Short Ride To A Meeting
I think I’m going to end up being late for my own funeral. After this morning’s training, I’d left lots of time to get showered, changed, pack my bag with a change of clothes, and head off to my meeting this morning on Wilf, taking it as a nice leisurely ride.
But there’s obviously something wrong with gravity here, and all the clocks run fast, because I ended up having to ride to the meeting like I was being pursued by the hounds of hell itself. On the way there I almost got taken out by one of our local council’s recycling collection lorries. It was parked, and I was halfway past it when it just pulled out at me. The driver was ON THE PHONE. Grrrr!
The rest of the ride was uneventful, if hard work, head-down riding up a gentle incline as fast as I could on a bike that’s better suited to a steady commuting pace. Fortunately the guy I was meeting had gone to the wrong venue, so I had time to lock up the bike, get changed, and order coffee before he arrived. In fact I’m sure that by the time he got there, I looked as cool as a cucumber. Or as cool as I ever look, anyway.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 04/23/2008
- Time: 15:30:14
- Total Time: 00:35:00.00
- Distance: 8 miles
- Average Speed: 13.71 mph
I’m sure you looked very cool
Naughty naughty driver - that’s so annoying, and I bet he would have blamed you if he’d hit you!
I imagine you looking kind of like a cucumber so it’s all good either way.
I feel a little like a friend who forgot your childs name as I cannot remember your bikes by name anymore.
Hope you’re planning some good long bike-run bricks. My back seat coaching of Brad says not enough near event duration training was a big factor in his run performance last year.
Don’t panic - it’s Daughter’s birthday party this weekend, and she’s got 8 friends coming. I can never remember any of their names, even though we see them all pretty much every week. It’s an Engineer thing, I think.
Wilf is my Sturdy Commuting Bike, named after either Wilfred Owen, or Wilf Lunn. Take your pick.
Bricks. Hmmm. What I have in the plan are:
o Race minus 9 weeks: a 1/3 distance brick
o Race minus 7 weeks: a 1/2 distance one
o Race minus 5 weeks: a 1/2 distance open water swim & bike
o Race minus 4 weeks: a 2/3 distance brick
o Race minus 2 weeks: a 3/4 distance one
On top of that, my endurance swims go to 110% of race distance, my long runs go to full race distance, and my long rides go to 110% of race distance.
D’ya think I need to extend those bricks though?
Hey Karl, thanks for the comment on my blog.
I’ve been using BiM Active (http://bimactive.com) for some time now to track runs, and more recently to track bike rides. The service costs $6 to $11 per month and is right on your cell phone. When you’re done, you hit ’save’ and all the info is stored online for you.
I’ve been very happy with it, but have considered getting a Garmin because it might save money over time.
Cheers!
Karl,
To piggyback on Lacey’s comment - I use BiM Active as well. But since I dump my data from my Garmin into the system, I use the service for free. The charging that she describes is cell-based support.
Bill
I’ll preface this as a arm chair coach and not having competed in a Triathlon in 19 years and that was only a sprint.
Listening to Brad after each of his Ironman races he swam to survive the swim, pounded the bike and staggered in the run. (He may take exception with my adjectives if he sees this).
I think there are a number of aspects that you need to train your body for in Tri and the one that often gets the short end is keeping the effort up for the full duration of the race.
You do bricks to adapt to switching sports.
You train each sport to handle the individual distances.
Do you figure you’ll be on the course for 6-8 hours of constant effort and train your endurance to be comfortable with that duration of effort?
I’ve yet to do a century straight through, there’s always nature breaks and fueling stops and waiting for slower folks. I can do 4 hours of constant effort on the bike without putting my foot down but I don’t know if I could do 5 or 6.
Brad’s first Ironman was an experience and he wanted to go faster by a decent amount on his second but the big event volume wasn’t there the second year like the first. Granted the course turned out to be 147.8 but…
Even if you’re not trying to keep a place in the swim, it’s effort and going to take an hour+. You can do 50 miles on the bike in your sleep but you’re starting with an hour of a sport you’re not as well adapted to, riding for 3+ hours and then going to run for two more hours.
My gut tells me it’s important to train the body to that duration of effort. No idea what Joe says about it.
I think this is all good advice . . . and have modified my plan accordingly. In line with Brad’s comment, I’ve ditched the 60 mile ride, and replaced this with another brick . . . added another swim-bike session, AND I will be doing runs as a cool-down for all bike sessions.
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