Baowolf's Beginner Banquet -Sorry all tables are full no room.. (Page 13)

I didn't mean to be a downer about my leg, I do well under adversity and have an Eor rain cloud on layaway should I need it later this month.  In triathlon almost all of us ignore what folks tell us about not building too fast, allowing for enough rest, not doing speedwork too soon...etc. and then we get hurt.  So part of the challenge of Triathlon as a lifestyle is that balance between pushing yourself and recovering, "listening to your body" and only asking it to go beyond what it thinks it should... if you have prepared it to do so.  None of this really makes sense typically until you have lived it.  Like telling your son to not stay out too late with his girlfriend in an unsupervised location ..... They don't always listen to you.  

There was a question about a tear in a wetsuit a while back.  I forget if I answered it.  I have heard that you can use a little nail polish or something from a dive shop to jsut kind of glue the rip back together if it is minor like from fingernails.

Yes you can just mannually push your brake bracket back into alignment with your hand.  There was a lady on her bike at IM CDA last summer with her brake pad rubbing and she didn't know how to fix it... so sad.  I tried to explain it to her but she didn't stop.  The bike chain goes on fairly easily not sure what was up with that.  Glad you are getting better at dismounting.  I have had days like that... not very much fun.   

I cashed in some of my 10,000 honey can you pick up a gallon of milk on your way home tickets for my wife to massage my leg lastnight (OUCHE) no mercy there at all.  I had to work through lunch, so not sure how things feel today. 

For my swim workout lastnight I started at 2:28 per 100 yards and then increased my pace by 3-4 seconds per 100 for 100 yard repeats until I was at 1:53 ish per 100.  For me and where I am at in training that felt pretty fast.  I was also over 2000 yards by the time I got up there. 

For those of you who can swim 25 yards in 15 to 20 seconds... really?  That is like olympic medal pace.  If you can swim 3.5 ish mph for even 25 yards you will be blowing by 99 percent of your competitors once you build up some endurance to go with it. 

For those doing a HIM you really need to practice your nutrition on your longer rides/runs.  My first him was 105F and I did not know how many calories to take so I ended up taking 1/2 of what I should have and walked the last 1 mile of the run.  Granted they ran out of gels at the aid stations and well did not have them in the right place and it was 2.5-3 miles between aid stations on the run.... but ya need to fuel properly as well.  You may also want to practice eating what you think you are going to eat before a  morning workout to see if your side and stomach agree that this is a good idea.   

Hrm I must be missing something....

Haha what?!  You never tell a son that.  It just made me bolder! lol

Anyways I got a sorta fast swim in today and actually swam 1500yds of it continuously so I am pretty happy about that one.  Plus a short 3 mile run.  Tomorrow I have a 75 min run scheduled... I don't know if I can put forth that much effort, as I was saying earlier I tend to push my pace a little hard for that.  Oh well I will let you all know how I collapsed around the hour mark tomorrow

Marcus

On the wetsuit repair question, here's a great article on Xterra's website on how to repair with product suggestions and pictures.

Xterra Wetsuit Repair

FTA:

1. Purchase/use standard wetsuit adhesive. Most swim, triathlon, or sporting goods stores carry this product; we recommend a product called AquaSeal. Be sure to read all of the instructions that accompany the wetsuit adhesive you purchase to avoid discrepancies with the instructions provided below.
2. Lay the wetsuit on a flat surface.
3. Gently pinch open the tear in the wetsuit to expose both surfaces. Apply a thick, equal layer of adhesive to both surfaces (see image below). Use less glue on either edge of the tear than you think to avoid the glue from seeping out onto the surface of the wetsuit.
4. Position the tear so that it is flat (sitting naturally without any bumps or folds in the tear). Apply another thin layer of adhesive to the edges of the tear (or use the excess adhesive that seeps out of the tear once the flap is flat), and smooth the adhesive at the edge of tear with a paperclip or toothpick. Do not leave any adhesive on the surface of the suit; simply rub any excess adhesive off of the suit before it dries.
5. Leave the wetsuit on a dry, flat surface for 24 hours to dry.

wow...been extremely occupied with real life crappola. Even had to break a little with training. Calling it my rest week. Lots and lots of good info. So much I went ahead and bought a notebook and have been taking lots of notes. Training is still making progress despite the break. Got in a good swim and great bike.

Thanks to you all who gave me shin splint advice. Markus, my STICK replacement has been doing wonders. Tha and icing have made a huge difference. I still have 't run to let them heal but am planning on getting my first one today. SO, we will see. I got some new running shoes that feel incredible Should be good things coming as far as the run goes.

For everyone, youtube has a bunch of transition tip videos. I geeked out on them for an afternoon. So much good info. One thing in particular ...as a tip to mark bike racks I saw a suggestion to use a unique towel. Ken had asked about that a while back. Numbers all kinda look the same but a visual marker liike a towel might shave a few moments of looking for your number.

It's been really inspirational reading everyone's race reports. I cannot wait to have my own to post!

Regarding finding your bike in Transition.  I typically figure out where the entrance is from the water and just do a quick dry run, count how many rows up and over you are to your bike.  {quirk}I do this same thing when I fly counting the rows to the exit in both directions from my seat{/quirk}.  In addition make sure you repeat this same process only from point where you return with your bike.

Lost a post, but the upshot was...

Thanks for the wetsuit repair tips!  Will be using them on the minor fingernal cuts in mine.

Sounds like a wheels off week for several of us in different ways.  But we will press on!  For me, looking at zero bike miles this week...tried fixing brakes myself, discovered another problem, and will be taking her in to the shop asap. Back is feeling better though, so looking to get a run in today.  Runs are simple... and I like that!

Good luck to our racers!  And don't forget the 3rd transition and 4th leg...drive home and write your race report!

Ceril- I know what you mean about wanting to train in your week before the race.  I have my first TRI this Sunday, and I've been at a loss as to what to do with all my evtra time this week.  House has never been cleaner!! lol

Carol-Thank you so much for mentioning the flashlight, I read that somewhere too, but had forgotten.  I have my transition bag packed for the race, but will put ina flashlight too. So sorry abut your bike troubles.  I know you will be happy to have your bike bck asap.

Dennis-GOOD LUCK!!!!

Marcus-Great work out!  Now keep enjoying the BEER! I want some at the finish this Sunday.

-Karen

To everyone competing this weekend, I wish you the best and hope that you have fun. 

90 percent of your race is the training leading up to it.  If you were consistent in your training you will be fine in the race.  The 10 percent is not going out too fast and eating/drinking enough during the race.  Your body generally knows how fast you should go, but if you are a bit Type A you may need to dial it back some.  This is less of an issue for a sprint and a really big issue for anything HIM or longer.  The stonger you are on the bike, the more you need to slow down to have enough left for the run.  I suck at the swim and bike, and run is my strong event, so it all works out nicely for me. 

If anyone is curious about run paces for workouts or whatever I think it is McMillan's run calculator that will give you paces for long runs, interval work, race paces, etc. if you have a 5k or any race to put in there to derive the rest of the numbers from.

Yes aquaseal was what I was thinking of from the dive shops. 

Grats on all the improvement I am hearing about.  That first minute running on the treadmill will quickly add to two minutes, 5 and then 10. 

Important question: How is your spouse/significant other/ friends responding to your 1) stated desire to complete a triathlon and 2) reallocation of time and resources towards exercise?  Sometimes we get a BIT myopic in focusing on our training and forget the important people in our lives.  Any shakup in the status quo usually results in some resistance even if not stated openly.  It is usually better to be proactive in planning social/friend/family/spouse time than letting things go unnoticed or unstated.  Lets hear some DRAMA.

Also: it is Friday so what are folks doing for their long workouts this weekend?

Bike shop had pity on me, and fixed my bike for free.  Except, I had apparently bent my saddle in the clip out fail fall I had a couple weeks ago.  So test driving a new saddle now.  Plans for the weekend include actually riding my bike....probably 20-25 miles which is longish for me at this point.  Wish this week had been different, but can't go backwards, only forwards.

My husband is very supportive, but also tends to be very protective.  He tried to talk me out of open water swimming, as well as the clipless pedals.  This week he dreamed I took up smoking because someone told me it would help me in my triathlon.  But he also knows I'm generally more pleasant to be around if I work out and have a goal.  I need an outlet for my planning gene, which is tough to apply to real life without collateral damage.  Exercise is my natural antidepressant, and anyone neaby could no doubt tell a shift in my mood when I missed a couple days this week.  Thank you for the remider to be proactive in addressing these issues....I need to do a better job on that front!

It's the same as usual.  When he's depressed or in a generally bad mood, he makes snarky comments about me running.  We've been having the same argument for 10 years; he knows that comments about my running are strictly off limits.  Honestly, the only time it inconveniences him is on Sundays when I do my long run and he has the kids, and even then I sometimes have the baby in the jogger.  Basically, it's something he targets, but he also targets cleaning (yeah, for real, like it's some sort of sin to wash my floor every couple of weeks, never mind that we have a baby who tries to eat off of it).  *eyeroll here*  Apparently, if it was up to him we'd never clean.  He likes things tidy, but seems to believe that floors never need to be washed, like, ever.  He would literally ask what I did and if I mentioned that I washed the floor he'd tell me that I wasn't using my time well and shouldn't have washed the floor and should have been doing X instead.  So five years ago, he was also told that criticizing me for cleaning was off limits.  And to be clear, the problem isn't that the house is or isn't clean enough (I'd rather it be cleaner, honestly).  The problem is that he gets in moods where he thinks he shouldn't be responsible for ever watching the kids when he gets home from work or on weekends and he tries to manage my time so that he'll have no responsibilities.

You were looking for drama, right?  There's no shortage of it in this household, some days/weeks/months.  *another eyeroll* 

My solution is to try my best to do all training runs and rides while he's not home because then I only have to negotiate with the kids (and that's easy because there's no shortage of parks and other things to bike or run to in the area).  And also to not talk about all of it because he's not interested.

I'm going to run 11 on Sunday.  I hope.  My mom is rather obsessed with Mother's Day and generally expects us to drive down to her house (2.5 hours roundtrip) and spend the entire afternoon there, which would mean I wouldn't get to run at all.  She isn't understanding about running, so it's not really possible to get there and go run, or to come later in the day because I want to run or whatever, and I'm not in the mood to have her be mad at me for the next two weeks.  They're getting ready for a trip so I invited them to come to our house or offered to table the celebration until Memorial Day after they're back. 

I got in three rides this week so I'll just do a short run tomorrow and the rest of the day will be taken up by a birthday party, yardwork and grading.

Well that tonail finally fell off after my swim tonight.  Ya I could change shoes again now that they screwed up yet another model that used to work for me.  Oh well it is not black anymore.  Did a 1000 yard TT tonight and then increased speed every 100 yards down to a 1:55/100 pace. 

For mother's day my wife and I are running a 4 mile race, leaving at 5 am or so.  Ya I probably shouldn't run it with my leg as marginal as it is atm.  I know I can jog it, we see how it feels during the race.  Unfortunately I can generally get through the pain in the moment and pay for it later. 

Spousal relationships are lots of fun.  Furtunately God blessed me with a spouse who is lower maintanance than I am.  She also used to run faster than I can run now, a lot faster.  I hope she gets back her speed so we can race a little closer in time.  Oh well, I best go pack or sleep or something. 

Balance and boundaries.  Sometimes we allow our spouses to not be responsible, sometimes we don't hear what it is they want and then fued over irrelevant things.  I like that you set some topics offlimits.  It took my wife 3 years to start exercising after I started triathlon training.  Now it is something we can do together.  She dosen't really mind having a place to swim at our house either.  She also swims faster than me.... but I bike faster. 8). 

Lets have Race Reports up by Monday 8).   And happy Mothers day to all our mothers out there. 

Just got home, lot's to do.  The race was awesome.  I was strong everywhere but T1.  Well prepared.  Learned a few things (which was the whole purpose for this one).  Met some people from the local tri club that had all traveled the 1.5 hours to this race.  Oh, and finished 10 minutes faster than I ever thought I would - 1:19:50.  I gotta go but will give a better report tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for all of the good wishes, they paid off.  I hope everybody else that had a race this weekend had an even better experience than I did.  

I do have one question though.  Am I a total dork for being worried my body numbers would come off in the post-race shower?  I definitely want to wear them for a day or 2. 

I can't wait for the timing people to update their website with splits.

Congrats on your successful race!  I look forward to your race report.

This week was finally a good one and it is the week leading up to finals at school so... busy busy.  I actually got to all the workouts I planned and we will see how I do next week on my finals.  Now that spring has finally hit the northern tier I am getting really pumped up for my race.  28 days and counting...

Marcus

Oh yeah and I don't have a spouse so no one to nag me on my workout or cleaning habits

Good news bad news.  I was able to complete the race, partial trail run 4 miles (fallen trees, watter hazard, rocks covered in dry leaves, all hills) at a 6:27 pace give or take.  I finished 1st in age group, 3rd overall, beat last years winner, but pulled the hamstring a bit more in the last quarter mile.  Bummer.  Oh well.  I may put off my bike ride until tomrrow.

Grats on a solid tri there my friend.  I knew you would be strong throughout.  Look forward to your RR. Lunch time!

Race report (I'll put the exact times here when I know them):

Since the tri was almost 2 hours away from my house I decided to splurge and get a hotel room the night before.  Transition setup started at 6:30 and I got there right at the start.  A few things I noticed in transition was there were a lot of newbies like myself there.  I quickly realized that the beginners had their bikes facing away from the lane through transition and the more experienced guy had their facing toward the lane.  I quickly turned my bike around.  Since this race used the same transition area for T1 & T2, I put my bike shoes in the front of my towel and my running shoes at the back.  Helmet, glove, and glasses went on aerobars.  We knew that rain was possible so I grabbed an extra towel from my bag to cover my shoes from the rain if it came.

After setting up and socializing with people I went to get my body markings and timing chip, which was already on a strap.  15 minutes before start I put on my wetsuit. I strapped the timing chip to my left ankle.  Grabbed my goggle and cap and went to the swim start.  We started in the water so about 5 minutes before start I got in with everybody else to get acclimated to the water temperature, around 60 degrees cold.  I was shocked at how well the wetsuit kept me warm.  it wasn't until I put my face in the water that I realized just how cold it was.  Many people only had sleeveless suits and a few had none.

The swim started pretty good.  No real hitting or kicking even happened which was nice.  This was my first open water swim along with my first wetsuit swim.  I gator-eyed the entire swim, 500 yds. in a V shape.  I went out stronger than I normally swim and did slow the last 100 or so.  I realized that 500 yds. without wall turns has zero breaks in it.  Not precisely sure of my time, but I think I entered T1 at a little under 12 minutes.  That's good for me.

T1 didn't go so well.  Mainly due to an oversight in transition setup.  Wetsuit came off easily.  Putting on socks didn't.  I had them rolled down so they would just roll back out.  Problem is I put the first one on upside-down and had to take it back off and start all over.  After my socks were on, I realized I forgot to unfasten my bike shoes.  I have the type with 2 velcro straps and a ratchet strap.  So once again that slowed me down.  Gloves took what felt like 20 seconds to get on.  I'm done riding with them if possible.  At least on short rides.  Glasses and helmet went on fine.  T1 time was probably around 4 minutes.  

I still mount the bike by throwing my leg over first, then clip right foot, start pedaling, clip left.  The slowest way, but it is safe for me which is fine for now.  The bike went great overall.  It started raining a mile into it.  I have never ridden in the rain.  But I had researched what to do.  Mostly avoid metal and paint.  The rain really had no affect on my ride.  I only got passed by one guy early on, I passed around 8-10 people the rest of the race.  The course was continuous rolling hills which I was not used to riding but obviously I do well shifting because I could keep my cadence up on most of them to make them a lot easier to climb.  Not sure of my time but i think for the 10.2 miles I did it in 40 minutes.  The dismount was slow and we had to walk our bikes down an incline which was difficult since it was wet and my bike shoes don't have a lot of traction.

T2 went ok.  A little slow getting shoes off.  More slow getting the gloves off, another reason they need to go.  I now understand how useful a single velcro shoe is better than my shoes even if you aren't going to be doing flying mounts.  It took me 2 attempts to tie one of my shoes since I was in a hurry.  I think I might invest in some Yankz.  I think T2 took around 2 minutes total.  What I expected actually.

The run was great.  I ran the entire 2.6 miles at an estimated 8:30 pace.  That is about 1:30 faster than my training pace.  Mostly because during training I do a 4:00/1:00 run/walk instead of a straight run.  I felt strong on the run even though I had went hard for the previous hour.  Nobody passed me yet I passed another 10 or so people.  That is a great boost to the self esteem.  Out of all the slow people there, I was the fastest.

I finished the race in what I believe was 1:19:50.  If you think about it, doing the socks better,  getting rid of the bike gloves, getting the bike shoes ready before entering T1, having the fast tie laces, and learning a more efficient mount could have knocked a couple of minutes off my time easily.

So what did I learn today.  A simpler transition is a quicker transition.  And a fast transition can easily make up for a weak swim.

Did I have fun?  The entire time.  Even when I was struggling in transition I was having the time of my life.  I knew some things would not go right.

Am I ready for my next race to get here in 2 weeks? Can't wait.

Do I have a strange soreness on the outside of my right knee I've never had before?  Yeah, but it only hurts after I sit or lay down for an extended period.  After moving around everything feels great.  No need to panic yet.  I did go all out today, I have to expect some issues.  Let's just take it easy and watch it.

Once again, thanks everybody.

Awesome Dennis!  Sounds like you had a really good race.  Very nice run pace you had there at the end!  It's also great to hear that the swim went so well, and without a lot of contact in the water.  Love your focus on the details, lessons learned, and most of all that you had FUN!

Steve, glad you had a good race today as well.  Congrats on the AG win, and 3rd overall!  Hope not too much damage to the hamstring...maybe time for a bit more TLC for it.  Did you say your wife was doing this one?  How was her day?

Finally got a bike ride in this morning, and decided to just make it 100% about having fun.  Been kind of a stressful week on a couple of fronts, and I just wanted to find the joy.  Rode out to an observation spot at the airport and watched a few planes land.  Kind of a neat spot as they have the control tower communications on a loud speaker.  My partner in triathlon crime got back into town in the afternoon, and we went for a swim in the outdoor pool at her gym, a nice change of venue.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!  Seems we have at least one more race report to look forward to      

Thanks for asking. My wife came in 2nd in her age group.  We took a picture by the waterfall with our medals, I will try to linc them in once I figure out how to do that.  Yup back to walking I for a while I think, will see how things go.  Definately no speedwork for a very long time.   

There is that balance between pushing and well sometimes just running with no watch biking to enjoy the view and swimming slow just to enjoy how the water feels.  There is a Zen to the sport if you allow yourself to get relax into it. 

Dennis--congrats on your tri and thanks for the race report.

Steve--congrats on your race too, though sorry to hear about the pulled muscle. 

ETA:  I think there is something that's nice when both partners in a relationship exercise or have individual hobbies to balance out the time investment.  When my husband exercises, we have many less problems.  However, mostly he doesn't, which leads to him being tired and achy (and as a result, crabby and depressed) and then the sniping starts.  It's a really frustrating cycle, especially because I'm more than willing to accommodate him when it comes to exercise.  Needless to say, it's also a topic that's basically off-limits because he likes to believe that he is in fine shape and is only a few pounds overweight rather than ~25.  I don't actually care about the weight; I care about the achy/tired/depressed cycle.  The good news is that he has a couple of races he wants to run with me this summer, so he will hopefully start exercising for them soon. 

And speaking of races, there's going to be a new half-marathon very near where we stay in the mountains on weekends!  I'm thrilled.  The start line is about 10 minutes away from where we stay, and it should be a fairly scenic course with a small crowd.  I registered as soon as I saw it!   

I just read a post a BTer put out there.  She did 3 HIM's and had really horrible experiences.  Her problems were that she had fewer than half the calories she needed for all 3 of the events.  Once you run out of calories in your system life becomes unhappy.  (Bike 300 cal /hour, Run 200 cal per hour after the first 45 min of the race (after theswim).  The next problem she has was that she was taking in way too much water.  On one of the HIM's (the first one I think) she went to the hospital with hyponetrima which is really serious.  Basically you drink so much water you flood out your electorlytes and can die.  It is hard to do this but really important not to do it.  She then overcompensated by taking in lots of electrolyte pills, but not decreasing how much water she was drinking.  Better, but still you can't run with a gallon of water in your belly.  Lastly it sounds like she was undertrained for all 3 events and tried to hit the bike too hard.  You can't have a good bike that results in destroying your run.  The race includes a good execution of effort in all 3 of the events.  She plans to so an IM in 7 months and if she doesn't fix your nutrition plan she will be 2000-2500 calories short of what she should be eating during the race and at a big risk of being in the med tent about 6 miles into the run. 

The reason I share this is for you HIM folks out there.... ask questions if you are not figuring out your race day nutrition and hydration.  It is REALLY important!

For the Sprint/Oly folks not such a big deal, but not a bad idea to start getting it down now.

Lisa, I honestly don't know how you folks w/ kiddo's juggle everything.  You are amazing for how you involve your kids in getting outside with you and getting it done.  Happy Mother's Day!  I hope you, and all the other moms are being pampered today.

Congrats to Mrs. Baowolf!  Yes, we need pictures of HER medal too .

Good reminders re: the importance of proper nutrition and hydration.  I'm not anywhere near the HIM level, but nutrition is a big issue for me as well.  As a type 1 diabetic, I generally try to be as consistent as possible with my insulin dosing, eat the same thing, etc. to dial things in before I head out for a workout.  While I occasionally get away with not doing that if the stars are all aligned on a given day, more often than not it results in either having to cut a workout short if I'm really low, or feel like carp if I'm really high.  Another thing I have learned even at my relatively short distances, is that if I check to see where my blood glucose is trending early in a workout and adjust accordingly, things tend to go much better than if I wait until the middle to later part.  Anyways, I was thinking that is just part of a more universal truth that it is a lot harder for anyone to catch up than it is to stay properly hydrated, fueled, etc. from the beginning.  Stuff we may already know....but applying it consistently is the real challenge, at least for me.

Well my recovery week ends tonight and we start back up full speed tomorrow.  After getting the results from the race, I have to do something about my bike speed.  One thing that I was able to do this morning on a ride was to finally get into the aerobars.  I had been nervous about it because of how twitchy it made the bike, but it started to feel good after a few attempts.  I think this will by me a little speed.  I'm also working on my pedaling technique from all of the articles in this thread and on BT.  I feel my shifting is pretty good.  So I think I am going to add another medium ride and perhaps another short also each week.  My swim needs improvement also but I feel investing time into the bike will result in a better ROI than swimming.

Now as far as nutrition, I plan to take it seriously but haven't yet due to even my long bikes not being that long either.  I know WTC events provide PowerBar branded gels, food and sports drink during the race so I think it would be wise to start using that brand during my workouts so I don't get upset stomach from it.  Thanks for all the nutrition info because as lots of people say, people spend months training SBR for an event, but then neglect other things such as nutrition and transition.  This BT video talks about guys coming into the race "winging it". 

Why do people seem to want to try new things on race day?  I had so much temptation to do this and had to restrain myself multiple times.  I purchased anti-fog for my goggles the night before the race, then had to tell myself, "You've never used this before, what if you do it wrong and it affects your race."  Same thing nutrition wise.  I normally eat a Clif bar and drink some gatorade before my long runs and bikes but for some reason I was tempted to eat a banana an hour before the race.  I had to remind myself that I wasn't used to eating bananas before exercise.  Heck I wouldn't even let myself inflate my tires to 130 lbs like everybody else was because I normally ride at 110.