Take care of yourself

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Five games in two days ... I can feel some tightness through the Achilles on my left foot. I may have to take a day off from the gym. Dammit!

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I have had it forcefully pounded into my head that many pasrts of my game is not suited for me. I'm not chubby by any stretch of the imagination. But for a cyclist, I am huge. I'm 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds. I often race in fields comprised of a bunch of 5-9, 145 pound guys.

I can hold my own and kick ass on time trials and flat courses. Throw in a mountain, even a short one and I am gone off the back in a hurry. Even if I can produce 10-20 more watts of power than my competitors -- which I usually can't -- most of them are still going to pull away from me. Pulling an extra 40 pounds of body up a hill is not a recipe for success when you're doing it against people with similar power.

The only saving grace is I have an extra 40 pounds of mass pushing me down the hill and I can sometimes catch them on the descent. But I am wasted physically from trying to stay close on the uphill.

Good thing this weekend's races are flat. It's a 52-mile loop around a lake on Saturday, then a TTT around the same lake on Sunday with two partners working in unison.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Look on the bright side, Idaho, you're the only one pulling four kids in the little trailer behind you.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Since my car is in the shop, I can't get to the gym today to which I usually go, so I need to settle for using cables and machines at the apartment complex. It's either work out with cables and machines or run 3 miles to the gym, work out, run 3 miles back and lose all the calories I took in with my pre-workout meal.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Crap! You mean I'm not supposed to be doing that during the race? Who's going to watch them? The Cat 1/2 guys? I think not!

On another note, I'm signed up for a brutal series of races this summer. In the month of August I have a 111 mile team time trial race, a 175 mile (with 7,000 feet of climbing) race and a 80-mile race. Then on Sept. 6 I get to polish it all off with a 206-mile, 9,000 vertical feet race from Utah to Jackson Hole Wyoming in one day.

My quads are going to kill me when it's over. But they'll be HUGE.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Look at this picture:

That's me after I passed one of the little dudes just after the top of a 700 foot climb in a recent 60-mile race. I know the perspective is skewed because I am closer to the camera, but I look like a giant compared to that guy.

I'm actually a pretty popular person at races. I create a massive slipstream behind me and the midgets line up to draft off me on the flats. It's hard for me to go slow enough that they take a turn pulling. Then a hill comes up and they bolt past me because I've been dragging their sorry butts along for the past five miles and I can't keep up.

It's my major source of raceday frustration.

Speaking of racing and suffering, I'm doing one of those fundraiser things for the 206-mile race. All donations go directly to cancer research and treatment.
http://www.active.com/donate/lotoja08/JEborn
Click and donate.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Idaho, where the heck you been? I have a question. I'm going bike shopping on Saturday. A guy I know suggested a shop that carries Jamis.

I'm not ready to spend a load on a bike. But I do want to train for a sprint triathlon, which might or might not require a special bike. I saw a hybrid for $350. Does that sound like a decent starter bike?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Jamis makes some really nice bikes.

Personally, $350 is something I'd be pretty hesitant to ride on. But if you are just getting into it, not going to racing or doing some hard 100-mile rides, you can probably find something suitable. I'm far from a bike expert, so take my advise as something from an anonymous guy on a message board.

I have two racing bikes. One is the road bike above and it is a 'cheap' bike among the racing scene. My triathlon/time trial bike cost a little bit more than that, but I got it for a serious bargain from a friend who owns a bike shop.

It would be very easy to spend $10,000 on a bike with plush wheels and components.

For a triathlon you need to ask yourself what your goal is. To finish? Or to compete?
Finishing is awesome. And any bike that you can pedal can get you to the finish line. If it's a time you are looking for, you'll want either a true road bike with at least clip on aero bars or a TT bike. But I've been to triathlons with guys and girls riding wal-mart mtn bikes and doing just fine. Fitness doesn't require top of the line gear.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Cool. I wasn't sure I'd be allowed to enter a triathlon without the proper bike. Here's the bike I am considering. It's basically the bottom-line for Jamis.

http://blbikeshop.com/itemdetails.cfm?catalogId=39&id=7381

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I like the fact it has 700cc wheels. Those ride smoother and faster than what you'd find on a mountain bike, especially if you are doing a triathlon. That bike is built for mobility, not for speed, however. So don't expect blazing fast times.

If it's your first tri, though, the time is a secondary concern if you are anything like me. I just wanted to finish and try hard. Winning or being top 10 wasn't a consideration.

Then, if you get the bug, you can upgrade your bike later when funds become available. There's no law saying you need a brand new bike, either. You can often find very good road bikes on eBay or craigslist at half the sticker price and they'll only be a year or two old.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Cool. That was sort of my thinking. Now I just need to get fitted and so forth. I don't know much about that. I think my last bike was a BMX model I owned about, oh, 20 years ago.