Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 22)

You'll nail this thing.  You're preparation has been really solid, now it's all about execution.

hahaha, I don't know why, but that's hilarious. 

Good luck tomorrow!  I'm heading up to VT so I won't get to post before your race.

Anyone watching the time trials in California today?  Our local girl Heather Jackson is supposed to race....I'm psyched to see how she does!

chopadog83 - 2011-05-20 12:25 PM Got it, thanks for the advice. As an FYI I didn't actually mean a "layoff", I meant time inbetween my races... It is crunch time, wooooo. On another note, I rode my bike to work today. Turned out to be 48+ miles. I got a flat 10 miles into it and then I got another flat right outside of work. I was ticked to say the least. Now I have to figure out a way to get 3 tubes for the ride home . Happy bike to work day!

Crap!

When flats run in bunches like that you really need to search for a common cause.  If both flats were the same wheel, then I'd look for something you are missing either embedded in the tire, or an irregularity in the rim.  Don't forget to inspect the rim strip and ensure it's completely covering all spoke holes.

What an incredible training day!

Oops.  well I can def see why it would be so funny.  I just swam 4000 yds with a 500 TT in it and now I am only going to swim 200 yds?  Heck yeah that would be funny.  It was supposed to be 2000 yds.  I never got it in though.  the wife and I went to Lowes and spent way to long picking out plants and gardening supplies.  We are going to have our first garden with real vegetables.

chopadog83 - 2011-05-20 1:25 PM Got it, thanks for the advice. As an FYI I didn't actually mean a "layoff", I meant time inbetween my races... It is crunch time, wooooo. On another note, I rode my bike to work today. Turned out to be 48+ miles. I got a flat 10 miles into it and then I got another flat right outside of work. I was ticked to say the least. Now I have to figure out a way to get 3 tubes for the ride home . Happy bike to work day!

That's a serious training day - I hope your job isn't too physical or that would be long day!  I've been very fortunate having only flatted once in all my riding.  I do use heavy duty tires other than for races.  Does that make a difference?

Greg and Dirk, how did the races go?

As for my trip home it was only 40 miles since I got a ride to the bike shop to get some more tires and use a floor pump. No flats the whole way back but my legs were seriously dead. I'm proud of my 88 mile day. Over all I averaged 18.2 heading to work and 15.5 heading home. I live up river so it was almost a climb all the way back. It was a beautiful evening and I took a few brakes to alleviate my tight shoulders and neck. When I got home I almost felt like I would have cramped it I pushed it any harder. Have a good weekend of workouts everyone! Go get 'um racers.

Well today was my first official swim workout in about 25 years.  My goal for this workout was to do 500 yards at a nice easy pace that wasn't pushing anything, while I worked on remembering my fundamentals.  When I finished I didn't feel like I'd had enough of a workout so I decided to add another 250 yards.  I didn't want to go any further than that.  My reasoning being that I haven't done an upper body workout in a long time, so I wanted to keep this workout manageable and not cripple myself tomorrow morning. 

Here are my thoughts after the workout.

1. My breathing and long capacity blows! This will definitely have to be worked on.  I only managed about 150 yards doing freestyle.  The rest was all breaststroke.
2. I remembered that I really dislike the smell of chlorine.
3. My heartrate was higher than I thought it should be based on my perceived effort.
4. Even if I end up just doing breaststroke, the 500 yard swim for my sprint in July isn't going to be an issue, and I way over estimated my guess as to how long it would take me to swim that when I registered.
5. I've got to figure out how to work more swim workouts into my schedule.

Ryan, 88 miles on the bike would have me pretty tense too, especially if I had to ride 40+ miles at only 15mph.

Brian, You'll be surprised at how well some of your run and bike fitness will carry into the swim.  As far as your lung capacity goes, you may have just been swimming a little to fast for your level of swim fitness.  Try slowing down some and make sure to turn your head and not lift it out of the water.  Right now it's like you said, take your time and revisit the funadmentals to make sure you come back correctly.

Here is my RR from todays race.  Enjoy.  It was very fun!

First, number 4 is a great attitude and it's great feeling confident.  I also think you probably have plenty of lung capacity for a 500 yard swim from running/biking.  Swimming is a different animal.  Definitely try to fit some more swim work in, and ideally get a coach or someone who can critique your form.  Swimming for me is all about balance and form.  I was lucky enough to get a video of my form when I started, and what I thought I was doing and what was actually happening were totally different.  A friend who coaches gave me a few key form tips, and it made everything much easier so I was able to swim faster for far less effort.

Awesome race Dirk.  And you get a pass for losing a few seconds to thank a Marine.

First Tri Results!!

Just finished my first tri! My goals were 1. complete the tri without stopping. 2. finish under 1:20.  I accomplished both goals. Here are my results:

 One thing for sure is that I need to concentrate on both my bike and run training.  Overall I was 37th in the swim (3rd in my AG) while going at about 80% effort but got smoked on the bike and run.  But I had a great time testing myself.  Also couldn't believe how much my legs felt like lead during the run after the bike - huge wake up call.  Thanks for all the advice leading up to this race.

Good job on your first races of the season Greg and Matt.  Now that the first race is complete you have no where to go but up.  You both sound like you had impressive races.

Try to post a race report so we can read a few more of the details.

wow...looks like everyone had a great weekend.  Some great racing all around.  I was up in VT for the weekend.  Didn't get back until about 4:30 last night.  Got about 2 hrs on the bike and a half hour run in last night...but that's pretty much it for the weekend.

So does anyone else use continental GP4000S tires?  These are my third pair.  Honestly I think they are the hardest damn tire to put on.  It took me the greater part of a half hour to remove and install two new tires.  I don't consider myself the strongest person, but I'm not weakling and I can honestly say that I doubt my fiance could install these suckers.

Great races everyone, let the addiction begin!  I second the race report comment; the race reports are great to read and it's also great to go back and review them for yourselves later.  There's lots to learn reading race reports.

I got in a fantastic bike yesterday - I basically hunted out the hilliest 25 mile route I could find and tried to hammer my way up the hills.  My legs are fried today - in a good way.

On another note, I just found a place near work where I may be able to swim.  It’s a tech school with some open lap hours in the morning.  My problem is that all my swimming up to now has been mainly “solo” – either at the lake or at my high school alma mater pool where there are usually 2 or 3 us with 8 lanes, so I’ve never shared lanes before.  Any advice on lane sharing?

I'm really impressed with all of you that raced this weekend.  Very impressive results all around actually.

Kudos.

Dirk, I think you are right...sounds like you could have used a little more in the middle of the race for a faster time.  But you probably wouldn't have had that impressive last mile.

But it takes a few times to nail your race strategy.  And as you get faster, your pacing will need to keep getting adjusted.  It's hard to nail it unless you are a strictly subjective pacer (no time targets, just perceived exertion).

If you are the 2nd in the lane, wait at the end for a chance to introduce yourself to the swimmer.  You will ask if you can join, but the person really doesn't have any right to say no.  But if they decline, you probably want to find another lane because sharing a lane with a jerk isn't a good experience.

When you introduce yourself to the lane, ask the other swimmer if they prefer to swim in a circle or to stay to the same side of the lane.  If there is just 2 of you, staying to the same side is typical.  Most lanes are wide enough to do freestyle and backstroke with another person.   If you do the other strokes, make sure to break stroke when you pass...switching to freestyle as you pass.

You don't just hop in a lane and start sharing simply because if they don't know you are there they may run in to you.

Once you are used to it, it's really not hard to stay on one half of the lane.  I share a lane every day at swim practice, such that when I'm swimming all alone in a lane I find myself hugging the rope anyway by habit.

If you ever have a 3rd or more in 1 lane, you will always revert to circle swimming which means you always stay to the right.

Nice races and training all around!

With regards to 2 in a lane, once you make a few friends ask if they can help you out with drafting or at least close proximity swimming.  I am less freaked out by seeing feet and legs from it.  My tendancies last season where to move away which made me swim into others.  Its a little tricky at the wall but if the other person can flip turn, it makes it easy. 

I think this was the first race I felt pretty good throughout without having a mile or so where I wondered if I had properly prepared or fueled.  The fueling strategy I used worked well for me.  My last HM I think I used to much fuel and I felt slightly full for most of the race. 

As you said, it will take some time to master proper pacing for the reasons you stated.  I think I might have been able to knock a minute or so off my time but it would have been pretty hard throughout the race.  Now I am wishing I had challenged myself more but I am fairly happy with my results.

Subject change: I got back from tonights swim and found I had my new swim paddles I'd had on order on the porch waiting for me.  I guess I'll start using them for my late week swim.  Does anyone have experience using paddles?  How much should I plan on using them at first?  I can imagine that the increase in stress to the shoulder would occur when beginning might cause an issue but I have absolutely no experience.

Swimming with paddles can beat up your shoulder joints, so work into it.  I have yet to use my paddles this year, but plan on incorporating them into my workout schedule pretty soon.

I'm heading up to Lake Placid for a training camp this weekend.  Should be a pretty good time as long as the weather holds out.  Schedule is as follows:

Friday:  45 min run
             1.2 mile one loop swim.

Saturday:  2 loops of bike course (I probably will do 1 loop as I'm not IM training)
                  25 min run
                  1.2 mile one loop swim.

Sunday:  1 loop of run course
               1.2 mile one loop swim.

My bike build is coming along.  The only major thing that I have left is routing the cables.  The brakes came with three sections of cable housing of different lengths.  How the hell do I know which one to use, where?

Thanks for the swim advice everyone.  I went this morning and got into a lane with two other guys - we did the circle swim and it was fine.  A lane is actually plenty wide enough.  It’s a little weird since they were doing continuous swim and I was doing 50s and 100s, but it worked out fine.

Jonathan – That camp sounds like a great weekend.  Is it with a team or did you just jump into a camp?  Any plans to do Placid at some point?

Dirk – It looks like you paced that half pretty well, though you may have been able to squeeze out another minute.  I guess if you don’t blow up there’s always going to be a tendency to wonder what if you went harder earlier.  But that time was a pretty nice PR.

One housing is the full run from front brake lever to front caliper.  That's probably the longest housing, but I can't be sure...depends on how your frame routes brake cables....I am assuming external routing with bare cable for the rear brake along the top tube.

So the 2nd longest run is the rear brake lever to the top tube cable stop.

The shortest one is from the rear cable stop to the rear brake caliper. 

But you are likely going to have some cutting to do to all 3 of them.  I assume they were ample enough to accomodate a variety of handlebars and perhaps all frame sizes...

Jason, another item for consideration.

The front brake cable needs no additional slack because the handlebars and brake caliper travel together as you turn the handlebars....what you see is what you get.

But the handlebar cable for the rear brake needs enough slack to handle your turns.  So before cutting, make sure that cable run is the right length.  The best way to do this is to start with it long and feed your cable through and 'dry run' it.  Make sure it's elong enough for a full turn of the bars.  Then sneak up on the right length by cutting a little off and 'dry run'ing again.  Repeat the process until it's just the right length.  You don't need to leave enough housing to be able to turn the handlebars all the way around, but enough to handle all real world turns.  (which means that it's OK if the cable is what stops the handlebars from turning all the way around past 90 degrees).

These cables will run under your handlebar tape, but you won't be taping until the end.  So in 'test' fitting, wrap tape around the cable/bar in a couple of places for test fitting.  Each time you fit and need to trim, you rip off that tape and then re-do....using masking tape makes it easy to tear off each time.  Taking the time to run that cable up against the handlebars each time is one thing that will help you get a great cable length that will look really clean.