Baowolf's Beginner Banquet -Sorry all tables are full no room.. (Page 17)

TL;DR: Had a great training week and a long ride this morning.

I biked almost 38 miles this morning.  Took me 2:42.  Started around 5:00am.  I like biking in the early morning because of the lack of traffic.  When I left I didn't have a specific route planned out.  After the sun came up, I roamed and explored looking for new roads to ride.

I did 2 stupid things this morning:

1. My left shoe wasn't clipping in that easily.  So I decided to just start unclipping my right foot instead of my left to eliminate that issue.  Well guess what happens when somebody's used to leaning to their left when stopped, they do it even when the left is still clipped in.  Didn't fall though because my left pedal struck the ground giving me just enough time to unclip my left foot and save myself.  I did bang up my right calf on the crank and chain though.  All is good now.
2. This one I need to be shot for.  About 30 miles into my ride I come upon an intersection I don't go through much on bike or in the car.  Long story short, I run a stop sign to make a left turn, when the car on my left had the right-of-way and wanted to turn left also.  Luckily they were paying better attention than me and didn't T-bone me.  I knew better than to do that I cursed myself for the rest of the ride home.  That will not happen again.

I finished out my week (Mon-Sun) with over 12 hours in training.  An all-time high for me.  87 miles on the bike and 18 miles running.  This will probably be my best over the next few weeks due to a sprint tri next weekend, some vacation time, and then a 11.5 mile run race in a few more weeks.  It'll be June before things settle down.  I will then be 100% focused on my HIM in September. 

Also, foot feeling a lot better today but still a little sensitive.  Tomorrow is a swim day so that will give it a little more time to heal up.

And yeah, where are those race reports.  Everybody survived I hope.

Cotton socks absorb sweat and will rub to help cause blisters.  Not sure how to cure black toe nails, but just have them removed if it becomes an issue I guess.

For those that like running a lot like myself, I can recommend the movie "Running on the Sun" that can be found on Youtube.  It's about the Badwater 135 mile ultra marathon.  A great book about running but he also talks about triathlon is "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running".  And if you haven't read it, "Born to Run" is an instant classic.

For Podcasts about triathlon I also must recommend "Endurance Nation" and "IM Talk".

Just thought I'd share some of the things I use for inspiration and to keep myself in a training state of mind even when I'm not training.  I'm obviously a little OCD about things and have gotten obsessed.

Oh and Steve, snow in May.  I think I'd have to move.  Of course when I'm riding 60 miles in the 100 degree heat here you will say the same to me.

At my tri last weekend I met quite a few members of a local tri club in town, over 100 strong.  Well I applied last week and was accepted this weekend.  Small world being what it is, I was picking up my son from Sunday school this morning and two dads were talking about the water being cold and what another local lakes water temp were.  I know the club was holding an OWS session today so I asked the guys if they were members of the club.  Turns out they were and told me to contact them anytime when I needed help or information.  It seems the tri community is very friendly.  

Hi guys and gals, I tried to post earlier, but the computer ate it! 

Had a really fun weekend, and survived my first OWS tri in the process . 

LOVE Glamping ))!  Saturday afternoon got the campsite set up and walked down to the start area to scope it out, then got lost on the path and wound up walking a bit more than planned.  Nice to grill and chill after that!

No idea on times yet (will wait to see on the website), and I accidentally ran my garmin battery down before the race.  There were no mile markers either, so weird to be doing all legs w/out much idea on how much was left to go.  I'm sure I was not too speedy, so perhaps for the best so I can just enjoy the fact that I finished!

Swim (1/2 mile) - harder than I thought.  Conditions were perfect.  Not much wind, 68 degree water temp, and air temp a bit cooler.  Had a hard time finding any kind of breathing rythm, and sighting needs a lot of work as well.  I could swear at times I just wasn't making any progress, but somehow made it around the bouys and back to shore. Wetsuit strippers are good!

Bike (16.1 miles) - pretty hilly, but nice that it was harder going out than coming back.  Was wondering when that darned turnaround was going to come, but it eventually did, and went better from there.  Yes, I unclipped successfully thanks to playing the video that Dennis posted in my head and vowing NOT to be that person 

Run (3.1 miles) - felt pretty strong here, but I'm sure my time is dinged by the bathroom stop I made right after T2.  OK, I know everyone pees in their wetsuit, and some pee on the bike, but could convince myself to do either in spite of the need!

Locked ourselves out of the truck, so got a little extra biking in riding back to the campsite after the race.  A good time was had by all!   

In a month I will also be riding 100 + miles in 100F + temps.  I have hit 100F one week and then hailstorm the following week. 

Putting new cleats in my bike shoes they are 3+ years old with 10k + miles... they are in need of replacement. 

Totals for the week here are 31 miles run/walked, 170 ish miles biked and 10,000 yards swum.  Two more easy weeks and then it is time for the big build for the IM.

I have not yet resorted to peeing on the bike, or swim.  Maybe if I get fast enough to bang on a KQ time... but for now I don't think that skipping a 20 second stop at a portapotty is gona gain me the 2+ hours I need to cut off my IM time. 

Grats on your race, no major mishaps, looking for numbers this week 8). 

Steve, are the 100 degree temps around where you live?  If so, you've got some serious weather extremes there, wow!

Samantha, sounds like you are doing well in getting a training plan together.  On the shoes: I've never done the treadmill analysis thing, though have bought shoes at the local running store that is supposed to be about the best around here.  My podiatrist is a long time runner and about to do her first ironman, so I go w/ her advice on shoes now. 

On the breathing, I think it was a combination of nerves and taking too much time/energy to sight.  I couldn't seem to satisfy myself that I was headed the right direction with the quick looks I had practiced, so wound up with my head and shoulders up too much for too long.  There was nothing on the far shore to sight, so until we headed in towards the swim finish, only thing to look for was the buoys (anyone want to join me in a campaign for taller bouys or attached baloons or something??).  There were a few kayaks and boats, but they weren't really along the line of where you would want to swim and were moving around, so couldn't really swim to them either.  Also got a bit choked sucking in water a couple times and had to flip over on my back to chill out for a few seconds.  Kept telling myself "smooth and easy", hit a few patches of normalcy, and didn't really ever think of not finishing.  Oh, and no cramps for once !

OK, I'll take the snickers bar question for $1000:  1.  The fat in them will delay glucose absorption, so you don't get the energy from them very quickly.  Maybe OK for long distances, but things w/ no/low fat absorb a lot quicker.  2.  No electrolytes to speak of.

Dennis, sounds like some great connections you are making!  That is a neat aspect to all of this.  Please don't be so hard on yourself re: the bike mishap.  We all live and learn.  The biking piece of this makes me feel like a nervous ignorant klutz sometimes.  But hey, we keep getting out there, learning, and improving in our own ways.  Thanks for the movie/book/podcast info!  You are great at finding and sharing info, and I really appreciate it! 

Yay your knees are feeling better. 

Well there are fewer electrolytes in a snickers, but mostly it is because the chocolate melts all over everything making them hard to eat.  For that reason many folks bring along a payday for a litte reward during a long bike ride.  Powerbars, etc., are somwhat desiged to be fine in warm temps and yes they have those electolytes.

4200 yard swim at 5am, good way to start a Monday, cut 4 seconds/100 off my 1000 yard sets, gona get harder to do that from here on out.  I think I can get 2 more seconds next week, but after that I probably won't see any time gains for a while.  It currently seems a lot harder to swim 1:58 than 2:00 or 2:02 per 100 yards, no idea why. 

Yes we get 100F + here, we can have a 70F swing in any given day during the summer from morning to afternoon.  

I wanted to highlight that cotton socks will make your feet blister on runs longer than 6 miles (me anyway), that packing things that melt on longer workouts during the summer, not so good, and that yes there are seats designed to make your parts not have as much pressure on them on the bike.  Also cotton shirts can irritate parts of your body for the same reason, especially manly nipples on runs of more than 10 miles. 

How do you know someone that you have just met is a triathlete?  And what did you do that made you think that you are not just exercizing more, but that you are now a triathlete?

Carol-Thanks for the info on your breathing. Sounds like it can be a bit scary at times. I am going to remember the roll over on my back to get it together trick. I have done no swimming with the idea of learning to sight, but I am glad to be reminded of it. Are you walking away from your first OWS feeling ready for the next one? I am so stoked for you to have completed that race. have you put up your report yet?

Steve you are kicking butt on swimming. I had a good chuckle when I read you took of 2sec. If I ever reach that point I will be amazed, but excellent work. Your Shoulder must really be holding up and getting stronger.

Today is a day off for me and I am glad. I have had some minor soreness from my biggest training week ever last week. It was soo great to see increase in workouts. I am in the process of trying to find a place to swim. Everything is so expensive and I currently have to really watch my cash outflow. I found that a master's class is offered in my area and I am gonna check into it today. This week should be interesting for sure.

Dennis I am glad you didn't biff it on your bike. I can't decide, after reading about the whoas of clipless pedals, if I will ever want to get them.  not really but it sounds painful in more ways than physically.

Well I better head out to check on that class now.

Of course you want to go clipless, it's what all the cool kids are doing.  And it makes you feel like a real cycllist.

Ceril--my plan is to wear my contacts and use goggles.  I"m hoping it works.

Samantha--I feel the same about clipless.  I go back and forth between getting a clipless/platform combo (but not wanting to shell out the $$), getting toe clips, and just sticking with what I have until I finish my first tri.

Congrats on your tri--though I've already forgotten who posted. 

My weekend:  went up to the mountains.  Ran 4 miles with hill repeats and then went snowshoeing with the family in the nearby national park (maybe 15 miles away?).  The lake we're near had tons of ice still when I ran on Saturday, and conditions in the park were great for snowshoeing.  By Sunday it had warmed up and was in the 50s, the ice had all melted, and I enjoyed a great 12-miler.  My plan had been to run out to the Willow Creek Reservoir on a nice rolling dirt road, but halfway there I spooked some cows on the side of the road.  I think they were all cows.  I was watching closely for bulls (because there were no fences to keep them off the road at that point) and didn't see any.  At any rate, apparently I reminded them of a coyote or fox or something because they started running away from me, down the road.  I stopped until they were out of the way and then started up again but it turned out that some of them were now on both sides of the road further up and I didn't want to mess with them again.  So I turned around and decided to tackle the large hill that's just south of the dirt road I was on.  I'm running a 1/2 up there in two months and figured I want to get in all of the hill climbing I can.  It worked.  The Garmin said elevation gain was 667 feet, and the 1/2 only gains about 500.

Hope to bike this evening.  Would also like to try to visit a gym and get membership set up this week but I'm not sure when that's supposed to happen. 

Although 1 or 2 biffs were augmented by the clipless pedales for me.... I could never go back to regular pedals.  You just have soo much more control of your feet on the pedal, over bumps etc.  When I go back on my mountain bike my shoes are all over the place. 

I scare cows all the time.  They will stampede for a mile to get out of the way I am very scary.  One day I was biking up the  moutain of death (only 1800 foot gain but it is all up) and a car passed me, then I started gaining on the car (still going up hill).  It turns out there were a bunch of cows on the road (open range) and the cows weren't moving, they knew what cars were and cars stop.  Then I came up huffing at a thrilling 7 mph and the cows ran for their lives as I passed the car.  It was very satisying. 

 Just don't press your luck with the bull in the spring or the momma with a baby 8).   

Hit up they weights for the first time in a while today and boy did it feel good.  That is one of the things I am missing and need to re-incorporate into my training again.  Other than that a four and a half mile run today and about 3000yds of swimming tomorrow.  It's going to be two full weeks as this will hopefully be my peak in training for my first sprint.

Right now I am watching a video on the Badwater 135...... Amazing, these ultra marathoners make me not even think twice about any issues I am having with training, especially the Badwater crew.  Craziness lol.

Marcus

So I didn't do anything over the weekend. Between having to do stuff around the house, spending time with the Baby and bouncing all over the place for the Kid's functions time got away very quickly.

Took the girls with me biking tonight. 7 miles at an average of 10 miles/hour (could have been worse). Dropped them off at home and did another 4 miles or so before it got dark.

I've been freaking out about my bike times since I was looking at the previous years race results of the Tri I will be doing and just about everyone (21 out of 26) in my age group on the previous years had average speeds of 20 mph or up. Today I checked out the bike map they posted and plugged it into a map editor and turned out that the actual mileage is shorter than advertised so basically the averages were calculated wrong. Makes me feel better now, but still have to work on my biking quite a bit.

My running is getting there. I can run the 5k without any walking at this point.

Swimming is the only thing I'm not stressing out over.

I'm definitely slowly getting there, just seems like the race is creeping up on me quicker than expected.

Markus

So I didn't do anything over the weekend. Between having to do stuff around the house, spending time with the Baby and bouncing all over the place for the Kid's functions time got away very quickly.

Took the girls with me biking tonight. 7 miles at an average of 10 miles/hour (could have been worse). Dropped them off at home and did another 4 miles or so before it got dark.

I've been freaking out about my bike times since I was looking at the previous years race results of the Tri I will be doing and just about everyone (21 out of 26) in my age group on the previous years had average speeds of 20 mph or up. Today I checked out the bike map they posted and plugged it into a map editor and turned out that the actual mileage is shorter than advertised so basically the averages were calculated wrong. Makes me feel better now, but still have to work on my biking quite a bit.

My running is getting there. I can run the 5k without any walking at this point.

Swimming is the only thing I'm not stressing out over.

I'm definitely slowly getting there, just seems like the race is creeping up on me quicker than expected.

Markus

Swam 2250 tonight.  I finished it, but it didn't go well.  I was slow and had horrible form.  If I could just get into a good rythmn and swim consistently I would feel better.  It's just going to take time.

Bike/run brick tomorrow morning.  Weather will be around 50 so I'm not sure how motivated I am to get up in the cold.  Although my foot pain is a lot better, I'm slightly nervous about running on it.  I will just take it easy, loosen my laces a lot and stop if it gets any worse during the run.

Marcus, just keep training.  The great thing about being newer to running and biking is that you will improve quickly.  Will you win your AG at your first tri? Probably not.  Will you finish? Sure. Will you have a great time? Definitely

Carol, glad to hear your race went good.  I researched your tri and it looked pretty large.  Mine this weekend already has nearly 400 participants which is over 6x larger than my first.  The start will be a staggered time-trial start so it will be less intimidating.

Good work everybody.  Keep up the training.  I think all of us have improved a lot since we started this group.  And a big thanks to Steve for leading us, I'm really enjoying checking in 1-3 times a day to see how everything is going.

Thanks. Sometimes the goal of the workout is just to finish it.  Not every workout can be your best ever, some are just get er done workouts. 

The thing about triathlon is that you have 1/3 the time to train in swimming than someone who only swims and likewise for the other three sports.  So you are going to progress slower.  Hopefully the benefit is that with all the cross training you can put in more hours becuase you are alternating muscle groups.  That said.... it takes 5 years to get at all decent in Triathlon unless you are young and genetically gifted. 

It is both discouraging and encouraging.  Tri is a lifestyle and as such you need to set short term goals and long, long term goals.  The first year is getting to love the races and shift to just getting the workouts in.  Often in the second year folks focus on speed for the shorter races or build endurance and go longer. 

The third year you will have more speed and endurance, enough that you can set really big goals and overdue things and get injured.  So 4th year you think you know better and stuff happens.  The 5th year you either give up or have things down, knowing your body and making more gradual builds if older and picking your intensity smarter. 

 It is all way overwhelming to the point where you start bending all conversations to triathlon.  With a little work you can bend any coversation to either training or racing.  The art is in learning not to do so.  Some folks are into it and want to know how crazy you are and what workout you did yesterday.  Others just feel guilty and fat because you are making changes and having adventures and they are not. 

Balance in all things.  I invite folks to go for a walk, bike ride, provide walk to 5k trainng plans, whatever if they are interested.  Others well they may notice that I did a big race, but otherwise stay quiet on the topic.  Be warned I wane philosophical when my fatigue load gets too high and this week will be pretty tough (rest week next week phew). 

Pat yourself on the back everyone is doing great!

Oh the answer to the question... you don't have to wonder if the person you just met is a triathlete, they will tell you.  And I know I am a triathlete when as a non-morning person I get up at 5am to get a swim in because I am running during lunch and have to get in a bike ride after work.  How do you know you are a triathlete?

OK, my QOTD:  how does one pee on a bike, exactly?  Is the trick to do it early enough that you don't end up running with a big wet spot on your shorts? 

I have no intention of actually doing this, but on tonight's ride I started trying to figure out the mechanics of it....

I read this article a few weeks ago. It's mostly for guys but the same principles apply to you (water bottle to rinse off with, stand on pedal out of the saddle)

Let us know about your progress here.  Be sure to update your training log to indicate whether you practiced bike elimination.

To join the conversation about adding weight lifting or weight training to my current "SBR" regiment, I am thinking of a modified version of P90X. 

Does anyone have experience with it?  Any recommendations? 

I forgot to link the the article in my previous post.

The Fine Art of On-Bike Evacuation - The marathon woman's #2 is mentioned here. 

It's against the rules to pee on your bike. You get a yellow card for this.  Go figure.

Hey Ken, I don't have personal exp. w/ P90X, but my partner in triathlon crime is doing it.  Said it's great, and feels like the plyometrics part of it has really helped her biking.  She was #1 in our AG on the bike in a tri this weekend and has very little biking experience, so I'm thinking there might be something to it.  Bass player in our church band swears by it and has lost noticeable weight.  He's also a runner, but P90X seemed to really help him along.

Running in the hail, huh??  We get the baseball sized stuff here occasionally, so hoping yours is of the smaller variety! 

I know I'm a triathlete because I'm trying to talk my hubby into renting a kayak on our upcoming Aruba vacation in hopes that I can get some swim practice in.  I've also already scoped out running routes online.

Haven't written a race report yet, but here's the gory numbers story:

1/2 mile swim 23:50  2:43/100yds  3/5 in AG (survived)

16.1 mile bike 1:07:54  14.23 mph  5/5 in AG (needs work!)

3.1 mile run 30:04  9:42/mile  2/5 in AG (run time included a bathroom stop...yes in the bathroom )

Total 2:12:14  4/5 in AG (yes T1 was measured in decades)

Great job Carol.  Celebrate your accomplishments.  It was just your first tri.  Your times will improve just continue to hang with it.  You are on the absolute right track.