Here is my HR chart for today's 45 minute cycle on the trainer. Warm up, 6 X 20 second spin-ups with 1:40 min rest intervals, easy cadence (Zones 1-2) for the rest of the ride.
Warmed up, felt fine, did a spin up or two which felt ok - looked at my Garmin and HOLY HANNAH it said my HR was 224 bpm!!!! That can't be good. It can't even be right, can it? I did finish out the spin-ups - but I did the last three slower than the first three. When I look at this chart I know my Garmin is smoking crack because I didn't do anything for the last 20 minutes but spin easy. Yet there are five almost perfect stalagmites right there. And look at the one below. It shows my heart rate (red) in comparison to my elevation (gray).
Hel-lo, my bike was on the trainer on the tile floor in my bathroom. Very flat, I assure you. Not a single hill. That gray line should have been straight across! I'm not sure what to do about all this. I suppose I could just forget about the HRM, but (like RBR), I enjoy all that geeky number crunching. I like just running or riding and listening to my body talking to me, too. Shouldn't I have the option? Is it greedy to want as many training tools as possible? Am I total diva to expect my training tools to work?Thang Two: Thanks for all the input about shoes and the sympathy for the sunburn. (<--I so don't deserve the sympathy though. I have great sunscreen - Mary Kay for my face and special long lasting sport stuff for my body. It works great when I remember to put it on!) The shoes though, I do think I'm going to try the Brooks. Now that I've heard so many good things and read some more about not only pronation/foot anatomy but levels of support available - it looks like it could be a good match for my needs. (Here's hoping!)
Thang Three: Sometimes this sport is a total crapshoot. (A nicer way of phrasing that is that triathlon is as much art as science.) There are myriad factors both controllable and wildly unpredictable: gear, weather (temp, humidity, chop, surf, surge, wind...), training, mental status, nutrition, terrain, hormone cycles, other racers, alignment of the planets, etc. I think about the range of emotional maturity staying in this sport requires. I am inspired by posts like Stef's where she comes to terms with a swim DNF due to dangerous conditions and like Shirley's where she overcomes (and possibly overcompensates for) cutting her foot in the race. (Digression of the saddest sort: I try not to freak out about people dying in races. I've read nothing that explains what has happened to these three athletes! The fact that this happens makes it that much more difficult for me to know when to push and when to regroup and try again later!) I'm trying to learn balance and flexibility. I want to be stronger and yet more patient. Connection to the world around me and being present in the moment are important. I want to expand my limits but I don't want to break myself! There is so much to triathlon.
Thang Four: Hydration and Nutrition. We were much more intentional about our night before and breakfast nutrition this weekend and it showed. For Donna particularly. She had a strong transition (=hard but good) from the 2 hour bike to the 3 mile run. She seemed to get better with each stride on the run. Granted - she is solar powered. (She grew up in Miami and completely thrives on sunlight and heat!) Still - she hit her calories and hydration just right for her and for that day. For me, I could feel everything working for the first 3/4's of the bike. (I found a great new breakfast of Nature Valley Granola bars sandwiched with PB in between. Just enough and not too much for me!) But by the end of the bike I needed more. I am getting more confident but it is hard sometimes for me to find the right time to eat/drink on the bike. I feel like a klutz fumbling around trying to get the bike bottle out or back into its cage!! I can't do it if I'm chugging uphill, zooming downhill, or worried about traffic - and I control none of those factors! I have read about taping the top of gel packets to your bike frame so you can rip the gel off and suck it down, but I know you HAVE to follow that up with water so I haven't tried this yet. (The pressure!) I love the structure of a nutrition plan like IMAble's but eeeep! I can't imagine being able to stick to something like that. Are there any tricks or is it just one of those things that only time and practice will help? Question 4B: What about these little dudes? Is this what people mean when they say "electrolyte tabs" or do they mean something else? I had some G2 on the run with me. I know I was already in deficit because of my sunburn and inability to ingest enough on the bike - BUT I wondered if something with a little more ooomph in the electrolyte department might have helped. Thoughts? I'd love to hear what works for others. (I'm supposed to work all this out in training but man, even a couple of months doesn't seem like enough time to try all the combinations out there! Any starting points or way to narrow the field would be helpful!)
Thang Five:
This picture cracks me up. My poor ITB if this is how I'm supposed to stretch it out. I do realize they have taken out the desk support in front so you can see the stretch better, but still! I have fallen and hurt myself in far less Twister-ish positions! On the other hand, I LOVE speed skating. If I can channel my inner Anton Apollo Ohno, maybe I'll be ok!
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7 comments:
It is not much to expect the gadgets to work. I don't have your model garmin, so hopefully someone else will have good advice for you!
As for hydration and nutrition, I think it's more of a trial/error thing. I'm actually working on this as well with my longer runs.
thang one: once my heartrate monitor said my hr was 225 when a cold gust of wind hit me! Sometimes it just freaks out on me, but if yours does it a lot maybe a new battery would help?? BTW, I was cracking up the way you talked about your bathroom floor being flat!
thang three: how true! Also, I was inspired by Steph, too :)
thang four: I had a similar post today asking the same thing! I'm trying out lots of things...gels, gu's, Accelerade, sandwiches, bananas...you name it, I've eaten it while biking ;) Hopefully, between the two of us asking, some smart people will help us.
thang five: this made me snort! If you can do that stretch, you are officially my new hero.
Gadgets are awesome when they work correctly! Your seems to have a mind of it's own. My Garmin acts up sometimes and tries to tell me I'm running a lot slower than I really am. I've never had it say that I ran hills that weren't there or that I was working harder than I thought. I would put that one down in the "plannets alignment" thingy (see below).
I absolutely agree with your assesment of the amount of factors that are involved in having a good race. It's one of those engineering situations where you just can't calculate the risks and impacts (like the butterfly wing causing a hurricane on the other side of the world??). I think that's why we love it though, right? If it was predictable and nothing more than doing the same things over and over we would get bored with it and it really wouldn't be a challenge. (off the soapbox now)
That's a bit of an over-exaggerated example of the ITB stretch. I do that stretch and have NEVER gone that far. I usually get a good stretch with just a little bend to the side. It works though, I do it daily.
Ooh, I think Cindy is on to something. My Polar HR monitor freaks out like that when it needs a battery, maybe that is it. I bought my Ironman watch on sale and it was old stock, so the battery had to be replaced pretty quickly after I bought it. Maybe since your Garmin is a older model it was older stock?
You crack me up. Great writing my dear, great writing!
Sidenote: Why do I get word verifications with 12,000 letters? Do you have some sort of setting that measures the verbosity (like that one?) of the comment and creates the appropriate word verification length?
When people say electrolyte tabs, they usually mean salt capsules or salt tablets. Nuun is a tablet you add to water to make an electrolyte drink, which some people prefer to taking salt tabs or do in addition to taking them. If you're a heavy sweater and/or will be training/racing long or in hot conditions, you may need extra electrolytes to stave off cramps or worse, hyponatremia (very dangerous condition caused by low salt balance in the body).
Yes, nutrition is a hard one to nail down. What worked for me in a couple 1/2 iron races did not work for me in my last race because I pushed the bike much harder, which caused my digestive system to shut down and not accept as many calories. Better training and trying something else may help. I'm going to start experimenting with liquid-only nutrition so I don't have to eat on the bike. With the new aero bottle I got at the expo, I now have the option to do that.
As for that Garmin, I don't know what to say. It sounds like it's got a mind of its own. Maybe do some Google searches to see if others are having a similar problem? Though I thought you just recently got it, perhaps it already needs a new battery ?? Maybe it's got a defect and should be returned???
Hey friend, thanks for the link and the kind words!
I am totally going to try that ITB stretch. ITB is one thing I have never had issues with and would like to keep it that way. I need to be more consistent in my stretching.
As for the fine line of pushing oneself, I work with a coach who advocates pushing yourself A LOT to get to the next level. This is one thing I need to work on. By the same token, she advised me that I did the right thing and to quickly get over my swim DNF because there were safety issues. That was not the time to push (at least not for me).
So we are all learning. I personally tend to hang back when things get uncomfortable rather than push. But in safe conditions I do want to push past what I "think" I can do and do more!
I am a huge fan of the stuctured nutrition plan (IM Able's rocked). I have one for OLY races and beginning in June will start working on one for my Half Iron in the fall. I believe that nutrition more than anything else, will make or break me on race day (safety and other issues notwithstanding). For salt I use Thermolyte tablets. Haven't tried Nuun but have heard good things.
With patience and practice you will find what works for you.
I have a different Garmin model that I'm still trying to figure out, but I had read some reviews on the those with heart rate monitors that they have a tendency to freak out from time to time. I think these reviews were on amazon. Not sure if that is helpful to you, but now you know!
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