rollinsw's Group - FULL (Page 3)

Wow, you are a runner! Congrats on the half marathon.

I know both shiloh1206 and Hake use bike carriers with their kids as well.

A number of people use the Total Immersion books and dvd's and have good things to say about it for helping them with swimming. Maybe there is a class you can take at the gym just to get started? It would be a good way to learn good form and such before you get too far down the road.

A lot of people use mountain bikes or hybrids for their first tri. It is a great way to figure out if you really like this sport before spending the $'s on a road or tri bike. I did my first tri on an OLD mountain bike and still had a great time.

You do not need a wetsuit if the water is warm, especially for a sprint.... but .... a wetsuit does give you some extra buoyancy and helps keep your legs floating without having to kick a lot. A wetsuit can also make you a little faster in the water, but I am not sure how much of a difference that would be in a sprint. There are some places where you can rent wetsuits for a week. Again, this would let you try one without having to spend a lot of money.

You do not have to have this, but a tri suit or tri-shorts and a tri-jersey might be worth buying for your first race. They are meant to be worn the entire race so that you do not have to change clothes. You can wear them as a swimsuit or under a wetsuit. They dry very quickly and have a little padding in the seat for the bike. You can find last year's clothing on sale from most manufacturers on the web pretty easily. If you do a search on the forums here, you can get all kinds of opinions on the different manufacturers and styles available.

It is the freestyle stroke.

I grew up calling it the crawl. When I first joined a swim team as a kid, they had us swimming different strokes. When they told me to swim freestyle, I did not know what that meant and thought that I could just do whatever I wanted. Kind of like "free time" in class in grade school. I just jumped in the pool and was goofing around for about a half a lap before the coach stopped me and explained.

Nick's post had a lot of great info.

If you got the clipless pedals now, you could get used to them before moving to a new bike. I think you might also be able to move those pedals to your road bike when the time comes if you wanted. It is worth talking to your bike shop about. If you get clipless pedals, you will need to wear special cycling shoes and then change to your running shoes for the run.

Try doing a search in the forums here for recommendations for bike seats. Here is a link to a thread with some recommendations for bike seats for ladies: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=47469&posts=29&highlight=gel%20seat&highlightmode=1#M499072. I think that I have heard to avoid the gel bike seat covers. I vaguely remember hearing that they can cause more chaffing or something.

For the races, you will probably be given a swim cap that you will be required to wear. Most races start the swim in waves by age group/gender and each wave has its own color swim cap. The caps make you easier to spot in the water. For workouts, I don't wear a cap. But I don't have any hair left to cover!

Goggles are pretty much a personal preferences. I have had pretty good luck with most brands. I would try to find a pair that fits your face well and give them a shot.

Bill

Hi Darren. We've been mostly posting to each other via the inspire messages in our training logs. I've been fighting some type of bug and cannot seem to shake it. It looks like you just got over something too?

I am not sure where to start with running tips. Are you not enjoying it because it hurts? I'll poke around in the forums to see if there has been any general advice on running.

Bill

Phil, glad to see you back!

I have never used a snorkel, but know that some people do as a way to work on their stroke and some to increase their VO2 max. Here is a post that has more info about using a snorkel: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=46734&start=1

I would think that you would want to learn how breath correctly and not rely on the snorkel. You are sure to eventually wind up at a race that does not allow them and then you are in trouble.

What are the races you signed up for? That is an excellent way to get yourself motivated!

Bill

Hi Bill,

I thought I'd ask about transitions here in the forum instead of in the blogs in case others have similiar questions / concerns about this aspect of competing in a tri.  This is probably the one area that I'm most concerned about for my first race.  Any advice or suggestions that you've learned that you could pass along would be great.

Here are some of the questions that are running through my mind: 

Should you take the time to put on socks or not?  If not, should I be training without them?

Do you use some type of lubricant like Body Glide to aid in swimming and/or getting in and out of a wetsuit? 

Are transitions the primary spot to take a drink and/or squirt some gel in a Sprint e.g. do you bother taking along a drink for the bike leg of a Sprint?  

On another note, do you carry along a tube / C02 for the bike leg of a Sprint since it's fairly short or do you shed the weight and risk getting stuck on the off chance that you get a flat?

 Thanks, Nick

Great questions!

If you plan to race without socks, train without them. Make sure that you have a bike shoe and a running shoe that will work for you without socks. A lot of people in Sprints and Olys do not wear socks to save time. I do wear socks; I have not found a shoe that I am comfortable in without them. My few experiments without them have left my feet bleeding. I would rather spend a few extra seconds to slip on a pair of socks, but you will find plenty of people that do not agree. If you do wear them, try rolling your socks down like a condom so they'll go on your wet feet easier during transition.

I apply a bunch of Bodyglide around areas where there might be chafing from the wetsuit, like around the neck. When you put on the Bodyglide, use a lot! Once you think you have enough on, put on more. I apply a little around the bottoms of my legs to help get the suit off, but I really don't have too many problems with this.

There are a lot of great posts in the BT forums about getting wetsuits on and off. Here is one: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=55680&posts=29&highlight=wetsuit%20removal&highlightmode=1#M550194

Sure, carry a bottle and some gel on the bike in a sprint. I think that it would save you a little time to consume this once you are settled in on the bike rather than pausing to do it in transition. You will need some hydration on the bike. I tape a gel to the top tube of the bike that I can just rip off while riding. Tape it down by the top of the gel pack so that when you pull it off, it opens for you.

It doesn't hurt to have an extra water bottle in transition that you can use to clean off your feet if they get dirty from the run from the water. Some people have a bucket of water that they step in to clean their feet.

You are going to get different answers from different people on this one. I do carry an extra tube and CO2 because I want to finish the race. Some people don't bother because the race is so short to them, if they get a flat they just pack it up for the day. It is really not that much extra weight.

Bill

Hi Phil

I prefer gels on shorter events up to 3 hours. They are a bit easier to digest, but it is important to drink much water since you don't want to get too much concentrated sugar in your system. Gels gives the effect much faster than a bar which great when you need that extra strength.

On longer races i usually start with bars pretty early when it is still easy to eat them, gradually shifting to gels or liquids(ENERVITENE LIQUID) which is my personally favorite.  If you don't like bars there are combination drinks like Maxim High Energy Drink (Extran) which gives you good energy.

Most important is of course to try them before the race to see how your body reacts to them and find flavours that you like.

They are a syrupy mixture of stuff including carbs that provide you sustained energy. There are a bunch of different brands and flavors and like Andreas said, you need to experiment with them to find the ones that agree with your stomach.

Everyone is different with how their stomach handles them. I have a hard time with solid foods, so I use them instead of bars. I can only use them in workouts or races for about 2.5 - 3 hours, any more than that and they start to upset my stomach. For events longer than that, last year I started using liquids: a mixture of Hammer's Heed, Sustained Energy and gels.

That cocktail of stuff worked for me, but did not always sit well with my stomach. I am going to experiment with some different drinks this year and hope to find something that agrees with my stomach. If you have not guessed by now, I have a wimpy stomach.

Andreas gave the best advice, always try them before a race to see how your body reacts to them.

Oops, sorry I missed this post, Phil. I know that you can find different brands at sports shops, bike shops, etc. I am not sure if they have them at places like walgreens or not. I have been buying them by the case when they go on sale at my local Performance bike shop. They get really cheap that way. You can also find them online. I have seen some online stores that sell some type of variety pack so that you can try a bunch of different flavors.

Gels are generally taken every 45 - 60 minutes, but everyone is different with what their stomach will handle. A lot of people do not bother with them in sprints, but those that do should not need more than 1 or 2. I took one on my bike in my first sprint.

Gatorade is used a lot in races, and there is a new Gatorade Endurance formula that you see in longer events. But it really could be any brand and flavor at a race. The trick is to find out what they will be using at your race and make sure to train with it.

PhilE - 2007-03-29 2:19 PM Running Question...... so this whole running thing is new to me....... so to date i've been taking it real slow, trying to introduce my body to the motion of running....and over the past few weeks up'd my distance to a really slow 2 miles.... (which was huge for me....you folks that run massive distances suck so moving forward once i hit the 3 mile mark should i stick their and work on upping my cadence and overall time or should i keep pushing the distance... i would like to try an olympic by the end of the season but the 6 mile run is a huge roadblock....but i'd rather do it right that push to far... Thanks

That is awesome that you have worked your way up to two miles! When I started running again (after, I don't know, 20+ years), I could not make it 2 miles. It took me quite some time until I got to the point where I could hit 2 miles without stopping.

I am not even close to being qualified to coach someone on how to run, but I can share with you what I did. When I was starting, my workouts were based on training plans to get me to a specific race. So I was always working to the distance of the race.

Maybe you can use a plan that gets you to your sprint distance races this summer and then another plan that gets you to an Olympic this Fall. There is a Sprint to Olympic Bridge plan on this site that I used and really liked. You could see how you were feeling this summer and if you wanted to go for it, maybe after your July 15th sprint you could start a 12 week plan that got you to an Olympic in October?

Just something to think about; you would want to see how you were feeling and perhaps not want to overdo it if you were feeling burned out by the end of the summer.

Regardless of whether you stick to 3 miles or work to increase distance, you would be working on your form and cadence. You are training with a heart rate monitor, right? Have you done any testing to find your lactate threshold and to calculate your zones? That would be really important for all of this training.

Okay, now I am rambling. Let me know if this makes any sense.

Bill