SBR Utopia ---- Permanently OPEN!! (Page 58)

FTFY

Race next week, hoping the dead legs come around.  Had a decent swim last night, main set of 20 x 100s pace on 1:30 with every 5th hard on 2:00.   Held 1:15 or thereabouts on the pace and 1:10 ish on the fast (Disclaimer, my pool is like, an inch or two short, so maybe more like 1:17 and 1:12 in reality)....  Still, a nice confidence builder for NOLA.   Wetsuit legal, but fresh water, so kinda balances out.

Get to do my first "official" ride on the Foil tomorrow, an easy 2 ish hours.

You haven't ridden that thing yet?  Oh my...  

I've ridden it, just not an official Saturday group ride

Hey Neil, good to hear from you!

So, what did you choose?  What do you have planned for races?

Chris called it - I ended up on the treadmill.  I decided I was going to man up and run outside, got to the downstairs of the building and stepped outside to check the conditions...3 min later I was in my car driving to the gym.

HM in 4 weeks time - my PB is not going to be in any danger.
Sprint at the beginning of June
Oly in mid July (right after 2.5 weeks in Europe - might not be pretty)
Sprint in mid August
Muskoka 70.3 in early September

Had my longest run last weekend at 19km, but really fell off this week with lack of motivation, etc.  I'll have to keep the running short this weekend and try to find my mojo.

Still oodles of snow here but we are supposed to have 3 days with temps above freezing (including overnight) and a boatload of rain on Tuesday/Wednesday that should melt a lot of it.  

I got in a good 20k run today (in shorts - yay) with 10 mins @ T-pace in the middle of it.  Feeling really good about my running lately and very optimistic about a good result at the Ottawa half marathon in May.

Another really good training weekend here.  Did a hard 71 mile group ride yesterday (got dropped three or four times!) and followed it up with a quick (for me) four mile run after.  I think I might finally be starting to like running....it was a great run and I almost didn't want to stop!

Then I did an 11.5 mile run this morning -- I always figured if I could get my long run up to 11 miles before my race, I'd be pretty happy with my training.  So that was great....even better is that I still have a couple more heavy weekends before the race to really dial it in!

IM Texas 70.3 was today as well, so I went down and watched and cheered on friends who were racing.  Forecast looked terrible for the race (predicted 70% chance of thunderstorms), but turned out to be a nearly ideal day.  Not sure if the course was short or if a lot of fast people showed up, but there were nine sub-5 hr F30-34 racers out there today!  Guess I'm gonna need to really step it up in the next few years if I want a shot at 70.3 WC!

Nicole- happy for you (us ) seems your running is coming around. Sounds like you're in good shape for the 70.3. St George is not sold out and it's a lot of west coasters... I'd go to roll down if I were you. Never know......

had my first OW swim of the year today. Nice low60s temps. 2 miles in flat water, flowed by a 7 mile run, neg split each mile for an 8:23 pace, which is solid for me. Bit of a harder effort than the plan called for (oops) but yesterday's ride was meh, and I just felt like I needed a real confidence boost for NOLA. Felt really good thru 3 miles so decided to see if I could continue the neg split trend and really focus on maintaining form and not losing focus. Put myself into a bit of a hole on mile 7 so the last .75 mile or so hurt, but got it done and felt very good about the effort. I'd like to be around 8:50 pace or below for NOLA. Now to go beg forgiveness from coach.

Great training Nicole.

I had a pretty good TT today.  The uphill one I do each year...4.5 miles averaging 5.7%.  I'm way too fat right now to really compete at this race but still managed a slight PR of 21:59.  Previous PR was 22:08 from 2 years ago...but I'm currently about 4 pounds heavier this year, and my bike is about 3 pounds heavier.  I was borrowing a SuperSix Evo with Sram Red and 202 tubulars that year.  This year I was back on my CAAD10 and using 404 clinchers.  I lent my 202's to a teammate who had a chance to contend with the overall.

Good enough for 5th in my category and 14th overall...both the highest finish I've had in this race.  299 watts AP and 302 NP.  I started a little hard, averaging around 310 for the first 10 minutes, but held it together somewhat. 

Now the real training begins for Haleakala which is in 2.5 months. 

Good training, good racing, and most importantly good weather - sounds like things are looking up all-around for the SBR Utopia gang.

I had a great duathlon today to kick off the season: 7OA/2nd Masters/First AG. I'll try and do a write up tomorrow evening.

Swim Meet

Long Version

Short Version

Friday
1000 Free: 13:37.92

Saturday
100 Fly: 1:14.21
200 Free: 2:19.57

Sunday
500 Free: 6:29.63
Mixed 200 Free Relay: 28.93
50 Fly: 32.38
100 Free: 1:02.45
Men 200 Medley Relay (Free): 28.03

Rudy and Jay, you guys are beasts!  Congrats on the wins!  I shake my head every time I see your power numbers on Strava.  

Ben, those are great times!  All that time in the pool seems to be paying off, you must be really happy with the results.

Pure Awesome Rudy and Rusty

I don't think I'll ever have the opportunity to name a jpeg "Chris wins"  LOL

Doesn't matter, dude. Your before and after photos are amazing enough.

I really want to add to that thread when I get some time!

Great job Rudy, Rusty, Jay, Ben and Jason! 

To add-on to the kudos, you guys put up some great results this weekend.  I really can't understand some of the power numbers that come through with this group - I'll just watch from afar with some envy...Then again, the swim numbers are also awfully good as well...

First longer ride for me at 2.5hrs this weekend, and after a slow week I had really good legs and good (it's all relative) power numbers for the ride.  But tried to do an easy run later in the evening and then realized just how the ride took out of me.  Just had no get up and go.

No kidding! We see the numbers, but that before & after really shows how incredible the difference is.

So how are you guys using best bike split?  Put in course, bike, wind, etc and projected AP or NP and get a time?   It's interesting, but is there something useful/practical about it I can use on race day (other than watching said time recede in the distance....   )

Great, great racing, Jason, Rudy, Jay, Rusty, and Ben (did I miss anyone? hah)!!  You all put up some amazing numbers this weekend --congrats!

I'm not sure it's terribly useful come race day other than to maybe give you a decent idea of what your bike split will be for planning purposes (ie. are you going to be out there for 2:30 or 3:00?)

It's ability to spit out a course file that you can load onto a Kickr or CT with what it suggests for power levels is kinda neat for training.  I think Rusty tried that or was going to??

If you input Miami with the same settings does it give you an accurate time?  I had to adjust my bike settings a bit to get it right on.  Once I had that right I put in a local TT I did last year and it predicted my time to within 2 seconds.  It's a couple of minutes off for Mont Tremblant though but given that I sat up on a bunch of the hills, it makes sense.