guncollector's group -- FULL! (Page 13)

Happy Monday Everybody!  Hope you all had a great Easter Weekend.   Hope your training continues to go well. 

Highly recommended reading...Triathlon Secrets (aka "The Method" ) by Marc Becker.

In essence, this book covers the pitfalls of our sports techno-wizardry and the inclination towards massive volume...and reaffirms that some methods we all "inherently know".

Read up, kiddies, there will be a Quiz....

Thanks Ron!

Couple of questions. It appears that the majority of my training is zone 2, what should my Oly race be at, or what zones for the entire race should I be shooting for? Its almost time for my transition training and I will probably do it during bricks, I could use your help getting in the right heart rate zones .

Do you have any info on swim drafting skills or technique,I have a hard time during races for some reason. In the pool its easy when you are guided by lane lines and can see!

 Also I am thinking of swapping out my triple on my road bike after Wildflower, do you know whats involved in that besides the crank, I would like to do it myself if I don't have to change out the f. derailer or any cabling.

Here's a BT article that gets referenced a lot on threads for Oly race strategy. I never raced just using my HRM, only for guidance at the start of the bike and run. You have to know your RPE vs HR too because as time goes on during the event your HR will begin to creep and depending on the weather (warm) it can be quite unreliable.

Drafting during the swim, I try and draft whoever passes me for as long as possible, I get passed a lot!  You don't have to be right behind them to draft, you can even be off to a side a bit.  Drafting is just tougher in dark waters vs clear water.  I also worry too much about drafting someone who will go off course.  I know I've went astray more than once on long swims.
 

x2.  6min/mi...I'm impressed!

Race how you train. If the majority of your training is in Zone 2, race in Zone 2. That said, you'll find that you can tolerate a slightly higher bpm's during a race--a function of the adrenaline and race atmosphere.

Essentially, I'd shoot for an oxymoronic "comfortably hard" effort during your race.

Whatever you do, do not rocket out of T1 as a result of that pumpin' adrenaline. Consciously reign in your effort, and start out of T1 easy....there will be plenty of time during your race to ramp it up over the next 25K.

Here's my swim drafting technique--and mind you, I am not the swim guru by any means. Like Donto said, I always try to draft/latch onto someone who swims slightly faster than myself. Do not swim directly behind him, swim slightly to the side of one of his ankles--this is the most hydrodynamic spot. You'll know exactly where, as there is a noticeable difference in effort between being "in the draft" and "out of the draft".

This might sound obvious...but you'd be amazed what impatience and ego can do to you during a race. Sometimes, you'll feel like, this is "too easy" drafting behind this guy..."I need to go faster!"....But, if you decide to pass the draftee up (and can't immediately find a faster ride) and find yourself swimming just neck-and-neck with your original draftee, drop back into the drafting spot.

As far as sighting, this is a skill acquired with practice. I practice sighting during every session in the pool. I'll pick out a water bottle, bench, whatever on the opposite side of the pool and learn to sight on it every few strokes. With practice, it becomes second nature.

This is out of my very limited area of bike-mechanic skills. My guess would be the front derailleur requires some re-indexing if not outright replacement--as you're going from 3 chainrings up front to two. Your best bet, if you want to try it yourself, is to pick up one of Leonard Zinn's excellent bike-maintenance/repair books. Also, Park Tools has an excellent reference section on their website for most upgrades and repairs.

Good luck!

First, let's get our terminology straight....higher gears = more resistance, lower gears = less resistance. The easy way to remember this, is the higher/lower designation refers similarly to both gears and resistance.

The common wisdom is that spinning at 90-100rpm's is the most efficient way to go. But, many beginning riders don't find it so. That's because they haven't developed the neuromuscular strength needed to ride there yet. But, that's what you want to strive for. Riding at 70-80rpm's might "feel" like you're gonna get from point A>B faster--and it may initially...but you have to take the leap of faith to learn to ride 90-100rpm's where you'll be more efficient and stronger over the long run.

Make sure your rear cassette (the collection of gears on your rear wheel) is suitable for your riding style/strength/experience. A 12-23 (aka "corncob" ) is best suited to stronger cyclists--and unfortunately that's what many road bikes come stock with. Remember: the lower that second number, the fewer "lower gears" you have. A 12-25 is more like it, and a 12-27 or 11-28 even better for us "triathlete-cyclists". (Note: my road bike has a 12-27, and my tri-bike has a 11-28).

You race at as high a cadence (maxing out at 100-120) as you can sustain. Always. Everytime. You never intentionally use higher gears when a lower gear will sustain the same speed (you might "feel" like you're "powering" down the course--but in reality you're just wasting energy). You have to trust me on this. Of course, hill climbing will reduce your rpm's to 60-70 rpm range even when you're in your lowest gear....this is natural. That's why I state as high as you can sustain.

Now, there is a place for high gear (high resistance) training. The is tantamount to sport-specific strength training. But, this type of training is best limited to once per week (caution: always shift down to a lower gear if you experience any knee pain...immediately...and stop completely if the knee pain doesn't stop! Do not mess around with your knees...unless you like being sidelined for weeks and incurring expensive orthopedic bills!). Those of you in hillier/mountainous locales that ride hills regularly may not even require any specific high gear training.

For those you fortunate enough to have an indoor trainer, this is the ideal place to practice higher-cadence riding.

Faeron,

You might want to check your bike's gearing--specifically the rear cassette (see my post above) and decide for yourself if a swap out is needed.  If you look around--esp. on eBay or Craigslist--you can find replacement cassettes cheap...$20-25.  It might be as simple as "buying a few lower gears" and you'll be laughing (while spinning) up hills like in your Ironbruin race.

As far where in the race the hills are...it doesn't really matter. You just need to know where and how many hills you'll be climbing and train accordingly.

You know....one of the absolute best pieces of advice I can give you is...HAVE FUN during your race.  Treat it as a hard training day with lots of other triathletes around.  Nobody's putting pressure on you...so why put so my pressure on yourself?

If you run into some obstacle...roll with it.  Treat it as a learning experience.

I'll give you an example: during my first tri (Napa Valley Sprint), I had problem with my front derailleur.  When my buddy and I had driven up, we thought we had carefully placed our bikes in the back of my SUV atop one another.  Well, out of T1 I had a loud clacking sound everytime I shifted into the big chainring.  What did I do?  I raced the entire race in my small chainring--just "rolled" with it.  Turns out, it forced me to race at a higher cadence...and coast (read=rest) on some of the downhills...and I had killer bike split as a result.

So, with the simple HAVE FUN mantra in mind, I think you'll find it easier to relax.

Absolutely, have fun and learn.  When the weather is a major issue, you have roll with it and take the experience with you.  During training, if there are high winds, it's raining, etc , don't give up and wait for another day, train and learn.  Check this race report, from this experience last April, I was more than ready for the next two races last year as a result of it.  I took the lessons learned and applied then the best I could be it swimming with high winds, riding during high winds and driving rain, to organizing my transition area in prep for a deluge while out on the course so that I'd have dry running shoes!

Some where Mike Ricci (BT Coach - D3 Multisports) has an article about this very issue.  Spinning to low uses the fast twitch muscle fiber more, the idea is to save these for the end so you can pull in the reserve, sort of speak, when you need to.  Spinning at higher rpm's also is our in physical engine sweet spot for power production.  Sure there are freaks of nature out there that ride with slower rpms than most, we call them mashers!  My friend is a masher, runs at a slower stride rate and pedals slower.  When we do epic rides together the one thing I always notice is that towards the end of the rides I can still crank out a hard brief spin up a hill, maintain a higher speed for a dash , etc. than he can without the burn he gets.  As with any "habit" it took me a few weeks / rides for my mind to reset to the increased pedal rate.  This very issue was one of the 1st things I learned when I signed up on BT in 2004.

For a reference, my ideal pedal rate is 100, +/- 5 rpms and as the ride gets longer my pedal rate increases.  Over 105 I begin to bounce on the saddle and will shift.  Also, I'm rarely in the big chain ring up front unless I'm going downhill, have a good tailwind or getting a good pull draft from cars going by.  Speed has to be >21 mph for me to shift it up. As a part of this, with my 10 ring cassette, I stress not to continuously use the smallest two rear gears (e.g. 12-13 tooth rings) with the small front chain ring, or the biggest rear gears (e.g. 23-21 tooth rings) with the big front chain ring to avoid long term stresses on the chain / drive train.

BTW, us flatlanders get to use a 12-23 cassette and can find the sweet spot in just about any condition without major hills!