Fred D's triathlon training group CLOSED (Page 76)

Fred - I do the same - I train with whatever is going to be offered on the course for my primary races. In that spirit, I always buy sample boxes of mixed flavors and just eat whatever flavor I pull out of my jersey pocket. For me this seems to be the smartest strategy if you are planning on living off the course, because without a doubt every handup you get from a volunteer will be a a triple-caffeinated, mint-mango-mocha-broccoli-smoothie flavored gel. I figure you might as well just get used to it.

Congrats on the kiddos.  You must be really proud.

Sounds like you got a really nice training week ahead of you, and I'm glad to see...ok...I don't want to jinx it, but you know what I mean about your other workouts. 

Planning to ride about 50-70 tomorrow depending on how I feel, then about 90 on Sunday.

Neil - no offense intended, but anybody that makes a blanket statement like "you need 700mg of salt per hour" is a little nuts. Like all things nutrition, this is a highly personal decision and dependent on a lot o variables. Whether or not I take extra sodium or not depends on the heat. For instance, tomorrow I am doing a century and the temp is supposed to reach 105 degrees during the ride. I take all my nutrition via sport drink and gels. Tomorrow I don't want to take in any extra calories for the ride, so I will be consuming a lot more plain water than usual. I will want extra electrolytes, so I will take a supplement (salt tab) with the extra H2O I will consume. If the temp was 60 degrees, I would not, but I would also probably not be drinking so much water either, and only using sport drink. I actually am interested to see how this goes, because while traditionally I have a very low-sodium diet, I have recently dramatically increased my salt intake by adding Glucosamine as a dietary supplement.

I do think bonking, cramping, etc has WAY more to do with fitness/pacing than it does with nutrition. Probably the less fit you are the less margin for error you have, while the more fit you are the less nutrition really matters. This is why folks like Bryan can live off nothing more than 3 grams of bee pollen and 2 ounces of dandelion dew during the entirety of an Ironman race, while others find the need to jam down 600 calories per hour along with 2000mg of sodium.

On a side note, one of the (few) upsides of Bryan being banned is that we can make fun of him in this thread and he can only retaliate via inspires. 

During the Fall and Winter I do a fair amount of group riding. When Tri season starts in the spring I switch primarily to my TT bike and ride solo a lot, or occasionally with a handful of tri guys that roll out together and pace off one another and also do some pursuit riding. I still like to get one group ride in a week on my road bike if I can. 

Piggybacking on this question for the folks that do some/a lot of group riding and have both road and TT bikes: do you switch back and forth between bikes for different kinds of rides or do you ride your bikes seasonally. For instance, I switch back and forth between mine all the time; I will be riding my road bike tomorrow for an organized century even though I have an IM three weeks away. I always hear a lot of folks that say they have acclimatization problems when switching between the two, but I don't seem to suffer from it. What do you all do?

Mom's looks and brains with Dad's aerobic capacity - those kids are going to be unstoppable....

That is seriously awesome, Fred. I tell you - my only slight disappointment with my own childhood is that I did not participate in organized swimming at a young age. While I have been swimming regularly for well over 20 years I still only learned as an adult and will never be able to get over that physiologically. Those of you with kids participating in "life long" sports and hobbies at an early age are doing them a world of good for later in life - I see the results everyday with the young adults I work with.

ugh, that sounds so gross. 

I have a core group of four people that I ride with (was five, but one girl just moved to Florida).  Occasionally we'll get a few more, but there's always us.  It's actually pretty cool, we all have similar riding styles, and when we race, we support eachother's training rides. 

As for the bike, usually it's the tri bike, but really depends on my mood, what we're doing, whether I haven;t ridden one of the bikes in a while, etc etc..  Tri bike has compact and 12-27, roadie has std and 12-25.  Hmmm.  Maybe I'll take the roadie out tomorrow. 

Earlier in the season when I'm racing TTs and Tris, I'm constantly switching bikes specific to the type of ride I'm doing on a given day. 

Tom - sorry about the weather, but glad you are OK - we get that stuff here all the time. You never get used to the randomness of the devastation. If you cannot switch the ride to another day, then I would do 2:15~2:30 straight through with the T run and call it a day. No need to try to get the full 4 hours in.

I am with you: just shoot me now if 4 hours on the trainer in the summer is the alternative...

Had a very good weekend..  until the end.. LOL

Sat rode with a cople good friends for a couple hours, got some nice climbs in.

Sun swam 3 miles in the ocean, prepping for a 10K in August.   Got in the water about an hour earlier than the tri club, surf was down and easy, no wind and nice and glassy.  Spent most of the swim solo, did run into and swum with a couple groups, but one turned at a buoy, and the next I met at the mile mark and, well, passed most of them

Pace wasn't great, but wasn't really going for speed.  Had a nice moment about 2.75 miles in, looked up and saw a fin right in front of me.   Knew it was a dolphin and not a shark.  It was about 3-4 feet away, but didn't hang out

Then ran afterwards, but I was TIRED.  Ran 3 with friends, than planned on3 more, but as my pace and form nosedived, pulled the plug at 5.5.  Swim took a LOT more out of me than I thought it would.

Now time for euro cup and then TdF

Felt good the first 65ish miles, but then completely fell apart on a long climb.  Wasn't a bonk, wasn't cramps, I was just tired.  My right arch was also getting painful which is something new.  I felt it a little yesterday, but today it was pretty sore.  Got to the top of the climb and stretched it out and it felt better.  Going to have to monitor it though.  Also felt much better after a short break at the top of the climb and rode the last 17 miles home at decent watts.

What % of FTP do you do these rides at ? They sound grueling.