Hillary,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeFeIikBMNs

Chris,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjXFB67oX0A

hey chick,

where are you? why aren't you at im wisco??? hope you are well.

cheers,
m

I did France in 07. I raced with a areo helmet and TT bike. Biggest mistake I ever made!! You are either going up up up, or decending down twisty decents. Not much aero time at all. My head was cooking on the long climb and I wished I had drops on the decent and more bar options while climbing to sit/ stand, ect. Much faster. Not much aero benifit on long slow climbs, you need to be going a certain speed to benifit the areo. I would have gone faster had I more options on my bars and a really light set up in IM France.

I am traditionally a stronger cyclist than swimmer and runner. There I swam same as all the girls, rode average and ran well and ended up 5th. Had I had the right set up I would have ridden faster and maybe had a better placing. Again...just my experience and thoughts, not gosspil.

Now in IM WA I would wear every aero trick you've got!! :-)

Cheers,
M

IM Malaysia in my opinion is WAAAAY to hot to wear an areo helmet for anyone, even pro's. IM Malaysia is about being able to stay cool as best as possible.
TT or Road bike, you could probably do either. I have ridden TT bike there when I raced, but have thought while doing it on the hills there I would have liked my road bike.

I consider any course that you need to change gears allot and change position allot, a road bike course.

A "rythem" type course where the climbs are long, long straights, not many corners and staying areo is possible for extended periods of time is a TT set up course.

It's just my opinion.

Cheers,
M

Hey ya all,

I've been travelling with Chris to a fair few IM events this year and getting the chance to ride around the bike courses with no preasure of having a race looming. I find it really interesting how many of these courses I feel it would be Soooo much faster to race on a road bike with clip on's and keeping it very light, rather than a TT bike all areo. I definately think IM L.V, IM Wisco, IM France, Australia,Malaysia all would be much faster for a massive part of the athlete's  riding a road bike, clip on's, road helmet, light HED Stingers (or wheels similar).

I do however think Roth, IM Canada, Western AU, Florida, Hawaii are all much faster with TT bike and gear.

Just my thoughts as I ride these course 5-6times each with no weight on my head.

Cheers,
M

Well the L.V crew did TBB very proud out there. It was a tough day. Windy on the bike and really hot on the run. I had the chance to see them all day out on the course and a great performance from each and everyone of them!!

Congrates gang and so great to watch!!

Cheers,
Marilyn

Hey,

Don't worry Doc!! I'm a happy chappy going after what I have been meant to do since day one I got my eye's on the fries. I was talking about when I'm OOOOLD...like an old lady just tryng to stay fit , personal goals;)


Lengths were 25m-many many many 25's
Toy's were paddles and band and bouy.

And for those asking if I ever tried video feedback, YES I did several times. And I had a good freind who was a syncro olympic coach swim under water under neath me putting her hand in places so I HAD to do the right technique. I treid EVERYTHING!! I wanted to swim faster. But mates....it was when doc told me to stop worrying about it and use what I got when I started to swim faster.
Like Doc says often....chop off there heads and we got ourselves a world champion  

Cheers,
M

Hi Ya,

I came from absolutely no swim back ground at all, literally the most I did was play tea party in a little pool as a kid and inner tube in a ditch.
 I did my first swim stroke in a triathlon club in 1999. I never learned technique, just starting swimming with the group and followed everybody's lead, slowly over each month I moved up from very last in the slowest lane to faster lanes. But I never was taught anything about swimming. I finally learned a flip turn, sort of, in 2005.
As time went by people starting teaching me "technique", but it was too late, the pattern I was using was ingrained. To top that off I could never truely "feel" anything in the water, people would give me "tips" and I had NO idea.
 I worked relentlessly on the cords in the mirror, in the gym and in the pool. I swam 20-30km per week for 2 years. I even joined a high level ITU squad to try to get faster, I just got really tired.
The lowest point I think I hit was swimming 30/week, plus cords, plus gym, then raced a very important race to me and wasn't one second faster swimming, I was 4th in that IM and I ran faster and bike faster than everybody in front of me that day, but I swam 15min slower than the girls in front of me. I couldn't get in the pool for 3 weeks after that cause I was so heart broken.

Then I met Brett. And like the article says ,and I tell people all the time, it was such a breath of fresh air!! I have always been pretty strong. I rode competitive show jumping horses from age 9--25. So I had a naturally strong back.
Brett could see I was very dissheartened with swimming and he gave me back some hope.
The training:
not so much volume
more small swims ie: 3x 1500m throughout the day but very specific work.
NO SLOW DRILL WORK!! Thank GOD!!
Shorter faster reps where I could maintain my stroke and swim fast before I got tired.
Paddles!

That's all I'll let out of the bag. He can share more if he would like 

I spent 6 weeks in Thialand with him and then went to an IM and swam nearly 6min faster than the last time I did an IM 

Now I'm bike racing. But I still have a couple IM  stones unturned I want to uncover so I'm sure I'll be back in the pool later in life

Cheers,
Marilyn

hey ya crew,

what do people have coming up so we can cheer?
Chrissy-Timberman
BG- IMC
Becs- IMC
BS- Kentucky
Hills- Wisco
THE OLYMPICS!!!!!!

Would love to hear what the others have coming up.

Cheers,
M

Hi Gang,

Well this weekend was another action packed weekend of racing :-) I love the fact that you can race nearly every weekend with the bike racing!!

Sat night was a criterium. It was a very short L shaped lap.Lots of hard corners. Crits are probably the hardest thing for me mentally. I haven't ridden a ton of them and the speed through the turns and the technicality of the turns in the group always kinda scare the crap out of me. But every crit I see on the calendar I MAKE myself do so I remove this fear, and it's working!!
The Crit Sat night was 50min. I knew I could really hammer for about 20min, I mean PIN IT!! So I sat in the group, watched what the girls were doing. There were some good preim laps and one was a massage so I sprinted for that to see if I could sprint with the girls, I got the massage ;-)
Then when the clock said 17min to go, I thought...well I gotta try...and I went for it.I absolutely pinned it and managed to stay away. I made 50sec on the group and the only thing Chris was disappointed with was I didn't go through the finish with both hands in the air.

Sun a.m. was a road race. Not much of a story to share with you here. I did get the win with the road race too, so it was a good weekend. It's nice to know things are finally starting to get on track for my bigger goals in 09.

Hope you had a action packed weekend too....

Happy training,
Marilyn

I asked doc when I first met him about motor pacing,

As an IM athlete you have to go "moderately hard, moderately fast" for 180km and still be able to run well. So sitting on a wheel going very fast doesn't really relate to triathlon/ IM racing.

Now, to do a fast TT 2km-40km TT with no run you have to be able to ride very fast and really hurt, so I think motor pacing has a place.

I have spent years sitting on Big Sexy's wheel being "motor paced" , I can follow a wheel well, ride fast on any wheel and ride really hard for 45-60min. But the thing I needed to learn to do to ride faster in an IM was ride solo, concentrate solo, face the wind solo. That is not motor pacing.Now I'm bike racing and have to ride a short TT FAST, Now the motor pacing is good :-)

Cheers,
Marilyn

Hey mate,

no it was a ergomo ISIS crank...   the bolt on them had come of and then the crank obviously came of.

( this is Chris )

Hey Chris here,

I was just searching the results  and could not find BG ... it says becs?

Hey Gang,

I have been doing a few races lately here in Colorado. Yesterday I headed to a circuit race in Denver. It was a 50min flat, 12 corner, 3.8mile loop course. It suited me well and I finally felt great at altitude. The feild was strong and I was super excitted to race. The legand French Champ Ms. Longo was racing a a few other good pro's so I was planning to stick close to them.

Now, everyone that knows me, know I look after my bike really well. In fact most would say I'm extreamly fussy about my bike. I have nice stuff and always make sure it's in good shape.

Things were going smooth. I was following the legand and watching her moves and learning. I felt comfortable and strong, as on the flat courses I know I can go with anything. Then "BOOM", I got a flat. Literally it went boom! So I rushed to the start area and got a new front wheel. Got back in the group on the next lap. O.K....that's all fine, no worries. Until half way around the next lap my freaking crank and chain rings fell off. Yup, you read right. Seems a bolt had wiggled itself off and my entire crank and chain ring fell off. So I walked back pushing my bike and gear in hand.

Frusterated? YUP!!! I tell you, I had to take about a 100 deap breaths after this one!! And poor Chris had a pretty stressful Sat afternoon.

But, there is a race next week again. I think the french champ will be gone to the olympics by then, so I won't get to race her :-( but there will be another time.

All charecter building I guess.

Cheers,
M

My advice would be to really get to that lean and mean fighting weight...don't eat so much...hahaha!

Just kinding.
But seriously, I think the biggest thing to make that next step in diet is being really honest with yourself about your day to day habits.
IE:
If you drink coffee with sugar, start drinking coffee black, that would be a daily calorie reduction.
If you snack while you are cooking dinner, Don't!!! Wait for your dinner to be done.
Some people randomly cubbord eat without knowing that a handful of this or that throughout the day adds up to a heck of allot.
Look at what you cook with, oils, ect.
Eat out less and eat less packaged foods.

These are all daily simple changes you can make that really add up to your total daily calorie intake.

Look at your days food and if it's an empty meaningless calories, don't eat it. If it will make you stronger, healthier, recover, then eat it.

Also...never wait to eat by the clock( ie; dinner is at 6p.m.) so that when you do eat you are sooooo hungry you over eat. Eat when you feel sorta hungry and then your portions are likely to be more suitable.

The last clue might be that you are over calorie consuming during training with sugary sports products. No need to take a sugar filled sports drink and a bar on a 90min spin 

These are just a few things to consider...But most of all, be honest with yourself.

Cheers,
M