chichitao's group - FULL! (Page 22)

Not so much time time goals but more pace goals I guess:

660Y Swim -11:00 I am shooting for a 1:35/100Y pace so I would be happy with 10:30-11:00?  First OWS so I am really nervous about this and add on the cold water (60 degrees).

16.8 Mile Bike - 58:00 -I want to average 18 MPH on the bike.  This course is EXTREMELY HILLY so I am second guessing my bike training but if I can average 18 MPH I will be a happy camper.  My goal is to not push it too hard on the bike and leave some for the run.

4.3 Mile Run - 35:00 -Run is also hilly so I would be happy with 8 min miles.

Overall Target Time w/ transitions - 1:50:00

Does that sound reasonable??

I can't remember where everyone is located.  Does anyone do any beach runs?  There are a few tris this year that I want to do that are close to my inlaws beach house.  Some of them are beach runs so I need to get out on the beach a few times in the next month or so.  Anyone have any beach running tips?

Tim - based on your training times it all looks pretty good and well within reach for you.  The swim is usually the hardest for me to predict. 

Meggan - sorry can't help on that one.  I'm 4 hours away from any beaches.  Do they do the entire run on the beach? 

Good luck this weekend, T2!  I am just talking to a friend of mine, and she is kinda disappointed that I have a time goal for my first tri, because she thinks it'll discourage me if I don't meet it.  In fact, I thrive and NEED time goals to attain.  You make them or you don't, and that's fine.  But you know for next time!

So I just signed up for a second tri for the summer.  It's only 4 weeks after my first, so it could be a bit hard to be race-ready for both, but I'm going to do my best.  I am mostly looking for experience at this point, and then use the winter to work on my conditioning and performance (and use Christmas to get some training tools  ).  Hopefully all goes according to plan!  

Race 1: July 10
Race 2: August 7th 

Yep, whole run is on the beach.  Here is the link to the course map...

http://www.delmosports.com/pdf/TriCourseNwildwoodMap.pdf

This is the one I really want to do because it is the same beach my inlaws have a house.  Our street is not on the map.  The transition area is about 2 miles from our street.  The boardwalk ends right before the transition area.  I run the length of the boardwalk when we are there.  I will have to check out the general area this weekend when I run.  The problem is I almost always run with Logan.

Wow, it's hard enough to run on solid ground after the bike let alone on sand!

So this is probably a dumb last minute question but... I did a "dress re-hearsal" run tonight inmy new tri-shorts and tri-jersey.  Shorts felt great but the jersey really absorbed more than wicked my sweat.  I was under the impression that you wear the jersey under your wetsuit but I am thinking I will be really uncomfortable and cold if the jersey is soaked.  Is it normal to just put the jersey shirt on after I take off the wetsuit?  What do most male racers do? I guess this question is geared more towards Tim, Patrick & Pete because I assume the ladies leave their tops on -haha

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. - Thanks

For the only tri I have done, I wore a wetsuit with my tri shorts and sports bra underneath.  Biggest mistake ever!!!  I could not get that stupid tri shirt on partially wet.  I did not try for long because I did not want to waste too much time.  For whatever reason I had decided to toss one of my normal running shirts in my bag so I grabbed that and tossed it on.  The friend that did the tri with me and has many under his belt had no problem with putting his shirt on so I figure I will be fine with some practice

T2 - GOOD LUCK THIS WEEKEND!  I wish I could help with your problem, but I still haven't done one!  My husband said he would just wear it under the wetsuit though because it's so darn hard to put on a tight jersey in transition when you're wet.  That's why I just want a tri sports bra, so I can just wear it the entire race and not put on a full top.

Meggan - I live like a mile from the beach on Lake Michigan, but I've never run on it!  I'll admit, when I go on vacation, the last thing on my mind is running on the beach.  I actually hate sand.  So there ya go!   Haha.  But good luck with whichever you pick.  They sound like fun!


It's raining today, so it looks like I'll be attempting my run on the treadmill!  I'm not a big fan of extreme weather, so if it's too cold, too rainy, or too warm, I pretty much opt to stay inside.  I admit it, I'm a sissy.

No word on the job yet for Ryan.  Hoping to hear back today.  If he gets it, we'll likely have money to do a couple tris this summer, and maybe even a 5k I REALLY want to do this weekend (it has obstacles to do on the course!). 

Happy Friday everyone!

Tim, I have yet to do a tri, but my instinct, like all the others, is that it would be VERY hard to put on a tri jersey when wet.  I don't like putting on a loose shirt when wet, let alone something as tight as a jersey!  I will also not be much help after I do my races, because right now, I have a full suit.  Hopefully I don't have the same problem, because that might pose a bit more difficulty for the one piece suit!  What company is your jersey from?

Erica, good luck to you and your husband on the job!  You know we're all pulling for you.  A 5k with obstacles?  That sounds like a lot of fun!  What kind of obstacles are we talking here?

Also, can I just say how annoyingly expensive it is to ship things to Canada?  I mean, come on.  It's $20 for the lowest-class shipping from aevero.com.  That seems a bit out of this world high, if you ask me.  I don't know what it is for American shipping...  Also, all these places with Free Shipping over $xx...  definitely doesn't apply to Canada.  Just a minor thing I had to vent about.  Sorry!  haha 

Edited by LockOut 2010-05-21 7:48 AM

Have you looked into the Sugoi brand?  I believe they are based out of Canada and it might be cheaper for ya.

I LOVE Sugoi.  Yes, they are Canadian.  They are also rather pricey  :P  I have a couple cycling jerseys, but I haven't tried their tri stuff (yet).  Sugoi is pretty readily available up here, and I find it VERY comfy.  My rant was more just the fact that shipping in general is so much more expensive up here.  Any tri stores, like trisports.com, powertri.com, etc. all have ridiculous shipping prices to Canada.  Just a bit of an annoyance.

Not dumb at all and it is great you did a run through.  Everyone pretty much hit the nail on the head.  There are/will be a lot of people that don't wear a top/jersey on the swim and it can be very difficult trying to get it on in the heat of the battle especially when wet (i've always worn a top).  You are usually pretty hopped up and excited and that can make it that much more difficult (just try putting in on right after you hop out of the shower). 

The shirt will absorb water, but it will dry pretty quickly on the bike.  One thing a lot of people don't realize about the wetsuit...water is supposed to get into your wetsuit.  It is the water and air trapped next to your body that gets heated and actually is what keeps you warm.  So, even though your top will be wet when you get out of the water it should not be 60 degree water cold.  Now, I've never been in a cold (air temp) race so I am not sure the effects in that regard, but as long as the air temp is decent you should be more than fine (I've raced in air temps down to around 65 or so with no problems).  It is amazing how pumped up and focused you can get that you don't even notice stuff like this once the race is going.  If the air temp is cold you could try wearing a thin windbreaker type bike jacket if you have one.  Or if you have arm warmers, those could help.

I guess it depends on how competitive you want to be on your first one.  Wearing the top and dealing with the colder air on the bike will be much faster than not wearing it.  If you really aren't concerned with time you could take a small towel and dry your upper body before putting it on.  All are things I have seen people do.  Whatever you decide, best of luck!

I had never thought about the shipping being that much higher.  Know anyone close on the american side that you could ship to?



Edited by chichitao 2010-05-21 10:03 AM

I'm lucky because my husband is a sugoi brand champion, and we get all our sugoi gear 50% off.  Unfortunately right now, as Tim can attest, they have stopped taking brand champion applications because they are reworking the program, but if they get it up and running again, I would suggest applying. 

One of my TriClub sponsors is trisports.com and we do orders through the club, which saves us big money in shipping.  Also, we have a mailing service across the border that US companies can ship to and then they forward it to us at a fraction of the cost, or we can go pick it up and just have the US shipping costs to pay, which is significantly cheaper. 

Edited by corstan 2010-05-21 10:08 AM

What is this "brand champion"?  I have never heard anything about a program like this.  Please explain!  

I'm sure there are similar things around here, but I still live around an hour from the border, so it's not really that feasible to go down there.  As for shipping to the states and then shipping north, I never thought of that.  I will have to take a look into it, thanks! 

Tim, unfortunately, I don't have any friends south of the border who I get to see all that often.  I have a friend in NYC who comes home somewhat regularly, but there really isn't a set time when we get together, so it'd be tough.  Oh well, I guess I'll have to suck it up!  haha 

T2, as for transition from swim to bike, I only have the one experience, it was a pool swim and no wetsuit,  and although it was a little bit annoying with the wet, my bike jersey wasn't hard to slip over my tri top with the built in bra(had it been warmer, I wouldn't have put the jersey on).

Just stay calm in transition, do what you need, struggling to get a jersey on while you are wet can be harder if you are stressing about it.  Watch the transition set up video that Tim posted last week, I found it very useful, especially the sock trick!

You will do great!  and remember to have fun and smile for the camera's!!

an hour to the border, doesn't sound so bad, I drive that long to work everyday. Maybe turn it into a long Sunday ride route:-) 

Here is a link to Sugoi's brand Champion program, info

You bring up a very good point.  It's really not THAT bad.  But after a long week at work, I just really don't feel like hopping in the car for an extra two hours.  The long ride inclusion is a pretty intriguing idea.....

Thanks for the info on the Brand Champion!  I have never heard of that before.  I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for that! 

Thanks for all the advice everyone.  I think the thing that is bothering me is that I bought my tri shorts and jersey from Aevero and it really wasn't what I was expecting.  It fits looser than what I imagined probably because I went with the cheaper option.  Since it is not super tight I am going to put it on after swim especially since I never really have trained or know how the shirt is wet.  I did a test run last night and the material soaked my sweat like a sponge and was really heavy ( I sweat like crazy) unlike any workout tech-shirt I normally wear working out.

Anyways - Set up went great today at both transitions.  Had a nice dinner and I am just chilling in the hotel room and will be hitting the sack soon.  I drove the bike course and HOLY CRAP the hills are CRAZY!!!  I swear my car had trouble on a couple and I really had to give it some gas to get to the top.  Lots of those steep grade signs for trucks all over the course -haha  I guess I just have to remember that there is always a downhill to every uphill.

So I had a good race and am now officially a triathlete haha.  My swim was great finished in 10:30.  Bike as I knew was hilly but I actually really enjoyed the ride except for the 1 mile long climb.  But the run kicked my butt.  the one thing I was not even worried about and it was the toughest run I have ever done.  There were 4 huge uphill climbs and about 5 or 6 huge downhills.  Over all my watch time was 1:55:29 but I think I had an issue with the watch at T2 so I think I need to add 1-2 minutes.  Official time avaialble in a few hours

It was a great day and I totally enjoyed the race and am looking forward to the next one.  Thanks for everyones advice the last few days it really helped.

T2 - Congrats on the race!  I can't wait to read your race report and see your final time! 

Peter - We didn't get to do the 5k today, but the obstacles sounded pretty cool.  They had a tire run, box jump, jump rope, water run, and a couple others.  Hopefully we'll get to do it next year!

Went on a 4 mile hike today though at one of the State Parks!  I love hiking with Ryan and Nadie, so it was a really relaxing afternoon.  Except for the part where Nadie laid in a tick nest and I had to pick like 13 ticks off her!  Luckily, her hair is so thick that only one had even made it to the skin.  We gave her a bath immediately when we got home, and she was not happy about that.  But we're about 99.9% sure she's tick-free now! 

I also weighed myself this morning, and I've lost 7.5 pounds so far!  We think a lot of that is because of how much walking I've been doing with the dog, so I'm going to try to keep that up as much as possible!

Is there anything fun happening this weekend for anybody else?

Tim, congrats!  Sounds like you had a great time at your race.  Did it live up to your expectations?  How did you do compared to how you thought you were going to do?  I can't wait to officially become a triathlete and join your ranks!  

That 5k does sound like fun...  Although running is my least favourite of the 3 sports, so I don't really know why you'd want to put OBSTACLES in the way.  I like obstacle courses...  but the ones that you do when you're a kid, that are about 200m long!  :P  Like you said, there is always next year to do it!

As for my weekend...  It's been going pretty well thus far.  It's a long weekend up here in Canada, and I have the apartment to myself, as my roommate went back to Toronto o visit friends.  I am taking full advantage, and using a lot of the time to train.  I actually managed to find the car race track that I was looking for last weekend.  Turns out I was about 100m from the entrance when I took a wrong turn!  You can imagine how frustrating that is!  I used the track to do a 20k (35 minute) ride on good roads, as most of the roads here are either busy or crappy.  It was a lot of fun.  I will definitely be frequenting the track a LOT, and I will always use it for any TTs that I do, as there are no lights, no traffic, it's not busy...  It's great!  I also went for a run on Friday night.   I need to learn to pace myself at the beginning of the runs!  I always go out too hard, and then don't have much left in the tank.  I have a Nike+, but it doesn't seem to help.  If I try to pace myself for distance, it feels like I'm going so slow!  Gonna have to work on that for sure!

The rest of the weekend is going to be pretty relaxed.  Not much planned.  Maybe a day at the beach with friends (which is right by the track...  I may sneak away from them as they frolick in the sand.  I'm not much of a sand person, and the water will be WAY too cold to swim in...

What about you guys?  What are your plans? 

Good job T2!!!  Glad you had a great race!!! 

Weekend has been great!  We are down the shore again.  My aunt came down Friday night and stayed overnight.  We went on the boardwalk and rides Friday night.  We went out for breakfast yesterday morning and then my aunt went home.  Logan and I went for a late morning run and the boardwalk which was a huge mistake!!  I hit my 24 miles for the week though!  We took the boys back up to the boardwalk for a little while yesterday around lunchtime, then naps, and then we went to visit friends on the next island over.  They live about 2 hours north of us but bought a house down here last year.  We had a great time visiting while all four of our kids played.  I am not sure of our plans today.  Our oldest is still sleeping.  John and I both have things we want to do at home so I don't think we will stay too long today.  I am hoping for a run outdoors at home but may have to settle for the treadmill after Logan goes to bed!