SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 176)

Prize money, no. Discounts and trophies, yes.

I only race for jackets.

Prize money, no. Discounts and trophies, yes.

And speaking of tropies - check out the one my wife won in Knoxville:

A group of us that train and race together have had "The Trophy" for 22 years now. Anytime there are at least two of us in a multisport race together it is an official "Trophy Race." Each trophy race is preceded by weeks of smack talk and sandbagging and a fair bit of haggling over handicaps. While I had the fastest time of all of us in Knoxville, the Trophy Rules Committee awarded it to JT just for completing the 70.3 in such awful conditions. It was a unanimous decision - she rocked it.

And yes, it does indeed say "The Champion" on the bottom.

And speaking of tropies - check out the one my wife won in Knoxville:

A group of us that train and race together have had "The Trophy" for 22 years now. Anytime there are at least two of us in a multisport race together it is an official "Trophy Race." Each trophy race is preceded by weeks of smack talk and sandbagging and a fair bit of haggling over handicaps. While I had the fastest time of all of us in Knoxville, the Trophy Rules Committee awarded it to JT just for completing the 70.3 in such awful conditions. It was a unanimous decision - she rocked it.

And yes, it does indeed say "The Champion" on the bottom.

Stage 5 done.  My legs are officially toast.  Squats before hand probably didn't help.

for those who ride with power, how good are you at keeping it steady?  My power is all over the place.  I am using 3 second smoothing.

I'll see +/-15-20 from whatever I'm trying to hold quite a bit, also with 3 sec smoothing. It's not going to look flat like a Trainer road target profile.

I've been torn this week as to whether to sign up for a Triathlon or not. I had planned on racing the Oly in a couple of weeks....we are going up north that weekend to camp and I am signed up for a relay on the Sunday with my husband and his friend (I'm the swimmer- they were desperate!)...there's an Oly on Saturday, but my run has really sucked lately. I'm also just making it to the pool twice a week...it's totally my own fault, I am just enjoying my bike so much these days.

As an example, today I got up and got the TT bike out, ended up running into some friends and riding with them. I haven't done any Tri specific workouts lately.... I have been on the TT bike twice in the past month, and that includes the Sprint Tri. All my rides have been group rides (I'm lucky that I have various groups to ride with 7 days a week here). I could totally do the Oly just to finish but it's $150 and the idea of just hanging out with my friends and spectating appeals more. 

My knees don't feel great these days and I have some significant strength imbalances. My plan had been to work on these issues over the summer and rebuild my run. Now I am rethinking things and planning to just do cycling races this Fall. I just don't enjoy swimming over 2000yds. Anyways...just thinking out loud here and debating if I should just step away from triathlon for a while. I truly don't miss racing at all and get way more enjoyment out of just riding my bike.

My knees don't feel great these days and I have some significant strength imbalances. My plan had been to work on these issues over the summer and rebuild my run. Now I am rethinking things and planning to just do cycling races this Fall. I just don't enjoy swimming over 2000yds. Anyways...just thinking out loud here and debating if I should just step away from triathlon for a while. I truly don't miss racing at all and get way more enjoyment out of just riding my bike.

I do like to be told to HTFU and do stuff but I was a bit taken aback by the registration fees too. It seems high...it's actually $170 (late reg) but I have a discount code. Plus I have to pay the USAT fee because I'm not a member.

There's a big Tri going on here in Tempe this weekend and the Oly is $130. 

Sally, I agree with Kim. Do what you enjoy. It's a hobby. Oly's around here are $140 for bigger events. Sprints are $120.  Smaller events are around $90 and are often the same price regardless of distance.

Open water swims today otoh appear to be running the cost of a new bumper. Early this morning I was up at a lake house that our club uses for OWS. In the process of moving cars so that I could get out, I backed someone's minivan into a retaining wall. Thankfully no bikes on back. Won't know until she sends me the estimate but I figure I'm in for the cost of entry level carbon. 

I've been torn this week as to whether to sign up for a Triathlon or not. I had planned on racing the Oly in a couple of weeks....we are going up north that weekend to camp and I am signed up for a relay on the Sunday with my husband and his friend (I'm the swimmer- they were desperate!)...there's an Oly on Saturday, but my run has really sucked lately. I'm also just making it to the pool twice a week...it's totally my own fault, I am just enjoying my bike so much these days.

As an example, today I got up and got the TT bike out, ended up running into some friends and riding with them. I haven't done any Tri specific workouts lately.... I have been on the TT bike twice in the past month, and that includes the Sprint Tri. All my rides have been group rides (I'm lucky that I have various groups to ride with 7 days a week here). I could totally do the Oly just to finish but it's $150 and the idea of just hanging out with my friends and spectating appeals more. 

My knees don't feel great these days and I have some significant strength imbalances. My plan had been to work on these issues over the summer and rebuild my run. Now I am rethinking things and planning to just do cycling races this Fall. I just don't enjoy swimming over 2000yds. Anyways...just thinking out loud here and debating if I should just step away from triathlon for a while. I truly don't miss racing at all and get way more enjoyment out of just riding my bike.

Yup, that sounds about right for me too.  3s will jump around a bit, 30s is pretty steady, lap power is very stable (after a minute or so).

It's based on a Vdot of 47. http://www.attackpoint.org/trainingpaces.jsp?eqdist=5000&vdot=47

R pace is ~3:45/km, I pace is 4:07, T pace is 4:28.

Recovery today was 400 meters ez

Same here - I typically have at least two readings showing simultaneously depending on the workout. Very often 3s and lap when on the road. On the trainer I can obviously do much better keeping it smooth and will usually have it on 1s power and try to work to keep it from dipping or spiking too much. FWIW from the files I have seen it looks like folks that have relatively high power to weight ratios have a much easier time maintaining a tight power profile than us small, weak-arse people, especially when riding on variable terrain. I saw a base zone file from my coach a while back (around 4.9 W/Kg at the time, I think) and it was virtually a flat line on a fairly hilly course....

Your coach is boring ...

Something I meant to point out on that site is that it will give I-Pace values for all the distances listed, whereas a site like Runbayou will blank out ones that take longer than 5 minutes. If we go (way) back to the Daniels article about intervals, he liked up to 5 minutes for I-pace intervals. Shorter was ok, but longer would likely be too hard to keep up that pace, so you'd end up doing fewer intervals (so less total time at the saturation point) or would have to run slower thereby not ever actually achieving that saturation condition.

Put another way, none of us are actually fast enough to really be able to do that type of workout using mile repeats. Some can use 1200m, but for others it wouldn't fit right.

Well, if you are like most of us and only train because of the misery, pain, suffering, and general unhappiness it brings to our lives, then of COURSE you have to sign up for the race, no matter the financial cost (the more the better, actually!). If, on the other hand you are an outlier and only train and race for the sheer joy and happiness it brings, well then, you just go ahead and be that way.

Seriously Sally, the obvious answer is in your post. Just get out and ride and don't worry about it! Besides, we can always run it by the SBR Utopia Bylaws Committee, but I am pretty sure SBR stands for Swim, Bike, OR Run, not Swim, Bike, AND Run. So you should be all good here. Jason, can you get the committee together for an official ruling?