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Thanks coach!
We’ve just bought our first home, so I’ve spent the tapering period stripping wallpaper and painting – not sure this is highly recommended as a tactic, but it has enforced less training time. Setting off for Musselman this afternoon and looking forward to a fun weekend in beautiful countryside, and quite decent weather forecast at this stage.
Good luck with everyone else’s training and racing this weekend!
Katie
Yes! Highly recommend! I did the first one, and got a lot out of it, going around again this weekend.
Really sorry but a family commitment has come up on Sunday so I will now be unable to make this clinic – the event looks like it’s sold out online so just wanted to let the group know in case anyone wants to make use of the place.
Best wishes for what looks like an extremely useful session!
Katie
Great weekend! I found the clinics very useful – good to have a friendly, open environment to be able to ask basic questions and learn from the mountain of collective wisdom. A few of us ended up swimming to the start of the ‘Escape from Saigon’ swim too so double the open water practice!
In terms of lessons learned – I was so worried about getting swum over that I ended up swimming a very wide route (according to my watch I swam about 1900m, instead of 1500) so I definitely need to work on better sighting, confidence around other swimmers, and confidence in open water more generally. I had a few sections where I felt like I was in a better rhythm, but for the most part I found it quite hard to get relaxed, and focus on good technique. So I plan to build in some more open water events, and keep building strength and technique in the pool.
My T1 was quite slow, so room for improvement there, T2 was better.
Bike went ok – it was quite wet so I was taking it very steady on the twistier sections, and trying to keep consistent cadence and rhythm.
Run felt really good – felt like I got into a good rhythm early on, negative split all but one mile, and finished feeling strong, so that was really encouraging. I’m working on increasing my cadence (especially after Coach AJ’s talk!) and had 173 average for the run, so making progress there, but room for further improvement. Only negative was really finding the Gu gels I’m using for the run section quite sickly, so still trial and error for what’s going to work nutrition-wise in both bike and run phases (bike I’m currently trying Tailwind/water alternate and non-sweet solid foods, but not found the perfect combination for either leg yet).
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to pass on a cycling route I recently discovered and really like for the Saturday long ride.
Prince William Forest Park in Dumfries, VA, has a great 7-mile loop, as part of an 11-mile paved road called Scenic Drive: https://www.nps.gov/prwi/planyourvisit/bicycling.htm https://rootsrated.com/washington-dc/cycling/prince-william-forest-park-cycling
It’s light traffic, and the cars that are on the road are limited to 25mph and used to seeing cyclists, plus there’s a dedicated bike lane around about a third of it. It’s a great surface, and lovely place to ride in the forest – some hills (check out Hyperventilation Hill on Strava!), but mostly rolling/flat. Only downside is you have to not mind doing loops, and the I-95 south to get there gets a lot of traffic on Saturdays, so the earlier you can go, the better.
Happy cycling (and watch out for deer crossing)!
Katie
Yes, welcome Sebastiaan! I’m also doing IMMD, and will also be my first full-distance ironman. Happy training!
Yes! But similarly only figured it out later… oops.
I found the clinic really useful – initial feedback was that I do a 1980s/90s-style S-shaped pull (I remember learning this as – make the “Z” for Zorro), which is not the thing to do now – turns out it should be straight back. I’m also often finishing my stroke too early and kicking too much from the knee, rather than the hip. On the plus side, my hips are up and my body’s in a decent position.
So plenty of homework to get stuck into, and looking forward to getting more detailed feedback when they load the videos later this week. I did catch-up and superman drills this morning, focusing on not being Zorro, and am hoping to get along to MSP at UDC on Wednesday morning.
Would highly recommend this clinic when the next one comes around, and would definitely be keen to do another one, to hopefully see some improvement, whenever it can be organised.
PS – I’m sure you all already know this, but just in case, let me pass on another rookie mistake I discovered I’ve been making – kicking with the pull buoy. A kind man pointed this out on Sunday and I realised I’d been doing it wrong all along – I’d been making little kicks, when I should have been pointing my toes and just focusing on the strokes. So another lesson learned!
I’ve signed up to this – looks like a great workshop and still seemed to be slots available when I was on there: https://goteamup.com/p/21123-<wbr />dc-triathlon-club-swim-pr/<wbr />courses/34474/. Seems like you have the analysis, then spend the rest of the hour slot practising and getting some feedback. Look forward to seeing any of you there if you’re going along – I’m in the 9-10 session and will be the one splashing ineffectually at the back.
Hi everyone,
I’ve just joined the program and am very much looking forward to training/comparing nutrition notes/bike routes/tackling this exciting/terrifying adventure with you all! I’m training for Ironman Maryland in September and doing Musselman HIM in July.
I thought I’d jump onto this thread as this is where I made my biggest mistake at HIM stage and somewhere I have a lot to learn.
I definitely did not spend anything like enough time figuring out the nutrition side beforehand and really paid for it on the day – early on the bike leg I started eating a Clif peanut butter powerbar, quickly got cramps, and really struggled to get anything more than liquid down for the rest of the bike and run. It was v hot and humid so pretty hard-going from there.
I’ve done some longer running stuff since and fuelled that with gu gels, rice balls, and small bits of PBJ sandwiches, which has gone much better, though end up sick of gels and sweetness, so will definitely heed the salt/sweet advice in the nutrition guide I’m reading at the mo and try the potatoes idea.
Have also ordered some Tailwind to start experimenting.
Really helpful to hear what is working/not working for you!
Best wishes,
Katie