MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 167)

I''m doing a modified Oly on sept 1 (in Holland we call it a 1/4 tri, its quite a popular distance, 1k swim, 40k bike and 10k run, not sure why they call it 1/4 because clearly then it would have to be 950m/45/10.5 but I digress )

I also signed up for a 10k the week before though. I did this because its a hometown race and I'd like to see what I could do in a standalone 10k and possibly determine my oly run pace off of that. I intend to run the 10k without a taper though because I need all the time to train. I was wondering what the thoughts of the gang are on this. Is it really worth it to do the 10k? I know when I''m running I will go all out regardless of how I feel or what time I will run. I''d like to think that 10k doesnt warrant that much recovery, its only a bit longer than a sprint tri and I felt fine the day after that, but maybe theyre not compatible. Thoughts? 

Have a nice day.

THOMAS - Thanks for the earlier comments on the OWS. To answer your question, I felt pretty good afterward the OWS and could certainly have gone for a nice ride and run. I really only pushed it once I came out from under the bridge (about the last 400 yards). So I don't think I would have given back a whole lot of time (maybe 20 seconds per 100 or about 1:20) if I would have stayed at a nice, steady pace. Not sure about the rest of the HIM distance since my longest bike to date is about 30 miles. But I did do that HM in May. So maybe there's a HIM in my future. Who knows? Not sure what to think about your 10K. On the one hand, like you, I would love to have a baseline 10K to help gauge my pace for an Olympic tri. On the other hand, that's awfully close to your race. My legs would be fried for days, not recovering like they should be in the week(s) leading up to a race. Although I have the impression that your legs are substantially younger than mine, so you'll likely recover faster. I think it depends on how important the 1/4 tri is to you (A race, B race, etc.) vs. the hometown 10K.

STEVE - it was interesting to me how you taked about the bike and run portions of your race as one unit. Like they are on a see-saw - go faster on one, go slower on the other and vice versa. Makes perfect sense, but it's a whole other level to be aware of that balance mid-race. As to your earlier questions about the hard runs and cycling sessions, I've been pretty diligent lately, particularly as race day appoaches. My fear of the pain that comes from racing while inadequately prepared is greater than my fear of any one individual workout! My body is holding up pretty well since cutting back on the distance post-HM and only running 3X/week as opposed to 4. Oh, and since the Search for Monongy was a USMS-sanctioned event, no wetsuits (or even trisuits or skinsuits) were allowed if you wanted your results to count - the suits for men had to be below the belly and above the knee. Was Mossman wetsuit legal? Any good hardware for your placement?

GEORGE - glad to hear you are back in the saddle for a long ride so soon after your 137º death march. Makes me think of Batman's dad asking him, "why do we fall Bruce? So that we may learn to pick ourselves up." I too was wondering about skookum, but, as usual JEFF beat me to it.

Thanks TRINA for your attaboy. What's next up for you?

Race result came out yesterday, and it turns out I won my age group. On an entirely unrelated note, I was the only male in the 40-44 age group. There were 7 women and 8 men that did the 1.2 mile distance. I was 3rd among men and 6th overall, meaning that I got smoked by 3 women the fastest of which came in at 29:51! Out of curiosity, I looked at this weekend's Ironman 70.3 Lake Stevens results, and Mirinda went 26:52.

I enjoyed both events but crossing the finish line is definitely more fun than dropping out. 

I really like your quote from Batman.  Quite a good way to look at it.  I've been second guessing the hot ride and trying to analyze what I can do to do better next time (atleast beside the obvious - to ride faster).

I never thought of it before but "Skookum" would be a good bike (or dog) name.

GANG!

It's 3:15 a.m., just got home from a looooong drive from new Haven, CT.  So, I will hit this hard tomorrow, with just a couple of things to follow quickly.  Then - g'night!!!

JOHANNE =-

Remarkably outstanding performance from you.  Mercy!

And, see ---- I told ya so!  I told ya that you were in better shape for V-man than you feared, and that's where all of your fine distance work has come in handy.  Get that endurance base sensibly established, and it can pay huge dividends in the longer races.

looking forward to you RR, and I will spend more time with your numbers tomorrow.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

DAVE -

Good observation on the seesaw aspect of my bike/runs.  i had never thought of it quite that way, but it's a god descriptor.  more on that "philosophy" later -- as in some time tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday; gotta do a race report, too).

Dave my race planning is about as haphazard as my training currently... So no real thought out plan about a b c races, but in the end I care more about the tri than the 10k so I will probably make a last minute decision. In the end I want to do well in tris and not in 10ks (although one doesn''t have to exclude the other of course). A 10k is probably more useful if I was properly prepared for it. Which begs the question if I''m not prepared for a 10k then why do the tri the week after. Well that would be a very good question I''m sure I would finish but possibly not at the time I expect or want...

Are there any rule of thumbs on a pace drop from a 10k to an Oly 10k? I''ve never done a standalone 5k so I can''t compare it to my sprint 5k but I saw about a 10s/km drop between the sprint 5k and a swim-run (with only 300m swimming) 5k. Probably the real pace drop should be a bit more but the swim-run was a hillier terrain so the difference is smaller.

GEORGE -

Fantastic race, as judged by your various placements -- overall, male, and especially age group!  So, it's time to toss aside (temporarily) the focus on pace and switch it to your relative performance, which says to me that the course itself was tough and not conducive to fast times, and tyhat in that world you did really, really well.  And one more piece of evidence to that end is that you finished so far ahead of your projected time; 25' is whopping big!

So, bask in the glory of what you accomplished in Vernon, and be patient with that "faster race pace coming".  Give yourself (a) an less climbacious course and (b) a bit more rest between heavy-duty cyclying-only events, and you will be surprised at where your pace finds itself.  For true!

JITO -

Hey!  Welcome back!  You and Thomas have returned......and I have every reason to expect HokieJeff to reappear any day now.  A hat-trick of returnees!

I see that both JEFFTX and DAVE have responded to your swim questions in fine detail, and I don't have much more to offer.  Well, i will say that for me, when I "swim downhill" (by pressing on my chest, or, in T.I. terminology "press the buoy"), it makes a huge difference in how I feel.  Not only is it a good way to keep the head sufficiently low in the water (relative to the water line), but it also serves to elevate the hips and legs to a position where they create much less drag:  win-win!

As for the wetsuit, you're in a position that many people find themselves in, to wit: no wetsuit, plans to continue weightloss, and a goal race that is quite a ways away.  I wopuld phone or email one of the rental companies, explain your situation, and see what they advise.  It may be that they will rent to you in one size just so that you can get used to the very unique changes that a wetsuit can bring about, and then re-do the sizing as Miami approaches.  And Jeff's recommendation is for the biggest of the wetsuit-rental palces, so start there.

good to see you here!

THOMAS -

Yeah!  Welcome back to you, too!

You've asked a bunch of good questions, but give me a day or two to come up with some worthy annswers.  But for now, here is the short list:

• The stand-alone10km might be too clsoe to the oly, but perhaps less so if you can knock-off a few good 10kms in your training before then.
• Recovery time shouldn't be a problem for you and your relative youth.  I will regularly do a hard 10km 5-9 days out from an oly, and even at my age I am recoverd from that easily by race-day.
• Expect a drop-off from 5km to that disatnce in a sprint, but for me the bigger change is in the oly/10km world.  For that I can do a 10km in 43-44, but in an oly it's more like 45-47.  In sprints, though, my best standalone 5km nowadays would be around 21, I would guess, whereas in a sprint it is more like 22-something.  (Two days ago it was 22:33, I think).  And just to further this, in half-irons I do the 21.1km in about 1:47-1:55, whereas in standalones that distance can be had in, say, 1:39-1:43.

More later!

MOSSMAN race report...........................coming soon?  (Honest!)

I was fully planning to do that this morning, but i will wait through the day to see if they have straightened out the goofed-up results.  Mostly, I want to see the inclusion of transition times, as even though i did it well on my own watch, i know I'll be afew seconds off one way or the other.

My guess, though, is that they won't appear due to a faulty timing mat.  The same mat was used for swim-in and bike-in, and that would've given the times that appear online.  But a separate mat was in place for bike-out and run-out.....and that one seems to be the culprit in having T1 included in the bike time, and T2 included in the run time.

Initially, this ticked me off mightily, as I AVOID a local race series because they don't want to pay for the extra mats that are needed for the five splits (S, T1, B, T2, R).  But I realize that the Mossman folks at least had the extra mat there.....and it was beeping regularly pre-race as athl;etes kept going over it coming and going from transition zone.....and I wonder if a volunteer turned it off and then nobody turned it back on.

ANYHOW, that explains why this post is nothing more than excuses for the absence of a bonafide RR......and if things are made any more "official" by theis evening, Iwill carry out a RR using my watch's data.  Honest!

Steve thanks for these nuggets already. I think I am quite close to you in run speed (but not in experience so I'm probably more likely to do something boneheaded like blowing up and these are the 10k times I was ballparking myself in. As I said I'll probably decide last minute on the 10k, race fees here aren't that high and I do like racing, even if it is just racing up a hill or city limits  

I hear you about timing and events by the way. I had a couple of tris to choose from in september and the "professionality" of the timing was the tiebreaker in my choice...some races only provided a total finish time. I will probably time it on my own watch but that is just a bit too basic for me :p 

On a completely unrelated note: I am taking part in an experiment of a couple of grad students here at the university. They are looking at physiological aspects, and the influence of warmups on a 4km TT. There's really nothing revolutionary about it, but I choose to volunteer to help them and also to get some data that I can''t record myself! Things like power, VO2max, etc. I did a couple of indoor TT''s on a trainer and a couple of outside tests, as well as an anaerobic and VO2max tests (what fun they are :p). They are not sharing any of the measurements with me so far because they don''t want it to influence it my "performance". But they assured me of a nice summary upon completion of their research. 

Also my keyboard gives me double apostrophes everytime, dont know how to fix that :p

THOMAS -

Given all of the races I have done, it remains a rare race in which I pretty much nail the self-timing within a few seconds of each split.  Usually there is one (most commonly the start of the bike, and secondarily the start of T2) in which I am late clicking my watch, so it really aggravates me when the race itself can't resolve my own shortcomings.

But on Sunday, I was close to right-on, excepting the finish when I was maybe 10-15 seconds late.  But part of that is by design, as i got very tired of seeing finish line photos of myself in the process of clicking my watch and visually checking the time.  So, now I wait until I am at the back of the finish chute before I tend to those dopey little tasks.

ANYHOW, I say all of the above by way of pointing out that even doing it myself is not too basic for me!

Good plan on volunteering for that study.  ANY data along those lines are useful, and you're getting for free what would cost a fair bit to get in a commercial lab-type setting.  let me know how those results come out, okay?

Finally, even expreienced people can run the risk (and experience the misery) of blowing up during a tri run (or a standalone run, for that matter).  Just about a month agao I did a hard bike on a hot day and followed it up with a planned-for fast 5km.....and ended up walking FOUR times in the final 2.5km.  That had never-ever happened to me to that extent, and it just reflected not taking heed of the conditions and my pace.  Moreover, it has affecetd my mindset every hard training run since then, just wondering if I have made some critical tactical mistake.  And although my run time on Sunday was very good, it sure was not easy.........and I was plagued with concerns that the body might shut down.  (When you read my RR [when I write it....], you'll see that I was depleted and worked very hard post-race to replenish myself, so the nudglings I had that I wasn't on the top of my game were not unfounded.)

Can't help you on double-apostrophes, though!

DAVE -

Nice results.....but i'll have to ferret around and think about what exactly they mean, in a more in-depth kind of way.  And when you can stop pretending you didn't learn about body fat..........

I NEVER believe those body fat results! 

STEVE,

GREAT, GREAT Race!   I am SO happy for you.   You must be feeling a whole lot better now that you have a good race under your belt this year.    I'm just at the computer briefly.  Took a few days to get settled in after the trip and just heading out for a bike ride.  

Talk soon,

GANG!

My latest scheme has me racing this coming saturday, a sprint about 3.5 hours away in Vermont.  I learned about it yesterday, signed up within minutes......and now have to think about the haphazardness of my "training" for it.

The ten days leading up to it wil look something like:

• F13 -- 60' bike/run brick
• S14 -- 10' easy  OWS (long drive)
• S15 -- 73' sprint race
• M16 -- rest (long drive)
• T17 -- 20' moderate OWS 
• W18 -- prob. 5km fast run, 15mile hard bike; maybe 15-20' OWS before
• T19 -- hard b/r brick same dimensions as above, but attached; similar OWS
•  F20 -- maybe 20km easy ride, maybe 3km easy run
•  S21 -- sprint race

Not real focused; nothing like moving ahead without a plan!  But it's a sprint, and I seem to be in pretty good sprint-speed shape, so we shall see what we shall see. 

I also have to decide how I'm getting there: (a) drive friday and sleep in motel, or (b) drive Friday and sleep in a tent, or (c) wake real early and leave home at about 2:45 a.m.   Hmmmmmm.....

As for my "missing" race report, it's coming this evening.  There's been no unscrewuping of the results with the splits added, and I don't think that'll happen.  So, there's nothing to stop me ---- other than trying to cram in some half-decent training efforts for saturday's race!

ANNE -

YOU'RE BACK!!!  I was beginning to get worried about you.....but that was all unfounded, i guess.

Yes, it was pretty good.  You can imagine how agitated I am about the absennce of splits, but as I wrote in a post yesterday, i can't blame the RD for not trying, anyhow.  mats were there, just that one of them (recording twice) seemed to not work.  but at least this time, i clicked my watch at all the right times, so I at least know the accurate times within a few seconds.

Swim course was short.  that was intimated by the RD, and definitely supported by my time -- which included ~45s from the water to the functional mat at the west end of T-zone.  So, othrwise, it would have me swimming 750m in about 12:50?!?  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Anyhow, more later when the report gets posted....although overall it was a fairly uneventful race.

Now ---- off to some cram-prep for Saturday!

RACE REPORT --- Mossman Sprint (Norwalk CT, 15 July '12)

This was a race I won free entry into by winning the a.g. at Park City Mossman (oly) last August, and so i didn't have a lot invested in it financially (or even emotionally).  It was my first race of '12, and also represented the latest I have gone in a season without racing, and right up until arriving at the race site I didn't have much enthusiasm.  i had pretty much convinced myself that I was burned-out from so many heavily-competitive seasons....and while that is cetainly true to a good extent, it was awfully nice to feel those juices start flowing as I parked the car and made my way to the transition zone!

I could've also done Musselman sprint the day before, but Lynn and I chose to add a strnage detour or two to our trip to Mossman, and also a mushroom conference Lynn was attending at Yale U., in New Haven, only about 20 miles up the coast from Norwalk.  We left home early Saturday morning and arrived in Norwalk about 9 p.m.  It was a long drive to be sure, but I felt quite good and had spent the day eating and hydrating to good effect.  I was asleep by about 11, with alarms set for 4 a.m.; race start was scheduled for 6:30, and I still had packet pick-up to do.

Grabbed a tea and bagel at a Dunkin'Donuts, and made it to the race site at about 5:20.  Got my stuff, learned I was Wave 5 of five waves, and had an okay spot on an easily identifiable rack.  I also learned that wetsuits would be legal, with water temps at 71/72 -- not too clsoe to what a pre-race email had warned might be perilously close to 78 and not wetsuit-legal.  The morning was very warm and highly humid, but wind was minimal and the water in Long Island Sound was very calm.  Sipped at a bottle of HEED, nibbled a bit of Clif Bar, and gulped a gel.  And was ready and mildly psyched.

SWIM (750m) -- 13:37

Last wave, about 80 of us, and no real problems.  It was about 50 yards straight out, then supposedly about 650 parallel to shore heading westward, then 50 back to shore.  I made both buoys easily, but along the long arm of it I got "sandwiched" several times and responded by dropping back a tad and going to the outside of one of my squeezers.  I felt very laid-back about this.  Sighting was quite good, and as usual with ocean swims -- I do so love the essence of saltwater!  The shore was quite cobbly, but after about 20 feet it turned to sand before continuing on paved paths to transition.  The run from shore to the timing mat was about 40 seconds, so crossing the mat with my watch reading 13:37......I figured the swim course was measured short.  Oh well.

T1 --  1:47 --- Pretty good, but not motivated to knock off 10-15s which would've been possible had I felt more urgency. The run with the bike was probably less than 50 yards.

BIKE (12.5 miles) -- 33:51

Moderately gnarly course -- lots of twists and turns in the park itself, with many people not keeping any sort of sensible line, and then city streets that weren't clsoed to traffic and also offered lots of twists and turns.  It was a two-loop course, so these hazards were faced twice, although on the second loop things had spread out some.  The early twisties in the park left me a couple of minutes before I had secured both cleats to my feet, so that was not ideal.  My first loop was in about 17-something minutes, second loop I felt motivated and a bit more reckless, so that was faster.  i think the only people who passed me were a few of the elites from the first wave, who roard past me about halfway through my first loop.  Other than that, I did most of the passing.  Dismount was flying, and good, and the run from dismount line to transition was about 16 feet; nice!

T2 -- 1:14 --- This one coulda shoulda been about 20s quicker.  I didlled with my running shhoes, making sure they were Just So -- a residual response to a time I failed to that about three years ago....and got blacktoenails on my big toes (never happened to those before)......and both fell off....and neither has grown back normal.  The effect of this is that I always spend too much time in T2, so each race ends up taking at least 20s longer than it would've back when.  Grrr.

RUN (3.1 miles) -- 22:33

Started off feeling ponderous, none too swift, and running more flat-footed than is normal for me.  It is funny how this happens sometimes right from the first steps out of transition, and when it strikes then I am usually stuck with it for the duration.  It turns out that in this race, I was about to get my stride in order around the halfway point, and with that came the desired increase in cadence to about 90/min.  I passed a bunch and was passed by two, so it was mostly successfully -- albeit not too comfortable.  I was feeling the heat and humidity, and as I have said before, i don't respond well to either.  But i got stronger over the final mile, finished well, and was very pleased to see 22:42 on my watch -- about 10s after crossing the finish line, so it was really about 22:33.

FINISH TIME -- 1:13:01 --- 2/9 M60-64....71/321 gender....82/531 overall (these are kind of disappointing; see below)

POST-RACE

Very strange for me.  I grabbed a bottle of finish line water, and went through that quickly.  Then got another.  Then went overto the food tables and picked up all kinds of stuff -- fruit, yogurts, cookies, coconut water, bagel with p.b. and j.  Moreover, i kept going back for "refills", with the upshot being that I have seldom done a race in which I felt so depletedly needy at the end of it.  And this was just a sprint!!!  It makes me think that my metabolism might've taken an odd turn during the off-season, as i have generally struggled with the heat and humidity that has so far characterized our summer up here.  I never felt light-headed or desperate -- just very unsatiably thirsty, and gald for everything I could put back into my system. 

USAT rankings points are huige for me, and I don't think this race will do much for them.  There were a bunch of bonafide "kids" there --- U23 elites as well as a lot of 15-19 who had just returned from a junior development invite-only camp.  Normally, the time I posted would've had me at about 50-60 overall, but a large number of higher spots were scored by the young studs and studettes.  that might bump my USAT point score form close to 78 down to maybe low 76, which isn't good enough to place me where I want to be in any given race.  Oh, well --- it's the youth who will inherit the earth anyhow, right?

Very happy to be back in the saddle again....but only mildly chagrined that it took me so long to get started this season.  But i guess the hiatus was necessary, and proabably beneficial, so it just might be all good!

STEVE - Thanks for sharing your RR. Like George dealing with the flat tire in his ride through death valley, I love how casually you mention your cleat problem. That's cool, calm, and collected for ya. And averaging 22.2 MPH and then running a 22 min 5K - impressive. That's an identical time to the perfectly flat mine run 5K I did in February, and I was absolutely spent from that effort; I think it was one of the hardest physical things I've done in a long time. Can't imagine doing it after a hard swim and bike.

I seem to remember an earlier comment you made about regretting not having done a significant number of Brick workouts before your race. And lo and behold, on my schedule appears a Brick, and a meaty one at that.

1:02 bike at race pace followed by :39 min run ramping up to race pace.

I arbitrarily decided that race pace on my trainer is 18 MPH, and I held it well for over an hour.

For the run race pace, I used the McMillan Run Calculator. Based on the aforementioned 22:26 5K, it predicts I will run a :45 10K or 7:15 / mile pace). Based on my 1:53 HM, it predicts about a :48 10K or 7:45 pace. I split the difference and tried to hold 7:30 / mile which was tough, but I held it for 9 mins after wu and before cd. Some taper!

DAVE -

The cleat isue wan't much, just requiring riding with fet on top for longer than I would like.  had I arrived the day before, I would've cased out the beginning of the bike and anticipated that I might be stuck on top of, as opposed to inside of, the shoes for a while.

It's also not a big deal becasue when one makes the decision to start the ride with cleats attached to pedals, one has to be prepared to be patient before gettingfully arranged.  I have spent years thinking about timing the differences between the two approaches.....but end up figuring ignorance is bliss and that I overall like the way i do it best.

Last August at West Point Triathlon I got impatient, though, and had a mishap.  There is a 1/3-mile or so windy, bumpy road out of transition before one hits the smooth-as-silk* main road............but i decided that rather than wait, i would slip my feet in on the bumpy road.  Approaching a sweeping turn, with one arm on aerobar and the other down at my foot, I hit a small blister-bump, couldn't recover, and went off-road.  It was a wide grassy/weedy verge, but very bumpy, and I carreened along it for a bunch of yards before wiping out.  I wasn't really hurt, but the worst part was that both cleats went flying upon impact.....and it took me clsoe to two minutes just to find one of them in a mass of shrubs.  So, take-home lesson there is to NOT attempt fitting feet into cleats on poor roads or crowded roads -- both conditions prevailing at Mossman, so I waited.

*Smooth-as-silk???  One would assume so, but the previous year I flatted about two miles into the bike, and the change-out took me a dismal 9+ minutes.  I have no idea where the offending sharp object could've been on roads that were cleared with military precision, but there it was -- and there I found it.  Bah.

On paper, that West Point course is ideal for me.....and my two attempts at it have been messed-up.  Bah again.  And as for this year --- it falls on the weekend of my daughter's wedding, so I have to wait a whole extra year before avenging (hopefully!!!!!!) myself.  Bah x 3!

Back later for bricktalk and that seesaw business, but gotta watch the end of today's TdF now!

It's been a busy week but I finally got my race report up in my blog (below). If anyone ever wants to come out here and do Vineman, it's a great race!

Sadly, I found out today that a woman in my swim wave died

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120717/ARTICLES/120719628

JOHANNE -

As usual, absolutely fabulous report and photos.  Do I have to pay you to race more so you'll write more and post more photos?!?  If so, name your price!!!!

Best of all was the observation that you could've kept on running, and that combined with the impressive PR sure ought to heighten your confidence for IMAZ.  It really doesn't seem that yiou had any weak spots in the race, and even in your attempt to trash your legs on the bike -- they resisted the trashing, as evidenced by your run.

As for your thighs comment, not only do they look just fine to me, but whatever is there that you might deem as extra is, in large part, mopstly musculature that is allowing you to do this stuff -- and continue to improve hugely at it in the process.

Your discovered one of the great hidden benefits of repeating races, to wit: daunting topographic features undergo rapid erosion from year to year to year.  Only endurance athletes have those types of awareness of geomorphological processes!

I can see why you love the race -- even with those huge gaps between wave starts.  I've never been in a race in wghich there was such a wide imterval between first and last starts, and I guess it is imperative that weather be clement so that the later waves haven't been hanging around in rain or drizzle for a few hours.

And, I wasn't aware (or had forgotten) that Dave didn't do this last year -- that this year was his first.  Congrats to him from me!

Going back to the notion that your race had no real weak spots.......can you pinpoint your weakest arera?  Just curious!  If not, that's fine; not every race has obvious weak(er) spots.  And when they happen, they are REAL keepers!

Onwards to even greater glories, Johanne ---- and I'm so pleased for you about how this season is unfolding!