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Betsy's micro thread

This is week 11 for AZIM. And I am traveling Friday evening to your neck of the woods,coach P, for a family wedding in Danbury, CT on sat.
I have an oly at TTL the following weekend, wk 12 (Sunday) that can substitute for for the race rehearsal this weekend. I'm planning on doing Thursday's long run Sunday am in Danbury. And try to find the pool for Fridays swim. I have 2 hours (or 2.5) thurs and fri AMs. Should I get as much biking in during that time? Is there a better way to work this??

And as for week 12 weekend, Saturday is a 5 h bike-should I plan to get that in and treat the oly as just another hard training day? AZIM is the only A race.

Thanks for your input!

Betsy

Comments

  • Betsy your plan is fine. Don't worry about swimming out here (but bike before you leave) and plan on a HILLY run as I don't believe Danbury is flat. Compression socks for the flights!

    The following weekend go four hours on the bike...no more...and have a blast in the Oly!
  • Thanks Coach P!
    Here's how it all went:
    Thurs-1.50h trainer with 4 x20'@ 8IF
    Fri-1.30 h trainer bet .7- 75IF
    SAT-40' treadmill-20' z2, 20'z3
    Sun-terrywile park in the heart of Danbury. As you predicted, hilly! And only time for 60'-best I could do
    Monday-home! Did MS1-3 of swim (takes me at least 80-90 min to get whole wko's done but did want to atone some for missing weekend swim)


    So upcoming weekend I will ride 4h sat and focus on execution and nutrition on Sunday's OLY
    (the ride is in tempe and not much like IM-lots of turning, and it's going to be miserably hot on the run)

    Betsy
  • Perfect... Wait to get it done on a less than ideal schedule. Make sure you're resting enough.

    Also something totally unsolicited advice, but I would consider breaking those meetings at intervals up into shorter repeats to make sure you're getting in good swimming. If it takes you 90 minutes to do the work out then we might want to consider dropping the 400s or 300s for repeat 100s on short rest intervals, like five seconds.
  • Ok. You got me on the rest. We physicians are conditioned to run on fumes. I know I need to get to bed earlier.

    As for swimming, I rarely get in more than 60 min. I didn't quite understand how you said to modify. I have been working so hard to learn to swim that up to now I've focused a ton on drills and maybe do half the written wko. After 3 years I think I'm finally putting it all together though!

    One more dilemma (a nice one to have). I wasn't going to upgrade TT bike this year (my local fitter never liked my 47"/650 kestral and put the bug in my head to upgrade-salesmen!) but the shop had an amazing sale-I just got a 2014 48"/700 P3 for 40% off. The problem is, my 3year old 700 powertap only fits 10speed cassette and the new bike is 11 speed. So, we have to send the wheel to wheelbuilder for them to rebuild for 11 speed for $350 and it will take 2 weeks. So, do I ride my new bike(because of course I really really want to) as a HR athlete for 2 weeks or stay on the kestral (yes I actually do own 2 powertaps. I bought the bike online from Todd Kenyon and he didn't make it clear until after I bought that it was 650) and be a power athlete until the wheel returns?? Im leaning towards staying with power with 10 weeks to AZIM
  • Betsy, I think your shop can just buy one of these two parts and fix that pretty quickly. It's what I did, I think I have the 15 mm one but it was simply plug-and-play.

    http://www.wheelbuilder.com/dt-swiss-freehub-body-for-11-speed-shimano-compatibility.html

    Or hopefully you have this one as it's easier: http://www.wheelbuilder.com/powertap-11-speed-freehub-body.html
  • Maybe there is some reason that I don't understand why they need to rebuild the wheel? But literally it should be taking out a screw in swapping in a new piece very simple. If you can take your cassette off and change in this part out is about as complicated as putting on a new seat. :-) I brother have you riding with power for the two weeks if you have to, eight weeks is still enough time to get ready to the new ride. But as I mentioned above, I don't understand why the wheel has to go back.
  • They talked to wheelbuilder (the shop sells power tap) and that's what they recommended. My understanding is that there had to be retensionsing/repositioning of the spokes as well. Originially the shop technician thought he could do it himself. My 650 is a year newer and apparently is more amenable to a quick fix.

    I will ride with power on the kestral until the wheels back. BTW, tempe town lake took a big hit with our late (and needed) monsoon storms. Lake is closed for high e-coli counts.
    Splash and dash last night was cancelled for testing, and word is tonite e-coli is high. Hopefully, this will all be fixed by 11/17! We still don't know how they will restructure the race. Do you think I would be better off just doing my big weekend I missed last saturday?
  • I trust your shop I just want to make sure. Sometimes folks just overengineer a solution. :-) of course, I personally speak from experience. :-)

    I vote for doing the big day this weekend, with the pool swim that's fine. Don't go near that water is we don't want you to be sick. Don't worry about the race that's not your problem but somebody else's. We've all got enough problems to handle on our own.
  • Got your last message after the fact (LOL) so did the race Sunday.
    By 10am Saturday official email out that testing completed and all bacterial counts were substantially below allowed levels and water safe. The only caveat was if it Rained Saturday night they would cx again for more testing. But we dodged the storm so the show went on.
    The lake was it's usual murky brown. The only creepy part was that there was a huge patch of thick brush on the east outbound (this was same course as AZIM) - everybody came out with a branch attached to some part of their kit. Hopefully that will get cleared out before the next races.

    So weekend went thus:
    Saturday-4hr 60 mi ride. I ended up with a group that was fast and rode the first half, uphill grade north out of the valley, too fast, lots of z4 HR. I had forgotten to put my pedals back on the kestral so rode the new bike without power. I definitely fixed that in the afternoon and rode the kestral with power Sunday.
    Race: I was pleased with everything but swim-which was my slowest in a while. No wetsuit, brush, caught in the sprint mess at the end, worse crowd than the start, tempo trainer maybe set a little too fast.
    Bike-same as last in May, given I wasn't rested I take that as a win
    Run-3min slower than last but it was hotter, and HR high 170s at end
    Transitions good

    We have a supported ride on the beeline this weekend so doing the first 6hour ride a week early. Will lock myself if aero the whole time!
    And ride the kestral with power
  • Coach P! Vindicated! You were right about the wheel.
    The shop talked to somebody else at wheelbuilder and were told exactly what you told me. So they ordered the part and I have my wheel on the bike. Yeah!
    Just had my fitting and the comparison to the video of my fit on the 2009 kestrel is very different. I'm much more aero now, and I can see, holding my head with much less tension in my neck. My fitter worked with me last year on pedal stroke so I'm good there. Today he had me feeling exactly what's it's like to have core fully engaged, and my seat bones in the perfect position. He predicts I'll see some real improvements now! They have a wind tunnel which I did on the kestral. May do it again on this bike but he wants me to ride for at least a month first.
  • NICE!! That's a win for all of us...love the "more aero and more relaxed" position too. Would love to see some pics when you can!
  • Hi Coach P,

    Awesome Kona performance!  tough conditions!  We had a little of that wind today on the Beeline.

    Here are pics of me on my new P3 at my fit-Let me know what you think.  I couldn't find the forum thread where you post these pics for both you and Coach R to critique.  Had second century ride today for week 15 camp weekend, and finally found the sweet spot and feet, neck and upper back felt great!

  • Thanks for sharing the pictures, I love the bike and you look super fit! My only comments on your position will be that see if it's possible to bring your elbows back a little bit more. I'd love to have them underneath your shoulders and see you can totally relax in the aero position. This is only possible if your pads can move independent of your bars -- which I'm not sure if that's the case.
  • At the very least it's worth you pulling your elbows back a little bit on top of the pads as they are, just to see if you do in fact feel more relaxed in that position.
  • Point noted.  Actually, as I have done a lot of riding (double centuries last weekend) I found the sweet spot where nothing hurts and I actually think Im a little more forward.  I will definitely mention and look at my follow up. 

    Since Anita at the zen desk taught me how to post pics (and its so much fun), Im showing you my fit on on the kestral and you will see why my fitter never liked me on it-this was a 3d fit and wind tunnel 1/13!  We could never get  my elbows close to under my shoulders and I had a lot of tension in my neck if i was trying to look forward. This pic is actually in the wind tunnel-it was so intricate in measuring grams of drag I had to buy the XS EN singlet as the small i was wearing caused to much drag.

    And thanks for the 'fit' comment.  I have, on top of EN training, since start of OS been also following a personal training program written just for me to be a 'stronger triathlete'.  The whole family is with this trainer-my husband and son were at crossfit and now get personalized programs as well.  I think I have more muscle now than in this 

  • Thanks for sharing, it's great to see the "before" shot and I have to agree – it is 10 times better than what you were experiencing before!

    Take what I said about your fit right now with a grain of salt because clearly you've come a long way! :-)
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