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Triathlon Race Check List
Essentials
___ Photo ID
___ USA Triathlon Membership card
___ Registration confirmation
___ Money
___ Pre and post race nutrition
Clothing
___ Warm ups (jacket, pants, tights, long sleeve shit, vest, shorts, t-shirt/under shirt, socks)
___ Rain suit (jacket, hood, pants)
___ Run training (shorts, t-shirt/singlet, socks, training shoes)
___ Bike training (shorts, jersey, socks, leg and arm warmers)
___ Swim training (swim suit, goggles, wetsuit)
___ Race uniform (speed suit, shorts/suit, singlet, socks, hat, sunglass, helmet, wetsuit, number belt)
Swim
___ Swim cap
___ Goggles
___ Wetsuit
Bike
___ Bike
___ Helmet
___ Shoes
___ Sunglasses
___ Repair kit
___ Pump
___ Water bottles
___ Nutrition
___ Socks
Run
___ Running shoes
___ Socks
___ Hat/visor
___ Race number belt
___ Nutrition
Transition
___ Towel
___ Sunscreen
___ Nutrition
 Some general tips:
1. Start to the outside of the pack at the start. This will help keep you from getting caught up in a slug fest right off the bat.
2. Take your time while you are swimming and keep your bearing. You will be better served to swim straight and on course than swim hard and all over the place.
3. Take your time running to transition after the swim. Standing up quickly after being prone for so long will be a new experience and can be uncomfortable. Take your time getting your legs under you and the feeling will pass. Take nice deep breaths.
4. You will have to run through the transition with your bike to a bike mount line. Check this out before the race. Be patient and watch for others that aren’t paying as much attention.
5. Stay to the right on the bike course except when passing.
6. Enter the dismount area under control. Again check this out before the race. Watch for those that are out of control.
7. Start the run comfortably. The heavy feeling will pass. Pushing at the start will fill you up with lactic acid and affect the rest of your run.
8. Have fun.
Pain, Discomfort, Deal
First the story, then the list.
I had a great ride today, 3 laps at Reagan Park. However I did have some hurdles to cross.
First, it was a little bit of a rough day. I know, I know…boo-hoo…get over yourself. Anyhow, I needed to find some focus and get on with my ride and make the best of it. So that’s what I did.
Next my bag broke, take it back to the car or end the ride. The better choice, let it pull down my jersey and deal with it. Robert does it all the time, every ride. I have never seen so much stuff in a jersey. It’s like watching a magician pull things from a hat when he unloads at the bike shop. Good thing as I was waiting to cross the street I heard a hissing sound. No need to look to far, staring back at me from the tire, a great big thorn. So I could leave it and hope to get back to the car but I decided to fix it. Laughing as all the air blew through hole the thorn left when I pulled it out. As I realized that I haven’t been to focused on my training and I wasn’t sure if I had a tube, let alone the right size. Ahhh…good fortune, the right size tube, tire levers and a couple CO2 canisters. So I take may time being sure to get it right and I do. I am fortunate to have a lot of practice with my line of work at Bike Authority.
So I move along finishing up my second lap, ready to be done honestly. And who do I see sitting there holding up a fence post…that’s right…BIG MIKE! So he convinced me to go on and ride with him. Now I have heard stories from Rudy about how fast he can ride ride but you really have to see it for yourself. He takes off like his a** is on fire. Once again, I start to laugh (I tend to do that a lot), wondering how bad it will hurt when hit a tree. Reagan Park is very tight. The smile quickly fades as I need to take in as much O2 as possible, it is starting to hurt, a lot. Just as I start to think if he would notice if I just turned around he came to a stop. Some saving grace, he is breathing as hard as I am. Now my turn, I know he is getting some rest because, well, I am just not as fast going through that stuff as he is. Again he takes the lead and I’m not ready to give up just yet. I calm down, smooth things out take control of my breathing. The rest of the ride was much more enjoyable. Until…
Until we get to the most fun section of the course a nice little down hill into a rhythm section. I’m in the lead at this point and wouldn’t know a bee flies into my helmet. As I am bouncing through the bumps, all technique is lost, I can feel him scratching around not able to escape. So I attempt to take off my helmet as quickly as possible, forgot to stop. And sure enough there’s that tree I was worried about earlier. Bang, boom, sting. I’m sure it was quite funny to watch. Mike was nice enough not to laugh to hard. Though he has always liked to look at me like he’s annoyed that I am such a fool sometimes. I got that look.
We made our way back and I decided to keep riding to finish the third loop. A much more comfortable pace. I could feel the swelling settle into the left side of my face as I bounced over the roots. This brought back memories of when I used to race and how I kept a much faster more intense pace. Pain is a sensation that our body experience to warn us that something may be injuring us. Once you have determined no damage is being done it is just discomfort. Discomfort can be dealt with. The more often you deal with it the less you notice it. That my friends is how you go fast, turning pain to discomfort, and discomfort into something that doesn’t exist for you.
Strategies:
1. Stress. Breathing, meditation, and self talk exercise are all good strategies to use before a workout after a stressful day.
2. Mechanical Failure. Take your time and fix the problem right the first time. Getting back to the workout 30 seconds sooner is not going to make much of a difference in the big picture. Missing the remainder of the workout because you rushed and pinched a tube or some other mistake, you loose the day. But what the heck, rest is good too.
3. Starting or Going to Hard. Relax, breath deep and bring your heart rate down. Breathing control and relaxing body scan are good ways to bring yourself back to pace. Hyperventilate and then stop for a rest, you just put yourself into a state that could take days to recover from.
Remember these are strategies for focus and not motivation or pacing. If you have any questions about the techniques let me know.
This morning’s run brought me to a realization that the skill of pacing is taken for granted. It’s taken for granted by me as a coach and most as runners or swimmers. In cycling you have constant feed back of your speed, it stairs back at you from your handlebars reminding you of what you need to be doing. It’s not so convenient while running and swimming. Now Garmin’s are very helpful but not as easy to see and you can set alarms and for both speed and heart rate to monitor things. However it is important develop the ability to assess your speed based on how “it feels”. This doesn’t need to be as refined as an elite track athlete or swimmer that spends numerous hours turning out laps at given splits on an on going basis. It is important to have an idea of what speed you are moving and what splits you need to be hitting to achieve your desired results. For example when doing mile repeats on the track if your goal is to hit 7:30 and your first 400 is in 1:30, a 6:00 pace, things happen physiologically that are not the goal of the workout.
Paced workouts are just that, a consistent pace or speed over a given distance. The desired training effect is not always the same. These workouts are usually designed to develop stamina in someway, either muscular endurance or cardiovascular. In the above example, starting out like it’s the Olympics will fill you full of lactic acid and ruin your gait and instead of a strong controlled interval you struggle through the last half of the interval with less than perfect form. It will produce stress and a training effect, assuming you have adequate recovery from this workout. Just not the right type for the goal. Certainly not the best thing when developing a pacing strategy for a longer event such as a marathon or ironman distance race.
How do I as a coach take that for granted? When reviewing logs and asking questions to often I assume that the pace recorded was pretty even. If some one says that they may have went out to fast I may be thinking 15 even 30 seconds and then settled in to things. I’m usually not thinking that someone started out at a whole other level and faded to make the time. So the next week or block I have them go faster and they push more and so on. Often if a particular pace is the goal I will stick with the times planned in the beginning and the athlete starts to report that the workouts are getting easier. The problem isn’t necessarily that the athlete doesn’t get where they originally set out to go. The problem is that when done correctly and I am evaluating the training with the accurate information of the entire process things can be done to make training more efficient and the goals could be more accurately evaluated and possibly set higher.
So, what to do, what to do…
Athletes whether they have a coach helping them or are on their own should develop a sense of pace. Balancing a busy lifestyle with yet another workout is very challenging and this type of workout is not the most effective in producing results. It is however another skill that will make you a more rounded athlete and help you get the most out of your training. The big concern then becomes when to fit it in. Ideally this is something that is worked on in the off-season or early on. This is great for the pool, not so much for Northeast Ohio winters on the run. The best thing to do is once the weather breaks and you have some general endurance workouts or active recovery workouts is to head to the track for some intervals. When most think of intervals they think of “make you puke” efforts full of suffering, not this time. Smooth controlled speed is what you are looking for. Choose 3 different paces near your desired race pace. Distance that work well are 200’s and 400’s for running and 50’s and 100’s for swimming. Make the sets simple and do them in a controlled environment such as a track and pool.
The following are 2 example of workouts, one swimming and the other running.
Goal run pace 8:00 miles
6 x 400 RI (rest interval) 200 (1&2 1:58, 3&4 2:00, 5&6 2:06)
Goal swim pace 1:30/ 100 yds
8 x 100 RI 0:30 (1&2 1:25, 3&4 1:30, 5&6 1:35, 7&8 1:30)
Do these until you are able to hit the time with in a couple of seconds no matter what the order of times for each interval
You’re hackin’ up my vibe. I ended the day with a little time for a ride all to myself and someone just had to share their opinion.
A couple of weeks ago I was out with a guy going over the Vulture’s Knob course and we came to section that he just didn’t like. Well as we were warming up, mind you, we role up on someone that had a lot of input on how to ride. Now we were stopped to check this thing out and he was stopped…well for a rest. This section just doesn’t have a great drop in and to be honest it took some nerve for me to hit the first time. Some how this rider is still hanging out and has plenty of “great” advice. We ignore him until he finally moves on. End of story…or so I thought.
Now back to today. I’m tooling around on the mountain bike enjoying the weather and hear comes super star. His comment was along the lines that he has this opinion that if you are going to race sport or expert you should be able to ride everything or it just isn’t safe… Well, I put my teeth through my tongue and politely disagreed. And rode on fuming, thinking about how his less than race shape self was out on the trails “hacking up” all the climbs.
Shortly I came upon a kid walking. He politely stopped and moved to the side of the trail with some guidance from his father. He was wearing a big ol’ smile on some of the cutest cheeks going, unfortunately we was pushing the limits of being a statistic in our national epidemic. But the guy was out enjoying the day with some exercise…I got my vibe back and enjoyed the rest of the ride.
Anyone have an opinion on this?
By the way…regardless of anyone’s opinion. This young rider is great, particularly at cross, and can dismount and mount like no one’s business. I’m sure he ran the section faster than most rode it.
Have fun
There a many things to consider when starting to look for a bike. This time I will focus on how to start your search.
The first thing is to find a bike that fits. There are a lot of styles and design theories out there so the first step is to determine which is best for you. You want to start with a clear idea of how you plan to use the bike. Come up with a list of what you want to experience with the bike. For example, I want to do my first triathlon, participate in organized century rides and join the family on fun rides on the bike and hike. This is a pretty common list that I get from customers just starting out. Next prioritize your list. 1. triathlon, 2. organized group rides, 3. family fun. For this person the bike choice becomes a tough decision. A tri bike is ruled out by the second two priorities. So the best choice may be a road bike. However they are much more complicated to use on bike and hike type trails. If the #1 priority is family fun and there is less focus on performance, then the choice becomes a fitness style bike. Much more suited for paved and lime stone trails. They just don’t off the performance of a road bike.
Continue reading My Friends Are Looking for Bikes…?
Elite Spin-a-thon
Saturday, April 10, 2010
to benefit the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF) in honor of Bobby Arnold
It will be on Saturday, April 10th from 8 am to 12:30 pm at Elite Fitness located in Tanglewood Plaza in Bainbridge.
Rides will be 1 hour in length. You may ride in a team (each member of team rides 1+ hour) or as a single rider (for 1 to 4 hours). Rides will begin at 8 am, 9:10 am, 10:20 am, and 11:30 am. Choose the time slot that works for you! Pre-registration is needed and the deadline is Monday, April 5th.
We will have FREE childcare, a big raffle with great prizes, breakfast and much more.
Spinning is a great workout and perfect for the first time rider to the most experienced of riders. Everyone can ride together……….at their own pace…….no pressure to keep up or follow any fancy moves! NO prior experience is necessary…….many of our riders at last years event were very first time riders. The whole workout is done on the stationary bike to great music guided by Elite’s fabulous instructors. Each hour will have a different certified, experienced instructor, so if you are going to ride all four hours, it will keep you motivated until the end!!!! And if you have ever wanted to try Spinning, this is the time to do ito
For registration form and questions please feel free to contact myself or Brooke Furino at 440-542-1445 or Brooke@42connect.com.
 Elite Spin-a-thon 2009
I’m often asked “What should I do for food?” This usually refers to caloric and fluid intake during exercise. The general focus is what one should use while working out. It is also important, even more so for workouts less than 1 to 2 hours, to consider nutritional requirements for both before and after your workouts.
The following are guidelines recommended by ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine). This a place that I find a value to start when evaluating your specific nutrition needs for exercise.
Use the guidelines as a place to start. Keep a journal of what happens during your workouts and evaluate what changes you can make to improve your performance. It is often helpful to have a coach or experienced athlete help with an objective opinion once you have collected some information over a period of time. A month of monitoring this will give you a good picture of what is working.
Continue reading When & How Much
 REFLECTION Now that you have begun to recover it is time to reflect on the season. This is the time evaluate the goals that you set for yourself at the beginning of this year and reflect on your success. Review your training log and race notes to get this information or go by your best recollection if you didn’t keep a detailed journal. You will use this information to set realistic goals for the next season.
What do you need to evaluate?
Your best performances. List all of your best or A races. List your times for each event. Make or copy notes about the event. Key things to note are your taper, prerace (meal, warm up, stress level), the start of the race, any moments or conditions that you felt was particular strength or weakness, how you felt at the end of the event and finally how well you recovered from the race.
Once you have all of this in front of you review it. Either make a list or write out a description of your season.
Colleen Lynn, a client of Train Ready, offered her review of her season to use as an example. She used a form from one of Joe Friel’s books as a guide.
Here are five questions to answer at the end of your race (for me recreational)season and before starting to prepare for the coming season:
1. What was the high point of your season? Why does this stand out for you? Was it what you thought it would be at the start of the season?
Mid-July was my highpoint. I bested my RAIN time by over an hour from the previous year and finished much stronger. No tears this year  Just a couple days after RAIN, I finished w/the leaders on the fast Tues night ride and took the bridge sprint. That was probably the most satisfying moment of the whole season. Especially listening to the excuses the men were making when a girl out-sprinted them. Oh yes, I took first in age division in my first and (so far) only (citizens) road race in early July. That took me completely by surprise yes, kids, periodization does work. Unfortunately I have not been able to replicate these successes since then.
2. What was your greatest disappointment? Why did this happen? Is there anything you could have done to have avoided it?
I enjoyed TOSRV, but ended up riding a much slower pace than I felt I was capable of. Forgot where I parked my car at the finish and lord have mercy, my butt was so sore after back to back centuries. ouchie-wawa Oh yes I lost a toenail, too, which still hasn’t grown back, bad news for my pedicure.
3. Looking back, do you think you trained as wisely and as hard as you could have trained?
Absolutely, I think this is the only year I’ve ever actually trained wisely. It was my first experience this year w/a coach, and his guidance made it possible for me to have the success I had this year. And when I was working hard in June, he encouraged me to push through and keep it going when I was tempted to give in to the fatigue.
4. What is the one thing you most need to work on for next season in order to perform better?
Developing more discipline to do my easy rides easy. I tend to go too hard on endurance rides and develop some really deep fatigue that leads me to taking longer periods than necessary off the bike.
5. What would you most like to accomplish next season? Is it a good stretch and yet within your reach if you do things right?
I’d like to do a sub-5hr century. And knock another 30 minutes off my RAIN time. Complete a duathlon 5k-30k-5k.
We will then use this to develop her season next year and set goals that are realistic and motivating. I will write more on goal setting coming up.
After the last race of the season it is time to recover. After a long season it is time to restore your mind and body so that you are able to start the next season balanced and fresh. There are some key things to consider when planning your recovery to make your self mentally fresh and restore your body without loosing all of the fitness that you worked so hard over the past year to gain.
 Leaving it all behind...for now
1. Take a week off from planned workouts. Give yourself a chance to catch up on things that you have let go while training whether this is some quality family time without any self absorbed distractions, catching up on work or doing a project outside of training. This week is the time to get all of that in order. Once you have a start to it be sure to make adjustments in your training over the next couple of months to bring back some balance.
2. Start with at least some aerobic activity the following week. You don’t want to loose what you have worked so hard to gain this year. On the second weak begin doing some aerobic exercise. The effects of detraining dramatically reduce aerobic fitness after 12 days. So whether it is a form of cross training that you have been missing or an exciting journey that you have been thinking about taking but specific training has been keeping you from it, now is the time to do it. Take advantage of your freedom from goals that are closing in and do something different.
3. Add some sort of flexibility training. Now is a good time to get in the habit of doing some sort of flexibility training in. This is usually the first thing to go when time becomes a factor and you are crunching in miles before your big event. There are many programs available and forms of exercise to do explore the options and pick one that suites you.
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