MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 189)

GANG!

Leaving in a while for a race tomorrow in Cortland, NY.  Then, if I'm feeling frisky, I will head off for another race Sunday morning in Lebanon, NJ.  Screwy thinking?  Cortland is about 3.5 hours away, and form there Lebaonon is only 3 hours............so being THAT close to Lebanon, why not do it?  Indeed!  

We'll see.  My bod has felt great after weach of the arce the pasdt two weekends, and unless the knees act up tomorrow I should have no trouble with sunday's event.  But we'll see.

So, I might be back here by Sunday night, but maybe Monday morning.

Have good weekends, all, and especially TRINA and JEFF, dfoing their final weekend of work before REDMAN!!!!!!

I'm here! I've been keeping up with posts but haven't been posting

Jeff, so sorry to hear about Mimi. I hope everything works out the best for both of you.

My training is coming along. Still just taking one week at a time. My schedule has me doing a HIM on 9/22 and I'm just going to do one on my own instead of traveling for a race. Dave and I are going to go up to a canal for the swim. We've talked our son into going with us because after the swim we're going to bike back to our house. He'll drive the car back. The bike route is exactly 56 miles from the canal to our house. I guess it was meant to be! Then we'll T2 here and run one of our regular routes for the 13 miles. I'm planning on doing it more as training then racing since we'll have some sections of the bike with streetlights to hold us up. My goal and I think a good indication of an increase of fitness is if the run turns out to be better than Vineman.

We just spent a couple of days in Carmel celebrating our 30th anniversary. Dave kept the location a surprise and planned around the training I needed to do while there. We biked the 17 Mile Drive and then around Pacific Grove, Carmel Valley and through Carmel. We ran along the coast the next day and then went for a long hike at Point Lobos. Mixed with some good meals and it was a great little getaway!

I'm here! I've been keeping up with posts but haven't been posting

Jeff, so sorry to hear about Mimi. I hope everything works out the best for both of you.

My training is coming along. Still just taking one week at a time. My schedule has me doing a HIM on 9/22 and I'm just going to do one on my own instead of traveling for a race. Dave and I are going to go up to a canal for the swim. We've talked our son into going with us because after the swim we're going to bike back to our house. He'll drive the car back. The bike route is exactly 56 miles from the canal to our house. I guess it was meant to be! Then we'll T2 here and run one of our regular routes for the 13 miles. I'm planning on doing it more as training then racing since we'll have some sections of the bike with streetlights to hold us up. My goal and I think a good indication of an increase of fitness is if the run turns out to be better than Vineman.

We just spent a couple of days in Carmel celebrating our 30th anniversary. Dave kept the location a surprise and planned around the training I needed to do while there. We biked the 17 Mile Drive and then around Pacific Grove, Carmel Valley and through Carmel. We ran along the coast the next day and then went for a long hike at Point Lobos. Mixed with some good meals and it was a great little getaway!

Good luck this weekend Steve!

Happy training Trina and Jeff! Where is Redman? Will the weather be cooler there?

Johanne

JEFF and TRINA -

A thread on Slowtwitch addressed wetsuits at redman, and it sounds very likely they'll be legal.  WHEW!!!!

Trina, two of the posts referred to big winds yesterday --- hope you enjoyed that swim!!

JOHANNE -

Gotta move real fast, wanna leave within five minutes.  Will comment more on your training stuff, but it sounds good.  Even gooderer is Dave's surprise to you.  He's a sly one, eh?

Redman is in Oklahoma City, so weather is always questionable at this time of year (right, Trina?).  As for cooler, oh, probably cooler and less humid than Houston in July!

And I'm off!!!!!!

Thanks Johanne,

Redman is in Oklahoma City, climatically very similar to where I live. Weather should be perfect, high mid 80's lows in the upper 60's and like Steve mentioned water temps are coming down and will be taken at the deepest part of the lake (probably the only part that still has water)

Fall has teased us a bit with cool temps and drizzle last night and this morning, 65 degrees made me think about finding my arm warmers

I did end up going to OWS practice - it started pouring rain the minute we got in the water. Did the same thing last year at OWS practice for Redman. Crazy, given we haven't had a drop of rain either summer (so to speak). Pretty strong winds made swimming north difficult - and breathing even more difficult. More than once I ended up with a mouthful of water. Yuck! Swimming back south was super fun and fast. I think I'm a freak in that swimming in waves doesn't bother me - a lot of the people there were NOT happy. I was happy because I knew after I swam 2000 yards there was a hotdog with my name on it just waiting to be eaten. LOL! 

I'm guessing Redman will be wetsuit legal - as people around here say: The thermometer they use to determine wetsuit legal is stuck at 76F. 

One thing I am not looking forward to is the walk? in the muddy clay from swim to T1. Last year the muck was half way up my calves and I could barely walk. More like crawl. It was pretty gross. It'll be the same this year since lake levels are very low and we'll have to walk to the middle of the lake to swim. So, borrowing one of your favorite terms:"Mercy!"

Have I mentioned lately how much I really, really like my new coach?

Hi Steve - I've been here all along.  I just lacked any interesting news.  I ran on Tuesday and Thursday and both days felt ponderous at best.  I seem to be slowing down with each run lately even though I still feel like I'm on the verge of a positive leap forward in running.

I also swam in Okanagan Lake today and Wednesday.  These swims were really nice - clear & calm water.  The water level is really low right now so mostly waist deep except at the far end where it is 8 to 10' deep for the last 200m before reaching the Sicamous.  My only complaint here is that as my swimming has improved what started out as nearly one hour swims have "shrunk" to 39 minute swims.  So, I guess I should swim another 900m to maintain my time.

I decided against the Pavillion Lake (Iceberg) Sprint mainly due to inertia on my part.  Everything about the event said it was a good one to do and at a good time but I figure I needed to make some points at home - sort of build up some brownie/kharma points towards future support.

Gang,

I had a stand alone 5K run today. It was the 1 year anniversary since my first 5K last year. I ran it in 21:50 unofficially, which was better than my previous PR on the same course which had been 22:24.

More later.

Great run and you hit my target pace!

Maybe in October or November I can squeeze out a sub 22

I was looking back and saw that I hadn't done a 5K race since last December when I ran the 22:24. Since then I had done a bunch of odd distances, such as 7K. I don't know how long ago I was able to do 22 or less, but think it was probably recently. For the last 5 weeks or so I've ramped up the distances of my long runs to 10 miles or so. 

Yesterday I didn't feel particularly good. My legs felt heavy, but I was 6:52 after the first mile and my breathing wasn't especially labored. That's when I knew that I had a good chance to break at least 22:24. I've also learned that the middle part of races is where my time tends to fall off before making a push at the end, so I consciously tried to pick up the pace. That middle stretch had a big hill so the pace didn't get faster, but the effort was stronger and I didn't slow down too much. I ended up passing a couple of people on the third mile.

Good luck with you quest for sub-22. 

I've read somewhere that there are two kinds of cyclists, those who have crashed and those who will crash in the future. Since yesterday I have migrated from the latter to the former group. 

I was riding with about 50-60 people from my rowing club, a sort of leisurely 100k ride with alumni and current members. The first part was a hard tail wind section so some of the more active members were pacing pretty hard, me included. There were some close calls but I was in the front all the time and nothing happened. After the break we turned back into the headwind and me and one of my crewmates were the last of the peloton when suddenly two girls in front of us fell, probably due to some erratic braking before them or something. We couldn't go anywhere but in the air flying off our bikes. Luckily we were going only around 18 mph as opposed to the 30 we did the other way... 

Anyway, long story short I managed to dive into the soft shoulder and didn't really have anything other than a small bruise on my left shin, I was able to continue. My friend had a small wound but nothing bad. He wanted to keep going but his front wheel was messed up. The two girls had some arm pains but nothing that warranted a trip to the hospital luckily. We had support on standby to pick all of them up. All in all a relatively good ending to what looked like a lot worse! 

When I got home I parked my bike and when I got round to cleaning it I found out that I had broken one of the rear spokes on my bike. This couldn't have happened after the crash as it put my wheel so far out of true that it was unable to turn. Really weird, but I've had this happen to me before. I think it can be fixed by the LBS, but with this being a regular occurence, I'm thinking I need some new wheels probably... (I now wish I'd have waited with getting the new Garmin watch as new wheels all of a sudden seem a bigger priority than a fancy watch!) 

I hope everyone else was able to train safely this weekend and Steve I'm looking forward to your race reports.

Jeff I saw your TT on Strava, how did it go? 

Tough crash..it's amazing though how many seemingly dramatic crashes result with so few injuries. I've had my share back in my criterium days.

It might be worth your time to learn to replace a spoke and true up your wheels, at least render them rideable enough till you get to the LBS.

Impressive rides you have in The Netherlands, if I ever rode there I would make damn sure I never got lost as I am certain I could never pronounce the place or road names to ask for directions.

The TT was fun, low key-friendly. It rained all night and was drizzling before the start and some sprinkles while on the bike. I wasn't as fast as I had hoped but can't complain having had so few miles sense the beginning of August. I met a couple of Ironman finishers and triathletes I had seen on the road but never had a chance to meet. Those are the guys that did the 20k under 30 minutes. I think my time was 34.xx or something-waiting for them to post results later this evening.

The start order was assigned randomly, I think I was like 6th to start or something, I passed 3 riders but they were clearly more of the recreational variety just giving the time trial a shot. The drizzle and semi light made it hard to really pace from my HRM. I slowed alot more than I normally would have at the turn around due to water in the roadway and lack of certainty about my traction there, I think on dry pavement I could carry 20mph or high teens through that "U-turn lane"

My friend and nemesis Chris Jennings was there...we have been contesting some of the local segments-he on his 25 lb road bike and me, but he and another rider have been attacking them together taking pace of each-other.

I have a benchmark to shoot for-a 24+mph pace sub 30 ride would be awesome. If this series continues as planned perhaps I will get there. I'm going to request or recommend a "holder" at the start-I've raced TT's like that in the past and it helps.

Tough crash..it's amazing though how many seemingly dramatic crashes result with so few injuries. I've had my share back in my criterium days.

It might be worth your time to learn to replace a spoke and true up your wheels, at least render them rideable enough till you get to the LBS.

Impressive rides you have in The Netherlands, if I ever rode there I would make damn sure I never got lost as I am certain I could never pronounce the place or road names to ask for directions.

The TT was fun, low key-friendly. It rained all night and was drizzling before the start and some sprinkles while on the bike. I wasn't as fast as I had hoped but can't complain having had so few miles sense the beginning of August. I met a couple of Ironman finishers and triathletes I had seen on the road but never had a chance to meet. Those are the guys that did the 20k under 30 minutes. I think my time was 34.xx or something-waiting for them to post results later this evening.

The start order was assigned randomly, I think I was like 6th to start or something, I passed 3 riders but they were clearly more of the recreational variety just giving the time trial a shot. The drizzle and semi light made it hard to really pace from my HRM. I slowed alot more than I normally would have at the turn around due to water in the roadway and lack of certainty about my traction there, I think on dry pavement I could carry 20mph or high teens through that "U-turn lane"

My friend and nemesis Chris Jennings was there...we have been contesting some of the local segments-he on his 25 lb road bike and me, but he and another rider have been attacking them together taking pace of each-other.

I have a benchmark to shoot for-a 24+mph pace sub 30 ride would be awesome. If this series continues as planned perhaps I will get there. I'm going to request or recommend a "holder" at the start-I've raced TT's like that in the past and it helps.

Call it cycling and you get an instant half mile an hour faster j/k

I have a history of racing way back in time, it took a little bit to get any of that fitness back but I didn't have to "learn' anything as far as bike handling, maintenance or riding in traffic, I just had to get fit. Looking back, I still have my old road bike I raced on in the 90's early 00's, it was a fast bike then and in road race and an occasional fast group ride I could average 20mph+ but I don't think I ever did solo until I moved up to my snazzy modern tri bike. However the individual I referenced in my previous post used to race crits as well but is now noticeably heavier and racing an old steel road bike and he averages over 20 at times.

Having said all that, I think there is something to the idea that it takes about three solid seasons of consistent effort to really develop as a cyclist and this previous winter/spring was probably my most disciplined and consistent period an an adult cyclist, even going back to my late twenties/thirties dabbling in road racing and ultra events

The results are in and I got third, but like you may have figured, it was a small race, club members only, but perhaps it will pick up, the rain discouraged some riders.

GANG!

Back from a weekend of racing, both went really well.  This makes four triathlons in 15 days, but all have been sprints so recovery time is minimal.  Today, though, I could feel the lack of "snap" in my legs towards the end of the bike, although how much of that was a long climb right towards the end is not certain.  Anyhow, i got it together for the run, where I did the 5km in 22:01, following a 51:50 ride of 17 miles.

Yesterday was a 15-mile ride in 41:19, at 21.7mph, and then the 5km run in 21:37 (6:28/mile).  Paces today were 19/7 and 7:06.

Won a.g. handily both days, and yesterday was 14/159 overall,  today was 32/225.   More later, as I must go to bed.  Looooong three days, what with driving and sleeping two nights in tents.  YAWN!

This post just made my legs tired

I think Steve is really 25 passing himself off as a man in his 60's.

A quick skim of posts warrants......

THOMAS - Lucky you (and the others) mostly walked away okay.  Your story convinces me yet again that I never want to ride in a pack.  I have high confidence in my own bike-handling abilities..........but that would dissolve quickly if I felt my moves might have a big impact of all those riding with me.  I have never done a stand-alone bike race, and every tri I have done is draft-illegal, so I see no need to subject myself to the twitchiness of others!

TRINA - BIG advantage to you if you like wild water, as you're 100% corrct -- most people hate it, fear it, avoid it.  As for schlucking trhough clay, well, it IS just clay, afterall.  It could be SO much worse, such as what we up here refer to as "loon s --t", being the stuff of which the shallows of many lakes is composed.  I doubt it's really that --- but the sensation suggest it, anyhow!

DOUG - Good PR, big step up from last year!  How much have you focused on the 5kms in your running?  It seems like it might be a fair bit?  Kudos!

JEFF - Kudos to you, too, for snagging third.  Nice pace, and I'll bet it just made you feel good to get out there and do it, eh?  And I have had broke spokes before, but as you might imagine --- no idea how to fix 'em.  One even happened in a race, hilly course, front wheel..............yeah, I walked it back in!

GEORGE - You know the expression "it's always darkest just before the dawn"?   Well, that probably does pertain to you and a run breakthrough, so don't let the recent "ponderous" ones weigh on you.  And as for the swim times improving hugely, remember that it's good to train at speed, which youa re doing.  So, don't worry too much about increasing distances so as to swim for a longer period just for the sake of that alone. 

I said nothing about my race swims, but they were pretty good.  Yesterday I was 34/159, today 62/225.  Anytime my swim ends up in the top 30% is a big success for me!

Bike yesterday was 9/159, today it was 29/225.

Run yesterday was 34/159, today 37/225.

NOW to bed!

Yeah it was fun, I wasn't feeling my usual combative self, just rode my bike. I wish I wasn't nearly 3 minutes off the leaders and only a few seconds ahead of 4th!

If I broke a spoke today or on my Kuotta I would be out of luck, I remember "back in the day" carrying 1 each of the relevant spokes taped together and stashed inside my seat tube, spoke wrench in the bag. That was pre-cell phone and during my years of riding off into the great beyond with out a plan or options. obviously I could not change a drive side rear spoke roadside but I would have the proper spoke on hand when I got to a bike shop or home. About 2 years ago I broke a front spoke on the Tuscany and simply opened my brake calibers and pedaled home-that was a 32ct 3 cross wheel-strong enough on 31.

But seriously take a little class on wheel truing at least be able to true them to your brake pads and get some instruction on emergency "get home" wheel truing.

Last long run tonight, 12 miles by my reckoning but Strava gave me 14.7 but studying the track you can see where the GPS signal dropped in and out and sent me off into the woods or where ever..adding distance.

JEFF -

Yeah, I probably should take some basic class -- ANY basic class! -- in bike mechanics.  My skill-set stops shortyly after "cleaning" and "tube-changing", and as it goes for my car --- I'm generally at the mercy of the professional mechanics.

It only made me feel slightly better when my own trusted bike shop, full of great mechanics, could not figure out one of the intricacies of the spokes on the Hed wheel I was using during that raced I DNFed at.  So, I guess, even with a good course or two of spokery and truing under my belt, I would've met my Waterloo at that point and ended up doing what the LBS said I should do -- send the wheel back to Hed and have them do it, which they did. 

What's the lowdown on plans and strategies for Redman?

Awwe, I didn't realize you blew up a HED!

At Redman I will simply immerse myself in the Gestalt.

I have toyed with the idea of going for a really good bike split and letting the remaining pieces fall where they may or simply propelling myself around the course, taking it all in with only the relevant cut offs being my only concern. Realistically I think a 14-15 hour finish is doable with that approach.