left.right.repeat group -closed - Full of a bunch of winners...YEAH! (Page 54)

Okay folks I need to know if I can do this:

April 18th - 875 yrd OW swim.  I will dedicate the time and energy but is this too big of a jump in 4.5 months?  18 mi ride, 3.11 run.  I am not worried about the ride or the run.  The water will be cold enough to require a wet suit and will probably get a sleeveless (See Louisiana  ->Do I need a wetsuit forum discussion) suit.

My goal has been set but as a backup there is a much short Rookie Tri the following weekend.  If anyone thinks I shouldn't try this speak now or cheer my tail onto glory!

Reasons for this Tri:

1. Close by (less than an hour away).  My family can come volunteer and cheer me on. 
2. Checked out the area today, very nice
3. A challenge that seems difficult but not unattainable
4. This is the first Tri I had read about.  For me there is some mystic about it.  No rational thought here.  Just is.

Thanks!

Gary - you can do it.....pay the entry fee.....we will get you there on the swim....how far have you swam so far?  How do you feel (in your head) about open water?  I ask that because I have NEVER had an issue in OW...that said, my next race I am sure now I will freak out....I love to swim OW....I prefer it about a BILLION times to a pool.  I love my wetsuit (sausage casing per Mav).....you will do very well.

One tip - contrary to what you hear....do not pee in your wetsuit....one it is kinda nasty....and two, it will make the neoprene stink ultimately.  Now for those of you who already have....use some wetsuit shampoo or baby shampoo....turn your wetsuit inside out and take it in the shower with you....lather it up....rinse fully....now rinse some more...and then with compassion in your voice, promise you will never, never vacate yourself into your prized buoyancy aid again....no matter how badly you have to go....I think due to karma that urine will neutralize the buoyancy provided by the wetsuit...and if it doesn't - it should.....don't pee in your wetsuit....there's another rule....we only have a few but we ARE serious about them.

Bryan

LOL!  Sorry that is a good rule but had me rolling!  Okay I will sign up for that race!  As for distance I have always lost track of how many laps I have done.  I suspect somewhere between 600-1000 yds where I take breaks on each length and I have used fins.  On the other hand I have never left the pool think "I couldn't swim another foot!" so there you go.  Looks like my race schedule is:

• Feb 14th Mardi Gras Mambo 10k (my very first race was this one)
• March 1 T-Gator Duathlon
• April 18 LA Tri (875, 18.6, 5k)

Yes Gary YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!

 Go for it...you will ave as blast!

I will admit I have peed in my wetsuit, esp while I was trianing 2-3 hour swims...it happens. Soaked her after and she smells like a rose!

 Now...have you peed on your bike yet????

Gary, I understand how you feel. I signed up for my first tri before knowing how to swim. It is a bold thing to do. I admire you because I know what a challenge it is.

What helped me most was having a fallback plan. It was a pool swim in 5 ft of water. My goal was to swim it, but I knew I could always walk it if I had to. Having a fallback plan kept me from worrying too much. I also knew that if I lost time on the swim, I could make up some of it on the bike and the run. That applies even more so to you than it did to me. You are faster.

With OWS you don't have walking as a fall back option, but you do have backstroke (and any other stroke you know).  You can switch back and forth from stroke to stroke. Keep reminding yourself of that. Work your way up to the yardage using any stroke you know. That will help your confidence immensely. Swimming the actual course is also a major confidence booster.

Personally, I picked a beginners tri for my first. Very short. 250 yd swim, 9 mile bike and 2 mile run.  Could I have handled something more difficult? Probably. Am I glad I picked a beginners race as my first? Absolutely. Because I know who I am. I know how I am.

I like the idea of a challenge, the adventure of it, the thrill and the bragging rights -- but deep inside I struggle with self confidence. In a very big way. This beginners race helped me find the confidence I needed. To be perfectly honest, the swim was rough for me. Nerves and excitement got in the way. But even so, I still swam my fastest time yet. It just wasn't as I imagined it would be. I was able to accept that and keep going with the rest of the race. And the rest of the race was a piece of cake. I finished in the middle of the pack. I was surprised by the ease of it. I was delighted and walking on air for months. But most of all, I found the confidence that didn't come naturally to me. 

You may not share my issues. You know yourself and your personality.  You know what drives you and what unnerves you. You know how much of a challenge you are looking to take on. What you expect of yourself. How you will feel if you step down or how you will feel if you go for it even if you have to struggle. I'd encourage you to think all this through completely and make a decision that you can accept.

Whatever you decide, you will be fine. Of that I have no doubt.

If you want to take on the OWS, I don't doubt for a minute that you can. Between the added buoyancy of the wetsuit and having the backstroke as a fall back option, you can definitely finish. It's more an issue of what are your expectations regarding the swim portion? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to finish in whatever time it takes? Or are you looking for a certain level of performance? What means more to you?

Once I could answer those questions for myself and resolve my emotions, then I found the focus I needed to tackle the task without distraction. 

You can do this. You can so do this.  I know you can. I can feel it.

Jennifer

LOL! In the time it took me to type that response, you made up your mind.

I'm happy for you Gary. Happy and proud. 

Thanks everyone!  WAEF, wow! thanks your response, sealed it even more for me.  You mentioned a back up plan, well as it happens I do have a back up as there is a Rookie Tri the following weekend.  200m pool swim, 6 mile ride, 1.5 run.  March 1 will be my decision date.  If I do the Rookie I will be shooting for time.  With the LA Tri, you will hear me screaming when I cross the finish line!

Now I have scuba dived and used to surf with a full body suit (No Calif water is cold!) and remember how much the wetsuit helped.  With the scuba suit I needed an extra 20lbs of weights to go under.  I will practice the OW at least once if not twice (not alone).

Thanks all for your support!

Total Immersion materials arrived. Triathlon Swimming Made Easy and Drill Cards.

The cards are HUGE, seriously oversized.

I have owned the Happy Laps and Freestyle Made Easy DVDs for a while and watched them several times. But I'm hoping the book and drill cards fill in some of the gaps in my understanding of TI.

To be honest, the reason I bought all this TI material is that no matter where I go, I keep hearing about it. People on these boards, a guy at the pool where I swim, people on the RWTF -- everyone just keeps talking about TI with such enthusiasm.

The concepts of ease and fluidity are certainly appealing.  Not that I find swimming hard. I guess I'm so new at it that I am still astounded that I can even do it. Progress comes almost every time I go to the pool. I guess that's because I started at zero, so there was no where to go but up.

So I'm looking forward to reading and learning and experimenting. Especially with the drills. The cool thing about swimming is, there's always something to think about. Every lap can be different, focusing on a different technique or skill.

I started this whole exercising journey in part to make time for me. The reward I've gotten from swimming is that I've never been more attuned to myself, more body aware, more "in the moment" than I am in the pool.

I was on my trainer for the first time yesterday. Planned a 30-minute session but had to stop after 16 minutes -my daughter Stef called from stable where she rides to say she'd been thrown from the horse she was exercising and so Mrs FBP and I hopped in our second car to go out and get her and bring the family vehicle home rather than have her drive all the way with a sore "noggin". She seems to be fine and is going out today to ride a different horse as part of a series of lessons that she arranged for over the holidays  in preparation for doing an instructor certification. I am always amazed at her resilience when it comes to riding!!

Question for those of you more familiar with cycling on a trainer. Mine is the magnetic type (a Tacx Cycletrack Magnetic model T1430 to be precise) and to adjust the roller setting you move a lever on the roller unit (ie. there is no cable that goes forward to the handlebars which I believe comes with a more expensive version).

So, I have the roller lever set in the middle position and I am riding in a modest gear on the bike (middle ring up front, 3rd largest ring in back) and I seem to be spinning at around 80-90 rpm.

1. Should I simply spin at this cadence for an extended period or should I be varying the cadence?

2.  Is there any difference between varying the gear on the bike versus varying the resistence lever on the roller?

Gary - I add my voice to those who are saying that your goal is do-able. Nothing brings focus to your training like paying the entry fee!! (At least that's true for me since I am as cheap as the day is long - my Scottish heritage you might say).

Spoke to my cousin - we grew up together in Ottawa but he's now a doctor in Milwaukee - yesterday and he once again raised the idea with me of doing a HIM in 2010 to "celebrate" my 50th birthday. It seemed likea good idea a year ago but I'm starting to question the wisdom now. Lets see how this winter's training goes, especially the swimming.

Mav - could you ever have imagined a couple of years ago that you'd be openly discussing bodily functions such as urinating whilst cycling and that the people listening wouldn't think you MAD ????

FBP

Pete, so glad Steph is OK.So scary when things like that happen to our kids.

As for the trainer, I vary the gears and the cadence just to make it more interesting. It can be a very boring workout. I recieved 3 spinnerval DVDs for Christmas. The best one is building base in the off season. You do hard intervals for 3-5 minutes then rest for a minute. I also bike with music...the faster the music the higher the cadence.Keeps the long trainer rides interesting. I would highly recommend that one particular DVD. I am begining to consider myself the "drainer queen" as I have put in over 30 hours on my trainer this month. I also bought a trainer tire..this way I dont wear out my road tire and it doesnt smell like rubber when I ride. It was well worth the investment. I can send you a link if you are interested.

 As for bodily functions...I would never have imagined myself doing anything like this! I used to carry tissues when I ran!!!Its EXTREMELY hard to do this on the bike. There are plenty of threaads on this topic here on BT so I know I am not alone

That burning rubber smell is why I ended up taking my trainer back to the store. Nothing like inhaling burning rubber in an enclosed garage.

Decided to bundle up and brave the outdoors. NC winters are mild so it's not that bad. Although sometimes I do overdress. I have to learn what to wear when it's below 30. That's when I tend to overdo it. 

I'm a girly girl. I carry tissues when I run and when I bike. When I first started swimming and kept getting water up my nose, I took them to the pool too.

And relieving myself in the pool or in the ocean is just beyond comprehension. The lifeguard smiles at me when I keep getting out. She's a girly girl too.

 Glad she's ok. That must have been scary for all of you. She's a tough cookie. Got right back on as they say. Good for her.

Peter and Sebastian enjoying their first indoor ride.

Outside the temp was about -15c and snowing !! (pic was taken the day before Christmas)

Mav - the Spinerval DVD that I was given was  "14.0 Totally Time Trial". I have yet to open it fearing that it was too advanced for me so given your comments I am going to try and exchange it for one of the more basic ones.

My first ever race was the Dublin marathon and I remember how surprised I was when about 2 or 3 miles into the race, as we were passing through one of the most up-scale areas of the city (home to ambassadors, etc.) there was a line of 20 or 30 guys standing up against a rock wall peeing. Suffice to say, the rich folks who lived on the inside of that wall were probably not amused but I sure was!

I am wasting no time to hear that one!  Check your RW PM's

WOW active thread this morning... good conversation - I loved it!

Glad the girl who fell off the horse is okay and got back up...

GARY - WOOOOHOOOOOOO for your run YAY!!!

I just got back from my 35 min run... 3 miles - OOPS I forgot my HRM... oh well, next time

Yahoooooooooooooo!!!!

Poor Timmy. He's probably purged it from his memory by now. Poor guy. I hope he writes back. It'd be great to hear from him.