Author Topic: The Triathlon Thread  (Read 101290 times)

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #325 on: 05 July, 2012, 01:52:39 pm »
I'm getting strangely tempted by the Little Woody  half ironman in August..

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #326 on: 06 July, 2012, 10:54:56 pm »
Good luck to the pair of you.  It's breaking out all over.
Citoyen, is that the one in MK?

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #327 on: 10 July, 2012, 12:03:04 am »
Yup, that's the one. Although it's looking less likely that I'll be able to do it now, which is a shame.

Might be better to start with something slightly lower profile anyway though!

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

JJ

The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #328 on: 29 August, 2012, 02:16:02 am »
Anyone here doing Challenge Henley?

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #329 on: 29 August, 2012, 03:13:06 pm »
Maybe see you there then.  It'll be my first long distance, so full of trepidation.  Currently debating whether to use the TT bike, or whether better off really on the road bike with tri-bars.  From memory, those roads are somewhat "sporting".

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #330 on: 29 August, 2012, 04:23:23 pm »
Thanks for that.  Sounds to me as if road bike may be the way to go, not least because I've hardly done any miles on the TT bike.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #331 on: 04 September, 2012, 12:09:12 pm »
Probably a "how long is a piece of string" type question, but...

My PB for a standalone 5km run is 21.43. No idea what I could ride 20km in, but I'd guess around 30-35 minutes depending on the terrain. I can swim 1km (in a pool) in about 20 minutes, so presumably 750m would be around 15 minutes.

How would those times compare relative to each other as splits in a sprint tri? Where would I need to improve?

d.

"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #332 on: 04 September, 2012, 02:36:34 pm »
Most triantelopes who could run and cycle like that would be looking to do the swim around 11½ minutes.

Yikes. Though it's about what I expected, if I'm being honest with myself...

I'm trying to get back into swimming, and I'm doing 40 lengths (1km) one or two mornings a week on my way to work. I timed it at a touch under 20 minutes this morning and was just wondering how that compares to my running and cycling performance...

At least it's good to know that I won't finish last if I do ever get round to entering a tri!  ;D

Shame the National thing didn't come off, but it's probably for the best - I may well have finished last in that.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #333 on: 04 September, 2012, 06:43:37 pm »
Those are pretty similar to my kind of times, except that your run is a bit quicker.  Especially in an open-water mass-start even, you'll find yourself going overtaking a lot on the bike leg, so that avoiding drafting may become an issue.  With a pool-based event, the riders are more evenly spread IME, though there can still be clumps that you have to sprint past.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #334 on: 04 September, 2012, 07:03:16 pm »
Those are pretty similar to my kind of times, except that your run is a bit quicker. 

That's a PB for a standalone run though. Not sure I'd be quite as quick on an actual tri.

Only one way to find out...

(Really must pull my finger out and actually enter something rather than just talking about it!)

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #335 on: 10 September, 2012, 04:45:10 pm »
Great!
I'm off in the first wave, the Pros and Slows.  Guess which I am!  Number 40, probably wearing Cambridge CC kit for the bike leg, cos I haven't any C Tri C.

Just been shopping for Ibuprofen, Immodium and Compeed  :P

JJ

The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #336 on: 16 September, 2012, 08:09:47 pm »
11:35 and 3rd in age group so over the moon!  For a while it showed me first which would have been ridiculous.

It was great to see you and the exceedingly cheery Oxford Tri crew

If you were minded to go round the course you could have ha no end of bottles and  pumps, even a bag of sandwiches and something that looked a lot like a camera. Oh and a road kill pheasant that looked fresh.

Thanks to you and the crew. It was awesome

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #337 on: 17 September, 2012, 11:17:26 am »
11:35 and 3rd in age group so over the moon!

Well done! That's an impressive performance.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

JJ

The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #338 on: 17 September, 2012, 01:07:39 pm »
Still over an hour behind Oranj last year,  and that was in harder conditions.

I wonder whether they have anyone laid on to litter-pick after. One hopes so. TBF it was mostly stuff you wouldn't want to drop, like bottles and pumps. Not much in the way of gels etc outside the controls er feed zones. The downhill to Stonor was quite dangerous with bottles all over the road.

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #339 on: 01 October, 2012, 04:44:45 pm »
Chrissie Wellington channeling Jens!

http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2012/09/25/chrissie-wellington-the-mind-over-body-battle/

Quote from: Chrissie
F-you, hip! Knee, stop being such a pain in the ass.

Edit:  Fixed the quote.

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #340 on: 11 October, 2012, 02:47:21 pm »
Ok, so this might be something I might be doing a lot of next year, but I probably need to start sorting the swimming part out now.

If we are talking about the olympic distance:

25m TT time is 58 mins but that will definitely be faster next year (so say just over an hour in a tri for just under 25?)
10k time is 36 mins (sub 40 in a tri?)

Relatively, therefore, where do I need to get my 1.5k swim to so that I am kind of swimming with people I might be near on the bike and run? Does that make any sense?!

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #341 on: 11 October, 2012, 03:09:52 pm »
My 1km swim time is about 20 minutes, which is on the slow side. It would be a respectable time for a 1.5km swim though.

d.

"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #342 on: 11 October, 2012, 04:40:07 pm »
Ok cool, so basically, being female, I can probably afford to be a bit slower than that- I don't need to be male top 10. So if I swam say 26-27, then assume I would take out people on the bike and run, would that be in the right ballpark do you think? Or is that giving me too much to do and I need to be more like 25? I don't know anything about swim times.....!

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #343 on: 11 October, 2012, 05:21:39 pm »
Note that you could gain a minute or more just from swimming in a wetsuit, as opposed to in a pool in a swimsuit.

That's interesting! Maybe I'm not as slow as I thought... (wishful thinking)
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

andygates

  • Peroxide Viking
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #344 on: 11 October, 2012, 07:56:48 pm »
UK outdoor swims are all wetsuit.  If it's really toasty, they're wetsuit-optional. 

LC, look up the results online for your target race last year - that'll give you an idea for the spread of times at your performance level.  :thumbsup:

(also, the general rule of thumb is "add 10%" for the same effort done in tri vs done on its own, so 40 mins for a 36-min 10k is about right)
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
OpenStreetMap UK & IRL Streetmap & Topo: ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps updates weekly.

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #345 on: 12 October, 2012, 12:34:42 am »
I've just joined Lomond Masters for a bit of swimming training because that's the bit that will give most return for least effort. It's not the fitness that's letting me down, it's that I learned to front crawl by teaching myself nearly 30 years ago and all those bad habits have really stuck.

I'm at 25m-ish for 1Km in the open water, although I can go for 3Km. Not really all that competitive, is it?
Allow me to explain through the medium of interpretive dance

JJ

Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #346 on: 15 October, 2012, 10:26:06 pm »
A word of warning though - you can lose all that advantage, and more, by being too stressed out in an open-water race swim scenario. Even the strongest, most confident swimmers can suffer moments of panic in the swim and although with most of my races I've just got in the water and got on with it, I've occasionally been unnerved and it can ruin your race. You see people being fished out of the water at every triathlon, panicked and hyperventilating. It's worth getting down to your local triathlon club and finding out if they do open water swim training so you can gain a little pre-race experience.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/r3S0wu4Zbfk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/r3S0wu4Zbfk&rel=1</a>

But seriously, some time spent practising the whole open-water thing will be well spent.  My first couple this year were miserable. Later on, after practice, was much better.

Note that you could gain a minute or more just from swimming in a wetsuit, as opposed to in a pool in a swimsuit.

That's interesting! Maybe I'm not as slow as I thought... (wishful thinking)

Actually, I think it may be quite a bit more.  Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think you're of a similar standard to me Citoyen, and I can vouch that wetsuits help those of us less naturally fish-like disproportionately.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #347 on: 18 October, 2012, 06:07:14 am »
I've finally done it - I'm registered for the Sevenoaks Triathlon (28th April 2013). Yay!

400m pool swim, 25km bike, 8km run. Which actually doesn't sound like very much on paper... I have my eye on a couple of Olympic distance events next year too. Don't think I'm quite ready for an Ironman yet though.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #348 on: 18 October, 2012, 06:27:44 am »
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think you're of a similar standard to me Citoyen, and I can vouch that wetsuits help those of us less naturally fish-like disproportionately.

Forgive you? I take that as a compliment!  ;D

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: The Triathlon Thread
« Reply #349 on: 04 December, 2012, 04:33:47 pm »
I cycled in this morning - at what I thought was a fairly moderate pace (17km @ 24km/h). Then I went for a run at lunchtime - a few hours later, and again at a moderate pace (8km @ 4.40/km).

And now my calves are killing me.

This is normal, right?  ???

I thought I'd get away with it having a few hours gap in between the two activities... makes me realise I need to do some proper brick training before attempting an actual triathlon...

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."