Fred D Mentor Group - Part II (Page 71)

Can I make one suggestion : DI2.

You may have to wait for Ultegra DI2, but electronic shifting is the way to go.

Yup, exactly the same here. Rode at 120psi forever. When I got my first set of Tangentes about 4 years ago though Zipp provided this cool chart that showed I should actually be riding at 126psi. So figuring Zipp should know and contrary to popular opinion I bumped it up accordingly. Interestingly enough they make a distinction between road and TT bikes in that they recommend the same pressure front and back on a TT bike but a slightly higher pressure in the rear than in the front on a road bike. This is due to the riders weight distribution: it is evenly balanced front-to-back on a TT bike but you ride with more weight on the rear tire on a road bike.

It looks like Conti recommends 110psi for the Gatorskins - regardless of weight.  110psi was also just about where I landed in the Michelin recommended psi chart, so it looks like I'm close.  Thanks folks.

Woohoo, new bikes all around!  Maybe I should go bike shopping too!    Or maybe I should just pay for the dumpster I had to rent to throw out all the wet stuff from the basement.  Spent most of the day down there - it's amazing how much junk we had.  Almost all of it was just stuff that we moved from our last place in 2006 and have never looked at so the majority of it was just thrown out.

The sun is finally back out here so I may go for a short run.  Thinking about going to the pool tomorrow morning too - it's been almost 3.5 weeks since I was in the water.

Wow...lots to catch up on.

Sally...congrats on the road bike.  Like Fred, I absolutely love my road bike.  My P2 collects dust 9 months out of the year.  Hope this opens the door to road racing for you.  Lots of fun IMO.

Fred...I have no idea what your wife is like, but I'm just trying to imagine the bargaining conversation.  Did you go all in with your proposal...or did you slowly add on things you were going to sell (or furniture you would buy for her) until she said yes...LOL.  You don't have to answer...I just thought it was funny to think about.  Given your computrainer...I don't think it will be a big deal for you to lose the quarq.  95% of my benefits come from training with a power meter.  I am pretty confident that I could race well without it.

Marshall... @158 lbs I run 100-105 psi for training and 115 for racing assuming there are good roads.  I agree with Marc that on smooth roads, there isn't much of a difference between 90 and 120 IME.  The biggest difference is when you go over bumps or poor roads.  You don't want to be running a tire pressure so low that you can pinch, but not so high that you are bouncing off the ground.

Arend - sucks that this happened, but luckily it doesn't sound like too much of value was damaged.  Hopefully that is a small relief.

My thoughts mirror a lot of what Fred has stated above.  In my case, I certainly find that seeing both power and HR data give me two things to measure against one another.  I don't think I'm very good at RPE pacing for longer distances, but don't always trust HR data.  The race on the weekend showed that my HR was high for the first 30-40min, but that correlated with the power being a bit high as well.  I felt fine, and both power and HR told me the same thing, but I've found myself in different circumstances where they've told different stories - i.e. heat.  Power is where it's supposed to be, but HR is high, and you need to adjust power as a result.

The other nice measure for power is it allows you track your progress over time.  This can be difficult to do with other metrics because outside forces will affect how fast you are, but ultimately power is power, and over time you can see your progression.  It can also help highlight strengths and weaknesses - i.e. are you strong at putting out power for 60min, but really drop off after 90min.  You can then actively work to adjust your power profile to help your power/endurance for longer racing, or build a slightly stronger engine for shorter Sprint type events.

Sorry, I'm rambling a bit with this post...

Yeah, thanks Neil.  It was really more of a PITA than anything.  In the end I will have a clutter free basement with more bike storage space!  

Question - I'll add this to the RR, but at km 65/70ish was the first hill where you are really forced to stand and use a fair bit of power.  Up to this point, the legs had felt great on the bike and I had no issues.  As soon as I stood up on this hill, both quads seized immediately, and I was lucky to get up that spot.  The legs felt fine as soon as I sat down again, but I needed to get out of the saddle a couple of more times and they seized immediately.

All I kept thinking was that my run was effed, but although they protested and hurt like hell, they managed.  But I'm lost as to what caused my legs to seize up like that and was hoping for some thoughts/ideas on what may have gone wrong.  Temps weren't hot and I (for once) was managing my nutrition/hydration as planned.

Likely obvious question: Are you used to pushing big climbs like that when you're 70km into training rides? I know most of my rides here end downhill, because of where I live, and I've tried to throw in some sort of late-ride climbing...

Xterra Race Report is up! http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=460298&posts=1#M4405916

It's long. You've been warned.

Last year I did Canadian LD champs in Magog. At 89km, both inner quads seized within 30 seconds of each other. I had to stop in T2, race over. I didn't know how to explain it.

This year, Florida 70.3. Well hydrated, easy pace, 85km. Wham!. Both inner thighs seize up. I managed to get them under control and they had no effect on the run.

I went to see a physio. We ruled out hydration/electrolytes since both were fine.

She checked for strength imbalances. There were none. She said that if there is a strength imbalance, some muscles overwork and when you change positions it triggers a seizure. This was not my case

So she narrowed it down to a nerve problem due to an imbalance in my lower back. She worked it twice and I did two HIMs since with no problems. Fingers crossed.

Hey team - a little late to the party reporting my results from this weekend.  It sounds like everybody did awesome! We just got back from vacationing up on Lake Huron for an extended weekend with little to no mobile service (fine by me).  Great area by the way.

I ended up finishing 2nd Overall in the Olympic tri.  This was my first OA podium in triathlon after finishing 5th and 6th a number of times so happy about that.  Plus it was nice to have a good race after the poor performance 2 weeks ago at the HIM.  I came out of the water 4 minutes down on the eventual winner.  Moved into 2nd by the 20K turnaround.  Got back 2 minutes on the bike and a bit on the run but that was all.

I came to the realization this year that 8-10 hours a week of training is not great HIM training but works pretty well with high intensity for Olympic distance.  Both of my Olympics this year were well executed and much faster than last year.  But, I just lacked the long rides that I needed to execute the HIM distance real well or to my expectations.

I will be evaluating my year and thinking about what I can change to get better.  I am sure all the knowledge in this group can help me out with that!

Congratulations Ryan!  Very Well Done!

x2

Congratulations.

Oly distance is really hard but nice since training is reasonable and recovery is short. But man it's hard !

I'd get another crank just to avoid the hassel. 

ETA: During tri/TT season, I switch bikes quite often.  I'd have to swap cranks about 3 times a week.

Ryan - what a difference a couple of weeks make, huh? Really nice way to end the season - congratulations!

FWIW, I think if you have enough years under your belt to sufficiently build the aerobic engine you actually CAN race both the HIM and even IM distance reasonably well averaging 10ish hours per week. Can you KQ on that kind of volume? I don't know. But the majority of folks that are training 20 hours per week are not going to KQ either.

All things being equal I would just keep the quarq on the road bike, but I think you said selling the PM was part of the $$ equation that made the new bike a possibility. If that is the case I would definitely just buy a new crank for the roadie. While I do swap my quarq back and forth all the time (at least a couple of times a week) between bikes without even thinking about it, for some reason it does seem like it would be a PITA if it was simply because I only had one set of cranks. The PM makes it worth it. If it were just cranks, not so much. But , now that i think about it that way, I feel as if I should buy a new power meter - anybody got one for sale?

ETA - I have an FSA Gossamer crank I would be happy to send you. It is a compact however, so you may find that too offensive to your manhood...