Gray Guys/Girls Maturing Triathlete Mentor Group (Page 19)

Kathy,

How'd you enjoy the race?

And thank you for volunteering!  The races simply wouldn't happen without the volunteers!

Dorm,

I am a big fan of Infinit Performance Nutrition - for the record I am in no way affiliated with them.

https://www.infinitnutrition.us/

They have prepackaged blends and you can also create your own specific to your nutrition needs.  Definitely worth a couple minutes to check out their website.

Adrian,

Great race report!

You hit your target!

Hope the people involved in the accident are OK. 

No shame in walking up the hill.  Like you said, plan your race and race your plan.  It often seems like one of the hardest things for many age-group triathletes to understand is that you have to have a plan and you have to stick to your plan.  You have already learned that!

Sounds like it was a spectacular race and you certainly earned your post race recovery drink!

Thanks for sharing.

Great race report Adbru and congrats on your 5:12 finish.  I had a look at the website and it looks pretty interesting until I saw that it is nearly 1700m of climbing.

I think any time you can walk up faster than you can ride up a hill then walking is a positive option.

I did the Ironman St George 70.3 last year.  I felt like I was going easy on the bike but I was probably under trained I probably did a terrible job on refueling too.  40 miles into the bike ride I started to slow down.  At about mile 45 their is a 6 mile up hill accent.  I tried my best to pace myself but got to the point that I physically couldn't get a one more crank of the pedals.  I was standing up and all my weight just wan't enough to go forwards any further.  I got off and was going to walk to the top of the hill by my legs cramped up so all I could do was fold onto the bike and stand there.  I took the opportunity to get a cliff bar and some fluid.  I stretch until I could walk with  out cramping.  Yep ,walking was a positive option that day.  :-) 

Curtis - That must have been a heck of a hill.  Do you know how steep the hill was?  Also, how did your run go that day?

All - I'm feeling guilty because I missed an easy 1:30 bike ride today to do some chores at home.  I just couldn't leave them any longer.

Here is the link to the bike course map.   

looks like mile mile 37 has an elevation of about 2,800' asl and that mile 47 is about 4,000' asl. So over 10 miles you climb 1,200 feet.  It is the steepest from about mile 44 to mile 47 where half of that elevation comes from.  Where I had problems was about a half mile from the peak at mile 47.

The good thing is that it was all down hill from mile 47 to the T2 so I had plenty of time to stretch out my legs and recover before the run.  The run was pretty ugly but was no slower than my previous 70.3 run time. 

Thanks Curtis, the elevation map tells an interesting story and that hill looks as tough as you make it sound.  I was particularly curious about the St. George 70.3 because I used to train with a fellow from St. George and he talked about how tough it was and how hot it could be.

George,

I can second St. George being a challenging course.  I've been there when the temperature's are triple digits.  Add in the significant hills and it makes for a tough day.

Triple Digits at St. George. Yikes!  We do get heat like that here at times when we are out riding on asphalt on particularly hot days.  My St. George friend did say it was hot.

Kelly - Which IM did you sign up for?  I have the Cherry Blossom Sprint in Kelowna next Sunday so I have a very easy week this week.  I haven't looked to see if Quigley is registered for the CB but I'm planning to look for him and at least say Hi.

The Indy-Mini Half Marathon is this coming Saturday.  My wife and I are in the process of relocating back to Southern Indiana.  We had planned to be back there by the middle of April so a May 6th race seemed like the perfect "Welcome Home."  Sadly, one of my IT clients, actually my BEST IT client decided late last year to move to a larger office.  I'd made the comment early in the process we were planning to leave So Cal around the first week of April.  No problem!  Except there was construction delay after construction delay.  Long story short, the move finally took place this past weekend.  Sadly, while all that was going on, my wife's knee took a sudden turn for the worse.  We have known for some time that she was going to need a knee replacement.  The plan was to do that once we got back to Indiana as several of my relatives have had similar surgery and all used and speak highly of the same doctor.  Alas, my wife is now bone on bone and the doctors say it needs to be done NOW.  So we are faced with a 4-5 month delay between the classes the orthopedic surgeon requires her to take, building the new knee, surgery and recovery.  I'm trying very hard to justify the nearly $1,000 cost for airline and hotel to do a race that I'm not fully prepared for.  Every time I open my email inbox the knife gets twisted in my side as it seems I have another email - packet pick-up, expo information, Meb's autograph sessions (Meb Keflezighi - Boston and NY Marathon winner).  I still have a couple days but at this point I am leaning strongly towards a DNS.

Adrian I believe we can say you have been well and truly bitten by the triathlon bug!

Kelly,

I have EVERY athlete I work with use a run/walk strategy during their 140.6.  More than once there has been some resistance until I point out that Sebastian Kienle won the Ironman World Championship in 2014 using a run/walk strategy - he walked every aid station - and ran a 2:54.37 marathon.

That is the ration I recommend, walk from the first table in every aid station for 30-seconds.  It gives you the opportunity to get everything you need at the aid station.  It breaks the run into 26 manageable sections and it gives you something to look forward to as you negotiate with your body late in the race to continue on.

Kelly - I did think it was likely Whistler that you signed up for.  They do a really good job with it.  I really enjoyed the run route - lots of shade along the way.

We've had a few good days so far but not many.  Our temps are still pretty cool.  I'm hoping we'll get some warm weather soon.  A friend is heading to Vancouver for the Marathon on Sunday and she's worried it will be wet.

Speaking of which, I found out today that 3 ladies I swim with are heading to St. George for the 70.3.  I'll talk to them tomorrow morning (if they haven't already left for the race).  I had a look at the St. George website and it does look like beautiful country but no shade at all if it is a hot day.

Scott - I hope your wife is at least not in too much pain and I hope she recovers quickly.  

Adrian - Your Braveheart Tri looks challenging.  Or, at least I am intimidated by the run route.  A lot of climbing and "lumpy" as you say.  I imagine you have to be careful on the run.  The write up on the swim makes it sound like the water is cold.  Any idea what the water temp might be on race day?  Have fun with your training.

Adrian - 12/13 C was about what I thought.  That is not a nice temp at all.  Our local lakes are about that temp right now and showing no signs of warming up.  No one is swimming outside yet and we're all hoping we'll be able to get in the lake by mid June.  

Your resting HR is not too bad at 54 and as you get better endurance your HR should get even better.  I haven't checked mine in a while but last time I did check it was 52 and I'm 67 this year.  When swimming our HR rises fairly quickly but as soon as we stop swimming (and especially if we stand up at the wall) our HR drops very quickly back to normal.  So, it is possible your HR discrepancy is not so much a problem.

It is possible that you are swimming too fast.  Slow down your pace by your own control or swim behind a more experienced swimmer to get the feel of keeping pace with your oxygen intake.  When I am swimming at a steady pace I can work on my bilateral breathing but if I want to swim a sprint I need to take in more O2 so I abandon bilateral and breath every other stroke on the same side (this may be the wrong thing to do but it is what I do).  

I'm not an expert on swimming and anything Scott says certainly supersedes my modest advice.

I am part of a community running program that requires a commitment to running a 5K on their list of races at a minimum of every 6 months.  My last race for the program was in January and I won't be able to make it to another race until July so I ran a race in a town an hour from me yesterday in place of my long bike ride.  :-)

I didn't have a really hard training week so I was ready to race on Saturday.  There were kilometer markers on the coarse (some just do mile markers) which helped a lot with pacing off of splits.  All my splits were with in 15 seconds of each other and I finished 4 seconds under my goal time for the race. 

I had won the race by a sizable margin and broke the course record by about 25 seconds, but I was only the course record holder for about 5 minutes.  A younger guy who had got to the race late asked the officials if he could still run even though he missed the start.  They told him absolutely and got a faster chip time than be by 20 seconds.   Yep...you can't control who shows up at a race.

Next week is the Cape Cod Ragnar Relay.  I will being about 20 miles for that even then my Triathlon two weeks after that. 

Is the "hay in the barn yet?"  I just want to train light and race hard for the next three weeks.  :-) 

That is cold water!  I don't know how people do it.  I did my first OWS of the year on Saturday and the water temp was 61*F.  I had a hard time putting my face in the water (not to mention chilly hands and feet) - not sure I could do it at 54*F.

Scott - sorry to hear about your wife.  I hope the surgery goes well and she's feeling better soon.  

First tri of the season coming up this Saturday - Olympic distance.  I've done the sprint distance at this race a couple of times so pretty much know what I'm in for.  There is one hill on the bike course that concerns me a bit (it's not part of the sprint course so I haven't ridden it yet).  It's supposed to be fairly short but "a bit of a grinder" according to the race director.  I'm going to check it out when I get over there on Friday night.  Weather should be good too - slight chance of rain but decent temps.  Looking forward to getting the season started!

Janet

Thanks - I haven't seen much competition since I moved seven years ago from Tulsa, OK to a small town of 5,000 people 50 miles west of Austin, TX (an then to a tow in Oklahoma with 18,000 five years after that).  I was used to getting beat pretty bad by guys 10-20 years older than me and being now where near h finishing in the 10th-20th places  over all when I lived in Tulsa.  Now I pray that someone fast will show up to the race to make things interesting.  As is the only interesting thing is perfecting my splits and trying to beat my time from the last race.    

I average 172 BPM on my run tests.  I never got used to the HR zones for run training though.  I just use splits for my interval training.  :-)

Good luck with the bike.