This Sunday will be my third time racing Ironman Louisville. This year will be different from the previous two in the fact that they race is in mid-October instead of the end of August. This means cooler temperatures and a wet-suit-legal swim. There was some concern about algae blooms forcing the race organizers to cancel the swim, but literally about 15 minutes prior to me writing this post, the all-clear was given, so race will include the the 2.4 mile swim!

I checked-in in this morning and tonight I will get all of my gear in order. I’ve been waiting for the nervous/excited feeling and after being down at the Athlete Village…I finally have it! I’ve trained for this race for 36 weeks. I’ve sacrificed a lot (mainly sleep and eating crappy food) to get my body ready for this race. I’ve taken myself to dark places during my high-intensity workouts in order to maximize my training time of just 7 hours a week. For better or worse, it all comes down to this race.

I’ve averaged exactly 7 hours of training over the last 36 weeks.

For my race preview, I thought I would share some tips for my fellow athletes that will be on the course with me Sunday.

Pre Race Tip – Plan Ahead

I’m a planner. My engineering mind forces me to plan for things. I have pages of notes and check lists that I use for my Ironman races. I’ve gone over that list and revised my notes for this years race. I will continue to go over them from now until race morning. I want to control what I can and not stress about thinking I’ve left something out that I will need at the race start or out on the course. I will mentally walk through the entire day several times, starting as soon as I wake up (What time will I get up? What will I eat before I leave? What time will I leave the house?, etc.) and ending when I’m back home that evening. Some things that I think some people might forget to think about? What you will wear at the swim start. It’s going to be in the high 40’s, so standing around for a few hours might get chilly without a sweatshirt or jacket. Another key thing to consider is what you want to accomplish at the aid stations on the course. Will you just need water, or are you relying on the nutrition supplied on the course to get you through the day. I have a very specific plan for each aid station and I will visualize what I’m going to do as I come up to each one. This way I can get through quickly and not forget something I need.

Swim Tip – Draft

Towhead Island. We will swim upstream (to the right) and then back downstream (to the left of the island).

Drafting is illegal on the bike, but not on the swim. I will do my best to stay close to Towhead Island for the upstream portion of the race and then try to get on someone’s feet to draft as we head downstream. Drafting is a technique where one swimmer aligns himself/herself with another swimmer to reduce the overall effect of drag forces. The lead swimmers forward momentum will create little whirlpools behind them, allowing the swimmer following to ride the wave. This wave starts at the lead swimmer’s shoulders and continues out sideways. The following swimmers best spot is close the lead swimmers hips. This can reduce the following swimmers perceived effort by up to 20%! The trick is to find someone that is just barely faster than you to draft off of. So I will wait until I see someone slowly passing me and then I will try and move onto their hip, with the goal of swimming at the same effort, but going faster.

Bike Tip – Use All of Your Gears

Most triathlon bikes have two chain rings in the front and a cassette with 10 or 11 cogs in the back. This gives you between 20 and 22 different gears. On the Ironman Louisville course, you should use almost all of them! With the exception of cross-chaining (big ring on front, biggest cog on the back and smallest ring on the front, smallest cog on the back). So in reality, you have 18-20 different gears. After going out of downtown on River Road, you will turn left onto US-42. This is the start of the hills. You will still feel pretty good and your legs will be ready to climb…but resist the urge! Powering up that hill at mile 8 will leave your legs feeling like toast at mile 80! So drop down into the small ring in the front and let people go right on past you…you will catch them on the run!

Run Tip – Start Slow

After 112 miles on the bike, it’s natural to be excited about starting the run. You will likely “get your legs” about a mile or two into the run and have the urge to go faster than your planned pace (hopefully you have a planned pace). You have to resist the urge to run fast and I even force myself to run SLOWER than my planned pace during these first few miles. I know that there will be a point during the marathon where things will start to go south and I will be glad that I didn’t waste too much energy early on. So start slow for the first few miles, run your planned pace for the majority of the race and then give it all you’ve got for the last few miles…and enjoy the finish shoot! Stop and high-five spectators, look around and soak up all the sights and sounds.

The best finish line in the world!

As for my goal, I’d like to set a PR. My best time for this race is 11:55:26. If things go well, I should be able to beat this time. There’s no such thing as a perfect race, so it’s just a matter of what goes wrong and how much time it costs me. I will stay positive all day and no matter what the outcome, if I can cross the finish line knowing that I gave 100%, I will be happy. I may not be satisfied, but I will be happy!

Be sure and visit all of my sponsor’s websites. I sought out these companies because they provide great products and services.

The post Ironman Louisville Race Preview first appeared on Holistic Athlete.

The post Ironman Louisville Race Preview appeared first on Holistic Athlete.

When I first became involved in triathlon, I purchased a road bike. I hopped on and as I expected, I was able to ride it even though it had been several years since I had been on one. It took a few rides to figure out how to shift gears. The shifters were on the brake levers and the first few times I attempted to shift gears, I ended up pulling on the brakes. I was a newbie in every sense of the word. Once I figured out which side shifted my front ring and which side moved the chain on the rear cassette, I then had to figure out when and how to shift.

I basically learned by trial and error. During my first full triathlon season, I spent a lot of time in a high (hard) gear, just mashing the pedals because I was uncomfortable shifting and didn’t want to shift the wrong way and lose momentum  – or even worse, drop the chain. I remember having no clue as to what “gearing ratio” or “gear combination” meant. When someone would ask me about my “cog”, “sprocket” or “cassette”, I would use my salesman skills to pretend like I knew what they were talking about while steering the conversation in a different direction.

After being clueless for a long time, I finally decided to study up and learn about bike gearing. So if you are like I was and unsure about what it all means, I’ll try and make it easier to understand. Let’s start out with some common terms:

• Chainring – the large gear in the front. Depending on what type of bike you have (road, tri, cross, mountain, etc.), you may have one, two or three different size rings. The front derailleur is what moves the chain between the different rings.
• Derailleur – the mechanism that moves the chain back and forth between the chainring or cassette through the cable that is attached to your shifter
• Cassette – The set of smaller rings that is on the back wheel. It can have from a single ring up to 11 or 12 rings. It’s also called the Sprocket or Cluster. When looking at a cassette, it will be labeled with a dash between the number of teeth on the smallest cog (ring) and the largest cog. For instance, a 11-25 will have 11 teeth in the smallest cog and 25 teeth in the largest cog. This does not tell you how many cogs are in the cassette. If someone calls it a “10-speed” or “9-speed”, that refers to the number of cogs.  If you were to look at the number of teeth on each cog of a typical “11-25” 10-speed, it would look like this – 11/12/13/14/15/17/19/21/23/25.
• Teeth – The teeth are those pointy things on the rings. The number of teeth on a ring (commonly 50-53 on the big front chainring and 35-40 on the small front chainring). When looking for a chainring, it will usually be labeled by the number of teeth. For instance, a 53/39 would have 53 teeth in the big ring and 39 in the small ring. A “compact” chainring will typically have rings of 50/34 teeth, while a “standard” will be 53/39.
• Crank Set – composed of the chainring and crankarms (pedals are attached to the end of the crankarms).
• Gear Combination – this refers to a specific gear selection that the chain is in at any given time. For instance, if someone is at 53×11, the chain is wrapped around the big 53 tooth ring in the front and the little 11 tooth cog in the back.
• Gear Ratio – This is simply dividing the front and rear gears (chainring / cog). For instance, if the chain is wrapped around the big 53 tooth ring in the front and the little 11 tooth cog in the back, this would be 53 divided by 11 = a gear ratio of 4.818. It’s usually shown with a colon in the middle, like 53:11.
• Bigger (Higher) Gear – this means that you are in your large ring up front and one of the smaller cogs in the back, making it “harder” to pedal. You “shift up” to get to a bigger gear.
• Smaller (Lower) Gear – this means that you are in the small ring up front and one of the larger cogs in the back, making it “easier” to pedal. You “shift down” to get to a smaller gear. You may also refer to this as “granny gear” when looking to poke fun of someone that always rides in this gear ratio.

So now that you know what all the lingo means, what do you do with this information? Depending on what type of course you are riding, you may want to look at different size chainrings and cassettes. If you are riding a really hilly course, you many need to have a chainring with fewer teeth on the small ring. So a 50/34 would be a better choice than a 53/39. For the cassette, the larger numbers equate to easier climbing (opposite of the front chainring). So a 11-28 would be better for climbing than a 12-25.

If you are a strong rider or prefer to power up hills, the lower gears are not as useful to you. You would rather have more gear on the flats that will allow you to go faster in your higher gears.

Since no one gear setup is ideal for every rider and every type of riding, many cyclists have different bikes, or different cassettes that they can use.

So hopefully this helps you understand your bike a little better and how to use gears to your advantage.

Be sure and visit all of my sponsor’s websites. I sought out these companies because they provide great products and services.

The post Understanding Bike Gears first appeared on Holistic Athlete.

The post Understanding Bike Gears appeared first on Holistic Athlete.