Tri / Triathlon / Triathlons - do they float your boat?

Ta. Good, not having to worry about going there to sign up[1] is one less thing to fret about. Obviously this changes if those rumours of it moving do turn out to be true. Just need to keep the training going and plan on ramping it up.

Now wondering whether I just lash tri-bars to the or use next year's cycle scheme[2] to buy something like a Planet X Stealth TT (SRAM). My budget does not stretch to a Felt-IA. I know the Wilier is comfy, I've done 400 and 600 km Audaxes on it.

1. It's not a great time of year being just in school term time (means we can't make a proper family holiday of it) and a late Sunday evening finish isn't great for my daughter needing to be at school ~250 miles away at 9am the next morning. Challenge Weymouth is the same day too (this year at least).

2. Of course I'll commute on it. Maybe.

Buy my stealth F&F and cinelli bat bars...

And cheap chinese deep crabon aeros

Got a thread?

Found - http://www.lfgss.com/conversations/242504/#comment9948253

What height are you?

Sorry, "conversation"...

http://www.lfgss.com/conversations/242504/

"Large". Sadly I'm looking for a "small" in Planet-X sizing. (I'm 5'9")

That looks well pricey.

Try this instead.

I've not put a price on the wheelset yet. But it won't be very pricey. And they look properly fast.

THere were 8 of us who did Wales from my club, 4 on tt bikes, 4 on road bikes, and it was pretty much alternate places for the road vs tt bikes, which shows nothing other than its perfetly possible to ride on aroad bike, but there are very few places on the course where you cant ride in the aerobars.

there were 3 in the group who have school age kids, and they missed school for the day on friday and Monday - i really wouldn't advise trying to arrive the day before, it would be too stressful when you basically will not sleep the night before, so you need a really quiet day before hand...

If you're tempted by Challenge weymouth then go for that, but id wait until after this years race to find out if they are able to run the swim properly as the course was deemed too dangerous to run the whole swim last year so they halved it (Wales was on the same day and went ahead) and have actually measured out the full distance run - i'm pretty sure it was about 35k but a clubmate who did it decided not to loads his data on to strava... personally id be really disappointed to know the Iron distance race id done was so short...

Thanks, good info.

Another 2.6k swim today, 875m short of completely artificial Swimtag challenge (swim Windermere - 16.89km). 2 days left to complete it (including today), annoying as I got to choose the deadline and it would have been easy had I not bailed early on a swim a few weeks back. No chance of doing it tomorrow as I'm out having fun with MiniGB all day, guess I'm headed back to the pool later for another 1km if MrsGB takes MiniGB to the cinema this afternoon.

Good news is that it will mean ~8km swimming in the space of 3 days, something that I can repeat each week. If only I had the time to fit more swimming in during the week without feeling like I was deserting my wife and daughter.

Amazing to think that I struggled with a 300m swim when I was first getting back into it in September.

That's a pretty impressive swim volume, and should put you in a really good place for your in dreams, time to start thinking about open water swimming now!

Holding off on open water for a bit. Need to lose some weight before I get a wetsuit, don't want to have to buy a fat suit and a "normal" sized suit. Did a fair bit of open water swimming in my yoof when I swam for Granta/City-of-Cambridge SC so none of it will be a surprise. Swimming in the River Cam was a joy (not).

Looks like early starts for me on a Tuesday now. Pool opens at 6.30am and so I can fit in an hour swim and be at my desk by 8.30am. Train to work (with 5-a-side stuff) also means I can run home Tuesday and run in Thursday; 12km each way.

Just have to set the alarm for 6am.

Ed, Isn't Weymouth hosting the European LD champs? If so I'd hope they get their course sorted out!

didn't realise that but having looked it up it looks like it is...

when I originally looked at the long distance champs it was an 03 distance in Sweden, hence why I went for the middle distance champs...

Just have to set the alarm for 6am.

Ugh. Bit tardy, out of the house by 6.30am and a cheeky 1.3k this morning (in 100m sets at 10 sec/100m faster than normal). So rests. Much breathe. Ugh.

@Greenbank this is the story of my life every day! 3k swims are almost inevitably 2.6 as I always get there 15 minutes later than planned!

warm downs don't help anyway...

(They probably do but as long as I never do them I don't know what im missing!)

meh... I've tried them and never found it makes a difference. Cutting the cool down allows me to spend an extra 5-10minutes standing on the edge of the pool, not getting in, and wishing I was somewhere else.

haha, ive stopped talking to people at the pool as otherwise I end up spending 15 minutes "resting" between intervals each session talking to random strangers avoiding actually swimming.

its probably not much use to anyone here, but i'm "organising*" an open water swim on Monday in the Jubilee river in Taplow, followed by a pint and a giant sandwich, I went in with a few people on Saturday and its bearable with gloves and booties, and the Jubilee has the advantage of being boat free as it is not possible to take anything other than a canoe down there as its got a series of weirs with no locks. its a lovely place to swim as a result and its very slow flowing even at this time of year. if anyone is about and fancies it, let me know!

*When i say organising, I mean i'll be there with some other swimmers, there will be some one on the side to look after car keys etc but there's no support or safety to talk of, and all risk is your own if you do turn up!

1h46, 5128m, mostly pull. Felt like I could have gone on for hours more.

Definitely got my swimming mojo.

Will get some paddles as I need to build up shoulder strength to maximise the pull. I just need to remember to build up using them rather than smashing my shoulders to pieces wearing them for another full 5k swim.

Be careful with paddles, sure you've read up but its very easy to do long term damage through overuse - lots of horror stories about the place!

Also I assume you are swimming quite a random length pool to swim a number ending in 8!

Before I post in the main forum/ebay, would anyone be interested in a second hand Garmin Forerunner 910xt - my wife has just bought the 920 and I really want one as well!

the 920xt is great :)

Be careful with paddles, sure you've read up but its very easy to do long term damage through overuse - lots of horror stories about the place!

I've heard this too. I occasionally use paddles for technical stuff, but Friday will be the first time I've ever used them when I'm pushing:

3x200m at CSS, CSS/50m recovery
1 min recovery
8x100m fast, CSS/100m recovery, alternating with paddles
10x50m Sprint, CSS/100m recovery, alternating with paddles

Not sure I relish the idea 50m sprints with paddles but we'll see.

I find them really helpful for building power, I got to the stage where I was pulling too hard without them on and just pushing my hand through the water rather than catching and puling myself forward, once I realised this though its made be a load quicker, was a pretty good feeling to hit sub 3min 200s fairly consistently throughout Mondays session, especially the all out effort which resulted in a 2.49!

makes me think I may achieve a sub 6 minute 400m - I keep wondering what the equivalent benchmarks are in cycling and running - its already definitely taken me more effort and time to achieve than anything I've done in running!

You need to nail your catch if you're going to use paddles effectively, and not bake in bad habits.

Forearm paddles would be good for this, or with normal paddles, not using the wrist strap - then they just fall off if your technique is pants.

In other news, I've been roped into my first slevless for a while - Bewl standard distance in August.

Reservoir swim (which appears to change in distance year-on-year, from 1,200 to 1,800), two flat lap loop around the local roads, then a 2 lap semi-trail run out and back along the side of the reservoir.

did bewl last year as my first olympic distance.

jobsworth BTF bloke made it a no wetsuit swim which i really struggled with (last out of the water. literally). felt like further than 1,500m but i was zig zagging a lot.

bike ride was fine (one nasty junction).

run was quite 'non-flat' (for me) 166m over 10km.

^ that's pretty rare for the UK to have a non wetsuit legal wetsuit swim - bad luck!

@TW is the distance based on strava as I garmins lose a lot of accuracy when swimming?

I am interested in the extent to which my height disadvantage limits me! 170cm puts me 8/9 cm smaller than the average top level female swimmer!