SBR "U" (Page 71)

Home from vacation and back to the grind.  We had an awesome 5 days after Alcatraz riding around Sonoma and Napa checking out the vineyards and other sights.  It's crazy to me how much the temperature varies in that area.  San Francisco's weather was similar to what we get here, an hour away in Sonoma was stinking hot!  I think 102 degrees is hot by anyone's standards is it not? I'm not just being a wussy Canadian.  

I'm also somewhat embarrassed to admit that while planning some riding routes, I discovered that I can load a route onto my Garmin 500 and use that to get around.  I've only had the computer for 3 or 4 years...  It's just a breadcrumb trail, not an actual map but it more than served the purpose.  I'm pretty sure I would have gotten lost multiple times without it. 

I'm going to switch from riding the road bike to primarily the tri bike now to prepare for summer races.  The last few months are the first time that I've spent a significant and consistent amount of time on the road bike and I'm interested to see how my power numbers compare.  Anyone have any experience comparing the two and what sort of difference do you see?

Don't get me wrong -- I'm actually not disappointed with this race.  As I mentioned, it went pretty much as expected.  What I am disappointed with is this plateau / stagnant (backwards) progress / mental funk that I'm in right now.  It's difficult to watch friends of mine (who work equally hard) continue to get better, while I don't.  

This race might well have been a really good thing for me....might just have been the kick in the pants that I needed to make some changes.  

On an unrelated note -- I mentioned a couple weeks ago that my PM went funky on me.  It happened after a rainy ride, where I then sprayed the bike off, cleaned and lubed the chain and derailleurs.  The PM was acting weird for a few days and then "fixed" itself.  After this race, my bike looked like I'd taken it off road, so I once again sprayed it down and cleaned/lubed the chain and derailleurs -- and it's all jacked up again!  I'm hoping that a few more rides will allow it to "fix" itself again before this weekend's TT.  I will be sending it back to Quarq next week.  Not sure what the deal is with this, but it's consistent...

Almost a year ago something similar was happening with mine. Although it would drop out as opposed to give odd numbers, though it was always triggered by getting fairly wet. A seal somewhere was getting worn. They offered me the Riken upgrade deal from before, so I took that. The original unit was a Cinco Saturn. Think that was their second generation model?

I went through this about a year ago. But I had several things going on at once, so may not be as much help. Like the new PM mentioned in Nicole's response. Also started using a different trainer which gave a different feel. I'm guessing you are set up on your road bike better than I was, which should help you out. I just kind of made things work as I was only using the road setup temporarily.

The biggest things for me were being stretched out more (though more appropriately), which might be less for you as my road bike is a bit high stack and short length for me. Then also getting used to being that far over again. Stomach getting used to being so horizontal again. First race was kind of a mess as I'd hardly ridden the new bike yet, but the second one two weeks later went much better.

Interested to see what feedback people have on Lionel's blog post.

http://lsanderstri.com/2015/06/08/post-texas-paradigm-shift/

Interesting -- mine seems to be a little different, though, as riding in the rain hasn't caused issues on the ride itself.  It's always the next ride (or few rides).  I'll be writing to Quarq today to update them with what I'm seeing, especially now that it's happened twice in a few weeks and others have had the same issue.

Hopefully it'll work itself out by Saturday, though!  And then I'll try to get it off the bike myself (may need to buy the correct size allen key) or take it to the bike shop if I need to.  The bike could probably use a tune up anyways

Glad you guys enjoyed the rest of your vacation!

Sub 5 is always nice.   Well done

Rusty, sorry to hear about the crash and injuries.  I've used elliptical on a few occasions, but IMO it takes REAL dedication to get a decent run-like workout on that thing.   It's weird, I don't mind the trainer at all, but can't stand doing a spin class or elliptical... go figure.   If all you need to do is keep the wrist out, you cold always wrap it and do aqua jogging with hands out of the water, not THAT would be a workout

Thanks for asking Rusty.  I realized I've never actually raced with a goal of qualifying for something else, and it added an extra layer of stress that I did not (but should have) anticipated.  I actually checked the participant list against last year's results to see who was racing, who wasn't, who may have aged up, etc.  It's all rather silly, really, but I cannot imagine the stress of trying to qualify for Kona or Austria.   Last year was good as it sorta fell into my lap.

But I did want to return to MKE, if nothing else to spend more time with Rusty and J 

But alas, 'twas not to be.  I would have had to come in 5th with the number of folks in my AG.  I knew going in that 1-3 were taken by guys that absent injury or mechanical (not wished on anyone) would beat me.  Had a decent swim (7th), good-ish bike (5th) but the race was killed by a helmet wardrobe malfunction in T1, and lower fitness and few extra pounds costing me on the run.   But I would have had to find 4 minutes to meet my goal, which just is not happening in a race this short.

I went last year thinking "never know when I'll qualify again," and glad I did. Silver lining is I saved $1000

Uh yeah, pics or it didn't happen.

I'm sure people won't think twice from this strange behavior though, knowing you are a triathlete

I imagine that would be really challenging and you could end up down a rabbit hole stressing about the variables you can't control (the other people that show up)

Anything I have ever attempted to qualify for was a specific time, which I really appreciate.

Congrats on the 1,000 prize money

We used to have to do this in water polo practice, but they made us hold deck chairs out of the water.   Better than being the goalie though, they had to hold full sparkletts bottles over their heads while treading water as the water drained over their head.   Goalies are weird

Right?   I immediately used it to book plane tickets to Kona for a volcano/dive trip

Race Report is up, lesson learned, don't just pull your cr@p off the shelf from last year and expect it to work!  (oh, and eat less and get faster....)

Redondo Beach Tri

Thanks for sharing that - interesting stuff, and I always like that he is willing to share his insight - good PR and Karma, if nothing else.

Since Marc noted % weight loss while running and training as a calibration of fluid loss, I thought I would add a link to a podcast in which Martin Yelling interviews Dr Mark Hetherington on marathon talk.com. This was forwarded to me by coach a number of years ago when I first turned my attention to Ironman and was trying to figure out my sweat rate and calorie burn. Hetherington is a researcher at the University of Leeds (where he directs their environmental chamber and acclimatization research), is an accomplished ultra runner, and has worked with many elite/professional athletes to prepare them for Athens and Beijing Olympics, Comrades, Ironman, Badwater, Western States, etc. The interview is spread over 3 different podcasts, #s 70, 71, and 72. To save you some time, you can hear each segment at 48:30, 50:20 and 05:50 respectively. The three part interview covers a range of topics related to heat training and fluid intake.

The second segment (#71) is the most pertinent to the fluid loss discussion, he lays out a case that only 1/2 (roughly) of weight lost during a workout or race is due to fluid loss, or at least fluid that is used by the body for nutritional processing and cooling and therefore needs to be (or even can be) replaced during a race. He actually does lay out his case for why he believes electrolyte intake may be more important for MOP/BOP/Recreational athletes relative to FOP, but (according to him anyway) it really has more to do with the fact that BMOP/BOP athletes take in way too many fluids during a race to begin with, which aligns with the theories expressed by Noakes, Greenfield, etc. This is one of those areas of the sport where recognizing that what is going on with a pro 8ish hour IM racer might be very different than a 12~14 hour age grouper - they are simply competing in two completely different kinds of events.

In the third segment (#72), he expresses his belief that it is difficult to take in too much sodium, but it is possible to take in too little while training and racing, and by inference recommends to err on the side of too much. He also states that his research shows that an isotonic solution of fluids is more rapidly taken up by the body than water alone, but goes on to state that the development of an isotonic solution is relatively difficult to achieve, particularly under race conditions.

This shouldn't be anything out the ordinary as his running form allegedly involves such overhead motion!

Mine began to do that also after wet, rainy days and even cold, humid days last year. Like yours it was not during the ride itself, it always seemed to be the ride after. What seemed to solve the issue for me was to take the chainrings off, clean them and the bolts thoroughly, and then put it back together and ret-orque it to spec. Not that if you have one of the older 975's you don't want to do that as you have to then manually recalibrate it (which is not hard to do, you just have to have a fairly heavy laboratory-grade weight and the qalvin app to do so. You can also reset the brain of the quarq by shorting out the battery terminals - quarq customer service has told me any number of times this is good practice every time you change the battery.

Ha-Ha - you all are HYSTERICAL! Kick a guy while he is down, why dontcha??

it is interesting - now that I am down to bandaids everywhere the wrist is finally starting to heal up fairly rapidly - it is almost like once the body got everything taken care of it finally decided to turn its attention there. After meeting with the Doc yesterday the hip inflammation was finally reduced enough to do some better diagnostic testing, and it appears that it is NOT a labral tear but instead an angry Adductor Magnus (looks like Marc and I are in the same boat!) right where it attaches to my pelvis. It is all good until my femur moves behind or lateral to my pelvis with any force, so running is still out, elliptical is out, and probably even swimming without a pull buoy for a while yet. I think I am just a couple of days away from being able to water proof it well enough to swim - it is difficult as it is a fairly large wound that spreads across the bend in my wrist, wrist joint, and uo the back of my hand.

I have officially pulled out of the AG race I had on the schedule in a week-and-a-half and have put together a relay team. Only trouble is the guys I will be racing with want to go for the course record (1:56:31). We should have the swim and the run in the bag, trouble is I would have to cover 42k on the bike just south of 56:40. Once my teammates figure that out they may kick me off the team - heh.

Ah, heck - was hoping you would be there again - but Salty is spot-on: nice use of the prize money!

Yeah I think I'm fortunate that my body does keep things in check.  But it's also a matter of listening to what your body is telling you.  When I raced Coeur d'Alene a few years ago with my little brother, I ended the race with a loss of 1lb from 155.  I think he lost 8 or 9 from 170.  But his comment to me was "yeah I knew I  should've been taking more fluids".  He has always been really good at pushing through when he's having difficulty.  That quality makes for great short course racing but it ends up slowing you down in an IM.

He still finished with a 13:21 in his first ironman - he's very athletically gifted