So, what happened to my body after a 5 year layoff?!?!

[roadhouse]

So, you popped into my thread to talk about yourself and how you "Daily" do an iron man.

Thanks for the input.

i popped into this thread to say thankfully i'm not in your shoes as of yet, age wise. your posting is weak too.

you're welcome.

 

[stormer94]

i popped into this thread to say thankfully i'm not in your shoes as of yet, age wise. your posting is weak too.

you're welcome.

I can take being weak physically (that's why I posted), but my posting is weak? Really?

You have a thread about how much wood could a wood chuck chuck, and another one about how you can't ride, and insinuate it has something to do with drug use. Another post about how you can't figure out the difference between a 56mm roadie or cross bike. another one on how elevators smell different to midgets, And you felt it worthy of posting that you had a problem with a leaky valve stem and had figured out it had something to do with the rim. really?

the "one sentence wonder" thinks my posts are weak. BWAHAHAAHAHHHAaaahaha

 

[swampy1970]

RACE DAY!

Packed up early lastnight so I could let my mind relax and hopefully sleep. Still had trouble sleeping. woke up 4 hours before the start and had my pre-race meal, a big bowl of oatmeal and a heavily jammed piece of toast and went back to bed. Couldn't sleep.

Got to the event an hour early, unpacked, ate a banana and signed in. Warmed up for a solid 20-25 minutes. 10 minutes prior to the start had a gel. Gun went off and I was instantly ready to haul ass. Properly tapered over the last week, food was right on the money for me over the last 24 hours including a nice lasagna dinner last night and 2 LARGE bowls of cocoa puffs for a late night snack, knee was warmed up and felt good, and I felt GREAT!

I got some pressure from one dude early on, but he dropped off after about 5 minutes. *whew*. So just as with any proper TT, it's all about YOU, the race of truth. And the course this year was SHORT... just over 8 miles. last time it was right at 11. Still, though, fun to get out and race.

Heart rate was higher than I was comfortable with right off the bat, was thinking riding at a max HR of 154 with a 155 cushion (don't own a watt meter, would like to though). Perceived exertion wasn't there where it normally is at 154, And I felt good at 156-157 with the trips near 160 being what I felt a bit over the edge. So I went with it. But I was nervous about it the whole time. I kept thinking this isn't where I wanted to be, but it felt okay, so I rode it that way.

There was some light hills and dips, ended up being about 60 feet of elevation change. Considering I was NOT on my TT bike and with no aero gear on my regular road bike, and no drafting, I averaged 3:02 miles on the way out and 2:56 miles on the way back. Considering my level of fitness, I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THE RESULT.

Regrets... not starting the sprint perhaps 200 meters earlier, I waited till about 300 meters, felt I could have started at 500 meters. and gone balls out redzone for 90 seconds instead of 60. I wasn't cramping, and speed wasn't fading, was still climbing a bit. AWWWWW, MAN!

NO REGRETS, and thank you guys for the advice. best advice I got was to stop dieting 3 weeks ago and hold my weight eat better. VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.

I also, for fun, entered myself in the 1-mile foot race. What the heck! I don't run, but I like to do things to show my kids that dads a good sport and willing to simply "TRY". Important lessons for kids, I think. Was about 40 minutes after the bike race.

Did the 1 mile foot race in 6:06. Which flat blew my mind. Something wasn't right about that one. From my experiences on our treadmill (once a week), I run the mile in the 8-9 minute range, with interval work to get myself under an 8 minute mile. That was a month ago was the last time I ran, didn't want to waste any training on legs moving any direction but in circles. came around a corner at about 5:30 and saw the finish line???? Course wasn't marked and I was planning to start ramping up over the last 250 yards and KICK! That was odd, I wasn't ready to finish yet!!!! We checked the course later against 3 bicycle computers and a gps computer. The 1 mile course (wasn't a sanctioned event) was actually .78 miles...

AHA! that explains that. Although, I'm officially on record for running a 6:06 mile and that's the story I'm gonna tell around the campfire with a beer in my hand until I'm 110 years old! ...lol...

I could have run the mile just fine at the pace I was on, and if you divide it all out, I would have run it in 7:49-7:50, I'd say, given the information at hand, that would be dang close. Considering I don't "run", and ran in my bike kit (did put on some sneakers), I was happy with that. VERY HAPPY.

Thanks for all the help!

Nice report.

Just a few quick pointers:

You don't need a big pasta dinner and extra breakfast for an event that short. Have the pasta dinner if you like eating pasta - but don't pig out for the sake of thinking it'll do you a world of good in the event. It doesn't work like that. You'll end up eating too much, add a bit of fat due to excess calories and excessively fill your gut up with stuff you'll need to deposit in the toilet a day or two later. If you want to top up the glycogen stores do it immediately following a training session.

Finishing effort - in a short time trial like this there is no finishing effort. The last 80% of the ride IS the finishing effort. You got the warm up duration about right, not sure if you went over threshold for a couple of minutes though. You really need to do that.

 

[stormer94]

Nice report.

Just a few quick pointers:

You don't need a big pasta dinner and extra breakfast for an event that short. Have the pasta dinner if you like eating pasta - but don't pig out for the sake of thinking it'll do you a world of good in the event. It doesn't work like that. You'll end up eating too much, add a bit of fat due to excess calories and excessively fill your gut up with stuff you'll need to deposit in the toilet a day or two later. If you want to top up the glycogen stores do it immediately following a training session.

Finishing effort - in a short time trial like this there is no finishing effort. The last 80% of the ride IS the finishing effort. You got the warm up duration about right, not sure if you went over threshold for a couple of minutes though. You really need to do that.

I'd say your right on the money, and I appreciate the input. I think you guys had a big impact on my event. I know it's the olympics, not that big as races go... but it's MY tour, my day, and I appreciated all the help.

Yea, I was a little vague on the pre-race meal. I didn't go overboard calorie wise, I think it was less than 350 total for the pasta meal (about 9 ounces). But it was a gray area for me. I like lasagna. Just didn't go overboard with it.

Didn't go over threshold on the warmup, wasn't sure on that. I was so nervous I had to pee about every 10 minutes... IN fact that big dip on the HRM a few minutes before the start... Yea, that was my last bathroom break.

On a short event like this, you're probably right about that 80% thing. That spike at the end of the ride where I maxxed everything out... I wasn't cramping yet or anything. I could have gone over for a longer period there at the end. Maybe not as tall on the spike, but loooonger. I just didn't want to finish SLOW. In my minds eye, I wanted to hit the line, not slowing, full of lactic acid and starting to cramp. I wanted to be FLYING across the line. Wind in my hair (beneath helmet), chiseled abs rippling beneath my jersey, chicks yelling my name, massive tree trunks for legs bending the cranks, panties falling from the sky... (it's my daydream, let me roll with it...) ...lol...

I had more in me, but due to lack of current experience didn't get to leave it all on the road. I left 99% of it though. And am very happy with the performance. Some rookie things probably cost me 20-30 seconds or so overall, but I'm VERY happy with it. Felt like I was the king of the world, coming up on the finish line, couple hundred people standing around, clapping, cheering the first rider in, ME!. It was nice.

I could have ridden the second leg harder, there were spots where I lost concentration and slowed. And to be honest, after I shook that dude off my wheel, well, it's possible I was thinking I had the race in the bag and rode slightly more conservatively. I wasn't slack, but I did slow just a smidgeon. If you really look at the chart, you can see it on the second leg.

I thank you all for the support and help. I felt good on raceday, raced my ass off, didn't give up, trained hard, and was successful in front of my wife and kids. Perfect day, I'm happy.

I ate like a crackhead the last 2 days and gained 9 pounds... 9 POUNDS!!!! Celebration and reward are over though... back to eating healthy and being happy. It'll be gone in 3 days. I can do and eat weird quantity's of food when I'm more fit and exercising, and get away with it. Anybody else with that ability? I will say, that I feel it's a dangerous ability.

 

[vspa]

swampy1970 Try getting back on the bike after 10 years off and gaining 80lbs... Been there, done that /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif

did you lose those 80 ? or how much did you lose after retaking the bike ?
 

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by vspa .




did you lose those 80 ? or how much did you lose after retaking the bike ?
 

I'm down 60lbs - and I can tell there's still 20lbs that still need to come off when I hit the hills. But I've figured out how to incorporate getting some hard long miles in (L2/L3) and losing a pound or two a week... given the next 12 weeks block of training I'll be down about 10lbs. I know the math doesn't compute - but that block includes Thanksgiving and Christmas.
 
The last few years I've been bouncing between 200 and 170 - this'll be the first full year in over a decade that I've ridden all year round.

 

[vspa]

Originally Posted by swampy1970 .

The last few years I've been bouncing between 200 and 170 - this'll be the first full year in over a decade that I've ridden all year round.

 
1) tell me about it ....$&## !!!
i just turn 40 yo so i'm gonna fight the good fight this time against my post racing-years belly,
 
2) Another question: how do you achieve that upfront position (just saw your avatar in big photo), you know sitting upfront on the saddle when TT or riding on a breakaway, do you actually train for that, it doesn't come naturally for me, i tend to sit backwards on the saddle. On TV clearly all pros use that approach,
 
3) answering the OP: i also got frustrated for having every time lower heart rate numbers so set up my HR monitor in HR % (percentages). Its also easier to monitor your training sessions that way i think