery life, so you may have something else at play as Dirk has suggested.  The 310 also records power on the bike, if that's interesting to you.

I can try.  It's easiest to explain it to a weight lifter.  Have you ever done squats?  When doing squats, the proper way to do them (the way that ultimately enables you to lift more) is to get your butt back behind your heels and have your weight all on your heels, not your forefoot.  When you squat this way, you can feel the strain in your glutes and can feel the strain being removed from the knees.

To feel the opposite, just move the weight to the ball of the foot and squat.  It's very stressful to the knee tendons. 

You can actually feel this yourself even if you aren't squatting a barbell.  Do unweight squats right there next to your computer.  If you do one with all the weight on the balls of your feet, you will be using lower quads to do most of the work.  Despite the quads being a big, strong muscle group, the vastus medialis is the primary worker here and it's a small muscle.

Then do it again with all the weight on your heels.  Imagine there's a thumb tack underneath each forefoot and you are keeping the weight off it to avoid being punctured.  Almost as if the toes are up in the air.  You should now feel it all on the glutes.

You can 'learn' to separate the quads and glutes when you push, but it's difficult.  Our brains learned when we were toddlers, how to coordinate multiple muscle groups to perform a single movement.  Now when you brain says 'push', your muscles fire in coordination in the way you learned.  It can be very subtle and difficult to teach yourself to fire them separately now.

One thing that helps immensely is to leave your calf completely relaxed while riding.  The reason is that one of the strongest connections we have is between our calf and our lower quads.  They both must fire in unison to jump.  You can often turn off the quads automatically if you turn off the calves.  So let the ankle go limp and push down and it will usually happen that your glutes are doing most of the work. 

I find that I can't fire mostly glutes when my cadence is above 90 rpms though.  Above that speed I have to pedal with much more leg muscle involvement but it's low torque pedaling and works OK.  But from 90 rpms and down, I can power it mostly by glutes.

I find that it's easiest to work on this technique while on a stationary bike.  If you have power measurement you can use power readings to help you know whether you are still pushing as hard when you switch off the calves/quads.  Or if you have a speed reading you can just see that you aren't slowing down.

When I get this right, I will be spinning along and noticing my quads beginning to feel fatigued, I will remind myself to relax my legs (both quads and calves) and I find that there comes a sense of effortlessness, but my power, speed, cadence all stay the same and it feels a little bit like the bike is pedaling itself.

Work on it, but it's invisible so you can't see it.  You can only feel it.  And it may take a long time to figure out, perhaps much like various aspects of swimming technique.

Experienced cyclists usually all understand how to do a seated climb by sliding back in the saddle.  RPMs usually come down to 60-80rpms and they power each pedal stroke with the glutes.  Sliding back in the saddle helps because they change their angle relative to the bottom bracket and they increase their hip angle too.  But changing these angles only help mentally to use more glutes.  It's something that we can learn to do even in a steep triathlon riding position.

Thanks Jeff, I completely understand about the squats as that was one of my favorite exercises.

Yesterday while riding w/ my wife, she said my calves were awesome, so I guess they were not relaxed enough. 

I will definitely go out and experiment and go for the feel of the ride instead of just trying to cover distance.

Footnote, wife did tell me that since i've stopped doing squats (I can't do them and run and bike because i just get to sore) that my glutes are going away.  Well that is not exactly what she said but ya'll get the point.

Jeff, again thanks for taking time to answer this newbie question.

Wow I missed a lot today, just got back home a little while ago and trying to catch up. I took the day off from work and headed out to Montauk Point early this morning all the way out on the east end of Long Island to do my final prep for the Mighty Man HIM in two weeks.

I went out with Bobby and Michael who have both done this HIM quite a few times and we rode nearly all the course on the bike, we skipped a few of the short out and backs that are thrown in there so we got about 43 miles in and then did 1 loop of the run course.

The bike and run course have some pretty good hills but it wasn't too bad. I think I did much better than I expected I would do. The legs were definitely on fire after the ride as I did ride pretty hard as I was trying to stay with those guys but man for the run they felt great. I could not believe how could I was feeling today it's unbelievable. I though for sure my legs would mail it in on my but they didn't and I definitely could have run more.

It was also just a perfect day, the weather was awesome and the scenery out there is so nice with the ocean and the lighthouse there I wish I would have snapped a picture when we stopped on the second pass. For me this was a big deal, I know exactly what to expect from the course and I know I can do it so unless something unexpected happens which it could or I totally screw up my nutrition or do something stupid I think I can have a decent race. Plus all the tips and the pointers that those guys gave me are worth there weight in gold. Definitely worth taking the day off for this today.

ugh, rant time...

I generally don't talk about triathlon to non-triathletes.  (And, seeing as I don't really know triathletes, that means almost never outside of BT.)  Some friends and family know I do triathlons but it's not something I really bring up.  And after a little incident today, I'm thinking I am sticking with not talking about it. So, I don't remember how it came up, but a couple days ago I was having a conversation with a friend and somehow it lead to me making the comment "it's not unusual for triathletes to have coaches" or something.  And she was like why (like why do they need coaches)... Personally I can't see myself ever considering getting a coach for various reasons, so I had never really thought about the true "why" to be able to explain it, so I didn't really have a response.  There's a thread going today about this very topic in the main forum so I decided to send her the link.  But I also quoted one of the posts, and I now realize I quoted a bad one (and I have my doubts if she actually read the thread.)  She goes on to compare knitting to triathlon.  With knitting, she didn't have a clue how to do it so she took lessons, and now that she has a foundation she can do it on her own to progress.  With sbr, we all know how to do it, and same thing. This response annoyed me in more ways than one.  While this theoretically is true, I don't think they are comparable...??  Am I over-reacting???  Okay, I'm sure I am, but........ you can tell me so, it'll probably make me feel better.  Here's the quote of what she said.... "I feel like most people (except me) can do these necessary skills for triathlon. You know how to run, you learn how to bike as a kid, and you learn how to swim (sometimes). It is a matter at getting better. Maybe a coach can help, but I don't think it's a necessity. I got someone to teach me know to knit because I literally had no idea how. Now that I have a foundation, I have the basics to progress further on my own."

Samantha I would agree with you I don't see how you can compare knitting to triathlon. First off I would not assume most people can swim, bike and run. Secondly even if you know how to swim, bike and run it doesn't necessarily mean you can do a triathlon. I think there is more to it than that. Can you learn do these things on your own? Of course you can. Do you need a coach? Not necessarily. I see the point that she is trying to make but I don't agree with it. I think there are other variables and intangibles involved with triathlon that are not there with knitting. Unless of course there is some type of competitive knitting events that I am unaware of. I think there is a lot more to doing a triathlon than just having the skills to participate that does not exist when it comes to knitting. No disrespect to anyone who knits.

Dina I will keep you sister my prayers. Glad to hear you a had a great time this weekend with the bike ride.

Dirk good luck getting into Boston. I really hope you get in there and I know the feeling after trying to get into NYC for the last 3 years two of which ended in disappointment. I am hoping that is not the case for you.

Warren loved the story and don't feel about those senior moments that happens to me all the time and at least you didn't get hit with those tomatoes.

My grandma is getting offended right now.... Oh no wait, she quilts not knits .

I just think it's kind of funny. I mean is your friend race knitting? I wouldn't bother getting upset about it. I think she is probably just trying to make an association with something in her own life and she missed the mark a little. Of course I am assuming she is, on most other occasions, a considerate person and just did not know this comparison would come off the way it did.

And actually, just to stick with her comparison, a lot of people on BT don't have a coach and try to learn proper swim technique (for instance) from videos on the web. Couldn't your friend find a You Tube video to show her how to knit? I mean, how hard can it be right .

Hmm, yes. Very interesting. I just wish it was a little closer to Christmas.....

Samantha, coaching...aahhhh. I would say most people do all 3 sports incorrectly.  Most people's running form is awful, people can't swim that great and biking, well there is a LOT to learn about that too.  Then you have nutrition, training, weather all those things to contend with.  Now personally, I dont waste time trying to explain to people who either don't want to understand or have all the answers.

Tony good training and good luck, I know you are getting excited!!!!!

Wife and I joined out local tri club, it has I think they said 378 members.  I know they had a big turnout last night even in the rain. They had 3 guest speakers.  Oh Tony, they are getting a team to go to the Olympic Tri in New York next year.  I forgot the dates of it but it is a championship of some sort.  Anyway, I have been the receiver of a lot of info from this group and I wanted to give something back so here is what the speakers said, so take it w/ a grain of salt, don't know if it is accurate or not.

They were talking abou training in the heat.  This may not apply to ya'll but remember we are in FL.

1.  Heat decreases intestinal blood flow

2. Heat increases heart rate

3. Heat increases blood lactate

4. As heat increases, it goes to the skin and away from the working muscles. 

To combat this.....

1. use a mixture of fructose and glucose instead of water alone or water and glucose.

2. Using glucose and ructose allows for better carb absorption and delivery into the muscles and water delivery into the muscles.

Their big push was to use glucose, fructose and water in very hot training conditions.

Another tip this lady got while doing KONA was to wear a breathable hat, put ice under your hat.  She also put ice in her shorts and sports bra.  She said whe she finished, she was really refreshed.

I crochet AND do triathlons! 

Dina,

My wife wanted to mention something about the Garmin.  Her Garmin wasn't holding a charge in April and then again last week.  She thought it was gone.  She googled and found something that has given her more time with the Garmin.  Turn it off and place on the charger to the computer. Press Mode + Lap for several seconds and then press Power briefly and release.  Then release mod and Lap.  Her Garmin then started a recharge and charged for hours (even though it was supposed to be fully charged.)  It's like some sort of reboot.   No data is lost.  It's worth a try.

Thanks, I will try that!