Mav's mentor group - CLOSED (Page 9)

I went to the gym, Running was not an option, I did walk on the treadmill for 25minutes, and then I tried the pool. I was able to use the kick board and side stroke and back stroke. I would get very disoriented with my face in the water. The vertigo is better> My workout on Sunday was good and I plan on doing the same tomorrow. 

Got all my water in today.
I am taking it easy, If anything is painful I back off.  I've been so excited about starting to train for the sprint I don't want to lose the motivation. I know it will all work out. 

thanks for the healing vibes. Thanks Mav too.

I've always been a gear head and it's quite natural for the bike to be my favorite leg of the triathlon.  I'm going the change the cassette and put on the new chain.  Sorry about the long post. 

Why would a triathlete want to change cassettes.  In my case I live in an area with lots of hills and the IM event I'm training for (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho) is a hilly course.  For this reason I'm looking for an extra easy gear that will allow me to spin at a higher cadance up long steep hills without burning out my legs.  The new cassette also allows me to change the go fast gear.  During training runs I can pull 20-22mph on the 12 tooth cog, I hope to pull 22-24mph on the new 11 tooth cog.  There will be some training to get up to that power ratio, but I'm optimistic I can pull 24 without slowing down my cadance.  If not I can seperate the cassette and create a 12-28. 

The original cassette that came with the bike was an Ultegra 10-speed 12-25.  The smallest (fastest) cog in the cassette has 12 teeth, the largest (easiest) has 25 teeth.  My new cassette is an 11-28.  11 is faster at the low range and 28 is easier at the high end.  The downside is there will be longer steps between gears/  The cassette seperates into cogs and spacers.  The 5 smallest gears are bonded into one piece.  If the 11 turns out to be too dificult to crank at my usual cadance, I can swap the bottom 5 (11,12,13,14,16) with the original bottom 5 (12,13,14,15,16) and ride with a 12-28.  If I find myself going to a race somewhere flat, perhaps IM Arizona, I might choose to ride with the 11-25.

I spend a lot of time measuring my power output on the bike compared to heart rate.  The race day goals are to go hard enough not to fall behind (ensure I make the bike cut-off time) but not so hard that I'm unable to run fast off the bike.

Morning All

Busy day yesterday and I had to work in the pm...so limited BT time. After next week I will have plenty of time. I have decided to get my knee fixed. I will be having surgery on Feb 8th to repair my meniscus. It has come to the point where I cant run without pain and cycling intervals hurt. Its a hard decsion but by the end of the day I find myself limping, and I have no other conservative alternatives left to help.

Lori hang in there...lots of good suggestions on the weight loss front. I cant emphasize daily water enough. It will keep you feeling full throughout the day. I have also found that cutting out 'white" processed foods really makes a difference.

Mark, I had a compact crank and a 12/25 cassette when I bought my bike because I live in a very hilly area, but swapped out for a standard crank and cassette this past year when I was training for AZ as I tried to train on flats as much as possible. I found that I was running out of gears on the compact and loosing speed on the flats and downhills.

I am very jealous of 68 degree temps. Warm weather here is in the 30's. The snow has burried my mailbox...its about 2 feet above the box. We are expecting another foot mid week. I seriously dont know where we will put it.

Terry so glad you are feeling better.

Mav - Wishing you a speedy recovery from your meniscus repair.  Is the bad knee on your strong side?  You'regoing to recover and get stronger, better and faster than ever before.

Shouldn't 6 hours of cleaning house count for something. Gave up training today to get the spring cleaning done early. I figure I won't have time before the sprint.