Scott F's group - FULL! (Page 8)

 Mauricio - that really sucks! The bike shop is right - something like that should never happen, but I'd place the blame squarely on THEIR shoulders - they should go over each and every bolt on the bike before selling it to you, not just assume that everything is tightened up as it leaves the factory. Luckily, the only price you had to pay was a DNF in a race, as it could have been much worse! 

I think we can all learn from this though - it's well worth it to do a pre-race check on your bike - go over all the bolts and make sure they're tight (don't tighten them unnecessarily, just check that they're not loose), check for cracks, dents, etc., adjust gears, etc. After doing that, take your bike for one last spin before the race, to make sure all of your adjustments were OK.

Sorry to hear about your experience - but I'm sure you'll do great next time! 

Alright Rob! Great job. You know if you're working hard enough to make yourself puke, you must be doing something right

Seriously - OW swimming often makes me dizzy too, although I feel like I've gotten used to it and it's not as bad anymore - I guess you adjust over time...

Great job on your first race - and on the many more in your future! 

Ha - glad we can provide some good virtual inspiration! You did great! Congratulations on your first 5K. 

Great job on your race Laurie. Getting passed is all part of the triathlon game... being a relatively fast swimmer is probably the worst as far as that goes (not that I'd know anything about that!!) - but whenever someone passes you on their bike, just look at them and say to yourself "Another slow swimmer!"

I can definitely share some tips on improving your bike speed. The simple answer is - to get faster, you need to ride faster

Riding long and slow is great when you're starting out, and is a good way to build endurance and get comfortable on the bike, but eventually, you need to do shorter, more intense workouts. I like to go out and do a 90-120 minute ride that includes about 15 minutes of warm-up, one hour of hard riding, and 15-30 minutes of cool down.

I use my powermeter to measure the intensity of my intervals, but you can also use heartrate and perceived exertion.

A good "starter" interval set is to do threshold intervals - this means you do 6-8 minute intervals at your "threshold" effort  level, which is the maximum effort you could sustain for an hour. So you do 3-4 intervals at that effort level, with a recovery of about 2 minutes in between. You can start out doing just two intervals, and work up to doing more, and longer intervals. The first few should feel like you're working, but not too hard, and the last few should feel like you're working pretty hard.

There are lots of variations on this, but it's a good place to start. Let me know if that makes sense and we can take it from there. 

Question for anyone.

I use the trainer a lot in morning rides b/c it's getting light when I'm finishing up and I'm not huge on biking in the dark. Sighting is still not great on spotting potholes and stuff.

Do tires tend to wear out quickly if using the trainer? Always seems the heat from the trainer seems to bland the rubber down. Am I just imagining this? Should I get "practice tires"? I'm looking for the least expensive route for the most part. The wife is watching the purchases for this sport.   (i don't blame her either!)

A trainer would be fine - takes some good mental discipline, but I find it easier to do intervals on the trainer than to "just ride" since it's a little bit more interesting... 

Yeah, as Matt said - the trainer will wear out your tires more quickly than equivalent time on the road. A few things that will help:

•  Keep your tires well inflated - 120 psi if they can handle that much
• try to use higher resistance settings on the trainer, with lower gears on the bike, if possible - that way, you're going "slower" - obviously, this only works if you have adjustable resistance, which many trainers (even the good ones) do not
• use cheaper/harder tires - you don't need to go all out and get the trainer tires unless you're exclusively on the trainer, but a nice set of commuter tires like the Armadillos will last longer and also be good for training rides - less likely to flat. Take them off for racing though - they're heavy and they don't grip quite as well, esp. when wet.

5th out of 23 - that's fantastic! Great job!! 

I actually found that people grab your leg and then start to move around you.  No one went completely over me but I did get in some people's way lol.

The trail we are working on already kind of exists, we have just been cleaning it up and making it faster.  My buddy has a huge backpack that we fit an axe and saw into and go take out fallen trees.  It sucks when you have to stop and walk over a log.  The city I live in is great for it, its nickname is the "forest city" so its great for little trails all over.  Not a lot of elevation but it still gets quick here and there.

It actually feels good to get back into training after the race.  My "taper down" for the race felt more like I just slacked off for 2 weeks, so its nice to go for a run at night again.  And now that I have the Internet back I can actually log it lol

OWS does have it's perks.  The cooler water is much more refreshing.  Also the water doesn't taste nearly as bad as an indoor public chlorine filled pool.  Just watch out for sea monsters!!

Well tonight was crap.  Went for a bike ride around town.  Rear cassette was acting up, to the point were it wouldn't turn anymore at all.  I could still peddle forward but as soon as I coasted it would just turn with the wheel and my chain would slack down to the ground.  I thought it was just dirty but it won't even make that click-click-click noise anymore.  Anyway, its a brand new cassette but the freeride inside has a good 2000k on it so I think thats what it is.  Going to take it into the shop and let them play with it.  

What happened to a bike being care free?  This is starting to feel like a car!  :P 

I'd say "go for it" and position yourself closer to the front. You WILL probably need to "sprint" a bit for the first 50-100 yards - there's always a surge at the beginning while people jockey for position - if you don't want to deal with that, head more for the middle.

I've been swum "over" twice - I don't think it was malicious, just a couple of very fast swimmers from another wave, in murky water they couldn't see me until they were on top of me - it wasn't really too bad - just a brief dunking. I did have to resist the urge to punch them in the stomach (or worse) as they crawled over me

More likely you'll get kicked/grabbed/touched as people swim around or near you - it's something you kind of get used to. I did a swim tri once (at Stanford) in a 50 m pool where we did laps around the outside -there were 40 of us crammed into a 15 foot wide, 5 foot deep starting area - the swim start was CHAOS! I really wasn't swimming, as much as floating on top of 2-3 body parts at any time. This picture  gives you some idea of what it was like... but actually, it wasn't too bad, it was kind of funny, once I realized I wouldn't drown! 

So, if you're comfortable in the water, and don't mind being a bit aggressive to "stake out" your position, seed yourself in the front. Otherwise, head a bit farther back and then you can be the one passing people...