SBR Utopia Season II - OPEN (Page 142)

Not only staring...TAKING PICTURES!!! 

As Fred mentioned, everyone in this group could make a good mentor.

If I can offer one piece of advice...if you are not a well established mentor already with a following (or you already have a group ready like Marc/Shane), make sure you get your group profile staged with Ron ASAP.  Ron does not release all the groups at once, and instead releases them a handful at a time to make sure they fill up before releasing new groups.  The lower you are on the list, the longer it takes your group to go live.  Usually there is a mass rush the first 2-3 days where the active members who know about the program pick their groups...and then it dies down towards the end.  If you are one of the last groups to go live, likely the only people still looking for a group are people who are not active, may not log workouts at all, and more likely to drop off.

'Zactly.  Last year I had a general mentor group and closed it at about a dozen peeps.  A few weeks later activity dropped off and I re-opened the group and left it open for anyone to pop in and out.

When he posts the call for mentors he will present an outline of questions he wants applicants to answer and submit on a hidden forum that he will use to put mentors on stand by before they go "live" on a public forum.  As the first few mentor groups fill up and close he will take mentors from the hidden forum and put them in the public forum from which mentees will choose from.  He will send you a PM when your mentor thread goes "live".

Keep thinking about it, but not sure I'll actually do it for awhile.

Certainly not as much as you guys, but have been getting a few inches at a time in a few storms since Thanksgiving for a nice accumulation. Although now it's supposed to rain Thursday.

Yeah, the weather is causing some problems here, too.  I have a HM at the end of February, but even the roads proper are barely runnable, never mind the sidewalks/paths.  The treadmill is OK, but I don't like the feel of it for long runs - too repetitive.  The lack of variation doesn't feel good on the pins (so I often monkey with the grade and pace, but it's still pretty uniform movement).

Our dogs are also not exactly embracing the snow!  They loved the first couple days of it, but it was -4 F this morning (no wind, just temp) and we had to pretty much push them through the snow to the "dumping grounds," or they would've left calling cards in the yard!  And these are two labs that are used to the cold…  Another half foot tonight.  Sweeeeet…. 

OK, enough beyotching about the cold.  I'm off to try a hill run, but might retreat to the 'mill if it is still unsafe out there.

Matt

Hey guys....we're in the slip and slide mode with roads/snow/ice here as well. Last year a couple of you posted pics of how you rigged your shoes for snow running. I have no hope of finding that thread again but was hoping you could remind me what you did. I believe it involved attaching screws to the soles for traction. Did you use washers to keep the screw from fully penetrating into the shoe or just use a really short screw? And did you use flat heads? I have a pair of Hoka Bondi's that are about at the end of their life-cycle that would be perfect (and no loss if I muck it up). I suppose I could always order a pair of yaktrax but thought I'd give the home version a shot. 

Thanks Marc, those look great. I may have to put a last minute request for a pair of Due North's on Santa's list. 

And Rusty, don't do anything to mess up the weather down there. I'm heading to Atlanta later this week for a couple days and looking forward to thawing out.  

I've never tried the screw shoes but I agree that the Yaktrax tend to break easily. I've been using something similar to the Duenorth with the metal spikes.  Mine weren't replaceable though and by the end of last year I had worn them down pretty short.  They worked really well with ice and decent in snow.  If I was on bare pavement or concrete, they were really noisy.  People generally got out of my way on the sidewalks.  

Garmin said it got down to the mid 60's during my ride to work today.  It's probably more like 74 now, and will warm up to around 80. 

I've been struggling on the bike recently and can't seem to figure out what my deal is...

Has anyone ever actually gotten WORSE on the bike, despite putting in the time and effort (i.e. not having FTP drop as a result of taking an extended break or anything like that)?

When I was riding the trainer last Tuesday, I grabbed the remote to turn the fan on.  When I went to replace the remote, it dropped and smashed into a number of things.  My speed sensor no longer works and my power meter is definitely not reading the same as it used to.  It used to be that riding at FTP required a specific gear and cadence -- now it suddenly requires one gear harder and the same cadence.  The reading says the same (and the calibration seems to be working just fine....), but it's requiring a much harder effort.

I really have no idea what could have caused it or how to fix it....but now I feel like I'm chasing a number that I'm just not capable of, end up blowing myself out, get frustrated with myself for not being able to hold the power like I should, and feel unmotivated to try again and fail again a couple days later.  I'll be away from my bike for a week (24th - 31st) and was hoping to get in a few hard rides before then....but I'm seriously considering just taking it easy this week and all of next week off.

Also, my swimming has felt pretty awful recently too.  On a positive note, my running has been decent.  Here's to hoping things work themselves out, as I'm supposed to start my build for St. George come the start of the new year!

Any suggestions on what to look at or how to fix my jacked up power meter (or just tell me to retest and deal with the fact that my FTP has dropped over the past two months)  would be appreciated.

OK, I don't know you so maybe I should let others reply to this but for grins, I went back to your training log and read a bunch of posts going back to November.  I see several posts about a nagging cough after Ragnar, some personal life changes, hard to hit target workouts, etc...none related to a potentially broken power meter (?).   It looks like your racing season ended in late September (?)....did you take a break after that to recharge the batteries?   As a total stranger reading your posts the first thing that popped into my head is that you have hit a stale state both physically and mentally that has creeped up on you without you realizing it - potentially made worse by the coughing issue.   Maybe you're in need of a simple rest period?

My A race was in July -- after that, I took a full six weeks off of biking and running (well, I had been off running for over a year at that point).  After that, I started running again and did a few smaller races.  So I did take a break, but I guess it wasn't really an end of the season break.  It was after my break that I got my power meter and started being able to run again, so there's a good possibility that I may just be in need of a rest period....or maybe just a break from the bike.

And yeah, the personal crap I'm dealing with may very well have something to do with the motivational issues and difficulty hitting power.  Not to mention, I've also dropped about four pounds in the past (just over) month, which equates to almost 4% of my body weight.  But the most frustrating part was the big change that happened one week ago.

And to Marc -- I will bring my bike to the shop to see if they can get the speed sensor working again.  I have no idea what the problem is -- the sensor and the magnet all seem to be in place.  I push the reset button on it, it flashes red, then green, then nothing....I've tried pairing it with my 910, 800, and TrainerRoad, and none of them are able to find it.  I'll also ask them to take a look and see if there's anything wonky going on.  I put the bike on the stand over the weekend and cleaned it thoroughly, but I barely know what I'm looking at.  Nothing seemed terribly amiss, but it could very well be that I just don't know what I should be looking for.