Experior's Group, Take Two -- CLOSED (Page 7)

I got a quick race report up - I will post a more "colorful" report on my blog when I get the chance.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp...

James -- a really fine race.  It sounds like you dealt with the heat as best you could.   It reminds me of my first HIM, which also had hot conditions on the run (first real heat of the year).  I ended up run/walking the thing, almost giving up half-way.  Racers were literally puking all around me -- it was a kind of puke festival.  My main motivation was 'well, at least I'm not as bad of as that'.

But seriously, excellent job dealing with pretty harsh conditions, both on the swim and the run.  It shows that you were well prepared.

James, outstanding time down there in New Orleans.  I checked the weather and it looked pretty humid...tough stuff. 


I ran on grass today for about five minutes with no problems...first running of any sort in two weeks.  My first triathlon is a sprint this Saturday and I'm hoping the legs will hold up.  I suppose I'll find out after the bike...

I can't wait for this race...it's going to be a blast! 

The heat was rough but only because it was the first of the year. This past weekend will feel like at cold front in a month or two.

Thanks for the encouragement! I do appreciate it.

Biking question for some geeky physics type in our group :-)

As I was riding yesterday, it struck me how much physics theory must go into biking.  We already discussed this somewhat with aerodynamics, but I am guessing there is a whole bunch to consider with momentum and the best times to put energy into the ride to maximize velocity (woah... that almost sounded geeky in itself).  Here are my general questions and I'm probably not even smart/experienced enough to ask them correctly so feel free to ask the right question and answer that instead.

When are the best times to accelerate one's pedaling / power? 
When are the best times to stand?  
Does standing/pedaling use similar muscles to the run and therefore should be avoided?

Probably good bikers are just always pushing... but I'm thinking about the upcoming 56 mi and trying to conserve energy for the run.  What prompting this thinking is that I have a whole bunch of hills on my local routes and I'm never sure if I should go as fast as I can (pedal hard) downhill to get momentum to go up the hill or if I should conserve some power and let gravity help and then push hard going up (which is usually necessary regardless, but if I push going down I have less when I go up). 

Not sure I've made myself clear, but hopefully other people have these kind of thoughts when out biking for a few hours... lol. 

Have a great day everyone!
-Stu

On my way out the door for a hilly ride...

The standard answer is that in general the best you can do to is to keep an even effort (power) throughout the ride.

And that's mostly correct.  However, if you want the most speed for your effort, you need to take air resistance into account.  (Mostly what you are doing on the bike on the flats is overcoming air resistance -- just as mostly what you are doing in the water is overcoming the resistance of the water).  Air resistance goes up approximately as the square of velocity.  This means that an acceleration from 14 to 15mph takes less effort (power) than an acceleration from 18 to 19mph.  Or, to put it the other way around, a given increase in effort will give you more additional speed at lower speeds than at higher speeds.

The upshot is that it makes sense to put a little extra effort in situations where air resistance is less of a factor, which means, in general (unless there is a massive tail wind) on hills.

However, there is a proviso:  people tend to go harder on hills anyway, and some of us (Michael raises his hand in guilt here) go TOO hard on hills.  So although the reasoning above suggests 'go slightly harder on hills', the fact is that most of us do this already.

Should you pedal down hill?  Absolutely!  (Unless you spin out of course -- for me that happens at around 45mph, but it will depend on your gearing and your tolerance for high cadences.)  Pedal a bit easier going down.  This is actually better 'rest' for your legs than coasting.

When should you stand?  That's highly individual.  Some people can stand and still be pretty efficient.  Others can't.  I've actually been working on that a lot lately, trying to be 'lighter' on the pedals when I stand.  I've noticed a big improvement -- my heartrate doesn't jump as it used to when I stood.

Finally, try to spin up the hills.  Don't mash.  Pick a gear where you can keep the effort closer to constant.

OK, that wasn't very organized -- I'm in the middle of doing ten things and trying to get out the door for a ride!  Hopefully it made some sense.  If not, let me know and I'll try again in a moment of greater clarity...

I love utterly trashing my legs on a hard ride.  Just love it.  Makes my day.  I hope you all are having similarly wonderful days.

That is all.

Yeah, but did you barf?

Thanks for the analysis on the momentum / physics stuff.  45 mph eh?  You must have a whole different set of gears than I have.  Finally got by the bike store for the helmet today (had to get a replacement tube).  Also looked at clipless systems.  A bit of thought will have to go into that, but I'd like to try to get that in place after this weekend's sprint, but before the HIM.  I need all the help I can get :-)

Got to feel good to be back at it.  Now we just have to get Heidi fixed up and we'll be back to full strength again.  Good luck in the Sprint - is it one you've done before?  In Chicago?

Well, signed up for a tri. I guess it counts it's at a local rec plex. A 500m swim (pool), 21 mile bike ride and 5 mile run on June 20th. Excited, but a little nervous. The 5 mile run following the bike is a little concerning. I thought I mis-read it at first look. I was thinking it was a 5k, but it's 5 miles. Better start doing some bricks.

Got a 10k run in this morning and bike this evening. Still having problems getting to the pool. That needs to change. Especially now.

BTW Crushed the 100lb. mark today 223.7. Next stop 185. Actually, cutting back on my running miles has really helped. It's made my apetite easier to manage.

Phil

OK, first of all: WHOO HOO!!!  100 lbs.  That is truly awesome

On your race:  those are some interesting distances.  The bike and the run are close to Oly distances, but the swim is sprint distance.

Overall, this is a harder race than a typical sprint.  Work on that swim, and continue to increase bike mileage -- you've been doing well on the bike recently -- and you will be in great shape to do well at the race.

Totally blows my mind Phil... just amazing.  My wife and I had lunch yesterday with old friends from college who we hadn't seen in probably 15 years.  Alot to catch up on... among which was that she had lost 115 lbs a few years ago.  I salute and admire you both for the strength and vision it takes to make that turn.  My hat's off to you, Phil!  On to 185!  Hope to meet you on the way down around 190 :-)

Stu

Congrats Phil!!! That is a milestone. I understand - many years ago I started a similar journey.

Last year, after this race, I did not take much time off ( I did a century the following weekend ). So I am taking it easy this week. A little bit of swimming and I rode 20 this morning. Not much else. I am trying to be smarter this time.

If interested - swim and bike reports from my blog.

SWIM: http://hubcitytri.blogspot.com/2010/04/race-report-swim-703-new-orl...
BIKE: http://hubcitytri.blogspot.com/2010/04/race-report-bike-703-new-orl...

First of all congrats on reaching the 100 mark Phil.  As I have mentioned before I go to Weight Watchers and there are numerous folks in the Sat. Group who have reached this milestone and more.  I tell you the drive and determination they have is inspiring, the same that I hear from you.  The one thing that keeps them going is their support group.  I hope we are providing some of that to you.  Keep going strong and reaching for those goals.

I can't wait to read your race report.  I enjoy reading others reports and experiences they had out of the course and some of their realizations.  You can learn so much about yourself during that 1 - 2 hours time frame.

Phil, way to go on hitting that milestone.  That is awesome (in the original sense of that word)...talk about determination and dedication to a goal.

My sprint is tomorrow at U of Illinois (my alma mater) about 2 1/2 hours south of Chicago.  I unfortunately will not be able to get down there this evening, so it'll be an early morning for me- I plan on hitting the road at 4:15am.  I am surprisingly rather nervous, but in a good way.  This is going to be more of a learning experience than anything else.

I got some massage work done yesterday (highly recommend it!) and my legs are feeling much better, but I'm still far from 100%.  I've bagged the half marathon that I had scheduled for next weekend and was able to get a total refund on my May 22nd short Oly Tri, so I'm cleared for take off on tomorrow's run portion of the race.  I should really just jog it, but I'm competitive and impulsive so I'll probably go all out and then spend the next 4 weeks healing up my legs : )

Stu, good luck at your race this weekend!  Looking forward to swapping race reports.

Thanks for everyones congrats! Feels good. I have not been this low on the scale since college. Bigger fish to fry though, on my way to 185-190.

Back to the pool today. Started 0 - 1650 plan, but I think it's going to go faster this time. Swam 700m felt pretty good. Really excited HR monitor works in the water. Jumped in the pool after a run and forgot I had it on. lol

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Phil

Edited by StlPhil 2010-04-23 4:02 PM

No workout yesterday, got really busy at work then Playoff hockey in the evening. Today, left work early so I could get a swim in but got side tracked on my way home and bought my new bike helmet so I can start going out on the bike. It supposed to be a nice day tomorrow so maybe I can sneak out for a 45 minute ride.

Good luck to all racers this weekend.

Good luck to everyone in their races this weekend.  Get out there and have fun!  Let us know how you did.  Look forward to reading the reports.

Brian

The rest after last weekends race has done be good.

I love this time of year because you can really start spending some time outside. I got an easy hour + bike ride in on Thursday morning and then a tough interval running session at lunch. I met a group of about 5 guys out on the rails to trails (at the university that I work at) and we hammered 12 x quarter miles between 1:25 and 1:30 with 30 seconds rest. The heat is coming on but we were lucky because the humidity was not excessive.

On Friday and Saturday mornings I got solid trainer rides in – these were breakthrough rides – ones that I have failed on before. Friday was 7 x 1 minute HARD (hard for me) w/ 2 minutes RI and Saturday was 5 x 5 minutes PRETTY HARD w/ 2 minutes RI.

My body has responded this week with the recovery. I am one of those types that doesn't give the recover y the importance that it deserves. It feels good to absorb some of the training!!!


Have a great weekend!!!

Thanks for the race wishes everyone!  Unfortunately, I got hammered at work at the end of this week (and for the next 4 or 5 days)... so I'm not in an ideal pre-race state, but since signing up for the HIM, I'm viewing tomorrow's Sprint as more of a warm-up for the main event.  If I do well, great... if not, it will be a heads up for 2 weeks from now.  To that end, since I got home after dark yesterday and missed getting in a long run, I just did 8mi today instead for a break from work.  No doubt it will not help my performance tomorrow... but neither will the predicted thunderstorms... lol.  Anyway, hopefully all will go smoothly tomorrow regardless. 

Looking forward to trading race reports with you Mike... good luck down in CU.  We've got some family there and a good friend of mine taught there for years.

Hey Phil... that's a heck of a first tri you've signed up for... apparently they make 'em big out in the heartland!

Time to fix my flat from last week...

Cheers,
Stu

Skipped my workout today (on purpose).  Trying to listen to my body.  I had a couple of tough track workouts this week with intervals and went on a long hilly bike ride with my Tri Club on thursday (was originally supoose to be a hour workout) and turned out to be a 1:50 bike ride.  Today was suppose to be a 1.5 hr bike ride with a 30 min brick run.  Ankle was feeling sore adn I felt tired.   Anyway I'll go for a run tomorrrow and then get my swim in during the evening.  Next week I'll try to get all my workouts in and then a recovery week and begin my peak phase before my Olympic on June 6th.

Good morning all,

Well my first triathlon was a success- I won my AG!  I was thinking I might be able to crack the Top 5 if I raced it, but no way did I think I was going to win.  Two things happened: one; I ran a lot faster than I'd expected to, and two; I caught a huge break in that there were no super fast guys in my age group.   I think my final time was in the high one hour, one minute range with a 300m swim at about 5:50, the 11 mile bike at just over 20mph, and my '5k' (it was shorter than 3.1 miles) pace at about 6:50/mile. My transition times were those of a first timer (high).   Last year my time would probably have gotten me fifth in my age group...I guess the speedsters moved up or stayed home this year. 

I will post a race report once the results are posted online (I was too excited about winning to have written down my times).  One thing I will note now- pool races are a real challenge.  Even though this was a 50m pool, there were still plenty of log jams.  Also, running in a triathlon is incredibly different than regular running...my legs felt really heavy and odd for the first 1/2 mile+.

Now it's time to heal up the shins and calves so that I can start a long-term, injury-free period of training.  To say that I'm hooked on triathlon would be an understatement!

Edited by Stone Cutter 2010-04-25 10:09 AM