Manatee Mentors 2016 - Manatee à trois (Page 13)

Nooooo I hate when that happens. I am excited to hear about this race!

I am casually shopping for a CX bike.

I third that, happy happy birthday!

Alrighty, another RACE REPORT

This one is the North Face Beast of Big Creek! A mountain race to the top of mount Ellinor and back.

My little RR from my race Saturday since there is no BT category for what I did!

Chiques Challenge, 4.? mile run, 2.? mile kayak downstream but the current wasn't moving too fast. It was HOT HOT HOT!!! Actual temp 93, heat index of 105, even at that time in the morning. The race was supposed to start at 8:30 am but it was 15 minutes late because of people using the porta-john. I just melted on the run. I should've ran with a drink but didn't. I had a decent pace the first 2 miles when we had mostly shade but I fell off pace a lot and needed a few walk breaks during miles 2+ which were mainly in the direct sun. 

I had a good transition. EFP (my husband) had been running ahead of me but ended up walking a lot and I caught him and stayed with him since he said he was a bit lightheaded. We ended the run together and there is no rule about helping other athletes, so we worked together to get our kayaks down to the water and got in our boats quickly and without issue. 

I think I made up some time on the kayak, although it was much harder to use my arms than I anticipated after running. It was almost like a bike to run transition, you know, where your legs feel all Gumby-like and uncoordinated? Yup, that's oddly enough what my arms felt like. Tired and uncoordinated, but eventually I got into a decent rhythm.  Smashed the living *bleep* out of my thumb at one point, it hurt so bad!  The river was a bit lower than usual, so navigating the rocks was interesting and I occasionally grounded myself but I was thankfully able to rock myself free each time.

After crossing the finish 'line', I continued on toward the boat ramp, got myself out of everyone's way and purposely flipped my kayak to fall in and cool off, water quality warning from earlier in the week be damned! It felt good, although the water wasn't cool by any measure, it still felt better than the air. 

Somehow I ended up 2nd in my AG, 40-49, certainly not with my run performance! I must've passed more people than I realized on the kayak part. Official results and times still pending.

High point of the day was seeing a good friend from my old job who was there watching her husband compete, what a great surprise!  OK, so the second high point may have been the 'new' pub we stopped at for lunch afterward and the yummy appetizer, soup and Saison. 

Originally posted by Atlantia

Originally posted by jmkizer

Originally posted by juniperjen

Originally posted by Atlantia I just found out that my pool is going to be closed for a month, starting Aug 26th! That means no pool for two weeks before my first Oly. The REC center guy said I should just swim at one of the other centers, but I checked their maintenance schedules, and the other ones closest to me/my office are also going to be closed at that time. Should I just forego swim training the two weeks before the race? Drive to one of the centers further away from me on Sat or Sun and get one swim a week on the weekend?

I would do the weekend swim just for your own sanity. I know it's just a confidence boost to check in with your swim. You've been doing so great with your swim so you'll be fine no matter what but i would make plans to get at least a weekend swim in. 

+1  It's definitely for the confidence more than anything else.  Your swim is great! :-D

That's kind of what I was hoping to hear. I may spring for one of the open water swims near me, but mostly just swim on the weekend to keep my usual pre-race anxiety at bay. Two weeks is going to fee like an eternity! Thanks for the vote of confidence in my swim!

I'd still try to get to one of the swims. You're not really going to lose fitness, but you can lose a little feel of the water and can feel a bit stale. Body kinda knows what it's supposed to be doing, but feels weird as it hasn't actually done what's being asked in a bit. Lessening that is all really want to try and do here.

Had this happen with both schools the masters program used up here. Since they were schools, they wanted to do some sort of extensive maintenance before the classes started up. I don't know what they did, but seemed like they weren't sure it would fit over the winter break.

ETA: Although this year the break might be a little longer as the head coach is down in Rio.

Sounds like everyone had a great weekend/races!  Well done all.

Happy birthday Mary!

I am off for two weeks vaca--a road trip to visit friends and family through BC and Calgary, AB.  I have been waiting for this for a month!

I know! See I made the mistake of getting a hardtail mtb. Which is more bike than I really need for what I want to do. 

I don't like it because anywhere I want to ride a hardtail requires me putting it in my car. And due to the design of my car I can't get a rack for the back, rather need to have a roofrack. For 5'4" me, hefting a MTB onto the roof of my car is a major PITA. So what I have to do is take the wheel off and lay my seats down and put it in my car which is totally annoying. 

I know that sounds like a lot of excuses but it's my reality. My life is gogogogo so things need to be relatively quick exercises and I need to  be as agile as possible. 

I've actually been able to fit mine across the rear seat. Seat up, bike mostly sits in the foot wells. Wheels have to come off, but quick releases have been easy enough for me to deal with. Easier than any rack system when including taking the rack on & off. I don't like using my brother's roof system that much either even though it is a decent setup for one. I do have a hitch mounted rack, but like my bikes too much to have them hanging outside the car like that for driving anywhere. You've had a newer version of the Impreza, so don't know how much of this would still apply. Hoping my bikes are a fair amount bigger than yours as road sizes have been around 58" and the mountain bike is 21.5", so there is that..

The one downside I can think of at the moment is the chain and drivetrain can touch stuff on the interior. Not something that's really a concern for me though.

I've given CX bikes some real thought recently too. The versatility is great, especially with tire size availability in a disc version. For my own purposes, I just wonder if it'll be fast enough to really go when I want it to. Then ones I've seen haven't had the spots to put on racks like some adventure bikes can, so maybe not versatile enough either? (Yes, torturing myself with decisions recently)

Yeah, with you in the off-road roots. I don't shave either and also went back to mountain shoes all time a year ago. Tired of some road shoe issues.

The speed part has been more about the geometry of the bikes than the aero differences of the frames, though that does come in too. I don't have trouble going lower than average and do see speed benefits from it. The more pure road setups I've looked at have the more racier geometry even though the CX isn't exactly beach cruiser. I'd still be stretching things out with stem lengths and/or angles due to the geometry available. Little taller than would be my preference. Gearing shouldn't be an issue as I'd still bring the crankset PM over.

One of the framesets being watched is actually a Roubaix type in the racier geometry even though it's non-disc. It can still clear 28's easily. Part wants to say to just take the CX for now as it offers great value, but then so does this other frame. It's not going to be continuously available at that price either as the newer versions could push up more than I'd care to spend.

 Without tri being the focus, was taking a good long look at a lot of different types. Thinking what I could do with them and what I wanted to do. Working through how to make things happen. As much as I complain about my current road bike, it does function. It does shift and brake well. So not really coming from a bad situation. Could also just grab one of the CX bikes at any time and still be in at least a decent situation for a lot of uses. Riding my brother's 1x CX bike actually did work rather well, so helped to show that I'm still in a position of strength with this. Part of the fun now is just looking and taking some good thought with different scenarios.

Don't really have any experience with single speeds though. Could be an interesting challenge!

That sounds like a great race but really yucky conditions. Nice way to end the day, too!

I've had some pretty good rides doing things like that, but in moderation. Don't think it would happen with quantities typically associated with a birthday!

Happy birthday Karen!

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday!