JohnnyKay and Fred Doucette's HIM/IM focused Mentor group-CLOSED (Page 25)

Funny how things can turn around so fast in 24 hours. Had a decent swim today, nothing special but took care of the job. Had my long run on tap for today which I have been doing around 11 miles the past couple of weeks and splitting into 2 runs with the first being about 80% of the distance. Ran 8 miles with some harder efforts and all in all put in a strong run, by no means fast, but I feel like my efficiency is getting better. I am passing on the final 5k later today and seeing how my body reacts. I think Monday's were killing me the past couple weeks as I would drag the rest of the week.

Went downtown last night to watch the Pro criterium. As soon as I got near the course the lead biker was either taken by the wind on the turn, or simply lost his line. Anyway he skidded fell off bounced onto the curb and wrapped his leg around the tree. No padding put on the trees so he took a hard enough beating for the paramedics to take him to the ER. Fun to watch although half the pack didn't seem that much into the race. I have always wanted to do some crits but I fear my handling skills are not of par yet of most riders.

Weather is still crap with no positive outlook anytime soon. It better be a hot and dry summer until Decemeber!

I am proposing a question open for discussion for the week and interested to hear peoples experiences.

Do any of you diet specially during your big race week? I have heard of people that cut out fiber X amount of hours before a race, or some that eat healthy fats, so they have a high storage of fat to burn off on race day. Of course there is the ever critiqued carbo load as well. Just curious to hear what people have tried/done and what has and has not worked for you.

Last year I stayed away from coffee all summer until IMWI and then took in a couple of cups race morning. Can't say it worked on me, I guess I will have to have more of a sampling to see if my body reacted correctly to it.

As far as diet before a big race...nothing complicated...I just try and eat cleaner and drink water like I "should" be doing everyday.

My stomach is pretty resiliant, but I just try and stay away from foods that could possibly give me problems.  Like raw fish or foods high in dairy.  Also stay away from a lot of greasy foods.

In the week before a big race, my biggest concern is actually not my diet...it's getting enough sleep. 

I do nothing special dietary-wise the week of the race other than to eat a meal that I know I will be able to tolerate reasonably well the night before.  Since I tolerate a lot, this still leaves me with lots of options. 

As far as I know, there is no real way to 'fat-load' and your body has plenty of it already anyway.  It is possible to carbo-load, but to do it well means taking some pretty extreme measures (basically eating and training in a fashion that I wouldn't be comfortable with in the lead up to a big race without having done it many times before).  And the upside in IM isn't really all that great.  Since we can eat for most of the race anyway, there is limited advantage gained by getting a 'extra full' top-off of your glycogen stores.

I'm also not into the caffiene 'management' either, though I use some when racing (in some of my gels and in coke during the run).  My pre-race coffee is very important.  But for reasons other than the caffiene kick. 

* double post *

Well said sir.

I'm just sticking to stuff I know is safe and hydrating like hell. My race morning meal will be about 800-900 calories. I'll consume most of that 3 hours before the gun goes off...basically eat first thing when I wake up at 4am.

I don't do anything different with my diet either other than try to eat clean. I can get carried away with sugar during tri training so I am trying harder to watch that this year.

What is on the schedule for everyone today? I actually hopped out of bed and ran first thing in the morning. I usually wait until later in the day but I have a busy day today and I was afraid I'd skip it. Still have a swim on the schedule for later this morning. Then I teach Toddler Gym at 11:00 and MusikGarten this evening.

Can we talk about cadence on the bike? I'm going to experiment with my small ring on my long ride Saturday. I usually ride in my big ring but in the easier gears. After reading the thread about cross chaining (which I didn't know anything about) I think this might be the wrong thing to do. My cadence is typically between 80-90. At least it was on my road bike. I don't have my cadence monitor on my tri bike.

First....great job on the tri over the weekend Dina!

As far as diet, I don't do anything differently.  My stomach seems to handle most foods pretty well, so I am lucky that way.  However, I do focus a full week before the race on hydration.  I still drink my normal coffee and other stuff, but everything in between is water and lots of it.

This morning I did a nice hour long tempo run and later today I am going to get fit for tri-bars at my local LBS.  I'm looking forward to maybe reducing a few seconds on my bike time at the HIM distance by going this route!

Regarding cadence, I see a lot of the faster tri-bots out there going at 70-75 rpm which obviously means they are working a hard/big gear most of the time.  I have played around with both high and low cadence and am not sure which I prefer.  It seems I like to find something in the middle and crank out about 80 myself.  Just a preference I guess. 

I rode my bike on the trainer this morning.  Did 20 minutes of 'work' and then mostly steady riding.  I'll do a short, easy run this evening.

When you ride in the big ring and big cog, you put extra stress on your chain and rear derailleur.  But, if your bike is adjusted well, mostly all that should do is somewhat lessen the lifespan of each from what they would have been otherwise.  As long as you do so only on an infrequent basis, you should be fine.  But most of the time, you should shift back to the small ring before ever reaching the big cog--provides smoother shifting too and less chance of your chain 'jumping'. 

Rarely would it result in the kind of catastrophic failure I had.  I made the mistake of installing a cassette that is not really made for the derailleur on my bike (should have swapped that out as well, but I figured it would be OK to 'short-cut' since the cassette was not going to be my everyday riding set-up).  The big/big combo on that set-up caused the derailleur to jam and quickly rip off the bike.  On many bikes, even that would have only been a 'minor' catastrophe since the derailleur hanger is typically a sperate piece of material from the frame.  The hanger would be likely to snap, but the frame would likely remain intact.  Total damage maybe a couple hundred dollars.  On the Cervelos (and probably some other carbon bikes--especailly those with horizontal dropouts), the hanger is integrated into the frame.  Total damage potentially $2k+ (still looking into repair/crash replacement).

My cadence is typically close to the 80-90 range, as well, though I don't monitor cadence much at all anymore.  As long as you are comfortable, you should just try to find a gear that allows you to ride there. 

If you ride much at all 'on the hoods', you should see more than a few seconds come off at the HIM distance.  Also, by resting weight on your arms (instead of your hands), you will likely distribute your weight better and allow you to relax your upper body more.  That should help over the course of both the bike and run.

Got in my short 3 mile recovery run yesterday, but had to skip my masters swim due to thunderstorms.  We may get a little more T-storms today, which could force me on the trainer after work.  But heading out shortly for my morning run on the treadmill.  About 6ish miles.

Body still feels pretty good, but I'm looking forward to a light taper next week before my Oly.

As far as cadence, I switch to my small ring when necessary.  It's easy for me since the area I ride is usually really flat...or hills.  We don't have many big rollers here where you are stuck in between.

Scott - we talked about this a bit on our last mentor thread but I'll share my own experience here for others as well. I found after slapping aerobars on my road bike that I was way too stretched out in the arms, and I felt like my knees were coming up too high into my chest. I ended up getting a Profile Fast Forward seat post which helped correct both of the issues. Be aware of this as you're getting fit. It's probably not as precise as having a tri bike but it does the job for me, and I'm not interested in owning two bikes right now. It does the job. I'm not going pro anytime soon so I'm happy with the setup.

I felt a little flat in the pool last night. Grrr. 90 minute spin this morning, really needed to flush the legs after some hard weekend running. Tonight I'll do a 1hr run. 18 days left until IMTX!!!

Finally back to "normal" life after racing St. Anthony's in Florida this weekend.

Race went fairly well.  I qualified for AG nationals, which was good (13/114 in my AG) but I was dissappointed with my bike.  I could have been more agressive and I had a lot of trouble with passing and dealing with slow riders in the turns (for the entirety of the bike I was passed by 5 people and passed about 350-400).  I also think I could have pushed the run a bit more.  My HR on the bike was 159 and my HR on the run was 164 -- it should have been about 169 (I have a 10 beat difference between bike and run HRs at similar efforts). 

Now I have a 5 week block - 4 pretty big build weeks follwed by a week of rest and then Rev 3 Quassy.  It'll be interesting to see what I can do on the hilly course. 

Finally back to "normal" life after racing St. Anthony's in Florida this weekend.

Race went fairly well.  I qualified for AG nationals, which was good (13/114 in my AG) but I was dissappointed with my bike.  I could have been more agressive and I had a lot of trouble with passing and dealing with slow riders in the turns (for the entirety of the bike I was passed by 5 people and passed about 350-400).  I also think I could have pushed the run a bit more.  My HR on the bike was 159 and my HR on the run was 164 -- it should have been about 169 (I have a 10 beat difference between bike and run HRs at similar efforts). 

Now I have a 5 week block - 4 pretty big build weeks follwed by a week of rest and then Rev 3 Quassy.  It'll be interesting to see what I can do on the hilly course. 

Finally back to "normal" life after racing St. Anthony's in Florida this weekend.

Race went fairly well.  I qualified for AG nationals, which was good (13/114 in my AG) but I was dissappointed with my bike.  I could have been more agressive and I had a lot of trouble with passing and dealing with slow riders in the turns (for the entirety of the bike I was passed by 5 people and passed about 350-400).  I also think I could have pushed the run a bit more.  My HR on the bike was 159 and my HR on the run was 164 -- it should have been about 169 (I have a 10 beat difference between bike and run HRs at similar efforts). 

Now I have a 5 week block - 4 pretty big build weeks follwed by a week of rest and then Rev 3 Quassy.  It'll be interesting to see what I can do on the hilly course. 

I agree with Fred on this.  I found over the winter that "my" cadence usually falls in the low-mid 80's.  If I'm pushing 90+ then I'm not as effective in generating the same watts since my HR is higher and I feel that it requires more effort than the slightly lower cadence.

I too believe that cadence is personal.  The goal should be to push the most efficient gear at your desired effort level.  Because we all have different muscular structure, that will vary from person to person.

Personally, I don't monitor my cadence while I'm riding...but I do view my cadence data when I download my garmin file.  What I noticed is that during normal training rides, my cadence will be about 85-90 most of the time.  But when I'm racing, my cadence tends to be around 98-100.  Again, it's not something I'm trying to do.  I just think that when I'm pushing lower watts, I prefer a lower cadence...but when pushing higher watts, I prefer to spin a higher cadence rather than mash a bigger gear.