Beer Drinker Appreciation Society - Open For Business (Page 132)

Gretchen - congrats on the long ride!

Devon - jeez that's pro peloton stuff right there!

Kurt - good to see you around! And good luck next weekend!

Dave - have fun at the reunion and props for getting the run in first!!

First ever tri is in the morning. Lots of nervous energy but feeling positive.

Packet is picked up. Practiced transitions today which was kinda fun. Last workout today too, 10 min bike/5 min run brick.

Also - bought my post race celebratory beers. Was hoping for that imperial Pilsner I brewed a month and a half ago but it's hanging out in secondary at a friends house a ways away from here. So I bought a couple: Firestone Walker Double Jack double IPA, and a 22oz Evil Twin Imperial Doughnut Break stout.

Can't wait!!

Good luck dude! Most importantly, HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dave you'll rock it. Can't wait foe the race report

My reward for the week





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Bib 129.....rain and thunderstorms forecast - just like last year! All I want is about an hour and a half of no rain! LOL.

Good luck, Dave! We can do this!!

Go Dave, Jenn, and Scott!! Hope I didn't miss anyone--if so, goooo you too!

Rest day for me.

Finally pulled the trigger and registered for my Oly this morning! Freaking out a little about it now.

Signing up. You are 1/3 the way there!
Now just train and show up.

Don't freak out. Olympic distance is great! Sprints seem like they are either crazy fast and hard, or just a practice for something. Olympic has you doing distances that you get to settle in with. The swim never seemed that much harder to me, but I love swimming. The bike, you will need to pay attention to some nutrition and pacing, and that's a fun challenge. The run has always been tough for me at that distance. One race, it was nutrition that got me. The next time, it was SUPER hilly, and I walked with my buddy for way too long (he killed his legs on the bike catching me). When I think back to those races, even though my overall performance wasn't what I wanted, they are my favorites!

Hi all! Home (and more importantly rested) from my FIRST EVER TRI!!! We had some raindrops, but no thunder or lightning - hope you fared ok Jenn!!

Did you all change my name to Dave? Man I gotta post from my computer with my sig more often! lol.

Overall I did better than I thought I would in two disciplines - swim and bike, and worse than I thought I would in the run and in transitions. I know what my 5k times are like and they've been good for me this year, and I knew I wouldn't be able to run my fastest 5k after swim and bike, but I thought maybe 15-20 seconds slower per mile. More like 33 seconds per mile slower. Well what can you do...

There was an interesting mix at this race. The guy who won 2nd overall and 1st in my AG, for example, is nationally ranked and has competed at the London World Championships. And I saw quite a few Cervelo, Specialized, QR, and Kestrel tri bikes, and plenty of Zipp firecrests. But also mountain bikes and even one of those folding commuter bikes. With the time trial start loosely organized by estimated 100m swim time, I went off in the middle somewhere and had to contend with crowds of all sorts of different riding abilities on the bike course. I passed plenty, got passed by a few, and got stuck quite a few times by either traffic or people riding two and three wide....

The results show 240 people having finished, though there were about 375 registered bibs. I was 86 overall, 17/27 in my competitive AG, and more importantly only 3 minutes behind my friend who was a sub-4:30 miler in college I came out of T2 right behind him, and kept him in sight for the first mile but lost him after that.

Swim
Well my swim was better than I thought. I registered myself as a 2:00/100m swimmer, figured I'd be closer to 2:30, and did 2:06 pace. I ended up adding to my distance though, with sighting woes. I was great to the two buoys, but then going back to shore felt like it was taking forever - because I kept swimming way out wide to the left and having to correct. I just ned to sight more often and get more OWS practice I think. Also - no swim panics, no stopping or changing strokes (plenty around me switched to breast stroke about halfway through), no dizziness, and I didn't really get kicked. I passed quite a few swimmers out there, though I did get passed as well.

T1
Ugh. We all had a long T1, there's nearly a 1/4 mile run from swim exit to transition. And despite having practiced transitions a few times, it was never going to be perfect in my first tri. (EDIT - I wasn't the slowest! It took forever (4:01) but there were 3 ppl in my AG slower, and overall I was in the bottom 3rd but not close to the worst.) My stuff was well organized but my brain was not. Also I laid my bike shoes out with the velcro closed (!) which I didn't even do in my practice transitions. I think I was worried about the velcro catching on my clothes or something when I packed them, and never opened them up for my transition mat. Also planned on eating shot bloks while in T1, but didn't have the package open already and struggled with that. Then stopped while changing my watch over to bike from swim, because even though I practiced that yesterday, I apparently forgot. The swim does make you disoriented.

Bike
With the hills and the crowds and traffic and passing opportunities I was hoping for 17mph on the bike, and I managed 18.7. That'll get faster with the clipless pedals! And getting better at shifting for hills, as well as of course getting better at climbing them. BTW I have a triple chainring front and never used the granny gear. I did have to use the 39 middle for a couple climbs though to keep my cadence up. All in all the bike was good, I'm happy with it. Well except for the major stitch I had in my right side. This is a nutrition issue...

T2
I wasn't the slowest through T2! I did have to tie shoes though... Strongly considering using lock laces on my old running shoes (which I only replaced to get more cushioning instead of motion control). I don't want to put lock laces on my main running shoes...Holy crap the brick feeling was in full effect. Climbing off the bike and trying to jog it to transition... At least I had the small crowd laughing - going 'legs, legs LEGS! AAAGGGHHHH!!!' and telling the volunteer that it was actually my bike holding me up rather than the other way round.

Run
Was still feeling the brick a bit heading out of transition, and almost crashed the transition fencing because I was battling the watch again instead of looking where I was going. First mile was pretty slow, though most of it was up a steady hill. I picked up the pace on each successive mile though and ended up kicking a 'sprint' for the end. Only got passed by one other runner, and he had a '24' on his calf. At a little more than half my age, I felt ok with this

Cool down
Had a good cool down, some walking and a half mile jog, with my friend.

Lessons learned
What does everyone say, nothing new on race day? Well I failed a bit. There's just so many things that you're trying to do exactly like training that something is bound to be off. I had my raisin toast with PB at home which is normal. I had a gel about 20 mins before starting which is also normal, but I've never had the particular brand (Hammer gel) and I've also never had a gel before swimming before, only before running. The shot bloks too - I've had the Clif ones and they've been fine, but all we had in the cupboard was the gatorade equivalent which were not as good. I don't think I hydrated enough, but with the stomach pains it was really hard to convince myself to drink and when I did, it would get worse.

All in all I had a great time, I thanked every volunteer and police officer (usually verbally, sometimes with just a wave if I was out of breath), I didn't take enough pictures but I have a few and will try and get them posted later.

Thanks everyone for all the support, encouragement, advice and everything!

pic - I'm on the left obviously, given the top. My good friend on the right, the collegiate runner, experienced triathlete, who signed up the day before the race and hadn't been tri training for at least a month, and beat me by 3 mins.

Edited by firebert 2015-07-27 10:40 AM






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Congrats, John!!!!!!! It sounds like a good race and you learned a couple of things!! You must be psyched!!!! But wait!! What did you enjoy for a post-race beverage??????

Congrats John!!! Nice to have you in the club.

Any other race reports out there? We just gotta know how you did!

Workouts It was a busy workout weekend. I even squeezed in a 4 mile run during my daughter's swim champs. See the pic. Her team got first place. The coaches are wet because they get thrown in when they win. My daughter is in the foreground in the green. She has expressed interest in a kids tri in September. I'll have to see if we can squeeze it in. She is in too many activities....gymnastics is next starting Monday.

Oly Race day T-minus 2 weeks till the big day. I'm hoping for high 70's but I'm not holding my breath. Like Gretchen, I'm starting to get a little nervous. Today I did a dry run of the race. The swim went well, but there was a little feeling like I needed to barf when I got out. I think I pushed it a little too hard since it was my fastest ever. The bike ride went well. I had a cyclist friend tag along for a bit and he said that I had good form on the bike and looked good. I also found a way around the ulnar nerve problem I've been having. http://www.physio-pedia.com/Cyclist's_palsy
The problem I did have was with the run...and I'm a runner. I had the proper fuel, I calculated it out and made sure I avoided dehydration. I think the biggest issue was that it was upper 80's (maybe into the 90's) and humid. I just could not keep my heart rate down and it was killing me. I walk/ran the running leg because I need to be prepared in case I need to do it in 2 weeks. These temps are definitely possible. Any advice on keeping the heart rate down in the heat? Wetting my clothes to cool me off won't help me, I did that all on my own.








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Finally having it now, at 10:30pm. I was exhausted when I got home (woke up in the middle of the night last night, couldn't get back to sleep, then did a tri - lol). Had a dehydrated headache most of the day, then we went to my mom's house as it's her birthday today, took her out for dinner, by the time we got home and got the house settled, my post race beer is now. Just having a Double Jack (which is delicious btw), saving the Imperial Doughnut Break for a time when I can consume a 22oz imperial stout by myself.

You?

Scott - I almost bought that same beer yesterday, but got the imp stout instead because I've always wanted to try it, and this one I hand't seen or heard of before. Let me know how it is, it sounds awesome!

Here's my race report if anyone is interested:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp...

D'oh!! Sorry bout that!!!

It's good. Very malt forward with lots of hop bitterness. You will taste the hot alcohol taste but at 11+% that's to be expected.

Have fun Thor!

got in my 1hr run and 3000 in the pool today. Forgot my watch for the swim so I just checked the clock when I got in and counted laps. 60 so unless I messed up my math 3000 is right. I manually added it to my connect page.

Dave a lot of the races around here have cold wet towels to put on your neck and shoulders. It really will help cool you off. run with it for a while then you can drop it at the next station, or a lot of times there are buckets to drop them in.

I do 3 things 1) If I am driving along the route of the ride the day before, I will stash an empty milk bottle filled with cold water. If I really want to get clever - I've frozen these so the water is chilly when I fill up during my ride, 2) I stop at a gas station. A lot of people will just let you fill up at the tap. I've found stations that don't charge me for water and I will often make it up to them by buying a snickers bar (win win). 3 I've also stashed plastic water bottle in the back of my bike jersey but I don't like doing this because I worry what will happen if I crash.

My wife is out of town too - I get your concern and I hope you make it through without too many problems.

Lots of hiking, biking, and running = wining! Enjoy the mini vacation and don't drink too many molsons!

Thanks for all the advice on how to carry more fluids than my two bottles. This week I was lucky and didn't need extra--relatively cool. It will become more of an issue over the next few weeks as my time increases.

Medium run (went well) and second swim lesson today. Lesson went well and I can already see big improvements in form and time!

I just got home from a ride/trip to the bike shop. Billy Baroo is in need of some repair so I went to the shop to see what I could do verses what they should do. I have two major repairs that I need to do: 1) replace my chain and my cassette 2) replace my rear shifting cables. For a little more than I would have to pay for labor, I could buy the tools at the shop to do the job and the guy promises me that while it will be challenging it's doable - even for a non nechanical guy like me. When I asked him how long it would take me - he told me - two beers tops. Now those are terms I can understand.

What do you think? Is this the most cost efficient way to go? Will I be able to pull this off. Anyone know of some good on line resources that might help me?

So on the way home, I was doing hill repeats and I wasn't paying attention and my rear tire caught a pot hole and I flatted. Ugh. Luckily, I had bought some C02 cartridges at the shop and was able to change it. But this nice guy named Pat stopped and was willing to take me home - how cool is that?

Thor - have a great time this weekend! And best of luck with the last 3 5ks!

Dave - I expect a step by step tutorial and list of tools needed for this stuff Seriously though I'm looking into the cassette bit. With the cracks in the rim, and the current wear on the cassette, I'm planning on replacing with a new wheel and new cassette which means I'm going to need to know how to install one.

Great job on the long workouts Gretchen and Scott!