Beach 2 Battleship Iron Distance : Official Thread (Page 15)

September's totals:
Bike:	36h 49m 48s  - 651.79 Mi
Run:	13h 41m 10s  - 75.56 Mi
Swim:	7h 32m 56s  - 21650 Yd
Strength:	3h 57m

Finished Sept pretty well. Started out Oct with a 2.4 mile swim Sat and a 6 hour bike ride today.  Next 4 weeks going to do a couple more 6 hour rides and build my running mileage up.  I had a IT band issue all of September.  Looking foward to the race.

Got in a few nice rides this weekend, and it hit me what will prolly be a big obstacle for the bike leg at B2B. COLD. 50 degrees, while traveling at 20 MPH, feels considerably more like 30 degrees. It wasn't even that cold outside this weekend and I froze my azz off on the bike. Pack warm folks!

I did a century ride on Sat. It was just at 50 and shady for most of the ride. My toes stayed in the car as far as I could tell but I tell you what, I'd MUCH rather do it that way than the 95ish I've done long rides in.

^Ditto

It does present some nutritional challenges for people like me who basically get most of their calories from liquid (accelerade). Im the summer, drinking to thirst means drinking a lot, and getting plenty of calories through sports drink. In cold weather though, you're not drinking nearly as much so would prob need to supplement more with gels, etc. Just something I was thinking about as I read this.

I did my HIM on Saturday.  The swim was canceled -- oops.  That was supposed to make my swim training look not quite so awful.    But the race was fun and I met my goal.

Time now to get serious about B2B!  I'm looking forward to thrashing my legs during most of the rest of this month.

Congrats on your 100 mile month Daniel!

I agree.  I have to force the calories down when it's colder.

This is true with me in Florida.  I have not had an issue with getting the caloires thru Infinit which is what I use.  I did a 6 hour ride yesterday and was not drinking near what I was just two weeks ago.  Need to dial this in before the race. 

Same here. I use Infinit as well. I only drank two 20 oz bottles this weekend (97 miles, high 50s, low 60s) and 6 20oz a week ago (83 miles, 95 degrees). I had 2 zone bars. That really helped. I am planning to carry two on the bike and have 2 more in the special needs bag.

Ummmmm. Anyone interested in bring back the conversation about the weather? This weekend, I did an 85-er in about 60 degree temps. Far less difficult than doing to in warm/HOT weather. But someone's talking about 50-30 degrees! I'm getting a little scared. There was some discussion about what to wear earlier on. What ideas have you guys/gals developed in that arena?

So far, I'm thinking booties (w/a layer of newspaper in the toes), compression calf sleeves, regular tri shorts, and then... well... I don't yet know. Heck, I don't even know if gloves are warranted. Maybe leg warmers over the calf sleeves!? Please comment.

In the interim, to all you guys/gals posting your training--KUDOS!!!!! You guys are making me feel really bad. 

Thinking that myself.  Putting in solid inserts for my shoes to reduce airflow, socks, may be shoe covers, arm warmers, something for the ears/head, and may be gloves.  May look into leg warmers. 

Saturday morning I woke up early did 50 minutes on the trainer waiting for daylight then headed out on the road.  60-61 degrees, I was sweaty from the trainer ride and I was cold for the first 15 minutes but the sun eventually warmed me up.  Need to rethink my ridign attire.

Last year it was in the 50s for a lot of the bike and all I had on was Specialized Tri Vent shoes, Zoot Ultra shorts and a Sugio tri top. Wasn't a problem.

I had a lightweight jacket, really light weight tights and toe covers in my bag "just in case" and I'm glad I didn't put them on. It would have been too much.

Don't over think it. You're going to be working all day. Have light weight stuff but don't really plan on wearing it.

Last year I did the half and wore a long sleeve shirt and ear warmers.   It got hot!

Wish I could!  I live too far away.  My intro to the course will be on race day, I'm afraid.

I thought I'd jump back into IM training today, but life got in the way, and maybe another day off after my 'HIM' (which turned out to be a long brick) wasn't a bad idea.  Even with tapering two weeks, I trained a lot in Sept. (around 25km/485mi/175mi s/b/r -- yeah, I need to swim more!), so I still feel like I'm on track.

Cool weather: 

swim:  I'm considering ordering the booties.  My wetsuit is long, so that's OK.

bike: I'll bring a long sleeve jersey to put on over the tri top for biking just in case, but wouldn't use it unless temps are quite cold (mid 40s with no sun or worse).  Ditto on gloves and head band (to cover ears).  I have leg warmers that could be removed easily on the go and stuffed into my jersey if I get warm, so I'm more likely to use them, especially as my bad knee (surgery a few years ago) gets pretty sore in the cold.  Toe covers for the shoes will almost definitely be on, and I'll wear socks (I don't normally).

run:  shorts and tri top unless it is below 40, when I'd throw on a long sleeve running shirt.

The uncertainty of the weather does mean potentially a lot of 'just in case' stuff in the bag.

According to weather underground, here are the historical averages for Nov 13 in WIlmington:
Average High: 68
Average Low: 46
Record high: 83
Record low: 29

Last year on Nov 13 (this year the race is on a later date than last year, so this is for Nov 13, NOT race day 2009), it stayed in the low to mid 50s all day, was overcast with winds that averaged between 15 and 20 (gusts up to 30). I hope we get something better than that! The average tmps looks awesome! Please, just be "average"!

I'd definitely put in a vote for 'average'!  Lower than average wind would be nice too.  Myrtle Beach had a lot of wind last weekend.  While it was kind of cool to cruise several miles at 30mph, it was also a little depressing going the other way... 

Last year and the year before for the 1/2: Arm warmers/toe caps/garbage bag I wore as a vest for the first few miles and then tore off. Perfectly comfortable...But, I wasn't out of the water until 9am and it had warmed up a bunch.

This year: All of the above at a minimum. I'll make a game day decision about further layers. The car will be carrying everything but the kitchen sink in the way of my cold/wet weather gear - hopefully it can stay in the car. Even if it's a beautiful day, I'm gonna have something with long sleeves in run/special needs bag in case something goes wrong and I'm out there later than I hope to be. It'll get pretty cool once the sun goes down...

Wilmington area can be pretty windy - que sera, sera...

Not doing the race but have been reading about what to wear.

Something I do is put a ziplock gallon bag down my tri top with arm warmers, it works similar to cycling vest by keeping chest warm and is really cheap and disposable.

I use something far more fancy: newspaper. Seriously, it blocks the wind & as a bonus, it absorbs the sweat keeping you drier & thus warmer. Notice how in the TDF, a lot of the cyclist start pulling something out of their shirts & tossing it aside as they descend the mountains. It's newspaper! I've been using newspaper as a chest warmer for years. This year, I'm going to experiment & stuff a small layer in between my toe warmers & shoes.

Love the newspaper idea! Very high tech.LOL

OK since this is sliding down the IM page (probably because you guys are actually out training!!!) I'll chime in with what I think I said earlier somewhere here....

For the start last year it was 37* or something like that---it was still below 40* when I got on the bike---I wore a one piece trisuit the WHOLE day---in T1 I quickly towel dried myself and put on a a full zip long sleeve bike jersey, thin (walmart) cotton gloves and had toe covers (cheap Performance own brand neoprene covers) on my Trivent shoes....I took the gloves off about 1 hour in and was fine with everything else...

I did have a long sleeve tech type shirt in my run special needs bag in case something went horibly wrong and I was going to be running once the sun went down but I didn't need it...

I'm a doing the half, but thought I would chime in here.  The half thread isn't all that active.

As a South Florida athlete (where we've had a "cold" spell with low temps reaching 60F this past week), I've been in a panic about B2B weather.  My husband and I are both racing and while I want us to be comfortable, the idea of spending $$$ on winter riding gear is not appealing.

We have full wetsuits, so we're good on that.  I've been considering buying a pair of swim socks for each of us.  I think if we are going to be wussies anywhere, it's going to be in the water.

We have toe covers and cheapie gloves for the bike.  We have good arm warmers that we use on our morning winter rides (which would be equiv. to 50F Fall weather elsewhere), although I'm considering making some disposable arm warmers out of long tube-socks so we can just chuck them at an aid station if necessary.   I've been looking at jackets that have zip-off sleeves, but they are so expensive.  We may just go with the 'plastic bag under the shirt' route.  Since we're doing the half (and therefore starting later), I'm hoping that it will be at the low to mid-50s by the time we get on the bike.

It's funny, we actually chose this race for the colder weather and now here I am freaking out about it.  Ha! 

This blog post describes what she wore during the B2B full last year.

"Then I proceeded to put on more clothes than I've ever worn on a tri bike segment. Tri Shorts, short sleeved bike top, leg warmers, arm warmers ... Jacket, bike gloves, ear warmer, socks -- where the heck are my socks???"