Asphalt Junkies Winter Edition - CLOSED (Page 30)

Originally posted by JeffY

Originally posted by wbayek

Originally posted by strikyr Warren sorry to hear about the shoulder. I hope you are feeling better and are able to participate in the bonefrog race. You've been training very hard for that I'd hate for you to miss that one. I've also been forgoing some calories on the indoor workouts using water but I can't say I've gone 4 hours with that strategy. I don't think I'd make through that long a workout without a few calories.

Thanks Tony. It would be a major downer to miss the bonefrog. On the plus side they refund your money if you have a medical reason (with doc note) or let you transfer to next year, which I will probably do. The weird thing is the shoulder started hurting after I woke up a few days ago. Yeah, yeah, cue the old man jokes! As far the long ride, I wouldn't recommend going that long without calories really, but I guess I still have a pretty good hump to draw energy from!

Since it came on suddenly and without any particular trauma to point to, the odds are pretty good that it will subside quickly. Give it a few days and you might be just fine. Calories...I think that you have proven that your body can effectively switch to fat for fuel simply by accomplishing 4 hours without calories. That's great. I think that those folks who are ultra vigilant to feed their bodies during ALL of their workouts can lose the ability to seemlessly switch to fat for fuel. I say this because it's actually a very normal phenomenon to see sedentary Americans start an exercise program and they pass out because their bodies literally cannot use stored fuel and their blood sugar crashes. And the only people I've seen bonk are those people who haven't been in the fat burning zone before. (about an hour of endurance exercise without glycogen intake). But come time for the long races, you want to be adept at getting calories while racing, so doing it in workouts is good practice. On the pedal stroke topic: I don't know how much I've advocated for this publically, but I have been of the opinion for a while now that pulling up, pushing forward, and pulling back are less EFFICIENT. That means they might be a great way to increase your speed when sprinting momentarily, but don't have a place in your 'regular' pedal stroke which is done for hours on end (or even just 30+ minutes in a sprint tri). Those muscles are designed for 'recovery' of the leg during walking and running motions and even though they are smaller muscles, that doesn't mean they use less O2 per watt of power than the big mover muscles. I think it's best to simply push down. Although I do try to lift the weight of my leg itself off the crank on the upstroke. If for no other reason than I have a habit when daydreaming, of keeping downward force on the pedal all the way around. And I think that many of us probably do....so we can learn better pedaling technique in so far as we can remove parasitic power loss that we are applying to ourselves. But I don't think this should end our discussion of pedaling techique. I will bring up another sub-topic soon.

On the subject of caloric intake during rides, I gave an unplanned attempt to keep my calories low during yesterday's long ride.  I had a bottle with 150 calories and had some dried fruit spread over 2:45.  The only trouble was that I was above threshold for the final 22 minutes of the ride and I was beginning to crash pretty hard.  I began to take the remaining minutes of the ride in 2 minute increments to chunk the effort down into achievable goals and telling myself "I can go for another 2 minutes."  This strategy worked but I was cooked and all I was able to think about was food.  After getting off the bike I had to change clothes and get off to help Lis clean up after Niki's bridal shower, so I made a protein shake and bounded off.

Pedal stroke is something I have not done any type of study work on.  I have very little input here other than it make sense to me that there would be dead spots.  At the top, just before the apex of the crank, maybe 10-10:30, seems to be where I go dead.  I would suppose that a persons cadence would also somewhat dictate where the dead spot would occur.  Riders with a faster cadence would seem to have a little more trouble getting over the top while powering through than those with a lower cadence.  I am only applying what would seem logical since it would harder to complete a revolution while applying power in 360 degrees with faster cadences than slower.  And I ride between 90-92 most of my rides but I am actually trying to transition down to high 80's right now.

I have found that when sprinting r climbing that i can get a little more power/speed output when I try to pedal complete circles, but I cannot sustain that for entire rides.  It develops a little more need for oxygen and my muscles fatigue more quickly when using this technique.

Tony,  It sounds like you had a great time at your race.  Your strategy to sit behind someone a little faster and pace was probably a good strategy to make sure you pressed yourself to the limit.  I was used as a pacesetter last year during a race but didn't know it until after the race was over.  I found out when I messaged her on facebook after learning she had won her AG at the 70.3 Ironman in Muncie.  Anyway, a great tactical advantage can be to use a person ahead to pace or pass and it looks like you pulled off another great ace because of it.

Good job!!

Will,  Maybe that's why the post from John quoting Hebrews 12 was so significant to me the other day.  I was at a bit of a low spot because my knee had been giving me some issues and seeing the support of those within the group became a bit of a light.

Great ride too!  I've had my share of windy rides lately too.  I've been outside for 3 rides so far and all of them have been in windy or very windy conditions, but because of riding with strong groups I've been able to hold really strong averages.  The rest of my rides have been on the trainer so I can have a specific focus and use the power numbers as training factors more closely aligned with my targets.

Thank you Dirk and Tony. I am going to to stick with the scaled back training and still keep one long ride around where I am currently at. I plan on sticking with your advice for the shorter rides.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo Junkies!

Hope you all had a great training weekend. I ran a 5k on Friday night and ran my fastest time to date - 24:45. I would not have pushed it if it wasn't for that lady tring to pass me. Woohoo! Perhaps I should not have pushed it so hard 1 week post HIM. I noticed a little pain in my shin on this morning's 4 mile run (shin splint perhaps). Time to ease up a little, I have battled through shin splints many times before.

Wow sounds like everyone is putting up some good times.  Glad to hear everyone has been doing so well. 

Just came off my biggest week of running ever.  Hit 52km.  That's the first time Ive ever gone over 50,  so I'm pretty happy with where my running is two weeks out from my HM.  Swimming is starting to come around.  Glad I still have 8 weeks before the HIM so I can get in some more pool time and hopefully a few good OWS.  Biking has been average but getting there.  Missed my long ride last week as I unfortunately had to travel to my grandfathers funeral.  I think the extra bit of time off the bike might do my legs some good as they have been feeling a little fried lately.   I have done one 100k ride so far and really tried to keep my HR consistent in upper Zone 2.  Im not used to trying to pace myself up the hills as I usually go a lot harder up them and then coast down the other side however I felt much better at the end of the ride and even averaged about the same pace.  I averaged 32 km/h so just under 20mph.  Hopefully in warmer weather and with a pile of aero gear I should be able to average over 33km/h for the 90km and the HIM and still have a solid run. 

Hope everyone keeps up with the solid training and Dirk I hope your knee gets back too 100% soon.

Nice job Derek!

Whoever brought up the WIND.... I HATE wind too. Nothing kills me on a ride more than fighting against wind.

Congrats on the race!!

I doubt the effort that you seem to have put out at your HIM was so much that you had to knock things back for long.  I have noticed that long course triathlon is far easier to recover from than long course running alone.  A half or full marathon run at race pace for me will take me 1.5-4 weeks to recover from completely but a HIM seems to be less than a week before I feel I can resume some productive workouts.  (Productive=easy miles with moderate volume on the bike and run, with the running coming 4 days post race.)  By about 7 days post HIM I can begin to do some hard stuff again, particularly in the pool and on the bike.  Running a HM takes me at least a week to get my legs back to normal but I can run again within 4 days but very easy.  A full?  Well!  that's a different story altogether!!  If I get a solid massage I can be running in less than a week but it's short and easy and spread out by at least 2 rest days between runs for another week+.

Originally posted by JeffY I'm impressed with all of you posting about your great (hard) training efforts and races! So, I had a follow-up xray yesterday. Dr. said "whatever you're doing, keep it up...because it's working". It didn't come up that I had been cycling. He suggests that I can try to introduce a little jogging in another 2 weeks. I have only done 1 (ONE...UNO) outdoor road ride this entire calendar year. It was Sunday. I more than half expected to be weak. I felt that way at first, as the bike fit isn't entirely right and I wasn't warmed up to start with, but seldom cut myself slack and just hammer from the get-go. But it turns out I was strong. Apparently significantly stronger than last year? I tend to simply watch my cyclometer and try to stay ahead of 3 minutes per mile. (20mph avg). It's actually very challenging around my house to stay above 20mph for an entire ride if you are solo. Near the end I had climbed to 4 minutes ahead (so 21.3mph?) That gave me an emotional boost.

Yep!  The above statement would be true based on my observations! 

It's good to hear that your healing well.  I hope your injury heals better than mine seems to be going right now.  

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I'll post an update later about how I'm doing.  Thanks for asking Joanne.