How much to lie?: Cool Breeze Triathlon race preview

This Sunday will be my first triathlon of the year, a sprint triathlon with a very short (250 yard) pool swim, which is right up my ally:  limiting the time I lose swimming.  I feel really good after my week an easy week/vacation, we’ll see what that means for the race.  I went swimming yesterday and made sure my goggles weren’t going to leak, I was also able to practice doing turns underneath the lane line (which I’ll have to do for the race).  Today I’ll get everything set up for my bike, it’d be better if it was already done, but that’s one of the consequences of going to Cancun (which I’m totally ok with, and many times I’d be getting my bike set up after working, which I won’t have to do today).  Overall I feel really good going into the race.

One of the things that’s different about pool swims is that you have to put in a projected time for your swimming, and then you leave in order of fastest swimmer to slower.  Ideally if everyone is seeded properly no one has to pas anyone in the pool, and it runs very smoothly.  Reality is a little different:  people put in times that are much faster than what they will be able to swim, and as a result you have to pass people in the pool (which is difficult, and slows you down).  In the past I’ve tried to put in accurate or slightly optimist times for my swim, and while I never swam as fast as my seed time, everyone was further off in the times they submitted and as a result I’ve had to deal with slow swimmers in the pool and then had to deal with congestion on the bike course.  This year I said screw it, I’m going to try and put in a time that will seed me correctly regardless of what I will actually swim.  I put in a time of 77 seconds per 100 yards, which is something I can do easily for 100 yards, but not 250, and if I swim that fast I will have one of the fastest swims in the race.  But it turns out I put in a very appropriated swim time and my bib number is 54, which means I’ll be the 54^th racer to start which is about where I should be and mean that I won’t have to worry to much about passing (or being passed on the swim) and I won’t be stuck in the middle of the pack on the bike and have to pass tons of people.  We’ll see how this all works out tomorrow.

What’s the deal with old overweight guys at YMCA’s?  I understand that as we get older most of us care less about what others think about us and are more concerned about the people we are on the inside.  But there are old overweight guys, sorry to over generalize, but it’s the people  at YMCA’s (not just one or two, but at all of them that I’ve ever been to) that act as though they are in their own bathroom. On A recent trip to the Y there was an old very overweight guy who was naked in the middle of the only hallway and he had his legs spread and he was fanning his crotch with his towel (fortunately I was coming up behind) come on now, is that really necessary, and I'd it is don't do it in the middle of the hallway.

Great ride at Renaissance

I will be going to Cancum on Friday with Sakshi and a couple friends of ours for about a week, but don’t worry I have some blog posts prepared that Mark Privette of guest posting fame is being kind enough to post for me while I’m away.  He may even have a guest post of his own depending on if he feels up for it.  This does mean that I won’t be pasting links on Facebook, so you’ll just have to check my blog periodically to see if there’s a new post.

Yesterday morning before going to work I went for a mountain bike ride at Renaissance Park.  I had about an hour and a half and wanted to work on my handling at race pace and being able to maximize my speed from the my pedaling effort:  my fitness has always been better than my handling and as a result I frequently pedal hard in places where I will have to brake shortly.  For those familiar with Renaissance I rode the loop at the far end of the parking lot, the side of the park that has the short track loop.

 After a 15 minute warm-up I started pushing my pace trying to be really smooth and fast through the corners and on the long straights and hills really trying to pedal hard, but being careful not to waste energy pedaling hard in places where I would have to brake right away.  My first lap of that section including relatively easy pedaling back to the car was about twelve and a half minutes.  I felt really good riding and knew that I had just ridden really fast and felt really good handling the bike.  I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to continue at that pace.  I continued and did five more laps and was able to maintain almost the same pace (all of my laps were between 12:30-12:50) though the end of the ride which I was ecstatic about.  Even more than the pace I was able to maintain I was so happy with how I felt handling my Epic Evo 29er, which worked AWESOME.  I was able to go much faster through corners and obstacles than I was able to last summer, and I was able to do this without feeling like I was going faster than I was capable of.  This isn’t to say I rode perfectly, but most of my turns were at least good and very few were poor or bad.  It was a great feeling to be more comfortable mountain biking that I ever have and to feel faster during a training ride than I ever have; really has me excited about mountain bike riding and mountain bike racing.

Follow up to previous posts

I thought it was an appropriate time to follow up on a couple posts I made earlier:

-Swiftwick Aspire 12 compression socks

I had previously mentioned that I have been wearing some Swiftwick compression socks, particularly after hard workouts and races.  I’ve had a lot more time wearing them and have been even more impressed.  When I first got them I was really good about wearing them after every workout or race, recently there have been a couple times when they’ve all been in the wash and I haven’t worn them.  This really showed me how much they were helping, the difference was much larger than I thought:  with wearing them, there was virtually no leg soreness after a workout, without wearing them there was the typical leg soreness following a workout.  I’m not sure how much this helps in terms of fitness (feeling fresher for the next day’s workout can’t hurt), but even just for the reduced soreness and pain they are worth every penny and then some.

-Linsanity

Since I posted about Linsanity a lot has happened with the Knicks:  Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony came back from injury, the Knicks tanked, and D’Antoni resigned/was fired/was bought out.  As expected he didn’t continue scoring 25 points a game, but he’s remained a productive player and as a starter he has averaged 19 and 8.1 (points and assists) with 4.9 turnovers.  His numbers have dipped dramatically particularly in scoring (and turnovers) since Carmelo Anthony has returned from injury:  before Carmelo:  25 and 8.4 (6.5 turnovers), after Carmelo:  14.9 and 7.3 (3.9 turnovers).  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, teams with really high scoring point guards usually aren’t very good (exception: Chicago Bulls with Derrick Rose).  I’m very interested to see what happens with him in a more traditional offense that he will be in now, I would expect both his assists and turnovers to go down, but we’ll see.

-Specialized XC Light Weight Grips

I’ve continued to enjoy the Speciaized XC Light Weight Grips and they’ve held up much better than I expected (they are still in pretty good shape two months later, although I haven’t ridden a ton).  There durability has also been helped by me not crashing very often (for me).

-1x10 set-up

I’ve still be extremely satisfied with the 1x10 set up and would certainly recommend it for any XC racer who doesn’t have to deal with any super steep long climbs.  I think it is really important though if you are thinking about a 1x10 set-up to have done the gear ratio or gear inch calculations comparing the set-up you are thinking of running with the range of gears that you do actually use.

Cool links (both non-cycling and cycling related)

Non-cycling related:

8 stupid plays by Javale McGee, he must really want to help out the Kings because several of the bad plays were against the Kings.  I will give the Wizard credit they were able to ship both McGee and Nick Young out of town at the trading deadline, they might both turn out to be good players, but I don’t think it was going to happen with in Washington with all the mess going on there.

Article about Davidson Basketball

Good article with thoughts on the Robert Griffin III draft pick trade

Tremendous article about the Bachelor (which I may or may not have watched with my wife)

Spoof twitter account pretending to be Kim Jung-un (new leader of North Korea)

Cycling related:

Milan San Remo Preview:  looks like it’s going to be a really interesting race, with a number of favorites.

26” vs 29” Hardtails: a really good comparison of the differences between 26 and 29 inch hardtail bikes, they used two nearly identical equipped  bikes from the same manufacturer so the comparison is comparing apples and apples as much as possible.

Sram Red 2012 and 2013 mixing and matching components tested, which suggestions on what components to get if you are looking to upgrade an existing Sram Red equipped bike.

Cool picks of a Specialized Demo carbon downhill bike.  Cool video down at the bottom.  Sakshi, if you’re looking at this, I do NOT do that type of mountain biking racing/riding.

Thoughts after going to a Charlotte Bobcats game

Sakshi won suite tickets to the Charlotte Bobcats vs. the Utah Jazz a week ago Wednesday, because she doesn't care about sports I went with my mom and wanted to share some thoughts about the Bobcats, some of this was written right after the game and some was written more recently (keep in mind that since the game the Bobcats have actually improved their record going 1-3, that in itself should give you an indication of the state of the Bobcats):

 -Watching from a suite is a pretty cool experience, all you can eat free food that was actually pretty good, room to move around, nicer seats, and did I mention free food.

 -The Bobcats are TERRIBLE, they would be on pace to go 11-71 (now on pace to go 12-70) in an 82 game schedule, but somehow even that doesn’t do justice to how truly bad they are.  I don’t think even a single starter could even be called average: zero for five.  Every Jazz starter was better than every Bobcat starter, and most weren’t close, keep in mind the Jazz are 19-19 (now 20-22).

 -The Bobcats leading rebounder is Boris Diaw averaging 5.6 rebounds a game, making him the 55^th leading rebounder in the NBA, meaning that most NBA teams have TWO players averaging more rebounds per game than any of the Bobcats.  As a team they shoot 41% overall (last in the NBA and 31% from three (28^th out of 30) . . . terrible, and it’s not like they have a good defense, their defensive fg% is 27^th out of 30.

 -The Bobcats are not just a piece or two away from being decent, if any of the current players were the 4^th best player on the team they still wouldn’t be good.  They would need 4-5 players that are better than any player on their roster to even just be decent.

 -They’re “best” players would be best served as bench players in the case of their best two players redundant:

            +Kemba Walker and DJ Augustin are both undersized point guards that their best trait is driving to the basket.  Great for coming off the bench, but not a good option for a starter.

            +Bismack Biyombo looks athletic, has a great name and appears as though he’s going to a decent rebounder/defender, but to say his offensive game is limited would be an understatement, a more accurate description would be that his hands look like they’re made of stone.

            +Gerald Henderson is a solid player, but other than being a decent shooter doesn’t really bring ANYTHING positive to the table and would be best suited a decent shooting guard/small forward coming off the bench.

That’s all that I saw for redeemable assets.

 -If you’re going to be bad that’s one thing, but at least be interesting, push the ball, run do something.  No, they are just like a regular team, but just REALLY bad.

 -If you’re going to be bad, and not interesting, at least be entertaining while they’re not playing.  Get the crowd involved do fun stuff, use your cheerleaders A LOT, treat it like a college basketball or minor league baseball game. . . if your product isn’t very good at least make it fun.  The cheerleaders were barely used (at least try to rope your teenage boys and possibly their fathers), they did have two guys in inflatable sumo costumes being tackled by the mascot, which I must say was pretty awesome, but that was the highlight of all the halftime/timeout entertainment.

 -The name has nothing to do with Charlotte, even when the name was connected to the owner, Bob Johnson, it was a stupid name, but now that he doesn’t even own the team it is even stupider, not to mention how self-absorbed is it to name a basketball team after yourself?  Connect the name to the Wright brothers or NASCAR:  Flight, Racers, Crash, or the Wreckers, they could even be called the Cougars (after the Charlotte ABA team), which would be hilarious for other reasons.

 -The colors are atrocious, orange and blue would be bad enough (see Mets, New York), but it’s reddish orange and greyish blue.  Why couldn’t they be the Charlotte/Carolina Flight and have Duke and Carolina blue uniforms, I’m not saying it’s the best look, but it would be better than what it is now and would have some connection to Charlotte.

-And that folks is YOUR CHARLOTTE BOBCATS (in your deepest announcer voice).

BikeSource Team Recap Angler's Ridge

Chris Audet

Bobby Bryson

Men - OPEN - SINGLESPEED
4th Eric Hagerty 1:30:54  

Men - CAT 2 - SENIOR - 19-29
DNF (sliced tire)  Jake Arthur  

Men - CAT 2 - MASTER - 40-44
7th  Ryan Kelley  1:32:36

Men - CAT 1 - MASTER - 30-39
2nd Robert Bryson   1:59:23
10th  Chris Audet   2:09:16

Men - CAT 1 - MASTER - 40-99
18th Samuel Hollingsworth   2:18:59

Women - CAT 1 - MASTER - 30-99
DNF Rebecca Bubp  

Link to results with times