Fred D and Jason's (Tri808) Half Ironman Mentor Group CLOSED! (Page 9)

Thanks Matt.  That makes sense.  I guess it technically is my A race for the early part of the year.  I have nothing concrete for the better part of June/July (saving money for vaca) and was probably going to do a run focus with  bunch of 5k/10ks to learn how to race/pace better at the redline.

Also, Congrats on your PR!  I can't wait for those to keep coming!

Hi all,

Well, my 50 mile bike ride got scrapped yesterday when I had to take my daughter to the doctor for yet another ear infection!  Oh well, we followed that up with some beach time and a good family dinner. 

Question for Fred D and Jason---I just recieved my Conti GP 4000s that I scooped up on the sale a couple weeks ago.  Is it worth putting them on for my upcoming Florida Ironman 70.3?  I am running my stock P2 tires now---which have been used for past 1 1/2 years, including trainer time. 

Most definately.  You bought them for a reason right?  I'd try to get about 20 miles on them just to wear off some of that excess rubber on the middle of the tires that's left from manufacturing, but in reality they are fast tires right out of the box.  Also a good idea to test them out simply to make sure your tubes were seated properly after the change.

Kids race reports!  Both the 7yo and 4yo raced.  Excellent kids' series put on by the local race company.  Other than all the kids and the distances, they run it just like an adult race.

The boy turned 7 last month, so that means he aged up to 8 and Under.  The age group when you start having plenty of year round swimmers, real bikes and kids in triathlon clubs.  The swim was 50yds.  He will swim some 50s at his swim club, but he still races 25yds.  His split was top five out of about 25 kids.  Really slow transition, his doesn't really practice this, but still held top five onto the bike.  Here was the big surprise, he stayed at 5 after the bike.  It was a mile, and I really thought some of the older boys were going to catch him.  He was riding a 20" dirt bike.  He had a big smile coming off the bike.  It got serious on the run.  He was closing in on #4 about half way through the run and he just started to fade.  At that point, #6 started to close in.  The boy turned himself inside out the last 100yds to hold off the other racer to lock down 5th place and the highest placed 7yo.  I don't need to worry about his competitive nature.

We didn't think the 4yo was going to race.  Although 6 and Under can use floatation on the swim, I didn't want her to do the 25yd swim unless she could swim it.  The week before, I took her to swim lessons.  They were swimming in the big pool, and her instructor just sent her off on a 25 free.  I looked up about halfway through and was amazed.  She knocked out another 25 free and then 2x25 back.  She was definitely race ready.  Big brother was a huge help.  She had a great swim.  There were only a handful of girls that swam without floatation.  She would have been much faster had she swam back, but she wanted to swim like her brother.  I had to wait with the boy, so I didn't get to see her run or ride, but the wife said she was smiling the whole race.  Pulled out fifth place and highest placed 4yo.  

Awesome fun.

AWESOME.

Watching the kids is so much fun, and it's terrific that you're giving them the opportunity to do this.

I sometimes find it hard to watch them compete in any sport, but it turns out that in our family, we all compete with way less anxiety than we cheer each other on!  True of the kids, as well (best example is my oldest when he pitches - I'm a wreck and he's all Iceman). 

Congrats on what must have been a truly great day for them and you.

Matt

So cool.  My daughter is just over three, and my son is just over 1.  Any tips on getting them interested in the sport as they get older?  (If this is not an appropriate topic for this thread I will post in the main forum; I only ask here because it is relevant to the race report ) 

They both love the water.  My daughter is in swim lessons with an awesome program here in Fresno called Swim America, and my son is in mommy-and-me swim lessons until he is old enough to do the lessons sans parent (generally 3 with this program).  I take them with me on my runs, and they enjoy that. 

Two race rules in our family: (1) Have fun! and (2) Hammer it.  

Fred, don't your kids swim year round?  The boy got invited to swim on the club's competitive 9 & Under squad.  We are very, very lucky with this program.  The elite team sent 5-6 swimmers to the Olympics and our head coach was an assistant in the Olympics.  It's a well-oiled machine.  Anyway, we're wondering about him swimming 2-3x/week this summer.  He would probably love it, but it would probably mean less time at my in-laws beach cabin.  He could try out in the fall, but he wouldn't be guaranteed a spot.  Just curious if anyone else has experience with year round swimming at this age.

Name: Stephen (M30-34)
Location: Houston, TX

Story: After college I started working out a lot to lose weight.  For 5-6 years I basically did a lot of unfocused working out just to lose weight.  Last year my wife and I started doing triathlon and have done a handful of sprints and olympics.  I am not very fast in terms of sprints (i.e. my run during a sprint is only 7:30 or so, so I lose quite a bit of time to others in my AG).  Typically I run somewhere between back FOP or upper MOP.  I would like to be consistently FOP, but I don't imagine that I will be podium in my AG anytime soon as there are some insanely fast guys.

Status: Married with no kids, just 2 dogs. 

2013 Goals: My A race for this year is Vineman 70.3  so I have been hitting relatively high volumes training for that.  Ideally I will come in under 5h on that race, but that will have to wait to be seen.  Other than Vineman I plan on doing some more olys (and possibly some sprints) just for the sake of doing them.   

Weight Loss: I am currently about 190, but would like to get down to the 170-180 range for racing.  Once I reach there I will have to reevaluate where I am and decide if I want to go any lower.  The lowest I have been in my adult life was 175 and I think I was pretty lean then.  

Current Training: I made a plan for myself based on stuff I have read between here, ST and other online articles and so far it seems to be working. 

My swimming started out pretty horrible as, up until last year, I haven't swam for fitness/speed/endurance ever.  Up until then I just swam enough to goof around in a pool.  In my last oly I did a 1:45/100m pace, so I was reasonably pleased with that.  Hopefully after another season or two under my belt I can get that down in the 1:30/100m range.  Typical swim volume is 3 masters sessions per week at 1:15-1:30 per session.

My bike is definitely my strongest area, but I really need to focus on pushing more during my bike training.  Most of my bike training is spent in the mid-high z2 and I have been working at stepping that up by doing intervals on the trainer for my shorter rides.  Right now, depending on the week, I am putting anywhere from 100-150 miles per week in.

Running is probably my weakest area in triathlon, in that I lose the most time on the run to podium than any other discipline.  Right now I am training primarily in z2, which equates to a 8:30-9:00 mile for me.  My last race was also run at 8:30/mile but I left quite a bit out there (I wasn't very spent at the end of the race).  I really need to work on race pacing without having to constantly watch my computer.  RPE on the run never works for me because I always feel like it is a lot of effort, regardless of what my HRM seems to think.

I think the early swimming is important, regardless of racing.  We spend a ton of time around the water, so we needed them to be safe.  I think you just expose them to as much as possible and make sure it's fun.  We used to watch Ironman Kona on the DVR a thousand times.  Ride bikes as much as possible.  They have a great, low key, kids run club.  I think taking them to races, making sure they have fun, helps.  I've also volunteered at running races with the kids (just as a course marshal).

Definitely SBR related, as it's about swimming, biking and running - just by smaller people!  Sounds to me like you're doing just what you need to.  Get them comfortable in the water as early as possible (was a must in our family, as we spend a lot of time on the water anyway) and working on form as little ones - it'll be a HUGE advantage not to have to re-learn to swim the right way (say, at the age of 44).  Running and biking will happen anyway.  Then just keep exposing them to the sport and encouraging them to participate.

Then it's all about the rules, as stated: Have fun and Hammer!

btw, those cracked me up, as in our family the rules are:

1) Have fun!

2) Suffer with a glad heart! (but SUFFER)

Matt

Fred,

I know you're pretty much self coached now, and have used coaching in the past.  Where did the 1 hour hard ride and 10 mile run come from?  Just time crunched, recommended from a previous coach, worked for you in the past, or something you just came up with?  Will there be a break between the ride and run?  Just curious...

Wondering is we can chat about salt tabs....?

When would you need to use them? 
How do you know how often or how much? 

I was chatting with a friend recently about the fact that gels they give you on the course are really all just sugar - so how do you replace the salt?  And do you need to?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone this is a vent/ask for help post because I had a really frustrating trainer ride tonight. I am about 40minutes into an interval trainer session and I stop, simply had enough on the bike because I was worried about breaking it. Seriously, I don't know what happened tonight but I want to run some things by the group (especially Fred & Jason) to try and get a better understanding of what happened to me tonight.

1.) My chain slipped off twice during the ride. Both times I was going from small chain ring to big ring. Not the worst thing but a PITA and it has never happened before. Ever happen to anyone else?

2.) During the end of my ride I notice that the gear shifter is coming loose on my right aero bar. It appears that there is a screw that needs to be tightened but I don't have the tool necessary to do it. I played with it a little bit but it is definately loose and I didn't want to do anymore damage. I do not know what caused this but another thing that has never happened before.

3.) Scared that my Tri Bike and trainer are not compatible. Do they all fit one another? I find it much more difficult to hook my tri bike up to my trainer then my road bike. Also, I feel when I tighten the trainer, the bars are rubbing against the frame of my Carbon TT bike and it will break. I seriously looked at it numerous times and fooled around with it a few times before I got on the bike and it didnt appear to be rubbing but when I got off of my ride I noticed a few pieces of the frames paint chipped off. I did not do anything different to set up the bike then any other time.

So Group, did I just have a bad day or is the moral of this story to keep your new, expensive and don't have the money to replace if you break it TT bike off the trainer and just ride it outside and on race day? Seriously though, any thoughts to this? does anyone else strictly ride their TT bike outside and on race day and keep the roadie on the trainer because that is what I am seriously thinking about doing.

OK Rant over but I would appreciate any comments or thoughts on tonights issue.

Pretty good topic for discussion.  I'm by no means an expert on this, but this is my general understanding.

Your body needs water and salt (or electrolytes).  If you drink too much (as in a ridiculous amount) water without some salt, you can die from desalinization aka hyponatremia.  Take in too much salt and that's not good either.  The important thing to remember is that your body does an excellent job of balancing it's salinization balance on its own.  The only way you get into trouble is if you go overboard one way or another.

Most gels do in fact have sodium in them.  Take a look a the nutrition facts.  I take power gels because they have a bit more salt as I prefer to live off just gels and water while racing.  Sport drinks also have sodium in them.  In fact, sport drink is basically the same as taking in a gel and washing it down with 8 ounces of water.

So why would we use salt tabs?  I have tried them before believing they were necessary, but have trained without them for a long time now and don't see any difference in performance since I can get salt from my gels.  If you are getting your calories from bars, cookies, crackers, or other forms that may not have as much salt, then salt tabs might help balance everything out.  Or if you are the type to drink/sweat a lot of water, and have trouble digesting a lot of calories (gels/sport drink), then you may need salt to balance out your high water intake.