Beer Drinker Appreciation Society - Open For Business (Page 127)

That would work great.

Not sure who else races in tri suits but that gets my vote.

Check in I had to get back in the pool today since I blew off the workout yesterday. I was too dead tired from the Foo Fighters concert on Monday, (They totally rocked BTW, great concert). I did 2400 yds in an hour as a welcome back to the pool. The first 1600 was in 35 minutes. I'll do some interval work between now and my Oly to try to get faster, but I'll take that in my OWS.

John Looking forward to hearing all about your first Tri. Taper right and then go kill it.

Jenn Sorry to hear about the foot. I hope it heals up for you quickly. I won't complain the next time I get a blister now, that's for sure.

This weekend's races Good luck to Sandi, Dave, and anyone else I missed. It's hard keeping up in here.

Scott Good job swimming in the hut tub and the rest of the race.

BDAS Dave, I like the idea of trying to get everyone together in force. Lake George might be a little too last minute. Were you thinking of doing the Oly or the Half Iron distance? I ask since they are on different days.

Life With all of my kids activities I'm starting to think my goal of doing a Marathon in November might be in jeopardy now. I'm pretty bummed. I had no idea that marching band took that much of a child's time...or should I say their parents time. I haven't signed up yet so it's no financial loss. I'll make the call after the Tri. If I miss it I'll try for a Marathon in the spring. I should have more free time since marching band will be over around November.

jenn hope the foot heals up and bike fit goes ok.

dave- we are talking about next season, or at least I am. don't have the $ left for another race this year.

40 min run today. gearing up for sprint race saterday. looked up my last year time 1:19. My brother in law starts the swim almost an hour after me. My (slightly unrealistic) goal is to be done before he gets out of t1.

Jenn - How's the foot doing? Hope it's feeling better!

OK - I've got a bike question for y'all...

So, as you know, I'm working on improving my cadence. While my average speed is up to 15+ mph, I'm finding that the learning curve is steep and there are a tons of factors that play into average speed... elevation, wind, fatigue, nutrition, shifting rate, etc... I find that as I ride, I'm doing this calculus in my head trying to keep everything straight. One additional factor I started thinking about during yesterday's ride was initial speed. For example, after coming down a hill and then riding on a flat road- I find that I am able to maintain a much higher speed than if my initial speed were lower. So my question is (and I can barely conceptualize it much less put it into words): when starting out - should I ride really hard to get to a higher speed so as to better maintain that speed as long as I am on a flat surface? That seems counter intuitive to me since bringing up my speed brings about fatigue. Where is the sweet spot?

Does that make any sense?

Dave- I am curious to hear people's thoughts too. I do try to preserve that downhill momentum when i get it for as long as possible.

Quick question- how long do you stay out of pool/ nasty reservoir after road rash? I may have missed a switchback on my mountain bike last night- not too bad forearm and upper thigh -thank god I was wearing gloves based on the palm bruise.

I'm wondering if I should just get that paint on bandaid stuff to cover it. Plan was OWS in the morning- but I could do master's instead in a pool. Or neither.

Thanks Thor....I'm working with this too...Right now I'm aiming for a cadence between 85-92 although as Dave mentioned, wind can truly mess with that. I'm playing with the gears to try to find one that allows me to maintain this....is that right? Is the theory that if I'm able to do this, eventually I can go to a higher gear at the same cadence (to increase speed)? Is that my goal long-term? Do I want to keep that cadence for an entire ride, and if so do I shorten rides to maintain it, or do I just hold it as long and as much as I can during a longer ride? And finally....what's a good RACE cadence?

Last year during races I just pushed myself as far/fast as I could...keep in mind they were sprints....it didn't seem to affect my run greatly as I run between 9-10 minute miles in any scenario and repeated this in each race. My computer didn't register cadence then though, so I was really just keeping an eye on my mph and going as hard as I could.

Sandi

Basically you are trying to having the most efficient cadence. Yes there are exceptions but in general I try and stay around 85 at a certain exertion rate(now if you know your power output....much better but is cost prohibitive for most, including me!). In order to keep the same exertion level on hills or wind, I change gears to adjust. The more you ride  and pay attention the more in tune you will become with your RPE. A couple of times in my race last week I was in my granny gear and still not achieving the cadence I wanted, just wasn't going to happen.

As far as race cadence, it will be the same as training. You just need to find the sweet spot.

Think of it as having 100 matches to burn on a 20k ride on a sprint tri. You can burn 5 matches every kilometer for a nice even ride or burn them all up in the first 15k and suffer the final 5k with no matches...

X

Edited by thor67 2015-07-17 11:38 AM

I don't even look at speed. I set up my watch to show me cadence only. I find a gear I can hold 85-90 with a normal effort. Yes I know that is very vague but I don't know how else to say it. I know what effort I can hold and keep it there while holding 85-90 rpm.

Oh ouch, Kate! Take care! That doesn't sound comfortable. You'll see it start to heal - I like to wait until some good scabs form and look like they're ready to flake, then I know the skin underneath is probably pretty good. Keep some Bacitracin or Neosporin on it to keep little buggies out. Hopefully it's shallow and heals quickly!! Oh, hold a cold beer bottle on it - that always feels good too.....

Same here. Dave Q, I used to mash at the beginnings of hills - I don't so much anymore so I'm not spent by the top and for the ride. Intervals will help build strength/power and eventually you'll be doing the same RPM in harder gears. Patience, Grasshopper.

Edited by aviatrix802 2015-07-16 10:05 PM

Hi all! Foot is coming along! I've really put the aloe and Neosporin to it, used corn pads to keep pressure off it and it's coming along! I'm going to wait another day to run on it but I will bike tomorrow.
I have to....I went to my fitting today! I wish I had gone to Fit Werx in the first place...amazing. They use Retul technology, saddle mapping, etc, etc. I was there from noon today and walked out at 16:30! So many measurements, flexibility checks, strength imbalance checks, core stability checks, etc. He set up the "fake bike" to my bike's measurements and we went from there tweaking away using multiple video cameras and computer programs to measure angles and check form. He gave me so many pointers on my form. I have learned my particular model of bike is long and low....I am all legs and have the torso of someone who is 5'3" (I am 5'8"). It's not the best frame for me but workable. We actually ended up having to raise the handlebars - they were set way too low (like a tri bike) but couldn't raise them as much as he wanted just due to limitations of the bike. Saddle mapping was awesome!!! My current saddle was way wrong for me (so I'm selling it if anyone wants it!). We went through about 10 saddles and found the least of the evils - I have a very bony butt so nothing will be perfect. hahaha. Glute work!! I still ended up on a Cobb, this time the V-Flow Max. We ended up putting a shim under the cleat of my left foot due to leg length discrepancy and it brought my sit bones even on the seat - before the left one was considerably more forward. I'm pretty stoked to get out there tomorrow and check it out - he said to take it easy the first couple of times to get used to the changes in case of muscle imbalances from the previous fit. I picked up some new tri shoes too so time to get those broken in before my sprint tri next weekend.

Thor, you were asking about Iron Cowboy. A few of us rode out to try and meet up with him based on what his course said he was doing - it had changed apparently. There were no other updates and we didn't know when the ride was starting - literally no updates at all. We rode over half the course and went to where they said the starting point was (he was doing 3 loops) and waited. There was no one there form their group, no RV, nothing. I asked a random guy if he had seen the RV and he mentioned he thought he saw it across the street, through the intersection in a church parking lot. We rode there - nothing. No updates still on his FB page. I had a beautiful bike ride with 2 wonderful people but never saw him. It turns out he had no one ride with him and he ended up getting lost!!! Vermont got lambasted on his FB page "Come on, VT, you can do better than that!" Blah, blah, blah. I let them know there were people out there looking for him but either he was riding a different course or started from a different place and no one posted updates!! For the next few races I noticed they were posting "if you want to ride with Jason, he will start his bike from xxx at yyy time." I guess I got through to someone... I was bummed but oh well. My sil might ride with him on #50 in Utah (she's in Park City). I told her she had to for me! LOL. Oh! tangent!! As of tonight I may be doing the Pumpkinman Oly in UT in late October!! My sil is going to do it and asked me to join...my hubby (who is fishing in the Gaspe Peninsula right now for 8 days) says suuuuuure, go for it. LOL I should buy the tickets and entry fee before he renegs!! LOL
Crap, this is long! Sorry!!

Jenn- I hope you love your new saddle! I love, love, love the saddle I got at my fitting. Such a difference for me! And glad your foot is healing up. Did you take pictures? I took some of the cool shades of purple my thigh is turning ;-)

I'm planning on racing in UT in sept and the pictures with the trees changing of past races are amazing! We're going camping on a family vacation next month to pre-ride the trails and check it out (and hang out with friends).

Scott - Do you use a Garmin cadence sensor?

I see such a need for a sensor and maybe buying a sensor would help. But for right now - I'm just going to have to do the math in my head...

Bigger question though... I am SO FOCUSED on speed. While I count my cadence, I only care about my speed. How did you make that paradigm switch? Is it a case of knowing that if you keep up your cadence, your speed will come?

Not to get to deep here - but I need to focus more on the process/on the building blocks of building speed. I've always looked at the result and not as much at the process. That's what I really need to start doing if I'm going to make major improvements in speed. My brain doesn't work that way... I'm so focused on the result - which is easy. Focusing on all the aspects of what produces that result is so much harder. How does one make this change in thinking?

Deep thoughts with Jack Handy...

I'm loving all this talk about destination racing... It would be so cool to ride on roads and see sites that I've never seen before during the race. My issue is - my family doesn't ride but maybe I could find a race near a place where they would like to hang out.

Be sure to post pics when you go!

For us we don't have a lot of water- so having a camp site by a beach that you can swim at is a pretty cool thing! I agree with you that choose an area the family would like to see them find a race nearby. That way they feel like they were in on the decision.

Alright - I'm not a math guy but I get where you are coming from X = ability to produce power Y = power produced (all of this is divided by time). If Y is greater than X on the bike - you're gonna have a rough run. The key to making sure you don't burn too many matches is to figure out ways to maximize X.

Training
Nutrition
Technique while riding - cadence, shifting, position, exertion, maintaining power during the entire revolution, etc

So to go back to Thor's simile about the matches - knowledge and technique allow you to hold the matches in a way to get the maximum use out of them without burning your fingers.

Hi All-- I've been in a serious post race slump this week for sure. I just haven't wanted to do ANYTHING. I finally posted my race report (http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=534022) if anyone is interested. It was a great race with a really fun and friendly vibe. I will definitely be looking for it on my race calendar next year! On Monday I went for a ride with my sister (marathoner), so I may have over stretched myself a little to show her up some, especially for the day after a race. Then, Tues-Thurs, I didn't do any training. Felt like a giant slug! Sure am glad this is a recovery week in my training plan! Did manage to get myself out of bed this morning and do a short 30min run with the dog (already 85F with 87% humidity! at 7am!). Going to try to get in a ride or swim later today (depending on how long I have to spend at work).

Good luck to anyone racing this weekend!!!!!!

Gretchen - Haven't struggled with the post race blues for the better part of a year I can tell you that they suck and promise that they will eventually go away. In my case, that took forever but I'm hoping you get over yours a lot sooner. It makes perfect sense that you are going through these feelings - you have focused on these goals for months and they were pretty much all consuming. They fueled your desire and the improvement you made following each workout reinforced your desire to attain them. And attain them you did in spectacular fashion! Plus - the thought of starting all over again is sobering and will suck the desire out of anyone.

So, three suggestions:
1) Find some friends to train with and give them permission to pry your a$$ of the couch.
2) Give your self time to recover from your efforts and drop your training load a ton to the point where you know you can accomplish each workout. Do this to tryu to build momentum. Think about how the rest you are getting will help set the stage to working towards your next goal.
3) Give yourself a reward for accomplishing a short term goal If I do this this week than I get to ... and make this prize something that will inspire you to get your in gear. New cycling shorts, a cool gadget, etc
4) Stay in the moment but revel in your accomplishment all the while asking yourself - What could I do next that would make me this happy
5) Reach out to your friends for support. BDAS is here to help . Let us know how we can help!

So, I am lying in bed last night and thinking about what else - triathlon. I say to my wife, wouldn't it be cool if I could find an iron distance race to sign up for at the end of 2015 - one I could do this year. That sounds great honey... what ever you want to do. So I did a little research and asked around and there are very few iron distance races that late in the year that are still accepting applicants. One is Beach to Battle Ship - I got all excited thinking about racing with Scott but then I looked up the cost and the $500+ pricetag for the entry is out of my price range... I've been in a funk this morning- wanting to do something more, something bigger to cap off this year. I was thinking - perhaps I could ride a century or something like that.

Then I just had another thought. What if we organized a BDAS Ironman/Half Ironman/Oly/Sprint race in late October or even early November. Worst case - we could start in a pool some where (or maybe even find a warm lake) and do loops so everyone could do a distance that would work for them. Maybe there is a 3 day Canadian holiday so we cold get some Canuks to join us. We could do it near boston or someplace else where someone could host us.

Doing it in late October/ early November would allow scott some recovery time... We could even do it at a central point - like Virginia where I have family.

I know I have the fever and it's making me crazy. What do you else think?

Most importantly - good luck to everyone who is racing this weekend!