%$!#-&*@

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:15:21 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I usually get my riders doing 1-3 months of base, depending
on their goals and where they are when I start with them,
but the base period includes some intensity work - we don't
want to lose -all- our VO2max gains 🙂 NFI how that would
translate to tri training though.

Yeah, I really think it was just 'cause I was so bad at cycling. Of
course, in every other sport I've done, I've taken shortcuts,
fast-tracked training, and it seems to work. I'll be starting on my own
program for next season and yep, intensity sessions from the start!

I'm not sure if you're taking the [censored], or serious here 🙂

Quoted message said:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Fair enough. By the same token, football (any code) is therefore
also specific, you have to train everything. Imagine if you
couldn't handpass/tackle/roll a maul. You'd suck 🙂 I

Hey, you've just figured out why I suck! 🙂 Thanks!

Quoted message said:

think that runners may suggest that football training is
a lot less specific than pure running training though.

Reminds me of a sign outside a doctor's surgery

"We specialise in mens *and* womens health".

Maybe I should rephrase, tri training involves training for
more than one macro dicipline, but using the same energy
pathways - ie: you don't have to sprint and recover, you
just grind away until you get to the end.

I resent that statement, _I_ avoid grinding wherever I can, I definitely
just spin until I get to the end. If it gets too hard I pull over and
hail a sagwagon/taxi/train/parent. :P

I was only gently stirring, you bite too easily 🙂

I refer to any TT as a grind, not necessarily low cadence,
just a long .. grind .. to the end. It's not like you're monitoring
who's up the road in a break, if the people in your bunch are
working, who's the sprinter you want as a leadout, if the hill
5km before the end will drop you, where that bloody strong
time trialist is who you know is going to do a late attack and
try and solo in, if you're in the right leadout train, where the
corner is that has that bump just before it that you won't want
to get boxed in on etrc etc

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Tris only need to work on MSS, obviously.

Ha ha you haven't seen how much drafting goes on in big races,
obviously. And the sprinting is therefore important, so you can pull
away from the pack when you see the draft busters coming...

Except that the usual place a tri is won is the run (wouldn't
it make the sport a -lot- more interesting if they
drew the order of the parts out of a hat, like the way
it's done for surf lifesaving ironman events?) so
a few metres here and there aren't going to affect
the results. The race officials are going to watch the
leaders more than the plebs, so they won't get
away with it anyway?

Quoted message said:

But _I_ don't do that... so no sprints for me, just lactate threshold
trg...

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I had a closer look at the slope this morning (anyone else still
reading this who's been to the Kew crit will know the hill
I'm using, riding clockwise around the Studley Park Loop), I think
it's closer to 5% or less at the part I use, so the position is
pretty close to flat ground.

That makes sense then. It's not a huge incline but enough to do the job.
How long is the hill?

The sprint takes about 25 seconds, and about 20 pedal strokes
in a 53:14 on 700c wheels. So it's ~20 reps 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Not in my experience, and most of my riders
are not "very very good"[*], they're late entry (not juniors)
adults with backgrounds in other sports. One hesitates
to suggest that if you look at triathletes riding, you may think

one did _not_ show much hesitation there...

Quoted message said:

that everyone that rides a bike, can't ride a bike 🙂 There's

...grrrrr...

You bite -way- too easily Tam 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

also the nature of competitive bike racing, which is
to a certain extent self-selecting for people who can

I don't know if so much that's _self_-selecting...

It's very self selecting (the sport, not the people). If
you can't ride well, you're not going to do very well at
the sport, and you'll go do something else. *maybe*
coaching helps those that have problems, and I
have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me
here 🙂

The people I have experience with have usually already started
racing, and decided to try and improve. They've self-selected in
that regard, and they're not chumps who can't ride. If they
went along to their first race and just got totally blown off the back
they'd have gone and played squash/tennis/couch lotto.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

pedal well. I suspect this may be less of a factor in
triathlete populations, as us roadies are a bunch of
elitist snobs

...bingo! :P ha ha ha ha

Quoted message said:

and triathletes will take anyone they can get.

I think that cycling does not lend itself to non-club members, whereas
triathlon gets lots of individuals who don't have coaches, hence seeing
the poor-form people. Some of us actually started out by accepting that
we couldn't swim or cycle and found coaches who would teach us some
technique!

The vast majority of cycle racers aren't coached. I have a
vested interest in changing this, so my opinions are not
unbiased 🙂

Also, re the club thing, in my experience, road racers
and crit riders, as opposed to trackies, don't get that
much out of the club environment. Trackies are
all at the same place at the same time, and get a lot
of coaching etc (either by peers or actual coaches)
but the roadies are very much more on their own, unless
they want to troll back and forth down beach rd in bunches
doing the wrong thing for them at the time.

But, as we've mentioned in another thread, tris are culturally
*very* different to road races. You can't get dropped
from a bunch if there is no bunch, and you can always look
at improving your times, which is a less variable measure
than being able to hang onto a road race bunch. Thus,
you can (usually) take something home from every tri
you do, but getting spat out the back of a road race
bunch is a heartbreaking experience that few have the
fortitude to keep coming back for. There's
no-one cheering for me when I roll in 30 minutes after the
bunch at a Lang Lang (hilly!) road race. Road racing is
*not* a nice sport like that. In that way, it's a very
selective sport. We're lucky in Oz, in Europe
there's no grades in amateur bike races, so if you're
not good enough to hang onto the semipros, you watch it on
TV.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Carl Brewer said:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:15:21 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I usually get my riders doing 1-3 months of base, depending
on their goals and where they are when I start with them,
but the base period includes some intensity work - we don't
want to lose -all- our VO2max gains 🙂 NFI how that would
translate to tri training though.

Yeah, I really think it was just 'cause I was so bad at cycling. Of
course, in every other sport I've done, I've taken shortcuts,
fast-tracked training, and it seems to work. I'll be starting on my own
program for next season and yep, intensity sessions from the start!

I'm not sure if you're taking the [censored], or serious here 🙂

Women are so complex. Nah, I was serious.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Fair enough. By the same token, football (any code) is therefore
also specific, you have to train everything. Imagine if you
couldn't handpass/tackle/roll a maul. You'd suck 🙂 I

Hey, you've just figured out why I suck! 🙂 Thanks!

Quoted message said:

think that runners may suggest that football training is
a lot less specific than pure running training though.

Reminds me of a sign outside a doctor's surgery

"We specialise in mens *and* womens health".

Maybe I should rephrase, tri training involves training for
more than one macro dicipline, but using the same energy
pathways - ie: you don't have to sprint and recover, you
just grind away until you get to the end.

I resent that statement, _I_ avoid grinding wherever I can, I definitely
just spin until I get to the end. If it gets too hard I pull over and
hail a sagwagon/taxi/train/parent. :P

I was only gently stirring, you bite too easily 🙂

Nah, I bite too hard. :P

Quoted message said:

I refer to any TT as a grind, not necessarily low cadence,
just a long .. grind .. to the end. It's not like you're monitoring
who's up the road in a break, if the people in your bunch are
working, who's the sprinter you want as a leadout, if the hill
5km before the end will drop you, where that bloody strong
time trialist is who you know is going to do a late attack and
try and solo in, if you're in the right leadout train, where the
corner is that has that bump just before it that you won't want
to get boxed in on etrc etc

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Tris only need to work on MSS, obviously.

Ha ha you haven't seen how much drafting goes on in big races,
obviously. And the sprinting is therefore important, so you can pull
away from the pack when you see the draft busters coming...

Except that the usual place a tri is won is the run (wouldn't

Are you sure about that? Strong cyclists tend to place better overall
than strong runners. Except Lisa Bentley. I love that woman, she's my
hero, she rocks! But the placings, in age group races, tend to be more
similar to those of the cycle leg moreso than the run leg. There's a few
outliers like me, who lose 20 minutes on the cycle and gain it back on
the run (over a half ironman).

Quoted message said:

it make the sport a -lot- more interesting if they
drew the order of the parts out of a hat, like the way
it's done for surf lifesaving ironman events?) so

It's not really practical though, because of:
1 wetsuits for cold-weather races, it'd be stupid to have to put them ON
as part of the race
2 the difficulty of monitoring swim safety if people are getting into
the water at random times, in particular if all the blood is in their
legs most people can't swim!
3 the impossibility of preventing drafting when thousands of athletes
start cycling at exactly the same time

Benefits would of course be a nice cool swim after doing a horror cycle
or run leg...

I think the swim leg breaks up the course really well, so it's
appropriate to be first.

Quoted message said:

a few metres here and there aren't going to affect
the results. The race officials are going to watch the
leaders more than the plebs, so they won't get
away with it anyway?

Works in theory... however the reality is a little different over a 90
km loop. And the plebs are agegroupers, who are racing against others in
their age group, so even if half the race is ahead of them, they might
win, and therefore might cheat, and are likely to draft.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I had a closer look at the slope this morning (anyone else still
reading this who's been to the Kew crit will know the hill
I'm using, riding clockwise around the Studley Park Loop), I think
it's closer to 5% or less at the part I use, so the position is
pretty close to flat ground.

That makes sense then. It's not a huge incline but enough to do the job.
How long is the hill?

The sprint takes about 25 seconds, and about 20 pedal strokes
in a 53:14 on 700c wheels. So it's ~20 reps 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Not in my experience, and most of my riders
are not "very very good"[*], they're late entry (not juniors)
adults with backgrounds in other sports. One hesitates
to suggest that if you look at triathletes riding, you may think

one did _not_ show much hesitation there...

Quoted message said:

that everyone that rides a bike, can't ride a bike 🙂 There's

...grrrrr...

You bite -way- too easily Tam 🙂

Yeah. Built like a fighter, thinks like a fighter... hey, where's
aus.b!tch?!!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

also the nature of competitive bike racing, which is
to a certain extent self-selecting for people who can

I don't know if so much that's _self_-selecting...

It's very self selecting (the sport, not the people). If
you can't ride well, you're not going to do very well at
the sport, and you'll go do something else. *maybe*
coaching helps those that have problems, and I
have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me
here 🙂

Some people get pleasure from a sport they're not great at and that
they'll never achieve high levels at. Like me and high jump, me and rock
climbing, me and cycling...

Quoted message said:

The people I have experience with have usually already started
racing, and decided to try and improve. They've self-selected in
that regard, and they're not chumps who can't ride. If they
went along to their first race and just got totally blown off the back
they'd have gone and played squash/tennis/couch lotto.

It happened to me. I got over it. I hate squash. You have just described
to me people who can't hack losing. People like that bore me. Sometimes
you lose.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

pedal well. I suspect this may be less of a factor in
triathlete populations, as us roadies are a bunch of
elitist snobs

...bingo! :P ha ha ha ha

Quoted message said:

and triathletes will take anyone they can get.

I think that cycling does not lend itself to non-club members, whereas
triathlon gets lots of individuals who don't have coaches, hence seeing
the poor-form people. Some of us actually started out by accepting that
we couldn't swim or cycle and found coaches who would teach us some
technique!

The vast majority of cycle racers aren't coached. I have a
vested interest in changing this, so my opinions are not
unbiased 🙂

Also, re the club thing, in my experience, road racers
and crit riders, as opposed to trackies, don't get that
much out of the club environment. Trackies are
all at the same place at the same time, and get a lot
of coaching etc (either by peers or actual coaches)
but the roadies are very much more on their own, unless
they want to troll back and forth down beach rd in bunches
doing the wrong thing for them at the time.

But, as we've mentioned in another thread, tris are culturally
*very* different to road races. You can't get dropped
from a bunch if there is no bunch, and you can always look
at improving your times, which is a less variable measure
than being able to hang onto a road race bunch. Thus,
you can (usually) take something home from every tri
you do, but getting spat out the back of a road race
bunch is a heartbreaking experience that few have the
fortitude to keep coming back for. There's

I'm going back for it! Yeah, bring it on. Of course, it's a bit harsh
expecting two girls to keep up with lotsa boys including people wearing
australia jerseys...

Quoted message said:

no-one cheering for me when I roll in 30 minutes after the
bunch at a Lang Lang (hilly!) road race. Road racing is
*not* a nice sport like that. In that way, it's a very
selective sport. We're lucky in Oz, in Europe
there's no grades in amateur bike races, so if you're
not good enough to hang onto the semipros, you watch it on
TV.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Tee hee.

Have a great day (I'll be off to the other work soon... gotta remember
to ask my boss if I can do the race in 2 weeks...)

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Come on Tam, don't you even know the first name of your betrothed?

DaveB "always confused on a Sunday whether to use real names or forum names"

"The people I have experience with have usually already started

Quoted message said:

racing, and decided to try and improve. They've self-selected in
that regard, and they're not chumps who can't ride. If they
went along to their first race and just got totally blown off the

back

Quoted message said:

they'd have gone and played squash/tennis/couch lotto.

It happened to me. I got over it. I hate squash. You have just
described
to me people who can't hack losing. People like that bore me. Sometimes

you lose. "

<snip>

Definitely agree with Tam on this... I am absolutely [censored] at most
sports - I play/have played cricket, rugby (the one they play in
heaven!), tennis (am actually good at that one...), golf, tri and
cycling...

I am pretty ordinary at most of these, but get a huge buzz out of
getting better (or losing by less!!) each time I have a go. I'm NOT a
very competitive person, in the sense that I love beating other people.
But I am ULTRA-competitive when it comes to beating myself (errr - does
that sound kinda weird...) - nothing gets me going more than posting a
PB (even if I am way down in that bottom quartile of competitors).

And I reckon there are a heap of people out there who are in the same
boat. Just have to look at the hordes that turn out to midweek team
sports events (touch footy, netball, tennis, etc), and the sloggers in
tri and cycling events that make up the bulk of the field.

Cheers all,
Absent Husband (who is now fondly reminiscing about finishing his first
OD triathlon up in Hervey Bay...)

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:29:51 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Carl Brewer said:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:15:21 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

> I usually get my riders doing 1-3 months of base, depending
> on their goals and where they are when I start with them,
> but the base period includes some intensity work - we don't
> want to lose -all- our VO2max gains 🙂 NFI how that would
> translate to tri training though.

Yeah, I really think it was just 'cause I was so bad at cycling. Of
course, in every other sport I've done, I've taken shortcuts,
fast-tracked training, and it seems to work. I'll be starting on my own
program for next season and yep, intensity sessions from the start!

I'm not sure if you're taking the [censored], or serious here 🙂

Women are so complex. Nah, I was serious.

🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Except that the usual place a tri is won is the run (wouldn't

Are you sure about that?

No, but all the ones I've sat through the highlights of on
TV have had the winners come from behind and win on the
run leg. My sample is small and I quickly lost interest 🙂 It
looked like a bunch of runners who couldn't swim or ride.

Many years ago I worked as a duty boat driver at a tri
at Torquay and I dragged a lot of drowning tri's out
of the water that day. I'm sure they could run really well
though!

Quoted message said:

Strong cyclists tend to place better overall
than strong runners. Except Lisa Bentley. I love that woman, she's my
hero, she rocks! But the placings, in age group races, tend to be more
similar to those of the cycle leg moreso than the run leg. There's a few
outliers like me, who lose 20 minutes on the cycle and gain it back on
the run (over a half ironman).

Quoted message said:

it make the sport a -lot- more interesting if they
drew the order of the parts out of a hat, like the way
it's done for surf lifesaving ironman events?) so

It's not really practical though, because of:
1 wetsuits for cold-weather races, it'd be stupid to have to put them ON
as part of the race

Why not? It's no dumber than riding 180km in bathers and
wet shoes.

Quoted message said:

2 the difficulty of monitoring swim safety if people are getting into
the water at random times, in particular if all the blood is in their
legs most people can't swim!

I'd contend that it'd be safer. Having driven rescue boats at
marathon swim events (Pier to Pub etc), the 2 things we
pulled the most people out of the water for was for being
kicked by other swimmers, and cold. Tri's wear wetsuits,
and do a lot of their races in warm climates anyway, so that would
get reduced to a lot lower risk of those problems. You have to
supervise the whole swim course anyway, and if there's
a swimmer in difficulty I'd much rather pull them out when they're
not surrounded by 1,000 other swimmers. I'll be able to see them
for starters!

Plus, if you have to think about a swim leg while running or riding,
wouldn't that make it more interesting?

Quoted message said:

3 the impossibility of preventing drafting when thousands of athletes
start cycling at exactly the same time

True.

Quoted message said:

Benefits would of course be a nice cool swim after doing a horror cycle
or run leg...

I think the swim leg breaks up the course really well, so it's
appropriate to be first.

Quoted message said:

a few metres here and there aren't going to affect
the results. The race officials are going to watch the
leaders more than the plebs, so they won't get
away with it anyway?

Works in theory... however the reality is a little different over a 90
km loop. And the plebs are agegroupers, who are racing against others in
their age group, so even if half the race is ahead of them, they might
win, and therefore might cheat, and are likely to draft.

Do tris have roaming officials? Do they enforce the rules on the
spot by dragging anyone they see cheating?

Quoted message said:

Yeah. Built like a fighter, thinks like a fighter... hey, where's
aus.b!tch?!!

It's next to aus.flame 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> also the nature of competitive bike racing, which is
> to a certain extent self-selecting for people who can

I don't know if so much that's _self_-selecting...

It's very self selecting (the sport, not the people). If
you can't ride well, you're not going to do very well at
the sport, and you'll go do something else. *maybe*
coaching helps those that have problems, and I
have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me
here 🙂

Some people get pleasure from a sport they're not great at and that
they'll never achieve high levels at. Like me and high jump, me and rock
climbing, me and cycling...

It's not achieving high levels that provides the reward, it's
improvement (for most people anyway). It's much easier to
see improvement in time trials than in complex, dynamic
events.

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Except that the usual place a tri is won is the run (wouldn't

Are you sure about that?

No, but all the ones I've sat through the highlights of on
TV have had the winners come from behind and win on the
run leg. My sample is small and I quickly lost interest 🙂 It
looked like a bunch of runners who couldn't swim or ride.

I think you'll find that's more likely the case for the pros where it is
draft legal. As long as they can find a bunch to sit on the bike doesn't
count for that much. But for your average age-grouper, ie. no drafting,
the bike is the longest leg timewise so if you are strong in the bike
that is fairly significant.

Quoted message said:

Plus, if you have to think about a swim leg while running or riding,
wouldn't that make it more interesting?

Absolutely, that's why I love the annual enduro event in Melb where you
go through everything twice.

DaveB

DaveB said:

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

>[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Come on Tam, don't you even know the first name of your betrothed?

LOL

Quoted message said:

DaveB "always confused on a Sunday whether to use real names or forum names"

Same for me after the blart ride... not that I've seen one of those in a
while...

Tam

Carl Brewer said:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:29:51 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Carl Brewer said:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:15:21 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>
wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Except that the usual place a tri is won is the run (wouldn't

Are you sure about that?

No, but all the ones I've sat through the highlights of on
TV have had the winners come from behind and win on the
run leg. My sample is small and I quickly lost interest 🙂 It
looked like a bunch of runners who couldn't swim or ride.

Many years ago I worked as a duty boat driver at a tri
at Torquay and I dragged a lot of drowning tri's out
of the water that day. I'm sure they could run really well
though!

<refuses to bite>

*chomp*

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

it make the sport a -lot- more interesting if they
drew the order of the parts out of a hat, like the way
it's done for surf lifesaving ironman events?) so

It's not really practical though, because of:
1 wetsuits for cold-weather races, it'd be stupid to have to put them ON
as part of the race

Why not? It's no dumber than riding 180km in bathers and
wet shoes.

Who does that?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

2 the difficulty of monitoring swim safety if people are getting into
the water at random times, in particular if all the blood is in their
legs most people can't swim!

I'd contend that it'd be safer. Having driven rescue boats at
marathon swim events (Pier to Pub etc), the 2 things we
pulled the most people out of the water for was for being
kicked by other swimmers, and cold. Tri's wear wetsuits,

Not all triathlete wear wetsuits. I'm a bit of a swimmer myself, so I
don't bother, yep, even at half ironman distance.

Quoted message said:

and do a lot of their races in warm climates anyway, so that would

Well Qld triathletes anyway... ask the people who went to the worlds in
NZ what they thought... while they had neoprene swim caps etc on...

Quoted message said:

get reduced to a lot lower risk of those problems. You have to
supervise the whole swim course anyway, and if there's
a swimmer in difficulty I'd much rather pull them out when they're
not surrounded by 1,000 other swimmers. I'll be able to see them
for starters!

The swim staff would have to be in the water for about twice as long
though. In addition, I'm impressed that you got to be in a boat, because
at most events they're on boards.

Quoted message said:

Plus, if you have to think about a swim leg while running or riding,
wouldn't that make it more interesting?

The people who win, only think about the leg they're doing RIGHT NOW.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

3 the impossibility of preventing drafting when thousands of athletes
start cycling at exactly the same time

True.

Ummmm. How am I supposed to bite at that one?! 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Benefits would of course be a nice cool swim after doing a horror cycle
or run leg...

I think the swim leg breaks up the course really well, so it's
appropriate to be first.

Quoted message said:

a few metres here and there aren't going to affect
the results. The race officials are going to watch the
leaders more than the plebs, so they won't get
away with it anyway?

Works in theory... however the reality is a little different over a 90
km loop. And the plebs are agegroupers, who are racing against others in
their age group, so even if half the race is ahead of them, they might
win, and therefore might cheat, and are likely to draft.

Do tris have roaming officials? Do they enforce the rules on the
spot by dragging anyone they see cheating?

Yep, there's penalty boxes you have to go and stand in for 5 minutes.
The officials hoon around on a motorbike. TA rules even have drafting
distances for the motorbike specified!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yeah. Built like a fighter, thinks like a fighter... hey, where's
aus.b!tch?!!

It's next to aus.flame 🙂

cute

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> also the nature of competitive bike racing, which is
>> to a certain extent self-selecting for people who can
>
>I don't know if so much that's _self_-selecting...

It's very self selecting (the sport, not the people). If
you can't ride well, you're not going to do very well at
the sport, and you'll go do something else. *maybe*
coaching helps those that have problems, and I
have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me
here 🙂

Some people get pleasure from a sport they're not great at and that
they'll never achieve high levels at. Like me and high jump, me and rock
climbing, me and cycling...

It's not achieving high levels that provides the reward, it's
improvement (for most people anyway). It's much easier to
see improvement in time trials than in complex, dynamic
events.

Welcome to triathlon timing - we get splits for each leg... :P

Later

Tam

Tamyka Bell said:

Carl Brewer said:

Tri's wear wetsuits,

Not all triathlete wear wetsuits. I'm a bit of a swimmer myself, so I
don't bother, yep, even at half ironman distance.

Hrm. *looks at his 7mm semi-dry scuba wetsuit*

*considers how easily he could swim in that*

*realises he'd float, but would have trouble getting his arms over*

(Nice wetsuit, just not for swimming in. Swimming, I'd probably want my
3mm, but that one leaks so much, it's hardly worth wearing...)

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

Stuart Lamble said:

Tamyka Bell said:

Carl Brewer said:

Tri's wear wetsuits,

Not all triathlete wear wetsuits. I'm a bit of a swimmer myself, so I
don't bother, yep, even at half ironman distance.

Hrm. *looks at his 7mm semi-dry scuba wetsuit*

*considers how easily he could swim in that*

*realises he'd float, but would have trouble getting his arms over*

(Nice wetsuit, just not for swimming in. Swimming, I'd probably want my
3mm, but that one leaks so much, it's hardly worth wearing...)

Tri wetties are pretty spesh. They're dry-ies for a start, designed of
fancy rubbery stuff on the outside with neoprene lining, they're super
flexible and they cost about $600. Only hard part of the stroke is
pushing your hand into the water. The rest is fantastic. Never raced in
one though, only tried it out in training.

T

I think there is a limit on its thickness anyway for Tri's - pretty
sure they are only allowed to be 3mm thick...

All part of them not being able to 'float', and so not conferring a
large-ish advantage to the swimmer.

I have a great photo that my Mum & dad took many years ago when I did
the Mooloolaba tri, taken as I was running out of the water post-swim.
I am very easy to spot amidst all the competitors, as the only one
wearing Speedo's only (everyone else was dressed up in a wetsuit). I
kept telling myself that I was a better swimmer than them, because they
needed a wetsuit... 😉

Cheers,
Absent Husband

Absent Husband said:

"I tried a homeopathic injury tablet and it made me very ill."
<snip>

So that's what the kiddies are calling them these days... "No officer,
its just a homeopathic injury tablet.." 😉

Work it out..
"Homeopathic Injury Tablet".. HIT.. case closed.
I'll take 50, thanks!

hippy

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

cool. I read lots of those sorts of papers because that's my research
job. But I still reckon it's what works for the individual.

Of course. If training was the same for everyone, there'd be one
book and everyone would have it. The art of coaching is
finding what works best for each athlete you're working with,
and then getting them to actually do it!
(right Hip? Still reading? 🙂 )

Um.. surprisingly, you freakin' physiology geeks, yes! :P

My understanding is "specificity is key", which I interpret as meaning
"use your bike for your muscle building" which is why I actually do what
Carl says wrt hill sprints. If I didn't agree with them, I wouldn't do
them. Bonus with 'on the bike' "weights" is that you don't need a gym
membership, gym gear, etc. and the sweat on the seat is yours and yours
alone! hehe :P

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

hasn't figured out how aromatherapy and accupuncture and homeopathy work
but they do work for some people. I tried a homeopathic injury tablet
and it made me very ill. But the lotion worked like a charm.

Aren't placebos and coincidences wonderful? 🙂

Ooh.. I can see the claws coming out.. hehehe

hippy

Carl Brewer said:

Not in my experience, and most of my riders
are not "very very good"[*], they're late entry (not juniors)
adults with backgrounds in other sports. One hesitates
to suggest that if you look at triathletes riding, you may think
that everyone that rides a bike, can't ride a bike 🙂 There's
also the nature of competitive bike racing, which is
to a certain extent self-selecting for people who can
pedal well. I suspect this may be less of a factor in
triathlete populations, as us roadies are a bunch of
elitist snobs and triathletes will take anyone they can
get.

[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

You're just saying that so we don't beat you up.. :P

hippy

Carl Brewer said:

Also, re the club thing, in my experience, road racers
and crit riders, as opposed to trackies, don't get that
much out of the club environment. Trackies are
all at the same place at the same time, and get a lot
of coaching etc (either by peers or actual coaches)
but the roadies are very much more on their own, unless
they want to troll back and forth down beach rd in bunches
doing the wrong thing for them at the time.

But, as we've mentioned in another thread, tris are culturally
*very* different to road races. You can't get dropped
from a bunch if there is no bunch, and you can always look
at improving your times, which is a less variable measure
than being able to hang onto a road race bunch. Thus,
you can (usually) take something home from every tri
you do, but getting spat out the back of a road race
bunch is a heartbreaking experience that few have the
fortitude to keep coming back for. There's
no-one cheering for me when I roll in 30 minutes after the
bunch at a Lang Lang (hilly!) road race. Road racing is
*not* a nice sport like that. In that way, it's a very
selective sport. We're lucky in Oz, in Europe
there's no grades in amateur bike races, so if you're
not good enough to hang onto the semipros, you watch it on
TV.

I like this. You highlighted 'something' really well. 🙂
In road races there is no 'PB'. You win, place or lose. Read FD's
Glenvale post - even a place is often considered a loss. It does make it
mentally difficult to keep coming back to something that has a pretty
slim "success" rate.

Glenvale is what I've been focused on - there's no "better times", no
"better speeds", 'win or lose' is it. Tri's are good, in that, every
time you finish a race you have a placing and more importantly a time to
beat. The timing systems for tri's are cool as are the web results.
In non-elite triathlon everyone seems to 'kinda want to win' but is
mostly after a better time than their last race. Critters and roadies
want the win (or are working for a mate). Pro road racing is a bit
different with team members having specific goals other than winning.

Carl, I know you keep telling me to go into every race with a goal to
meet, and I typically do, but winning is still the only thing I'm
interested in. Win or lose. Win or lose. Win or lose. :S :P
It's a punishing schedule.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

God help me when I can't read this ng regularly!!!

hippy

DaveB said:

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

> [*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!

(Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Come on Tam, don't you even know the first name of your betrothed?

DaveB "always confused on a Sunday whether to use real names or forum
names"

Doh! Don't remind her.. I'm not out of the country yet! :P

hippy

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:54:37 +1000, hippy <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Carl, I know you keep telling me to go into every race with a goal to
meet, and I typically do, but winning is still the only thing I'm
interested in. Win or lose. Win or lose. Win or lose. :S :P
It's a punishing schedule.

That's becase, for you at Glenvale, in the grade you're in,
that's an appropriate and realistic goal.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:22:11 +1000, Tamyka Bell <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It's not really practical though, because of:
1 wetsuits for cold-weather races, it'd be stupid to have to put them ON
as part of the race

Why not? It's no dumber than riding 180km in bathers and
wet shoes.

Who does that?

Do you stop and dry your feet before you get into your
riding shoes? Do yuo get any sand etc out from
between your toes? Do you give your crotch a decent toweling
before jumping on a bike and put on a good set of knicks? All the
tri's I have seen have been riding in what looks a lot like bathers
from a distance.

*ouch*

Given that it takes bugger-all time to put on one of those
longjohn wetsuits, and everyone would have the same
issue, what's the problem? Unless you have a vested
interest in tri's always finishing in a run? 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

get reduced to a lot lower risk of those problems. You have to
supervise the whole swim course anyway, and if there's
a swimmer in difficulty I'd much rather pull them out when they're
not surrounded by 1,000 other swimmers. I'll be able to see them
for starters!

The swim staff would have to be in the water for about twice as long
though. In addition, I'm impressed that you got to be in a boat, because
at most events they're on boards.

I drove boats for SLSV for years, so my observation is
self selecting 🙂

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Plus, if you have to think about a swim leg while running or riding,
wouldn't that make it more interesting?

The people who win, only think about the leg they're doing RIGHT NOW.

I find that hard to believe, unless it's the last leg.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do tris have roaming officials? Do they enforce the rules on the
spot by dragging anyone they see cheating?

Yep, there's penalty boxes you have to go and stand in for 5 minutes.
The officials hoon around on a motorbike. TA rules even have drafting
distances for the motorbike specified!

That's not suprising, you can't draft (although it happens)
support vehicles etc in road racing.

hippy said:

DaveB said:

Carl Brewer said:

>> [*] except for Stu and Jason, they're very very good!
>
> (Are they bigger than you? 😉 )

No, I'm coaching them, and they read this newsgroup, and
fortunatly, they both have robust senses of humour 🙂 and,
they're bigger than me!

Come on Tam, don't you even know the first name of your betrothed?

DaveB "always confused on a Sunday whether to use real names or forum
names"

Doh! Don't remind her.. I'm not out of the country yet! :P

hippy

*slap*

<Tam swims bikes runs away>

Carl Brewer said:

Quoted message said:

The people who win, only think about the leg they're doing RIGHT NOW.

I find that hard to believe, unless it's the last leg.
.

totally agree Carl. In my duathlon days/daze (coff coff) during the first run, all I could think about was getting thru it and hopping on the bike so I could catch the shpeedshtars who had just zipped away from me. When I got on the bike I all could think about was 1) catching and passing those runnergals 2) whilst saving enough in my legs to be able to keep them away from me during the last run 3) putting as much distance between them and me so that if I fell in a heap in the final leg, I still had a chance of getting over the line in front of them.

So I was usually thinking one leg ahead of where I was. Its called planning and strategy - if you don't have it, you are running on luck (or talent, which I dont have!!!) only.