Ironman Lake Placid : Official Thread (Page 46)

C'mon Rusty, 22k Run ... puh-leeze.  That'll be a piece of cupcake after the Ironman Marathon.  You can't even pretend to be scared of no stinkin' lil Leadman. 

And YAH, I am sooooo ready to get back to training.   

That's not a bad plan. I find that depending on my fitness level, my schedule and where I am in my training block, I approach unplanned time off differently.

I always do less than going back immediately to what the 'schedule' says. Fortunately, I have learned to 'listen to my body' much better. He has hurt me in the past when I haven't listened closely...

No matter what -  You will be allowed to wear a wetsuit.  If the temps are over a certain degree (76.1 ?) then it will not be a Wetsuit Legal Swim which means - If you wear a wetsuit, you will not qualify for AG awards/ Kona. 

Do Not Worry - You Will be able to wear a wetsuit.  And it has been a mild winter but still plenty cold in Lake Placid.  The low in LP is 32 degrees tonight.

Wow, I was actually right with the 76.1 guess.  Here is the official Ironman position on wetsuits and Ironman racing:

* Wetsuits may be worn in water temperatures up to and including 24.5 degrees Celsius/76.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Athletes who choose to wear a wetsuit in water temperatures exceeding 24.5 degrees C /76.1 degrees F will not be eligible for awards, including World Championship slots. Wetsuits will be prohibited in water temperatures greater than 28.8 degrees C/84 degrees F.

If Mirror Lake gets about 84 degrees... you ever see that movie Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones?  Or more recently the movie 2012 with John Cusack.  Yeeeeah, if Mirror Lake goes above 84 degrees, will be mid-Armegeddon and chances are people will be fleeing for their lives across the globe so the Ironman would probably be cancelled due to the end of the world nearing.

me too...now...sleeves or sleeveless?

'am I more aero like this...or this....?'

 (although, for the record, I intend to NAIL this damn race, one out of one hundred---no problem...)

I was invited by a local club to do a group ride tomorrow-gulp

wish me luck-hopefully the new kid won't have to be in front-ever!

So, I've got a borrowed aerohelmet, green sleeves for StPaddy's day and painted my bike shoes green also...No crashes...No crashes...No crashes...Think I'm ready. Time to bike!

I've studied up on bike lingo but I still think the sh*t triathlete's say is best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KTEgLKhjIw&feature=related

If fitted properly, a Sleeved wetsuit will always be faster than a Sleeveless wetsuit. 

Ideally, especially for an Ironman swim, you want a wetstuit with Yamomoto #39 rubber in the shoulders.  This is a very stretchy and pliable rubber usually found in medium and higher-end wetsuits starting around $250.  The lower-end entry level suits mostly use yamomoto #38 which is not as supple and stretchy; and this is fine for Olympic and 70.3 but can become restrictive for an hour plus Ironman swim. 

If a wetstuis doesn't state the neoprene #type in its description, you can google it or ask the manufacturer direct via email and they should tell you. 

If you cannot afford a $250 suit, a lower-end sleeveless will work purrrfectly fine.   

OH, and good luck with the Tri Club Ride!!  Take your HTFU Pills and hold on!

It's a bike club and I was the only one with clip-on aero bars on my road bike. Not droppedat all during the ride, but they went much slower than their midweek ride, I'm told. Won a sprint to one of the town lines for bragging rights. Didn't fall off my bike. Learned a lot, but there were 4 new peeps and they made it a really relaxed, fun ride-which was a-ok with me. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wow. What a feeling to be pedalling easy and see 19-20mph. Having blockers for the wind is something else.

And I didn't even get to show off my newly shaven legs...

My 4 mile run after flew by -replaying the morning ride in my head...What fun!

X2

I love my Sleeveless Xterra and cannot imagine ever wearing anything else (wetsuit wise, that is)!  Unless, of course, the temps are too cold for it

That's a great vid!

klassman - glad your kid is ok, it's really the only thing that matters, plenty of time to train. 

Got my Fink's brick workout in, feeling pretty good after a tough week taking care of my daughter while my wife was out of town.  Baby sitters are great, let me get to the pool and swim!

Im just doing the 3 workouts "the plan" calls for. I think my swimming has improved a little but not much...but then again I think I could work on my swim like a lunatic from now till July and not shave more than a couple minutes off my time. So im "following the plan" and hoping i keep getting  a little more efficient, a little stronger, and little faster.

Its the freakin bike I better see some improving in....or its going to be a looooong day

I'm doing the 3 days of per "The Plan" as well.  I don't see myself making better speed gains but what I do see is that I'm feeling a lot better out of the pool.  This past Fridays swim called for 3000 yards straight and I was able to do that with no problem at my normal speed.  That was the longest continuous swim I've ever done in my life.  So I have to say it may not increase my speed but I feel I'm going to feel as fresh as you can coming out of that water in July and that is really the only thing that I want to feel.  Besides with the mass start I think my times are going to be all over the place compared to what I do in the pool or in other OWS, because I won't have the same competition for water space, or the washer machine affect, that is going to happen.  I'm expecting to have to stop so many times that I don't even want to count. 

Mostly just two days a week for me, each day 3500~4500 yards, not a lot of straight through swimming, but right now more LT sets. The bigger straight through sets will be mostly open water starting in April/May. The 2 swims per week are more schedule-driven than anything - I would swim a third day if time allowed, but that would start to take too much time away from the bike. My coach gives me a 3rd swim workout each week just in case I can sneak it in - I haven't been too successful recently. I will start swimming more in late April, targeting a 5k that I would like to PR in mid-June.

It is funny -  when I first got my tri bike several year ago I got a professional fitting and then immediately took it out for a 40 mile "maiden voyage." After about thirty miles I literally almost got off and threw it in the ditch. I hated it. It made everything hurt. Within a ride or two however I settled in and it quickly became soooooo incredibly comfortable. No sit bone problems, no back problems, no shoulder problems, no neck problems. I could ride in the aerobars for hour after hour. But this year my coach really beat me over the head about getting out and doing group rides more frequently, so I hung up my tri bike, bought a new road bike and have been riding it exclusively all winter.

Friday I went on my first ride of the year on my tri bike. It was awesome. Like hanging out with an old friend after a long hiatus. It makes me feel like tri season has officially begun!

I'm doing the Fink Competitive plan and it calls for three swims a week -- right now I think they vary between 2,600 and 3,000 yards apiece.  However, I've modified the plan to do less swimming.  On average, I've been getting to the pool about once a week this year.  On one hand, I am not stressing over it because the swim is the least of my worries at IMLP.  Sure, the blender effect will make anyone anxious but I'm not at all worried about how I'll swim.  On the other hand, the "missed" workouts would be contributing to overall fitness and cardio training and I'm sure I could use more of that in my base/build phases.  The net effect is that I've seen some miniscule improvements -- perhaps a second or second and a half per hundred for long sets -- but I'm probably the wrong person to compare against because of background (I swam as a kid and at a very small Div. III school) and training habits (once v. three times a week.)

I'm worried about the run which means I need to stay focused on my bike.  Coming off the bike fresh and fueled up...that is my mid-race objective.  I try to remind myself that the swim is only about an hour out of a really long day -- less than ten percent of the time on the course.  I'd love to shave another five to seven seconds off my splits but realistically, I know I'm better off going longer and stronger each week on my bike.

Oh, and I like all my other posts about strategy and fueling, keep in mind that while I've been racing for a few years, I've never gone longer than 70.3 before.  I'm doing a lot more learning here than teaching...

I'm a dope.  I realized that I never answered your question.  If a 10 is the absolute pinnacle of my swim potential, I'd say that right now I'm at about a 5.  I imagine that I'm probably only going to get to a 7 or an 8 if I'm lucky.  But that is simply because unlike you, I'm not putting the time into the water.  I'm trying to focus on the things that will really limit me on race day...and the water is almost second nature.  As weird as it sounds, the swim will be both fun and I expect a bit relaxing for me.

SEADOCHA, I echo what the other folks have said.  Don't try to understand too much about where you are or what the plan is doing to you.  Stick with it; the gains in each discipline show up to us unevenly and really only all come together after 29+ weeks.

Don't know if any of you saw this but Ironman events have changed back to GU products. I have never used GU in my life 9I use Hammer or Powerbar products) But GU is offering a sampler pack Check this out

We're back. And this time we brought some friends.

It's on the course so train with it today! Get started with our GU Energy Pure Performance Sampler for just $19.99!

The Sampler contains at least one flavor of every product in the GU Energy lineup. In most cases you'll get a variety of flavors and always a sample of the new flavors.

• 9 GU Original Gels
• 5 Roctane Gels
• 2 Chomps
• 2 Electrolyte Brew Packs
• 1 Recovery Pack
• 3 Individual Electrolyte Tablets

Heres the link its not a bad deal considering.  https://guenergy.com/campaigns/gu-ironman