Mountain biker versus Road bike racer

I'm not sure if I have Matt or Jake to thank for sharing this with me, but I think this is pretty funny (especially their voices).  Is it bad that I identify with both of them?. . .what stupid things would the "triathlete" say if he joined the discussion.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6007635/road-bike-racer-meets-mountain-biker

Race Report: Jingle Bell 5k

Last Saturday I did 5k to see where my run training was.  I showed up in plenty of time (my Mom will be proud), signed up, warmed up. . .which was really needed because it was in the upper 30’s, and was all ready to go.  About 200 yards into the race it was pretty clear that it was going to down to me and one other guy, as we had already open a significant gap on the rest of the field.   I dropped right into second place, the guy leading was going right about the pace I wanted to go to start with (5:45).  The two of us continued on like this following the motorcycle showing us the way (which was pretty cool, I’ve never been near enough to the front of a race that had a motorcycle to be able to follow it), just after the mile marker the guy I was following began to slow slightly and I eased into the lead.  I stayed in the lead until just past the two mile mark, where the guy I was running with eased past me.  I really had to work but I just tried to stay with him, thinking that if I could stay with him that I could probably out sprint him in the last 100 meters.  When we reached the finishing straight I opened up my stride and pulled ahead, finishing in 18:09.  A time I was happy with, especially given how cold it was and that I hadn’t rested for the race at all.  The only downside is now I have to do my training at faster paces; previously my training paces were based on running about 18:45.

Link to results

Velominati Rules for Cycling

One of the guys at the shop showed this to me and I tought it was funny and so I thought I'd pass it along.  You can see how stuck (or stuck up) you are about cycling tradition.

http://www.velominati.com/blog/the-rules/

You can make your own judgement about how serious they are being .

Training Report Card

Earlier I post my goals for 2012, my primary goal:  Qualifying for the Xterra World Championships, and three goals one for swimming, biking, and running that I believe will help me reach those goals.  These goals are important to improving, but more important are the steps that you are going to do to reach those goals.  I created a report card to monitor, and motivate me to make sure I'm taking the step I need to in order to reach my goals.  One step that I didn't include in my report card, but have already taken was to stop competing in cyclocross races.  I've enjoyed cyclocross racing over the last several years, but I found that I didn't continue to swim or run during the fall, and with races every weekend I didn't get in consistent blocks of training.

I will give regular updates on my training grades through the year.  Unfortunately what I've posted below doesn't look as good as the one I made on Excel (the format didn't transfer very well).

Swimming
Swim 3 times a week

4x=A+ 3x=A- 2x=C 1x=D 0x=F Per week

Swim with focus on one form issue
4x=A+ 3x=A- 2x=C 1x=D 0x=F Per week

Most of swimming intervals for time (minimal "junk"/unstructured yards)
3x=A 2x=B 1x=C 0x=F Per week

Work on 3rd stroke breathing
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week

Work on kicking and back strength trough backstroke
3x=A+ 2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week
Biking
Continue interval workouts
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week

Regular long rides 3.5hr+ (mountain or road)
4x=A+ 3x=A- 2x=B 1x=D 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Mountain bike often 3x+ every two weeks
4x=A+ 3x=A- 2x=B 1x=D 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Mountain biking at race pace (MTB interval workouts)
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Mountain bike with others
1x=A 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Handling technique (manualling, bunny hopping, square edge bumps
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Regular Power Crank Rides 3x+ every two weeks
3x=A 2x=B- 1x=D 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Running
Wider variety of interval workouts (:30-2, 3-5, 20) 2 types per 2 week
2 Types=A 1 Type=F Per 2 weeks

More Bricks
4x=A+ 3x=A- 2x=C 1x=D 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Weekly hilly long runs 1:30+
1x=A 0x=F Per week

Work on improving running form
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week

Trail run 1x+ per 2 weeks
3x=A+ 2x=A 1x=B 0x=F Per 2 weeks

Other
Plyometric workouts 1 per week
1x=A 0x=F Per week

Foot exercises 3x per week
3x=A 2x=B 1x=D 0x=F Per week

Core workouts 3x per week
3x=A 2x=B 1x=D 0x=F Per week

Resistance training (2x per week start of year, 1x per week later)
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week

Yoga 2x per week
2x=A 1x=C 0x=F Per week

What fuels you?

This is something I've been thinking about since I happened onto a piece on ESPN about Adrian Peterson, and I need to share.

Here's a link to the segment:  http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4577473

At the beginning of the segment they talk about that he wants to be the "best player in the NFL ever," not the best running back ever. . . the best play EVER.  Then at about 2:00 of the segment they are looking in his pantry and it shows he has donuts, potato chips and twinkies . . . TWINKIES.  It really makes me wonder if he has really thought through trying to be the best player ever. 

My diet isn't perfect, but I don't have donuts, potato chips (unless my wife happened to get some, but either way I never have any), or twinkies. 

Review: Racing Weight Quick Start Guide

Recently read Racing Weight Quick Start Guide by Matt Fitzgerald, here are some of my thoughts.  He believes that you can't effectively lose weight and get fitter at the same time, after thinking about this it made more and more sense, if you're running a calorie deficit large enough to lose weight quickly you won’t be fuelling your body well enough to get more fit.  As a result this guide is intended to help athlete that are significantly heavier than they want to be, lose weight at the beginning (or before) of your season.

One thing that I thought was very good was that he doesn’t promote any fad or outrageous diet, it’s a diet that you maintain and be healthy, but not to achieve your maximum fitness.   He suggests increasing your protein to about 30% of your calorie intake, as opposed to 20% for your best training (reminiscent to the Atkins Diet, but not to extreme).  In addition to that increase protein intake he suggests eating unprocessed food, whole grains, fruits and vegetables (nothing that just about anyone wouldn’t suggest).

In terms of working-out one of the biggest things that he promotes in doing high intensity workouts, the big advantage of doing this is that the high intensity workouts increase how many calories you burn during the rest of the day.

There are obviously a lot that from the book that I haven’t discussed (specific workouts, meal plans, weight lifting suggestions), but I think for the intended audience (a triathlete, cyclist, or runner) who isn’t at the weight they would like to be for the season I think this book could be an extremely helpful tool.

1x10: My thoughts

This past year I’ve been riding my mountain bike with a 1x10 gear setup, one chainring in the front and 10 speeds in the back.  I was fortunate to get my bike this way out of the box thanks to Specialized making their Epic Expert Carbon 29er in this configuration in addition to the more standard 2x10, I say more standard, but the 2x10 setup has really only been out for a year and a half or so. 

I have absolutely love this setup (it’s lighter, I never have to worry about shifting the front derailleur and my chainline is much better), and will be setting up any mountain bike I have for the foreseeable future this way, even if I have to convert a 3x10 or 2x10 setup to the 1x10, by swapping chainrings and adding a chain guide.  Previously I had used the standard 3x9 (on a 26” bike) setup and while doing mountain bike rides and used the middle chainring exclusively, while racing I would use mostly the big chainring.  In both cases I was cross chained a lot, while riding I was to the outside of the cassette, and while racing I was toward the inside of the cassette, by no means ideal in either situation.

Two things have made running a 1x10 setup easier than it had been in the past:  11-36 cassettes and 29” wheels.  When Sram and later Shimano went to 10 speed mountain bike cassettes the biggest cog went from 32 to 36 (in most cases), this expanded the gear range of the cassette by more that 10%.  If you are using a 29” wheel not only will each of your gears will be more than 20% bigger (something crank manufactures haven’t quite got their heads around in my mind, you’ve got to be a compete monster to turn over a 42x11 on a 29er), but the gear range will ALSO be more than 20% wider.  When you combine these two factors the gear range is well over 30% wider than 1x9 setup and 26” wheels (the downside to this is the gaps between gears is also more than 30% wider, something that I haven’t noticed to be a problem at all). 

It is important to get correct front chainring for yourself, a 34 has been perfect for me:  I’ve never needed anything easier than a 34/36, and while I have spun up the 34/11 I certainly haven’t been able to spin it out.  It’s pretty easy to get 32 and 34 tooth single speed chain rings (you definitely want a single speed ring so the chain doesn’t get dropped), if you need anything smaller that’s where you might run into some issues, and they aren’t mass produced to my knowledge.  I know you can get a 30 tooth ring/spider from Homebrewed Components (a couple of the guys on the BikeSource MTB team have gotten them).  Also you definitely need a good chain guide to keep the chain on the chainring, I’ve had really good luck with my minimalistic Specialized one (I drop the chain a couple times during the Spring/Summer, but since then haven’t dropped a chain once) and I know a bunch of guys on the MTB team have been running models from E-thirteen with a lot of success

A couple items to think about before rushing off to the bike shop to set your mountain bike up 1x10.  Riding in Charlotte we don’t have any extended climbs that you might encounter in other area, that might make a 1x10 set-up not ideal for climbing, my suggestion would be to look at the smallest gear you are using and make sure that you’ll be able to get that small of a gear ratio.  To go along with that if you ride in the big ring a lot see what range of the cassette you are using and make sure you have that covered in your setup.  Also a chain guide is designed to keep the chain on the chainring, and it can be pretty hard to get the chain back on if it comes off (I always kept a multi-tool with me to be able to move the chainguide if the chain came off).

Shiv: Further Thoughts

I probably spent too much time talking about the hydration system on the new Shiv in my earlier post on the bike, when there are many other noteworthy items about the bike.  More important to triathlets is how usable and fittable the bike is (in addition to being fast), and from what I’ve seen the Shiv is going to be easy for triathletes to use (particularly for shipping) and offer a lot of options for fitting (without sacrificing aerodynamics).

TriRig.com posted a very thorough and thoughtful review of there initial impressions of the new Shiv.

TriRig.com also had an article on the Shiv Craig Alexander used to win Ironman Hawii

If you’ve never been to TriRig.com I would definitely check it out, I had never heard of it until I started searching for info on the new Shiv.  Since then I’ve been impressed with the articles, reviews, and pro bike setups. 

Treeshaker Team Recap

Recap of BikeSource Mountain bike team from the Treeshaker 6 and 12 Hour Challenge:

2^nd Place 12 hour Male Duo:  Donald Butler and Daniel Lenis

3^rd Place 6 hour Female Solo:  Rebecca Bubp

1^st Place 6 hour Male Solo:  Chris Rouisse

1^st Place 12 hour Three Person Male:  Tim Anderson, Bobby Bryson, and Matt Moosa

Podium Picture

On the podium at Treeshaker

Race Report: Treeshaker 6 Hour MTB

The Plan: The plan was to go out relatively hard for the first five minutes to get in front of poor bike handlers (myself circa 2009 and earlier), then to back way off, get my heartrate down to the low 130’s and ride smooth and even for the rest of the race, you can always go faster at the end of the race if you still feel good.

The Race:  I got to the race later than I was hoping to (nothing new there for me).  Matt and Tim (guys from the shop that also were racing), helped me set up my new Garmin 500,  all I was going to have it display was time, so I’d know when to drink and heartrate, so I’d ride easy enough for the first 4 hours of the race.  I didn’t want to know how fast I was going, because that might have made me want to speed up, which wouldn’t help things during hours 4, 5, and 6.  Warmed up very briefly and got ready for the start.

Got a good start, was surprised how many people went out really hard in the first couple minutes, I knew most of them were part of teams and wouldn’t be racing continuously, the rest I knew would either slow down or were going to be much faster than me and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  I backed my pace way back after getting into the woods, but my heart rate stayed high (in the 150’s) for quite a while, I knew that if I just kept going smooth eventually it would come down, and by 30 minutes into the race it had. 

First two laps (each about 48 minutes) went by pretty smoothly, there were some riders around, but by that time everyone had spread out pretty well.  The start of the third lap I started to check out mentally, had been riding for almost two hours and had four hours still to go, I was still riding pretty well, but wasn’t as focused and motivated as would have been best.  I had no idea where I was compared to the other guys riding in my class, I could have been anywhere from 1^st to10th I just had no idea.  Midway through the third lap I caught up to someone that was in my class, I stayed on his wheel for a couple minutes and relaxed, when I passed him I continued to push for a couple minutes (I wanted to open up a big enough gap that he wouldn’t try to follow).  Catching and passing him helped me tremendously in staying focused and motivated, I knew I had to pull away from him without going to hard. 

Everything continued to go smoothly, every two laps I was swapping Camelbaks and getting a new water bottle with nutrition.  I finished lap 5 right about the 4 hour mark, and was still feeling strong, better in fact that I had felt on my longer mountain bike training rides.  The cut off for going out on another lap was 5:30, so I would have to do two 45 minute laps (a couple minutes faster than I was going) to do another, or I would just be doing two laps.  Knowing this I pushed the 6^th lap really hard, it wasn’t fast enough that I’d end up doing two laps (which was probably a good thing).  On the 7^th lap I was feeling pretty tired, but I was keeping things together pretty well.  About ten minutes from the finish the front end of the bike washed out and down I went (my first crash of the day, not bad for me, but it would have felt good if I hadn’t).  I got back up without any issues, or blood for that matter and finished up.  When I was done the guys from the team said they had thought I had won but weren’t sure.  It took about 15 minutes for me to know for sure that I had in fact won.  This was the first time I had felt like I’d won a race overall, since track in high school (I’ve won my age group or category, but there have always been faster people doing the same event), and it was pretty funny that I didn’t know what place I was for the whole race.  I had ended up winning by about a minute and twenty seconds, not because I was faster (he had two laps that were faster than any of mine), but because I kept my lap times even and didn’t slow down as the race went along.

Neil Boyd and his guys from Charlotte Sports Cycling did a great job putting on the race, and I was extremely impressed with the prizes I received for winning, including a couple gift cards and some merchandise that was actually usable (at so many races you end up with stuff that you’ll never be able to use), in addition to a nice plaque that will stay in the triathlon room (where my trainer and all my triathlon gear goes) for motivation this winter while I’m on the trainer.  Results were also posted very quicky and since he used timing chips we know each of our lap splits.

You can view results, by going to the Charlotte Mountain Bike page clicking on the Treeshaker link and then going to the results.

Fun time of year at a bike shop

This time of year is one of the coolest times to work in a bike shop.  You start getting in the really cool stuff for the next model year.  Now is a great time to go into a bike shop and ask what cool stuff have you gotten in for next year.  Any shop employee is going to be really excited to talk about the stuff that’s come in for next year.  In the last couple weeks we’ve gotten a S-works Epic 29er XTR (which is absolutely gorgeous in person, the pictures on the Specialized website don’t do it justice), one of the new Venge Pro bikes, and what I think is the most exciting development for the bike industry for 2012:  the electronic Ultegra (UI2) bikes.  We just received one of the Tarmac SL4 Pro with UI2.  The UI2 bikes are going to be a great value if you are interested in electronic shifting (about the price of a mechanical Dura-Ace bikes, and weighing similarly).

New Shiv Tri

It's pretty cool that the day I started creating this blog that Specialized has released information on their new triathlon bike, the Shiv, which for a quite a while is going to get confused with the Shiv TT (which used to be called just "Shiv").  To me what's the most exciting about it isn't that it's a super fast time trial/triathlon bike (there are quite a number of them on the market), but this is a strictly designed as a triathlon bike and takes an aspect of completing a triathlon that has largely been ignored, or disregarded in bicycle design . . . HYDRATION.

For many if not most triathletes that are going to $3000 or more on a bike they are looking to at some point do a half ironman race or a full ironman race.  This means at a minimum of two and a half hours of riding, one waterbottle mounted to the downtube just isn't going to cut it.  The new Shiv will store water in bladder (similar to a Camelbak) in the down tube of the frame.  A hose extends from the bladder up to the handlebars, near the end of the hose is a magnet which attaches the hose to the extentions when not in use, keeping it out of the wind and improving wind resistance.  Keeping the hose out of the air might not seem like a big deal, but the straws that extend out of front mounted waterbottles are terrible for aerodynamics.  They have also set it up so that you can refill the bladder from a waterbottle during the bike.  This may seem trivial but if you looking to get a really fast bike and them you have to throw 2, 3, or more water bottles on the bike, it's certainly not going to be as aero as you'd like.