August 7, 2007

Last few bricks before the race

This week I have few bricks scheduled - actually three - to practice the transitions. That should be fun. I did a long brick on the weekend on the race course and it was a lot of fun. I tried another fueling strategy that convinced me that I should stick with what I know - e.g. PowerBar before the race, then GU every 30 minutes on the bike and run. What I tried was no PowerBar in the beginning and towards the end of the bike I was feeling it. Once I transitioned to the run I took off too fast and then blew-up. I had to slow down and at some point I had to walk for about 2-3 minutes to get my heart rate back to normal. Then I was able to keep going. Another mistake I did was that I did not take any gels with me on the run - just water. I felt it quite a lot. So the bricks are definitely paying off already. I'm learning from mistakes that I would have otherwise did during the race.

Today I was supposed to do a swim, bike brick and I did a nice morning 45 minutes swim in the pool, then I ran around the pool simulating the exit from water and run to the transition area. Practiced taking off my watch, goggles and cap. Then I transitioned onto the bike, but my power meter would not work. So I tried to fix it. This leads me to decision to keep the Polar S625X on the bike for the race and I may take another watch RS800sd for the time keeping and distance on the run. Not ideal solution, but it will cut some time from the transition. I may even not need to take off the watch after the swim. I do not really need a HR from the swim. On the bike I'll have the power on the bike and HRM on RS800 and then on the run I'll get the distance from the RS800. Besides that I can record my R-R during the whole race with maybe exception of swim as the sensor does not work under water. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

2 comments:

Mike said...

Hey kxux, I just found this after posting up some runs from the last few days. Looks like you are organized and ready to go!

Good luck with nutrition, it took me a couple of years to figure out my exact strategy, I start the night before with fish, brown rice, and broccoli. Then I eat my regular Total in the Morning, a half of a PB and Honey sandwich on multigrain one hour before, a gel when I put on my wetsuit and I go. I am only doing sprints this year so I do not eat during the races, just gatorade and water. Maybe a gel if I am feeling it on the bike. I use a flask mounted on the bike so I can just suck some down whenever I feel like it.

You should feel good about yourself and your training. I have found as I make my way up the standings that the mental prep becomes a big part as well. You will have much more confidence after you finish Steelman and then make sure you use that in your future races.

Good Luck to you, you are ready to go kick ass.

VS

kxux said...

Hi VS,

thanks for your comment and suggestions. Yeah it took me a while to find out what works on the long course - long gone are the days when I ran on empty stomach in the morning. Now I'm pretty diligent about fueling during any exercise longer than 60 minutes and quite often I fuel before shorter exercises as well.

I'm still trying to figure out what to eat the night before the race and I'm pretty sure huge pasta meal is not what I need. I plan to have pasta meal on Friday and then on Saturday I'll keep it fairly light. Race day is pretty clear - coffee and crossaint for breakfast, plenty of water and then a PowerBar just before the start. Then GU gels on the bike every 30 minutes - last fueling will be 2 gels so I can last the whole run only on water. That should be OK for the international distance.

Good luck on your race this week and let us know how you did on the R+ site.