Is there anything to be said for another mass?

Kurt_Godel

joey100 wrote: »

I think to go really really fast you need a pair of these goggles,

I have a pair of those babies!

Best worn in the pool with speedos and loads of chest hair:cool:

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

I think to go really really fast you need a pair of these goggles,

Good god, they're incredible.

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

I have a pair of those babies!

Best worn in the pool with speedos and loads of chest hair:cool:

Medallion optional.

Dory Dory

joey100 wrote: »

I think to go really really fast you need a pair of these goggles,

Those are goggles!!!!???? Oooooooo.......

joey100

Yep TYR swim shades,

http://www.tyr.com/shop/goggles/swim-shades.html

Have seen them in a shop and they aren't that bad looking in person (this is coming from the person who has the new Oakley jawbreakers so taste may not be my strong point!), think you would have to be fast alright to pull them off so you would be grand Dory!

Kurt_Godel

joey100 wrote: »

Yep TYR swim shades,

http://www.tyr.com/shop/goggles/swim-shades.html

Have seen them in a shop and they aren't that bad looking in person (this is coming from the person who has the new Oakley jawbreakers so taste may not be my strong point!), think you would have to be fast alright to pull them off so you would be grand Dory!

They give good peripheral vision, are hydro in the water, but tend to leak a bit more than most. But they look f***ing awesome, and thats why we go to the pool in the first place

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Yep TYR swim shades,

http://www.tyr.com/shop/goggles/swim-shades.html

Have seen them in a shop and they aren't that bad looking in person (this is coming from the person who has the new Oakley jawbreakers so taste may not be my strong point!), think you would have to be super fly alright to pull them off so you would be grand Dory!

FYP

Dory Dory

joey100 wrote: »

Yep TYR swim shades,

http://www.tyr.com/shop/goggles/swim-shades.html

Have seen them in a shop and they aren't that bad looking in person (this is coming from the person who has the new Oakley jawbreakers so taste may not be my strong point!), think you would have to be fast alright to pull them off so you would be grand Dory!

This is so funny - I tried furiously to find them last night, so thank you for posting the link. I worry about what Kurt said about them leaking :eek: but I figure for $20, I'm not sure I can resist trying them out. I see the link is for sales in the US only, so if they aren't available in Ireland and if anyone out there would like me to purchase them a pair as well, let me know and I will ship them over as soon as they arrive!

Dory Dory

Hmmm....just read the reviews - leaking, as Kurt said. And they don't seem to be for racing - ?? I guess they are a bit clunky - ? Still, curiosity has the best of me....may have to just dip the toe in and see what the fuss is about!

Dory Dory

Oh....:o.....and just now realized Joey said he's seen them in a shop over there, so that tells me they are accessible to you folks!

RJM85

First run focus week done. 'Only' 13.5 hours - but I can feel all that running in my legs at the minute...

RJM85

Took my new wetsuit to the pool to make sure I'm happy with the fit etc. world of difference between this and my old one. Did some very unscientific testing of the time differences between wetsuit and without - seemed to be getting up to 15 seconds faster for 100m which is mind boggling. No shoulder fatigue at all either. Looking forward to testing it out in open water now...

Dory Dory

What kind did you get? And is it sleeveless, or with sleeves?

RJM85

Dory Dory wrote: »

What kind did you get? And is it sleeveless, or with sleeves?

Roka Maverick Elite - it's a sleeved one. Took it out in open water yesterday - can't get over the difference in feel from my old one!

RJM85

Carlingford ‘Land of Legends’ Olympic Tri

Once I had the unstructured week over me after Tri an Mhi, we got back into some specific hard training for Budapest. The most disappointing thing (from a fairly positive overall) about Tri an Mhi was my run performance. The coach pointed out that I had actually done the first 5k of the run at a much faster pace than I thought at the time, plus the vast majority of my run sessions are limited to 45 minute lunch time sessions. With those two points in mind, we’re focussing on run endurance and the feel of running at specific paces. We’ve taken time from the bike and added double days, longer long runs, and a long run brick session to the week. Obviously this is additional impact and stress that I’m not used to so I’m trying to be very aware of how my body is feeling. We had planned 3 hard weeks, training through this race with an easier week this week. However, with the extra running, plus a 14 month old with throat infection, I was very fatigued at the end of last week and the plan was reshuffled a bit. While I didn’t know what to expect, I was keen to have a good showing, especially since I’ve had the benefit of an early recovery week.

This is our local race – it’s organised by my tri club, and it’s only about 15 minutes away from my parents’ house. It’s also a great setting. Swim in Carlingford Lough, cycle through the Cooley Mountains up to the Long Womans Grave, and a run with some pretty nice views of the water. That said, for a bunch of reasons (and I’m not going to get into that) it’s not as big a race as it could be. When I arrived on Sunday morning, from what I could see, there were 3 strong guys in the running for podium slots (or, with a bit of positive thinking – counting me, there were four). Bryan McCrystal, who I had beaten into 5th here last year, but who I knew has been doing a bit more Tri training of late; Barry Convery, who I hadn’t raced against recently, but who I remembered as having significantly faster run times than me at duathlons in the past, and who was 3rd (I think) in Crooked Lake this year; and Dessie Duffy, who I finished ahead of in Tri an Mhi, but I was tapered for that, and he did it as far as I’m aware off the back of a couple of hard races in a row. There was always the chance there was some other strong guy here I wasn’t aware of, but I was going into the water hoping that I would be racing the win, or at least for a good podium spot.

With the new wetsuit, I was also keen to have a good standalone swim. My Dad, who comes to almost every race I do (he stood on the side of the road for nearly 5 hours cheering me on at Tri an Mhi) insisted on helping me out with the upgrade after I mentioned in passing that I planned to buy a new suit over the winter. He, as usual was at the race, so it would be nice to see him get a bit of return on his investment! I also knew that in order to beat McCrystal, I would need to put as much time as possible into him on the swim and run – and hope that he’d get a puncture or something on the bike. The swim was two anti-clockwise laps of a “750m” course, which I was fairly certain was short just from looking at it. The water was fairly calm, with a bit of a current dragging you out to the right on the way out to the first buoy. I pushed fairly hard from the outset, and after 100m or so I was with the lead 4 / 5 swimmers. At the first buoy, I realised that one of them was McCrystal – “sh*t, I’ve no chance if he’s going to be getting out of the water with me!” – I pushed harder to the second buoy and reached it just off the feet of the lead swimmer. Once around it, I could see I had a bit of a gap to the next man. With the current helping me, I also managed to close the gap to the leader. Once the first lap was done, we had to get out of the water, round a cone, and hop back in – meaning that that horrible transition from swimming to standing had to be done twice. The second lap was fairly uneventful. I took the same line that had worked ok for me the first time, a bit wider than my companion. This time however, I had to check myself a little to round the first buoy. We swam together (with him doing the majority of the work) the rest of the way. While I was on his feet getting out of the water, he was a bit more leisurely about getting to the timing mat, so in the official results, I had the fastest swim. Something I’m pretty chuffed about, regardless of who was in the race.

Swim – 20.31 - based on my Garmin file, I have the actual swim distance (minus the run to T1) as 1.3k in 20.21 – or 1.32 per 100m which I’m pretty happy with. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first swim this year that seems to reflect the work I did in the pool over the winter is my first swim with the new wetsuit.

Because it’s a small local race struggling for entries, the club encouraged any potential relay participants and were happy for a bike / runner friend of mine from the cycling club to put his chip on my ankle along with my own for the swim portion. He was obviously delighted that he asked me, as it meant he was first out onto the bike course. That also meant that I had someone to chase from the go on the bike. I’m still figuring out my power for racing etc. but for this race, knowing that I had one big climb, followed by a long descent where I’d struggle to keep the power up, I had decided to aim for above 300w to the top of the climb, and on the flat while pushing as hard as I could manage on the descent. I caught and passed the leader after about 3 or 4k. However, within about a minute, McCrystal shot past me like I was standing still. It’s actually terrifying to think what power he’s able to put into those pedals - I may as well have been on a tricycle. I tried to hold him at legal distance for a bit, but there was no way that was going to happen. For the rest of the bike, I pushed hard, and saw nobody but marshals at the corners. The results have me down as 55:07 for what my Garmin says was 35.2km with 219m of climbing. NP was 293w, and I had the 2nd fastest bike – the best part of 2 minutes faster than the next guy, but McCrystal put 5 and a half minutes into me - he was on the main road when I was coming back into transition, meaning he was nearly a full kilometre into the run. I was fairly certain that closing that kind of gap would be beyond me, especially since I knew he’s been doing some run training recently, but I could try! And at this stage I didn’t know where 3rd place was, so I still had to make sure I held him off!

The run is a flat, out and back 10k. For tri’s in particular, it’s great to be able to get a sense of where your nearest competitors are, to look them in the eyes and assess their suffering as you put on your best game face. We had a slight tail wind on the way out, and it was pretty hot. I ran pretty strong and hard – nothing spectacular, but I’m pretty happy with it overall. In the last couple of km, I could see that nobody was catching me, so I probably cruised it a bit. I ran 38.20 for the 10k, which was the 4th fastest run overall. 1:55:42 finish time, good enough for 2nd place and a nice finish line podium shot and some cash! It’s a nice confidence boost to have everything I could control in the race go pretty much to plan. I’m fairly well on track for Budapest, albeit that I’m going to try and make extra effort with diet. If I’m honest, I’ve probably let that slip a bit, and I did notice from photo’s at Tri an Mhi, I was the fattest man in the top 10!

Onwards and upwards!

joey100

How are you finding the new wetsuit RJM?? Where did you buy from and did you just use the size chart or try it on?

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

How are you finding the new wetsuit RJM?? Where did you buy from and did you just use the size chart or try it on?

Very happy with it. I'll see how the next few races pan out, but there's a definite difference in comfort while swimming and the time I swam in carlingford was as good as I can realistically expect.

I bought it directly from ROKA on their online store. They say they expect you to have a couple of swims before deciding you're keeping it, and you have 30 days to return so long as there's no damage, or you haven't written your name on or something. I took it to the pool the evening I got it to make sure I was happy.

There's a world of difference between the this one and my old one (an Orca S5, I think). Even f I didn't see any improvement in times, I'm coming out of the water fresher as I'm not fighting the suit in any way. I used to feel my shoulders tying up regularly in longer than sprint swims.

MD1983

RJM85 wrote: »

There's a world of difference between the this one and my old one (an Orca S5, I think). .

the S5 is an absolute pig of a suit compared to the high end suit, i have one for training that i wear once or twice a year and compared to my race suit (orca 3.8) there is a massive difference i think

MD1983

RJM85 wrote: »

There's a world of difference between the this one and my old one (an Orca S5, I think). .

the S5 is an absolute pig of a suit compared to the high end suit, i have one for training that i wear once or twice a year and compared to my race suit (orca 3.8) there is a massive difference i think

RJM85

MD1983 wrote: »

the S5 is an absolute pig of a suit compared to the high end suit, i have one for training that i wear once or twice a year and compared to my race suit (orca 3.8) there is a massive difference i think

Yeah, the S5 was my only experience of a wetsuit up to now and a few people had rightly or wrongly told me that a good wetsuit didn't make that much of a difference. Even before getting in the water you can tell the difference.

RJM85

Lisburn Sprint Triathlon (pool swim)

Swim
I was in a lane with 2 other guys. We chatted beforehand to see who went where… as I was expecting the fastest swim of the three of us I led out. I went off far too fast on the first 100. Looks like from the Garmin file that it was about 1:19 which, yeah, was far too fast. About 150m in I could feel that familiar ‘going anaerobic’ burn in my muscles, but at that stage I had already checked my pace and just tried to keep it strong. The 2nd guy in the lane, who was expecting a 13-14 minute swim had obviously had a) a burst of adrenaline, and b) was enjoying the benefit of drafting me; about the 200m mark he made a surge past me to overtake. He stayed in front for maybe 50 / 100 before letting me pass again and then dropping off the pace. I’m told he looked like it was a huge effort to pass and stay there, so I expect he hadn’t fully realised the benefit of the drafting until he passed me. Unfortunately for these shorter events I don’t really seem to have that next gear that some people have. It seems to manifest itself mostly in swims I think, but I’m happy with how I swam overall. I swam strong and in control. It looks like Budapest may be a non-wetsuit swim, so notwithstanding that a pool is different to open water, it’s good to have a good swim in a race situation without the neoprene. Official time was 11:36 which includes hopping out of the pool, and 100m running or so; so 11:20ish. I’ve seen decent improvements with all the work over the winter – I did this race last year and had a 12:12 swim – so a 36 second improvement over 750m. If you add it up, it’s probably a lot of time invested vs the gains you might get elsewhere, but I’m fairly certain I’m also coming out of the water stronger and with less negative impact on my bike and run. 11:36 was good enough for 5th fastest swim.

Bike
The bike has been my strongest discipline this year; I’ve gotten very comfortable on the TT, and have put in some good training. The power meter is giving me good numbers to work off, and generally I look forward to getting onto the bike and riding some swimmers down! I lost a position in transition, so had someone just 10 or so seconds ahead coming onto the bike. I focussed on reeling him in, but it didn’t happen as quick as I would have liked. I caught and passed him after maybe 10 minutes. 5 minutes later at a junction I realised that he was still with me (at a legal distance, to be fair). He passed me again maybe 20 minutes into the bike, and I looked to just keep with him (at a legal distance). I actually lost a bit of ground on him over the next 10 minutes or so, and entered T2 roughly 30 seconds behind, still in 5th position.

Yesterday, for some reason the bike wasn’t great and I’m struggling to come up with a reason why. The course was one 20km loop with some dodgy road surfaces and a few tight bends (the marshalling at some of the turns was pretty poor too meaning that I spent more time than usual ensuring that I was 100% safe before proceeding). I can probably partially blame lower than expected power numbers on the more technical than usual course, but at the same time – I should have done better, and even on the longer stretches I wasn’t really putting out the power that I wanted, and relative to others, considering what I’ve done in other races this year, I had a bad bike. In Carlingford a couple of weeks ago I had an NP of 293 for 55 minutes, and I did a 2hr TT in training last weekend at 296 NP. NP yesterday was 297 for 31:26. I can point to a few things during the week that compromised my prep for this race (see: teething 1 year old, sick wife, no sleep), but I can’t see why they would affect my bike performance and not my swim and run. Either way, I’m not going to dwell on it too much – the 2hr TT I mentioned was the best of those that I’ve done, and that was only a week ago. I haven’t turned sh!te overnight (I hope).

Run
The run was an odd course. We headed out onto the road for 800m or so before hitting a trail section for a bit. That merged with the tow path by the canal for a kilometre, exited onto the main road, back past transition after 3.5k, and then 2 laps of a football field to finish. Obviously, my priority was to catch 4th. I ran hard and felt pretty dreadful for most of it. For a good while, I felt like I wasn’t making any inroads into his lead. Shortly into the trail section we had a turnaround at a cone. I took the opportunity to show my companion that this was easy… best poker face, couple of words of encouragement, back to the suffering. Shortly after we exited onto the main road it became clear that I was closing the gap. I caught and passed him at about 3k, and managed to put another almost 20 seconds into him over the last bit. As I was starting the first of my laps around the field, Harry Speers (2nd overall on the day, and one of the developments squad) was going onto his last lap. It was encouraging to see that I put a bit of time into him on the lap. My run was 18:40, which on its own for 5k I’d be slightly disappointed with, but it was 2nd fastest run by just 5 seconds, and the run course wasn’t a fast one.

4th overall, and a decent showing on swim and run. 2 weeks to Budapest!

RJM85

10 Mile TT last night. 21:17 - new PB with avg power 357 which is a slight PB also. Nice to confirm I haven't gotten crap overnight.

RJM85

10 mile TTs hurt. A lot.

mossym

RJM85 wrote: »

10 mile TTs hurt. A lot.

jay-sus. they must, wiped every bit of colour from your face

RJM85

mossym wrote: »

jay-sus. they must, wiped every bit of colour from your face

Good work.

joey100

All set for the weekend?? Any goals you want to put out there?

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

All set for the weekend?? Any goals you want to put out there?

More or less! Bit of packing to do tomorrow when the little fellas in creche, but otherwise well set I think!

Overall time will depend on how fast the bike course is I expect, and whether it's a wetsuit swim. Hoping for 30 minute swim, 270w avg on the bike, and 1.30 run. That /should/ see me in well under 4.30 and should be manageable based on what I did in Tri an Mhi. Bike is pan flat - 275 at tri an mhi got me 2:30, so hopefully it's fast!

joey100

Well achievable from looking at your training, hope everything goes your way over there. Best of Luck!

Dory Dory

Best of luck to you!!!

zico10

Sorry, meant to wish you luck before the race. Turns out you didn't need it. You smashed your target. Well done.