Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 95)

I love all of your out-take stories.  The sunglasses over the goggles made me laugh so hard.  I've had more than my fair share of those kinds of things too.  In my first tri, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get my feet clipped into my pedals.  I forgot that I had packed my shoes with the covers on the bottom.  I will never do that again!  Ryan rode the whole way with his helmet on backwards (the pictures are quite funny), and then he took off for the run still wearing his helmet.  He should've just thrown it aside and went on, but he actually ran back into the transition area and put it back with his stuff. 

I hope everyone who raced this weekend did well!  I can't wait to read your race reports. 

This weekend I decided to do a group bike ride up in Amishland.  I went by myself, and a group from another part of Indiana let me join them.  I rode 30 miles on Friday and 64 today.  I know for some of you that's a walk in the park, but it's been a long time since I have ridden that far.  It was a lot of fun!  I'm proud of myself for hanging in there.   

Congratulations on your first sprint tri, Tony.  You are on quite the roll!  Let's hear about all of the other races this weekend!

I have a Garmin question for those of you who are more tech savy than I am.  It drives me crazy that I push start on my watch, and it immediately goes into auto pause for the first 10 seconds of my run.  My old Garmin never did that.  Can anyone help fix this issue?  No slow jokes please!

John, how'd that hilly race go?  I would blow up on hills.  I would love the descents but I would have to crawl to the top with my bike on a rope behind me before I could enjoy the ride down.

Tony,  The time for your race sounds like an awesome time.  What were the distances you were racing?  The race sound like it was a pretty big one and you were able to finish in the MOP.  Very nice!  Get the RR up as soon as you can.

Allison, Your rides sounds pretty amazing.  Riding 64 miles required some nutrition, how did that go?  I know you were looking at doing a HIM early this year and now you know you can ride that far, could you have run a HM after tht ride?

I couldn't respond to the Garmin question with a "slow runner" response because I'd say you are pretty fast.  Maybe the watch has to catch up to your speed.  Actually there is a setting in the setting that will correct what you are looking for. ........Set your watch to "run" then go to "settings" then "run settings" and then "auto pause"  to select the desired function.

I actually like the auto pause.  If I forget to stop the watch sometimes I can keep my data a little more true to my run.

My race today went pretty well despite a VERY stormy start.  A large storm went through Indianapolis this morning as I was headed to the venue.  The rain was so hard at one point that I was down to 10 MPH on the interstate and I never do that.  It was so bad I couldn't see the lines on the road and used the reflective construction barrels as my guide.......AT 10 MPH.

Once the race got started everything worked out very well and there weren't any issues other than crowds.  This race is a large one with 430 completing the Oly and 549 for the sprint and 81 doing the Du.  I placed 5/56 in my AG and 33/430 overall.  My placement was better this year than last by 5 place in my AG and 16 better in the overall placement.  I'll get a RR report up soon.

Alright I have the race report up. One thing to note on this race it was supposed to be a 500m swim, 20K bike and 5k run but they were short on all distances. The swim was just under 500m's, the bike leg was more like 10 miles and the run was like 2.9 miles. It was a great race and it was a lot of fun but I wish we really were racing the advertised distances.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=454413&posts=1#M4348212

Hey Junkies!  I'm back!  I finished the last race of my 30's in epic style!  That Hill Climb was a fricking blast!  It was hotter than HELL, though!  I survived and made it to the top!  I was only 3 minutes behind my friend who did it last year and trains for (and races) 50K trail runs.  (She was 20 minutes slower than last year.)

Did I mention that it was hot?  Yeah.  It was like an oven out there.  I'll try to write up a race report but I'm bad at those things.  Suffice it to say that it was hot!  The race director sent a warning email the day before.  No joking around on this race!

Here's the stats:

• 3:24:41
• 13.4 miles (according to Garmin and Strava)
• 5,935 feet of elevation gain (according to Garmin and Strava)
• AWESOME! (according to me!)

Jo63 - 2012-08-05 8:08 PM Tony congratulations that an awesome time! Dirk happy o hear the storm clouds move out in time for you race, Iam looking forward to reading both of your RR Allison way to go on your bike ride and 64 miles is not a walk in the park that's a long ride! Good news: Our Salon was voted in Best of the Best and now there is another vote to see who the best is, we also were nominated for best local businesses and one of my stylist was nominated for Best stylist Bad news: another crazy shot 6 people at a local church here. What is wrong with people ....at a CHURCH?? , it makes me so sad and angry.

I think I read about that shooting. I'm so sorry.

Congratulations to your salon and stylist! That is really exciting. I needed your help the other day when I tried to give Gracie a trim that did not turn out so well.....

Dirk and Tony, great jobs on your races.

More shootings,   It is time we stop worrying about gun control and stuff and start prosecuting the criminals...  I'm in favor of good old court house hangings...  That would stop a lot of the mischief if people knew they would be hung w/in 24 hours of capture.

Ya'll have a GREAT day and sbr hard!!!

Tracy first off a happy belated birthday to you. What a fantastic way to leave your 30's behind. I am very happy to see that you not only survived the race especially with that heat but you totally killed that run. That is amazing to me especially with that amount of elevation you did, that is just crazy! Congrats on an awesome race and look forward to reading the race report.

My daughter's wounds are healing nicely.  The knee still has some fluid around the kneecap but in all other ways she is feeling fine and just has some character marks.

We ran together yesterday.  She went 6 and this was her 3rd day of running since she got back from Russia and over her head cold.  She feels like she's starting out as a runner all over again.  But to her credit, she is soldiering through knowing that if she suffers the initial week back she should be normal again.  Note: think carefully before taking an extended period of time off from cardio training....you will suffer all over again when you re-start.

After running 6 with her I did another 5.  This was on the trails.  The humidity was really probably 100% since heavy rains had come through earlier in the day.  The temp was only 85 but with humidity that high you don't cool off so it was rough.  By the time I'd finished the 6 with Jordan, my shoes were squishing (just from sweat).

And Saturday was a rough bike ride.  It was warmer, but the humidity was similarly high.  Went for a ride with my club and did 63.5 miles.  They wanted to take a legendary hill and I figured it would be OK since there were about 12 guys and only a few of them could do a climb I can't.

Well, it was rough!  Long and steep.  Steep enough that in my lowest gear I HAD to stand.  Meaning that without pulling UP on the rear foot I wouldn't have been able to keep the gears turning.  And this was probably 300-400 yards long.  I was getting blurred vision and tingling skin by the top.

All the other guys have mtn gearing on their bikes...why am I too stubborn to change?

Despite drinking 96 ounces during the ride I was still dehydrated and began to have charlie horse cramps while still a long way from finished.  They set in first just before the group played the 'chase' game.  Duane attacked off the front while we were all soft pedaling.  A few seconds later McKinnley took off after him and we could see up ahead that they met up and began working the 'break away' together.  We gave them about 10 or 15 minutes to work up a lead.  I actually thought the group was going to ignore their antics.  I was dealing with my hamstrings cramping, then my inner thigh muscles.  I finally figured out that if I shifted gears so that I was pushing HARDER on the pedals and with a slower cadence, that the cramps would subside.  This was because at the slower cadence I was able to stop recruiting those particular muscle groups.

Then the pack decided to start the chase once the guys had perhaps a mile lead on us.  So off goes the paceline.  We were moving along about 30mph with the leader rotating off every 30 seconds or so.  My cramps seemed to have played themselves out by the time I was rotated to the front so I pushed pretty well and hoped that I hadn't split the group up.  At speeds like that it's not hard to stay in the line....as long as you DO NOT LET A GAP OPEN on the wheel in front of you.  We would slow to about 26-27 mph up the rolling hills and run completely out of gear on the down hills (over 35mph).

That lasted a surprisingly long time until we swallowed up the 'break away' guys.  That was fun.  And there were more cramps to come before finishing.  But when I was done I was happy to have gotten in a long and hard ride.

Saturday I ate more food in that one day than I have in any 2 days in a long time.  I'm also 5lbs down today which means that I haven't replaced all my fluid loss yet. 

And on another note, I got an email today that invites me to the Xterra National champships this fall.  I don't plan to go, but it's nice to see that I'm in 4th place in the SouthEast regions standings with points from only 2 races (you can count 4).  Maybe next year I will actually do 4 and see how it goes.

Jeff - busy weekend man! I hope you're able to get that fluid back.

RR is here:

http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=454515

Brenda hope you and your daughter have a safe trip and enjoy your camping trip.

Jeff sound like you had a great and very competitive training ride this past weekend along with a great run with your daughter. Glad to hear that she is feeling better and doing well.

My Race Report is up. My wife and I both had a great time.

I experimented a bit on this one by swimming through the pack more than I had done before. Lots more contact but not too bad. I also went a bit easier than last time on the bike to save more for the run and it seemed to work well.

I PRed the race by 11 seconds over last month's time.

re: the shootings, I feel like people are taking inspiration from hearing about other people shooting others..........

Congrats to everyone who's doing great things! 

I'm trying to figure out how I want to end tri season this year.  I'm considering heading to Vermont for age group nationals (sprint - longest I want to do right now ) and coupling it with a mini-vacay, as I feel like I haven't been anywhere in a long time!

Jeff I missed mentioning this but congrats on the invite to the xterra national championships. Regardless of whether you go or not the fact that you got an invite is very impressive and pretty awesome.

Samantha, congrats on the Vt. nationals.

Jeff congrats to you too for the Exterra Nationals!!!

Well we getting lots of rain and it is difficult to ride so I've been on a stationary bike.  I try to run early before the rain starts if possible (short runs) and by the afternoon, the showers are here and it is hot and humid.

Finally named all our bikes.

Wife's bike is Bronco, it keeps bucking her off.

My road bike is Island Time ( I love KeyWest and it is a Fuji, kind of like Fiji, OK I struggled w/ that one)

My tri bike is Tallulah, did ya'll see the movie Cool Running?  lol  it is also from the Islands and it is my mother's name.

Karl I love the bike names and the reasoning behind the names. There was a thread recently on this in triathlon talk regarding bike naming. I named my TT bike Aphrodite but rebranded her as Mighty Aphrodite after these two races and my performance on the bike. I figured you can't go wrong naming your bike after the goddess of love lol. I also figured if I love her and take care of her she would in turn do the same for me and she has done that for me even though I feel so not worthy of riding such a great bike. I'll feel more worthy if I can keep improving.

Tony, I love your bike's name