GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 193)

I don't, and try not to think of having to ever buy a new bike for a while.  I think the other challenge is replacement value - how do you determine on a bike?

SHAUN, thanks for the code. 

I don't have a road ID but do wear a velcro ID on my running shoes (provided by USA FIT) when I'm out running, and have a copy of my driver's license and insurance card in the pouch on my bike.  My son was in a really bad biking accident when he was in high school, early one morning when I was at work, with no ID on him.  Thankfully one of the paramedics that arrived on the scene knew him and was able to contact me.

Certainly a good reminder for all.

LISA

Tracey,

Sounds like me and the Yanks and especially the Leafs!!

Sorry Anne or other Maple Leaf fans in the group...but its true. I can't watch them play but I do check in regularly to see how many they've lost.

Kasia,

I never thought of the bike and a crash in regards to insurance. My concern was more theft than crash. My only comment would really come from if it was due to a driver's fault then wouldn't it then go against them?

As for the saddle adjustment, look at the rails on the saddle and the one side, usually I think the right side if you were on the seat will have graduations on it with a 0 at the back and then positive is towards the nose of the saddle or handlebars. Or at least all the saddles I've dealt with have been this way.

As for adjusting it, I do not know what the seat post bracket looks like on your bike so I can't help you there too much. On my mtb (which is a Gary Fisher, owned by Trek and has a Botranger seat post), there is a bolt on the front side and the back side of the post. You'll need an allen key 4mm or 5mm for this. Loosen those off and you can slide the saddle forward and back. This also is how the angle is adjusted. You want the saddle level to the ground (eyeball it or use a small level, you'll know if it is too far one way or the other. I believe I read somewhere that women may want it at most the nose pointed 3 degrees down.). My Cervelo on the other hand has 2 bolts under the front of the saddle. One being a 3mm and the other 5mm. The 5mm is the clamp which allows forward and aft movement and the 3mm locks in the angle.

Hope this helps!

Another point that I've learned is that not all saddles are the same when it comes to positioning. The original one was at -4mm but the wings on the back side of that one may be further back or forward in relation to that position on the rails. Does that make any sense?

In my case, the original saddle my Cervelo came with, I had it pushed all the way back and felt like I could use more room. I put a different saddle on that the was not much different in overall length and I had to move the saddle forward a decent amount to not have the feeling of being too stretched out. Does that make it more clear?

That is too bad the LBS guy didn't spend any more time on it than he did. I wonder if he recognized you bought the bike there or not. I would play with it to get it roughly right before going in for the follow up fitting, but I am a tinkerer and am interested in seeing what the results are from the changes I make. It'd be interesting to have a PowerTap so I could see in numbers (I'm an engineer and on of our tag lines is 'In God we Trust. All others bring data.')

I'm having my own fit issues with the saddle, mainly due to the angle adjustment on my bike. IMO its a rinky dink way to do it that Cervelo decided on (its a 2001 bike, so I hope this has gotten better). I have been playing with moving the saddle forwards and back and I can't get the angle adjustment to stay where I need it. The bike is still very rideable but one small incrmental change could make a huge difference especially as mileage goes up.

You're doing good Denise!! Keep it up. Pretty soon you'll be out there riding no hands!

SHAUN -

I don't have a definitive answer for you about brake pads and carbon wheels, but at Columbia the pre-race announcements came with a gentle warning to all riders of carbon wheels to allow more time braking if rains start, as wet carbon rims don't hold a brake-grip as well as regular (aluminum?) braking surfaces. Beyond that, I know very little. (But I will try to learn! )

SHAUN again (and STEVE) -

Thanks for the reminder about Road ID. I do not have one, and even though there is a flyer in most of the packet pick-up stuff I get, I haven't thought about it until now. My crash last year should've smartened me up.....but apparently didn't. I know I put a little ID tag inside my helmet, but I have no idea whether it is still there, or even legible if present. That might not be good enough, eh?

And thanks for the code!

TRACEY -

I hold a theory that a person's true fandom is not determined by how much they love their favorite teams, but the degree to which they despise their least favorite team(s). For me, that means that I care less about whether the Red Sox win the World Series than if the Yankees DON'T win it.

In wonder -- if you scratch just beneath the surface of most sports fan, will you find similar inlcinations? Shaun mentioned Montreal and Toronto in hockey, and Green Bay and Minnesota in football might be about the same. But in my theory, a person can't just dislike a team, they must hate it more than they love their favorite team. Kind of twisted or warped, yes, but there it is.

STEVE -

Oh, I hear you about the pool etiquette problem! Some people just have no sense of where they are in the pool with respect to anyone else, and it happens to some degree at just about any lane swim. I'd love to see the lifeguards "pull people over" and have them sit out various penalty times. Maybe two minutes for basic infractions, five minutes for causing a collision; something like that. Yellow card, red card....I don't know.

But you did a good job of adjusting your workout to handle the hassle, and in fact that interval emphasis might've been the best thing for your swim!

And congrats on getting your swim groove back!!

STEVE again -

In general, are you feeling in line with Vineman? Are you and it on separate pathways leading to Perfect Convergence? July 18, yes?

DENISE -

Good! You made it through the CO2 session without blowing yourself up. Most excellent!

Good too on being able to grab the water bottle on the fly, and it won't be long before you master getting it back in its cage. Depending on where your cage is, it might mean inverting your hand, or torquing your forearm some, when you grab the bottle. I do soemthing along those lines for the bottle behind my seat.

Have you tried leaning your bike against your house and sitting there, just removing/returning the bottle, removing/returning, removing/returning ---- almost trying to make it part of muscle memory? That might help (plus, it will just keep you out of any mischief!).

Thank you for the Susan Komen plan! That makes four of us racing this weekend!

RACES THIS SATURDAY (preliminary)

(1) DENISE -- Susan Komen Race for the Cure 5K (Brainerd, MN)

(2) KASIA -- Loveland Lake to Lake Triathlon --- 1.5km/30mile/10km (Loveland, CO)

(3) SHAUN -- Welland Triathlon --- 750m/30km/7.5km (Welland, ON)

(4) me -- Tupper Lake Triathlon --- 0.6mile/18.6mile/6.2mile (Tupper Lake, NY)


More details to follow!

That's good to know.   I mentioned to Ken that I thought something was wrong with my brake pads because they don't seem to have the same grip on the ZIPPS.   

TRACEY -

There are some terrific photos of you from Escape (I know -- I've been slow getting around to these!).

You mentioned before one of you crossing the bridge, and the bridge one that is really fine ends in 251. And then ALL of the finish line photos are super -- you're right, you look very relaxed!

Capstone did a great job of capturing so many images at Escape, offering more from there than at Pirate, or Lobsterman for me two years ago.

Have you signed up for Whaling City, or are you still mulling it?

I DO look quite relaxed at the finish line, don't I? I guess that means I need to work harder!

All signed up for Whaling City!

Oh and I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and do the 10k on July 4th. I remembered that it's being billed as a walk/run event, so they won't be picking up the cones after me.

SteveB:

Wanted to mention that I saw my podiatrist yesterday to follow up on the neuroma. I'm not really that enthused with his treatment plan. I felt like he kinda gave me the bum's rush. So I explained to him that it was getting better as a result of cutting back on my running, but since the race and picking up the running again, it's back with full force. So he gave me yet another prescription for a third anti-inflammatory, and said that if it doesn't work then we'll try a cortisone shot. I reminded him that the last cortisone shot didn't work, and he told me that sometimes it takes a series of them to get relief (never heard that before, but hey he's the expert). So there are two things that aren't sitting right with me:

First, if two anti-inflammatories have done nothing for me so far, why does he think trying another will help? I know different medications have different mechanisms of action and hence some may work better than others, but at what point do we stop experimenting with medication? And furthermore, even if we find one that works great, I'm really not on board with the idea of having to take an anti-inflammatory daily for the rest of my active life. Those medications can be terrible on your liver and stomach, especially with long-term, chronic use.

Secondly, the series of cortisone shots makes me uncomfortable for the reason you pointed out before. If I start getting any permanent tissue breakdown as a result of the shots, then I can just forget about running altogether.

So where does that leave me....? Well, he's told me to take this new medication for 10 days to see if it reduces inflammation in the area and relieves the pain. I'm willing to do that. But if it doesn't work or if the pain comes back after stopping the medication, I think I'm going to ask about surgical options. I may or may not go for the cortisone shot.

On a positive note, my Newtons should be arriving this afternoon!

TRACEY -

Okay, maybe - MAYBE - you're relaxedness suggest you should be working harder, but taking would could be construed as a negative and making it into a positive.......it is all about pace. And, clearly, you paced yourself very well during Escape -- you ran the whole thing, and ended up feeling (or at least looking) relaxed. I would say that is quite huge, and at the very least it is something that you store in a secure place (log? chart on the wall?) for future reference -- "On 12 June '10, in my first tri, I ran the 5km in xx:xx and felt quite good in the process."

Many people will stay at their perceived comfort level for quite some time, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you want to take that time for that distance and try to repeat it for the next however-many races, that's fine. And if you want to go into W.C. or T-man and try to improve on it by a certain amount of time, then you'll know what you felt like achieving the Escape time and have a ROUGH idea of what to expect with an increased effort.

Just as an aside of sorts, I think the T-man run is easier than the Escape run. Much of the first half of T-man is a graaaaaadual rise, but then it becomes a decline on the return. And when I say gradual, I'm thinking it is amybe less than the second-to-last straightway at Escape -- the one leading up to the right turn that became the left turn to the finish line.

ANYHOW, you certainly worked hard enough for your first triathlon, and your relaxedness has nothing at all to do with doggin' the effort!

Woo-hoo!!!!  Super Triathlon Weekend!

TRACEY again -

A few thoughts on your foot and the podiatrist:
(1) Do you think he's one of those guys who feel that we athletes "bring this on ourselves"? That might explain why he hurried you through the session.
(2) I have heard that sometimes it takes several injections before something positive happens......but that was not the case with me.
(3) As you said a few weeks ago, if these things get too advanced, nothing much will shrink them down to a manageable size; at least, that's the case with many neuromae.
(4) I share your concern about anti-inflammatories*, although a 10-day trial might be okay. I say that with the thought in mind of managing the thing for the rest of the season, and with an eye towards surgery in the off-season.


* I do not have a very addictive personality (well, I race too much........ ), and I guess that is part of what is behind the fact that I am probably the only adult my age that you know who has never been drunk or stoned. BUT, back in '95 I went through a couple of months where I had bad earaches and the fairly-frequent nasty headache, and to ease my misery I took aspirin -- which I had done all my life for various problems, and with no adverse effects. I didn't keep track of how many I took, but I was doing enough to "manage" the ear and the head. If either of those hurt at midnight before I went to sleep.....I took an aspirin or two; I didn't even think about things such as "empty stomach".

At some point a few months into this regimen, I began to feel constant "hunger pangs", and eating didn't minimize them.. This came to a head one evening when I felt a "pop" in my stomach.....and then a few days later started having bloody bowel movements. By now I think you know where this is going, and the end of it was having to rush into emergency with a bleeding ulcer, and that led to a couple of days in the hospital and an endoscopy.

The lesson there was that addictions can be mighty tricky things, and in hindsight it was clar that I had developed an addiction to aspirin. It wasn't a craving or a clinical dependency....but as a "management tool" it sure caught up with me quickly and dragged me along for an unplanned-for ride! I am constantly aware of my stomach, always on the lookout for any sign that things are not right. There has not been a recurrence, but then again I have not had an aspirin since early '95. I eschew acetosalicylic acid (I know I have misspelled that), but can handle Advil okay. And anything with acetaminophen in it is fine.

Long story, but just in support of your concerns about getting hooked into anything that is potentially harmful to the stomach (or liver, for that matter).

KASIA,

I love reading your posts - you have such a great sense of humour. 

Hope you have a most awesome race this weekend!

DENISE,

Have fun doing your 5k this weekend.   Hope you have LOTS of competition!

SHAUN,

Good luck at Welland this weekend!!  I'm thinking we might drive down to watch to the event.   It would be fun to cheer you on.    If we do, I will make sure I track you down.  

STEVEB,

Good luck to you at Tupper Lake.   Are we going to see another 1st place?????    Hope so.     

ANNE -

Thank you ---- and another first place IS the plan!

Mostly, though, I'm after some time gains. I did it as an informal aqbk in '06 and as the full thing in '08. My swim times were 18:18 and 19:01, and bike times were 59:52 and 59:16. I am REALLY gunning for a better bike time, but the swim has me worried. My last couple of swims have been quite crappy, I don't really know why.

In '08 I had my worst-ever oly run, at 50:29; I just felt clunky for the whole darn thing. I ended up 1/7 in the a.g......but it sure wasn't on the strength of a scintillating run!

My goal is to ride the bike very hard and then push the run to its limits. The good test here is that it an oly run after a less-than-oly bike --- a challenging bike course, but still less-than-oly-length --- so it will involve a mindset that is aiming for a 10km tri-run, but after just 18.6 miles on the bike. So, mind over matter, or mind over misery.

A downside is waking at about 2:45-3:00 to drive there and arrive before 6, where they're holding a spot for me until then. Another reason for going all-out down there is that the race fee is $145US, which is steep for a sprint-olympic "hybrid" and that better demand an effort on my part! But weariness might be a contributing factor, but i hope to arrive at 6, get set up, and return to the car for a 30-minute power nap. Yaaaaaawn!

We'll see how it plays out!

How's the knee feeling, post-Guelph?

SteveB,

No way would I get up at 3am and drive to a race - and it seems you do this a lot.

Denise