Tony Zamora's group - FULL (Page 7)

@Beckie - Yup, balance will come with time.  Do you feel comfortable on the bike though?  Not too much pressure on the hands, seat bones, etc?  If your comfortable on the bike and have a good center of gravity, the balance should come soon.

We'll have to plan a ride together some day, I'll help you out!

@mashmead - An olympic in September is very duable.  You already got the sprint down, so you have an idea of what to expect.  Just take the next couple of months building up the endurance and definetly practice your nutrition.  There's a signaficant difference in nutritional needs between a sprint and an olympic race.

Sorry.  I have been a little absent from the page.  Doesn't mean that I haven't been working out though.  Monday I got in a 20 mile ride and averaged 16.7 MPH.  Tuesday and Thursday I ran about 2 miles each with no IT Band trouble.  The foam roller seems to be helping, but man that thing sucks!  Didn't have to work today and took another bike ride.  Did 17 miles in an hour.  So my last three rides have increased about .3 MPH each time.  Next week begins swim work.  The only things I have on my list right now are a 10K on the 4th of July and an Olympic the first week in August.  There is a Sprint on the 3rd of July that I have debated but don't know if I could do the sprint and then the 10K the next day. 

Still having extreme saddle issues.  I'm set up to try out a SelleSMP when it comes into the LBS.  They are supposed to be WAY better....I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Had my first bike mishap on Wed.  I was getting off of my bike, when WHAM! a little asphalt gremlin pushed my bike out from under me (and yes, the shoes were unclipped!).  For that fun I was left with a bruised hip, chewed up knee, sore shoulder, skinned elbow, and all types of misc bruises.  My only thought as I was falling was....Oh Crap! My New Bike!!!

I've put off running the past few days because my knee and hip are tender, but it looks like I have been conned into a run this afternoon with a friend.  If my current schedule holds, I'll be biking Sat morning early (7-ish) at RCR.

Must be the week.  On Wednesday I went out for an early morning ride - went from my house to central park and was just starting to get my pace down in the park.  Going about 25mph in aero I was passing a few people and yelled out "on the right"; somehow one of them decided that was the time to move to the right.  Drove me into a curb and over the handlebars.  Ended up with a bent/cracked front rim on the bike, but no other damage.  I've got some road rash and a few nasty bruises, but escaped mostly unscathed.  Sounds like both of us were lucky, no significant injuries or bike damage.

-matthew

@Digger - Yep, the foam roller definetly sucks!  If you do it right, it hurts and isn't the funnest part of working out, but it really does help a lot!

Glad to hear the workouts are coming along and the IT issue is getting better.  Don't push it too much though.  That Sprint the day before a 10k might bring back the injury...

Hey Beckie - Don't remember if you mentioned this before, did you get a bike fit when you got your bike?  If your not fit properly, what saddle you have won't matter.  The position will still affect you and put pressure where you don't want it. 

Sorry to hear about the crash!  At least your feet weren't clipped in! )

Glad to hear nothing broke.  The running will actually be good for you to get that blood moving!

Hey Matthew - sorry to here about the crash!  Good thing nothing broke, a bent rim can be fixed.  Just be careful out there next to pedestrians - coming up on someone at 25mph doesn't leave them with much reaction time! 

Hope you get the bike fixed and back at it soon.  Keep moving to get that blood pumping from the bruises.

A bike coming up on another bike shouldn't have been a surprise, central park at any time (esp. early mornings) is full of all sorts of bikes, most of whom are training for something

Either way, all ended mostly well.  That wheel is done for, swapped front wheel from my road bike to the tri bike and went for a ride that afternoon.  Will probably just deal with it for the rest of the season and look into a new set of wheels next year.  Aside from that got in a 6 mile run yesterday and 2500 yards in the pool today before it got too crowded. 

Now it's time to get some sleep, up early tomorrow for about 2 hours on the bike.  I hope everyone enjoys the holiday weekend!

-matthew

Hope everyone is having a fun and safe weekend.  And of course getting some training in!

The nasty weather kept me from biking as planned.  Finished the Memorial Day race in an ok time for me. 4.4miles in 50:22.  I was doing pretty well, keeping an 11min/mile pace until the 3mile mark. It's still a little humiliating for my kids to go dashing by me.  My 12yo finished a good 5min ahead of me!

My right shin is very achy, so I'm going to take it a little easy tomorrow...maybe just lift some weights.  If the weather holds, I'll be biking on Wed.

Here you go guys and gals, figured you'll get a kick out of this triathlon song video...

Hey Beckie,

Sorry to hear about the shins!  How are they feeling now?  Were you able to get in a bike ride today?

Good job on the run!  you should have just tripped your kids when they ran past you! ) 

Got only a 8 mile ride in last night.  The weather wasn't cooperating.  It was nice though cause I just did an all out sprint.  Been running every other day with my dog and the knees and shins have felt good.  really just trying to gradually build up.  I think I was trying to do to much at once.

Question about running gear.  A couple, actually.

1 - How many miles does everyone typically put on a pair of running shoes.

2 - Does anybody use a gps heart rate monitor?  Thoughts on them?

Iknow my shoes have some life left in them but I'm curious if there's a rule of thumb for how long to use them.  I don't use a gps heart rate monitor but have thought it could be helpful to continously track pace, HR and distance and compare those stats to previous runs of the same route.  They're not cheap, though. 

1 - I've heard thoughts of between 250 and 500 miles on a pair of shoes.  I'm sure it varies by shoe and by the wearer, and I'll defer to those who run more than I (i.e.; people that aren't on their first pair of "proper" running shoes)

2 - I have a Garmin 310XT and *love* it.  Having the GPS (plus cadence, heart rate, etc.) are a great tool in my opinion.  I tend to take a fairly objective view of things, so I like having data available.  Case in point for me was the first few rides one my tri bike; due to the variance in muscle use it felt extremely slow.  The numbers didn't lie in that I was indeed moving faster and keeping a better cadence over a standard loop that I ride regularly and the run was also faster with better cadence.  I've also found that I think less when running with the 310 as I used to plot a route ahead of time to know distance, etc.  Now I just kind of go out and run, whether I'm going based on time or distance I can always check or verify later on to see distance, pacing, and all of the other data points.

While they are expensive, there are a few different options out there:
-The Garmin 305 (predecessor to the 310) is available pretty cheap nowadays (sub $200 if you look around).  The major difference is that the 305 isn't technically waterproof and it's got a 10 hour battery life.  The 310 gets you waterproofing, 20 hours of battery life, and integration with wireless power meters if you train with one.
-There's currently a $50 rebate on the 310xt

Keep in mind that the price is usually for the device itself plus a HRM strap.  If you want to get cadence while running, the foot pod is extra.  Same goes for the cadence/speed sensor for the bike.

To be honest, the *best* resource I've found for the techy side of tri training gear is www.dcrainmaker.com - he's got phenomenal reviews of just about all of the garmin products on the site.  He's also a member on BT, name is 'dcrainmaker'

Finally, take a look at the various other brands (Suunto, Polar, Timex, etc.) - there's a lot of options on the market now.

-matthew

Thanks, Matthew. 

I've looked into the Garmin 305 and have found it for <$200 on Amazon.  It would've saved me from running farther than I planned the other day when I got 2 routes confused.  It really has become a pain to plot the route beforehand and check my pace based on landmarks near the completion of miles within the route.  Plus, my watch/heart rate monitor is not entirely reliable.  I have to push two buttons to check my HR and sometimes it doesn't work or spits out a ridiculous number.  I wish my HR towards the end of 5 mile run was really just 81 bpm.

As far as the shoes go, I'm in the same boat as you b/c I am on my 1st pair of real running shoes.  I would guess right now that I'm about 100-150 miles into them.  I'm not planning on replacing them just yet, they still feel great and have no major wear and tear.  Just curious if anybody has a strong opinion on shoe shelf life. 

Nothing wrong with running some extra distance!  Earlier this week my training group was doing some interval work (about 4 miles all said and done) and I went for a cool down jog with a smaller group (9:30/mi. pace, nice and easy).  Before any of us really noticed we were 45+ minutes into our cooldown and logged about 9 miles for the day.  For me (having no running base at all) more running time seems to be working well provided I'm recovered from the previous day.

-matthew

Hey Mashmead,

Yep, like others have said, about 200 - 500 miles or so is about right.  I just go by feel, once the shoes start hurting and don't feel like they are providing much support, I decide it's time to buy new ones.

I have a Garmin 310, and it's awesome!  I did have a Polar 625 before which was also great, but wasn't GPS so wouldn't map out workouts.  Either way, either having a GPS or foot pod which details your pace and distance is a great training tool. 

Plus, being able to download and review your workouts afterwards is also really motivational and good to track as well!

Thought I'd start things off this Monday morning with a weekend recap.  My wife and I went down to the DC area for the weekend to visit some friends; bikes were in tow to get some riding in.

Saturday was about 20 miles in around DC/NOVA on the various bike trails they've got - I never realized there was such an extensive set of trails in the area, very nice riding just humid.

Sunday I woke up at 5am and snuck out west to Shenandoah National Park to hit the hills on skyline drive by myself.  Overall skyline is a 105-mile ridge road that runs north-south in Virginia.  When I got there it was empty but by the time I was loading my car up and leaving I must have passed at least 100 bikers, primarily on road and tri bikes, on their way up.  It's a tough ride, with plenty of 5%+ grades and if you ride southbound you face a mostly uphill battle for the first 30 miles or so.  I didn't have time on my side so I put in a short ride followed by a 3ish mile run.  A picture (of the amazing views) and some elevation data below.  After getting back to DC went on a run with a friend for about 4 miles in the heat & humidity.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Skyline drive photo opp:


Elevation profile (for part of my ride):

I'm jealous!  That ride looks beautiful and grueling at the same time.  Was the pic taken at your turnaround?  Great pic by the way.

I ran in another 5k race this weekend and placed in the exact same position as last week: 2nd in age group, 5th overall.  Last week's race time would've placed me 1st in age group and 3rd overall.  But this week everyone's time was slower probably due to the heat/humidity.  My time was 20:32 and the overall winner was 17min and some change. 

The pic was at the turnaround, thanks for the comments.  It was taken with my iphone, so the quality is surprising.

Nice work on the 5k - I think my open 5K time in ideal weather would still be slower than that

-matthew

@ Matthew - nice picture and good ride!  Glad to see there's some good riding up there.  How long was the ride, what roads were they, were they bike friendly?

Always good to know the options in case I'm ever there!