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| Badger_South |
 Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2004 5:09 am |
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On 12 Jul 2004 19:49:23 -0700, durkinc92@hotmail.com (Chris Durkin)
wrote:
Quote: In case you haven't noticed, when it comes to swimming I am obsessed.
When I pass a body of water I have an overpowering urge to jump in. I
don't feel right unless I swim 5x a week. I just raced yesterday, and
all day at work I couldn't wait to swim again tonight :)
As far as cycling goes, that's something I've always done and am
fairly good at. My bike isn't very fast - it's a Trek 7500 hybrid
upgraded with Continental tires. Great commuting machine, which is
mainly what I use it for. An excellent workhorse to handle roads,
trails, curbs, and rain. Not the best device for maintaining say, 20
mph over a 30 mile training ride. Not even within the realm of
possibility. So I contented myself with riding 15 mph, climbing as
many hills as I could find, and building up the engine,
Hi Chris - Great report as others have said. I think most of the ppl
who are into the swim-bike-run thing have experienced many of the
things you related. I did nearly the same thing back in the 80s and
being a swimmer and former lifeguard, and a pretty decent middle of
the back biker back then, running was my trouble sport.
All of your training regimes seem familiar, and the pyramiding in
swimming is interesting. Most ppl tend to do a bit less kicking, and
rely on the stroke and form to do the pulling - the kick is pretty
much used not to propel that much, but to keep the drag low by not
letting the lower body sink too much below the surface - but whatever
works for you - I liked the drafting techinque you used. Be
interesting to hear your race times and positions and age group
snippets.
For the running may I suggest fast downhill repeats to help you bring
your running speed up a bit.
What I did was find a 4 mile stretch that was basically a slight down
hill the whole way and have my wife help me out. I'd do some focussing
on this x days a week for about a month leading up to a race. The idea
was simple. Start out with a couple mile warm up jog usually out and
back or on a track, which in my case was near the trial downhill,
luckily. Then do a timed run down the hill and have your driver pick
you up and take you back to the top. I worked up from a 7:30 run/jog
pace to running sub 6:00 on this downhill portion. This helped
immensely in my running and pacing and getting used to running 'at
speed' and moved my jog/run pace to sub 7:00 in about a month. Of
course you have to have a fitness base and a running base - I had
about 30-40 miles of lsd and fartlek a week for the previous year.
Anyway, adapt as needed. Just be aware that you don't want a steep
downhill, just gradual, almost so you don't notice that it's downhill
- just enough to aid you almost like a tail wind on a bike. I'd do 3-4
repeats of this 2-3 times per week in the final 6 week period, with a
good 1 week taper of all events (staggered) leading up to the race.
That's the other thing I wanted to mention. Be sure and taper all your
events wisely. Best tapering is to switch to like 75% or less daily
pace and for the more intense activities, depending on your
background, just maybe do a quick taper or take the last couple days
off, just doing a bit of lazy jogging to stay loose and keep the
proprioception. I posted a long message with some tips from Mark Allen
in this ng - google on it from last year I think. It's a list of 4 or
5 tips on areas that can be neglected.
Get back and let us know the rest of the story.
Best,
-Badger |
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| Madelaine |
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:17 am |
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Tony wrote:
Quote: Well done Chris, your gradual approach is smart. As for the hybrid bike -
its refreshing to see someone willing to wait until upgrading to a sleeker
machine. I see so many people around here who get a little into biking and
suddenly buy a trek 5500 or a top-of-the-line time trial machine when
they're out of shape and 15 pounds (or much more) overweight. The money is
wasted on them IMO. I've never done a tri, but I've done biathlons, and you
can get pretty far with a mid-range racing bike with aero bars...
- Tony
Tony,
What is a "biathlon" in this context? Is it bike + swim or is it bike +
run? I thought a biathlon was cross country skiing + marksmanship. I'm
curious because I can't run but can bike and am looking for something to
shoot for.
Madelaine
P.S. the obvious obsence definitions have occured to me, so don't bother. |
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| Dot |
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:13 am |
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Madelaine wrote:
Quote: Tony,
What is a "biathlon" in this context? Is it bike + swim or is it bike +
run? I thought a biathlon was cross country skiing + marksmanship. I'm
curious because I can't run but can bike and am looking for something to
shoot for.
Madelaine
P.S. the obvious obsence definitions have occured to me, so don't bother.
"Biathlon" is generally used for xc skiing and rifle sharpshooting
(dictionary def, albeit an old dict). However, I've noticed several
people use "biathlon" for bike-run competitions. In Alaska, there's
seldom any ambiguity that biathlon refers to ski-shooting competitions
 since we've had some top-notch biathletes come out of the state in
the past and we tend to be a snow-oriented state (as we're dreaming of
it now).
"Duathlon" is usually used to refer to run and bike competitions, but it
can refer to a competition with any 2 disciplines. I think I've seen xc
skiiers refer to duathlons with classic and skate components. As Harold
said, check what is involved in the race - disciplines, order,
distances, terrain (flat, hilly, on/off road), etc.
That said, I've done 1 hilly trail duathlon twice (fit my schedule), and
really enjoyed it. Mt bike portion was challenging but not technical;
others might be more technical. Ours was run-bike, but more usually
they're run-bike-run. I'll probably do more in the future, but it
depends on race dates and lack of conflict with trail races.
Yea, a run-bike duathlon would be a good first running goal  Enjoy!
Dot
(reader didn't like multiple ng so had to clip some)
--
"Success is different things to different people"
-Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope |
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| Tony |
| Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:21 pm |
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Yes it was "Duathlon". In the ones I did (same one 2 times) it was a 5k
run, 20k bike, then another 5k run. LoL actually it was called the
"Y-athlon" because the YMCA here sponsored it. I would do it again this
year but I think they stopped it.
- Tony
Dot wrote in message ...
Quote: Madelaine wrote:
Tony,
What is a "biathlon" in this context? Is it bike + swim or is it bike +
run? I thought a biathlon was cross country skiing + marksmanship. I'm
curious because I can't run but can bike and am looking for something to
shoot for.
Madelaine
P.S. the obvious obsence definitions have occured to me, so don't bother.
"Biathlon" is generally used for xc skiing and rifle sharpshooting
(dictionary def, albeit an old dict). However, I've noticed several
people use "biathlon" for bike-run competitions. In Alaska, there's
seldom any ambiguity that biathlon refers to ski-shooting competitions
since we've had some top-notch biathletes come out of the state in
the past and we tend to be a snow-oriented state (as we're dreaming of
it now).
"Duathlon" is usually used to refer to run and bike competitions, but it
can refer to a competition with any 2 disciplines. I think I've seen xc
skiiers refer to duathlons with classic and skate components. As Harold
said, check what is involved in the race - disciplines, order,
distances, terrain (flat, hilly, on/off road), etc.
That said, I've done 1 hilly trail duathlon twice (fit my schedule), and
really enjoyed it. Mt bike portion was challenging but not technical;
others might be more technical. Ours was run-bike, but more usually
they're run-bike-run. I'll probably do more in the future, but it
depends on race dates and lack of conflict with trail races.
Yea, a run-bike duathlon would be a good first running goal Enjoy!
Dot
(reader didn't like multiple ng so had to clip some)
--
"Success is different things to different people"
-Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
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| onemarathon |
| Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 8:13 am |
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In article <ad3a9b84.0407121849.1dab04f5@posting.google.com>,
durkinc92@hotmail.com (Chris Durkin) wrote:
Quote: Overall, it was a good race. I finished feeling strong, and didn't
drown. Triathlons are so much fun, I am now thoroughly addicted. I
can't wait to do another one. I'm not sure if I'll do another sprint
this year, but next year I'm definitely doing the "My Next Triathlon",
which is a follow-up to this one, followed by the Black Hills
Triathlon next fall. That one is olympic distance. Hopefully by then
I'll own a better bike and be somewhat competitive. In the meantime, I
plan to enter every 5K I have time for, plus a couple of 10Ks before
next fall. Hopefully some longer open water swims too, if I can find
any.
Thanks to everyone on the newsgroups for all their informative and
inspirational posts, and for taking the time to read this.
Wishing you good health and speed,
Chris
aka "Thrashing Slug"
congrats, Chris, on your first tri! loads of fun, eh? reading your
report, i almost felt like i was reading my own first race report. i,
too, am just getting into tri (did my third race this summer), and
started out much the same way you did. i came from a non-swimmer
background and concentrated on that mostly in training. i, too, used a
clunky hybrid bike, but posted a decent time mostly through plain hard
work. i do come from a bit of a running background (4 years of
experience before my first tri last year), so that wasn't a worry for
me.
a tip, in case anyone else didn't mention it: get yourself a race bib
belt. you can attach your race number bib to it pre-race, and in T1,
you'd just clip the belt around your waist (with the number on the
back), then at T2, just turn the belt around with the number on the
front for the run. easy!
yeah, must take it easy on water, etc during the bike. must remember
that the run will slosh around whatever is in your gut at the time. i
made the mistake of eating part of a banana in T1 once (i was
famished!), and by the time i got to the run, my stomach was starting to
cramp.
anyway, great race, and welcome to tri!
Cam |
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| Chris Durkin |
| Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:11 am |
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So, the official results are up on the website. I forgot to mention in
my original post what the distances were. 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile bike,
3 mile run.
My overall time was 1:22:17, which put me in 23rd place out of 109. 5
of 8 in my age group. Swim split was 9:28, 11th overall, 3rd in age
group. Bike time is kind of confusing but I think it was 44:51, 18th
overall, 4th in age group. Run time was 28:00, 49th overall, 6th in
age group.
I was kind of surprised by the swim time, since it felt like I was
swimming much faster than I had in training. I would have estimated at
least 7:00 per 400 yard pace. Most likely the pack I was swimming with
went off course and we ended up doing more than 440 yards. Either that
or the cold water made it seem like I was exerting myself more.
My run time was also much worse than I had estimated. Even allowing 2
minutes for the "rest stop", that still averages to almost 9 minute
mile pace, which is pretty bad. Cramp or no cramp, I never would have
allowed myself to run that slow if I knew what pace I was going. I
definitely need to remember to use the timer on my watch next time!
It's cool though, this taught me a couple of valuable lessons that I
can put to good use. I need to focus more on maintaining my target
pace, and pay less attention to the people around me. On the bike I
had no problem doing that, since I had the speedometer. The swim and
run are a bit trickier.
Thanks to everyone who posted with suggestions.
Chris
durkinc92@hotmail.com (Chris Durkin) wrote in message news:<ad3a9b84.0407121849.1dab04f5@posting.google.com>...
Quote: Hey people,
race description snipped |
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