Getting going on the bike

[mustriharder]

Hey Team Tbb,

I wanted to pick your brains again....
The last few years I've mainly been racing long course and typically after the swim especially if its very cold I feel awful for the first 20 minutes of the bike.  Legs really painful - like they are going to cramp up - like they should feel at the end of a hard ride rather than at the start!!
After 20 mins or so they tend to come round and the rest of the ride feels more like it should (the last middle distance I did was a 3 loop course, first loop was by far the slowest, and I got faster each loop).  Over long course because its a long day there is time to catch up and get into the rhythm however I am mainly doing Olympic distance races at the moment and so def need to address this as I don't seem to get my legs till halfway round the bike course.

Having read through some posts I know that the consensus will probably be that this is due to my swimming and not my biking and I think this is partly true and I need to improve my swim fitness however I find I have the same problem on just pure bike rides - i.e. I'll go on group rides and be hanging out the back for the first 20 mins feeling terrible and then after that will be fine.  This also again seems worse when its very cold.

So as well as more swim training is it worth doing a swim to bike session even if I have to spend a few minutes changing into bike kit between (no chance of bringing a turbo to our local pool).  Or would doing some hard biking with little/no warm up be a way of teaching the body to go hard from cold?
I do a 10M TT which I normally ride out to but could drive to it and do it with little warm up....

I'd be interested to hear some ideas on this!

Thanks again!

[StephenBayliss]

Hi Mustriharder,

Getting more swim fit will definately help,  but yes the best session to do is the swim to bike brick,  a few mins getting changed is fine,  but yes practice getting on the bike and riding hard straight out of the swim.

A good thing to do is some short sprint triathlons in your build up to a goal Olympic distance race.

All the best with the training
Stephen

[Matthieu O’Halloran - "M@"]

Hey mustriharder to add to Stevies post.

See if you can get in a good warm up before your races.
Either on the bike or run with some pick ups - for an Olympic, you can afford the calories
Often, due to the anxiety come race morning, many completely forget to do a w/up.

I have observed older athletes tend to take longer to loosen up and get going in training/racing.
Due to decreased flexibility.

[mustriharder]

Thanks Steven and Matt,

I guess doing some sprints is a good way to practice swim to bike in a race specific situation.  There are some local sprints I can enter as 'training'.

Swim fitness is something I am working on - I also tend to kick quite a lot when swimming normally (a bit less with the wettie) so I guess maybe more band/pull work could help to stop me using my legs so much on the swim.

Matt - any good warm up ideas for races where you have to rack your bike the day before or very early - I normally do a 15 min jog with some pick ups but this obviously isn't enough.  Normally the races that I do its not possible to enter the water until 5 mins before your start so minimal swim warm up time (and the water is so cold at the moment you wouldn't actually get warm anyway - swim last weekend was 11 degrees so was shortened due to the low temp).  Do you guys ever use swim cords or anything like that to warm up for a swim where you cant actually swim?

Also any tips for dealing with cold weather conditions when racing?  I tend to be worse getting up to speed when its cold and generally suffer pretty badly in cold weather which is not useful when my main races this year will be in the UK where we only get 'hot' weather about once a year! 

Thanks again for your ideas and help!

[DamienC]

Are you allowed to take a turbo into transition?  If you can, do your warmup on it, then get your wetsuit on a soon as you have finished to "trap" some heat in your legs.  I've seen many former cyclists do this in the past, and it seems to work for them.

[StephenBayliss]

Yes Damien is right a turbo is a good idea if you can get hold of one.  If not a good run warm up and arm swimning is good.

Practicing swimming hard with no warm up in training is good.

Warming up in cold water is no good.

Wearing extra clothes on the bike is also a good idea.  Gloves and extra top.