I am not soft anymore

At least in regards to the Weather. This picture is from a week ago. The standard stroller push.

Been hitting some good swims and bikes, also doing ok when I hit speed as long as I dont go over about a min. I know at a low altitude I will be rocking though. This post is mainly a preview for the first race of the season. The SHAC. Last fall I had a breakthrough race so this is gonna be really tough.

Last year for 400 swim 10M bike and 3M run.

Swim: 6:20

T1: 1:15

Bike: 26:16

T2: 0:41

Run 17:41

Total: 52:18

This year I want

Swim: 6:00 (~1:25 pace with timing mat locations)

T1: 1:00

Bike: 26:00 (~24mph with timing mat locations)

T2: 0:40

Run 17:00 (5:40 pace)

Total 50:39

The course record was nest 1 year ago by Ironman Lake Placid Champion Ben Hoffman at 50:45 so I am really shooting for the stars.

There are a few things I am going to do different for this race. I am gonna use swim bands during my warmup. I am not using socks. (Finally over my blister fiasco from years ago.) I am using a standard wrist stopwatch to check my splits. 7 on the bike, 14 at turnaround, 20 at next, 27 at next, and then 36:10 at the second turnaround. I still have a shot if that time is as high as 36:40. Oddly the thing I am most afraid of is the bike. I am in a lot better shape but there are TONS of turnarounds and turns and I didn't get caught behind anyone and I was in the right gear every time last time. I may have pushed a little too hard last time as well. Also the weather lead in is terrible. No motivation to run today in the sleet/snow after riding almost 2 hours in it. Basically can't wait for the first race of the season so this is my whole-hearted attempt at over-analyzing it.

New and improved workout blog and homemade bike modifications.

I am going to make a concerted effort to provide more useful information along with pictures of stories instead of just updates. Updates will still happen on a monthly basis. To start off the new blog I will show what I did to my bike that involved some hacksawing and lots of dremeling.

I basically wanted to create my own internal cable routing while adjusting the cockpit to to the bike. I took 1 inch off my aero extensions. I dropped my pads by 12.5mm and moved my seat forward about 1/4 of an inch. My seat is now 15 cm above my elbow pads. My seat nose is 3.5cm in in front of the bottom bracket. My effective seat tube angle (sitting back in the saddle) is 80.81 degrees.

Here is the dremel hole that I made in the bullhorns. There is also one right under the white bar tape exactly where it needs to be. Oddly I actually like where the bullhorns are in relation to the rest of the cockpit which is good bc that is one thing you cant do anything about except buy new ones and these where only 10 bucks.

It took quite a while to dremel through. I used a grinder to get a grove going and then an engraving cutter to do the rest. The hard part was getting the tubing through (since real internal routing has little funnels to help I had to reverse thread the wire and then tape it to the real wire and then lead it through. I messed up a couple times with either the shifters or housing not in the right order so I had to unthread. Here is the final product.

The homemade computer mount fit in the same place since the tape isnt as far back this time. I also leveled the water bottle cage and purchased a locking bottle from camelback since it tends to leak in this position. I was also able to level the armrest pads bc I had them tilted down so the extensions felt right. Basically everything changed bc I have not gotten to it for ever. The biggest thing is that the bullhorn grips are about 1/2 as thick as they used to be and it just feels so much better. It will be great for the turnarounds and sprint hills at my next Tri.

Here is the final product. I have the trainer tire on the disc so I dont have to change cassettes to ride outside.

The only thing I haven't done is to cut the steering tube above the stem. This is for two reasons. One, it is really hard to get it level without a pipe cutter and two it helps keep the water bottle cage secure and provides a better attachment point for it. Now that I am dialed in I should be plenty fast this year. Will try and get a video of me on the bike to check my positioning sometime in the next couple weeks.