It’s no secret that I love FirstEndurance’s nutrition and supplement products. I’ve raved about them here a lot. Recently in my training and racing, especially where I need to carry a lot of calories in a small space, I’ve been doing something new (for me): I’ve been diluting a couple of flasks of Liquid Shot (400 calories/flask) with water in a water bottle on the bike.
In a 750ml water bottle, the double-flask of liquid shot diluted with water takes on a milk-shake-like consistency that while being easy to pull up through the straw in a aero-bar-mounted drink system (Torhans or the ilke), is thick enough that it doesn’t spray everywhere when you finish drinking from the straw or hit every bump in the road.
This approach also works better than my previous choices (4 scoops of carbo-pro + 4 scoops of EFS drink in water) because it can be difficult to get all that powder to dissolve in water, but EFS Liquid Shot is already liquid form, so diluting it does not present the same sort of challenge. Also with the high concentration of amino acids and electrolytes in EFS products, I don’t need to worry about carrying salt pills and have never cramped (even in the crazy heat/humidity recently in Panama).
On my run, I still carry a flask of Liquid Shot and EFS drink in my Fuel Belt. On the bike, especially for long rides where I’m burning about 700calories/hour, having the ability to easily carry 1600-2400 calories of Liquid Shot is a big win!
Just before I went to Panama a box containing a beta unit of the Sportiiiis Heads Up Display for Athletes arrived at my door. The timing couldn’t have been better for me to give the device a thorough testing in my lead up and racing in Ironman 70.3 Panama.
I’m happy to say that the Sportiiiis are… well… AWESOME! They performed flawlessly in both my training in Panama and racing.
When I first unpacked the unit and installed the software, I experienced a few early-release glitches with the software/firmware and a corruption of the audio prompting on the device. A subsequent update of the firmware and software resolved these problems, polished the desktop software and since then I’ve had absolutely no issues with the device.
Using the desktop software you can set target ranges for power, cadence, heart rate and speed for bike and run modes. Using the capacitive touch button and a tap-selector as your 2 input methods you can change what the unit is reporting, the mode or get an immediate report of your current output in the sensor it’s monitoring.
Because of the minimalistic interface it takes a little practice and memory work to remember how to interact with the Sportiiiis, to change modes and settings. I, also, initially found the touch sensor a bit difficult to find and interact with consistently, but like drinking from a water bottle when riding, it just takes a little practice and development of personal style
The Sportiiiis reports to you in 2 outputs: a row of 5 7 coloured LEDs on the boom in your peripheral view and also through a mini-speaker at the back of the unit. The speaker alerts you audibly if you’re out of zone and, at a configurable interval, reports the values for all the sensors the Sportiiiis is monitoring.
The Sportiiiis generated a fair bit of interest during IMPanama. I showed them to a number of athletes and a couple of the race officials. The race officials initially thought that they may be illegal because they thought that the Sportiiiis would act as a pace coach (beeping off a cadence to take), but once I explained to them that the sportiiiis were just a reporting device (like a Garmin watch), and they were satisfied that the speaker did not obscure your hearing or prevent any kind of coaching advise or safety hazard, they were happy with the Sportiiiis and thought they were pretty neat! [yes that was a bit of a tense few minutes of explanation ]
One thing I really love about the Sportiiiis is that my Garmin becomes a data recorder and the Sportiiiis replace it for current output display. This gives me 2 things: race-day backup (if the Sportiiiis or Garmin crap-out during a race, I still have the other for pacing/monitoring output), not having to take my eyes off the road when riding or running to find, focus on and process the information on the little Garmin display. Both big plusses in my books. [Edit: Also 4iiiis tells me that in the future they'll be recording data from the various ANT+ tethered devices and be able to upload that data to sites like TrainingPeaks.com (that's pretty neat!).]
Rode a new road today, no speed bumps on this one and closer to home. It’s a nice road, a little narrow, but not heavily trafficked and with very few potholes. It climbs from the highway up into the nearby mountains.
No, I didn’t go bike mountain climbing today, that’s not what a taper is made of, but I did ride down and up the foothills… twice. The 1st time down was lotsa fun! Fast! Oh my fast. The 2nd time, I got stuck behind a tractor trailer pulling a massive backhoe and belching black diesel death clouds as it went. Course, I still had to do the climb, but didn’t get the super-fun of the descent. Oh well
I rode with the GoPro again, some nice scenery on this ride and the camera angle is a bit better. I’m uploading now, but it says 5 hrs to go (yea not great bandwidth down here). I’ll post a followup with the youtube link when its done (probably in the morning).
Some things I’ve found about the Torhans 30oz system that I have:
the lids need a way to secure them to the bottle or straw in case they pop off the top (yea it happened today, check the video)
the straw needs a bite valve – until the fluid level is down 50% you risk wearing a spray of your hydration whenever you take a drink
the aero cowling on the straw needs a dab of glue to stay on the bottle
don’t fill it until you’re planning to immediately put it on the bike (or fill it after you install it) because there’s no way to stand it up
(but with all these “issues”…) having a straw in my face is way more efficient and probable way to for me to onboard hydration. I’m using the Torhans for fuel and the speedfil for water. I’ll probably put about 800 calories in the Torhans and have a bottle behind my saddle with another similar 800 calorie bottle to refill the Torhans with.
Did some speed work in the pool today. Didn’t get to swimming until later in the day and the ocean was crazy, the pool was definitely a winner. Had it to myself and it was easy to judge sprint lengths, etc.
Mid-day today was groomin’ time. Went in and got plucked like a Christmas Goose. I’m now all smooth, aero and hydro-dynamic. LOL. No really… I felt smoother and “slicker” in the water tonight. Maybe its psychosomatic, but I’ll take every edge I can get Today was also the day that I had planned and scheduled my toe nail trim.
I scheduled my toe nail trim?! You bet! Ever trim your nails a bit too close and have a tender toe for days? Ok, imagine having that tender toe, trapped in a cycling shoe, or running shoe for hours. Not fun? You bet! So, what do you do? You trim your nails early so that on race day, if you were too aggressive, you’re not suffering. Yea this is me leaving little to chance. But hey! Be prepared, eh?
Posted on Feb 04, 2012 under etc..., Raves | Comments are off
I’ve been here for a few days and have done some training, hit the grocery, and visited with my friends, Richard and Jamuna, but haven’t really been out exploring yet. Tomorrow I’ll be in Panama City for a 10k race in the morning and take in some of the city sites and sounds in the afternoon.
What I have seen of Panama, I’ve really liked. The people are friendly and industrious. The economy is booming, signs of crazy growth are everywhere, but the cost of living is still pretty low. Best, for me, is the climate. Sunny, warm, breezy, a bit humid but manageable. So far, absolutely loving my stay here.
I’ll post more “Impressions of Panama” toward the end of the trip as I have a chance to see, do, and experience more of what Panama has to offer.
Heat acclimatization has been going well. Swam in the ocean yesterday at the beach off Playa Coronado (where I’m staying). Here’s a youtube vid of the beach:
I’m back there today and pretty much daily until Friday.
Yesterday I did another training ride out to Punta Chame along a country road. It’s a nice ride and cranking along on the bike you don’t feel the heat or humidity. I wore a GoPro camera as a helmet cam and shot the ride, unfortunately the camera’s angle is a bit low so the scenery isn’t as well depicted as I’d like. I edited the 1.5 hrs down to about 12 minutes. I’ll post the youtube link once it’s finished uploading.
This morning I did my 1st shakeout run since arriving. Just a quick 30 minute run. I went early in the day (8am) and OH MY GOD! Heat management during tomorrow’s 10k and the 12th’s 20k is going to be SUPER important. I was a bit surprised, having been misled by the cooling effect of the wind while cycling, just how hot it was. Sponges, hydration and nutrition are going to be key on both Sundays.
I’ve also had a chance to do a shakeout of the Sportiiiis. I took them on yesterday’s bike ride and this morning’s run.
On the bike, I had it monitoring primarily my power and during my quick run this morning, pulse. Just a teaser for now, more detailed review to come, but quckly: ME LIKEY! This device is everything it’s promised to be. It seems to work very well and is quite configurable (I need to spend some time, having now used it a bit, to tweak it more to my liking). Like I said, just a teaser for now. Stay tuned.
Posted on Jan 30, 2012 under nutrition, Raves | Comments are off
Kim and I made Vegan Creme Brulee for desert tonight. A little off my eating plan, but a small (very small) diversion and OH MY GOD(!!!) was it good.
We made 1/3 of the recipe, which was probably 1/2 as much as the 2 of us wanted, but realistically about as much as we should have at a sitting . Cashews, Maple Syrup, Agar, Arrowroot Powder, Almond Milk and a little sugar… wow!
Posted on Jan 30, 2012 under Geek Out!, Raves | Comments are off
With some patience and perseverance I managed to score myself a Garmin 910xt with a heart rate strap. I was on the fence about these units until I started to research the battery life with the GPS on: 16 hours in pretty amazing in my mind.
DC Rainmaker has done his normal, stellar job of a detailed review of the Garmin 910xt and I won’t replicate it or even try to here. See his blog for all that in depth content. It really is extremely well done and well worth the read. In general, if you’re looking at gear, check his site, he does an amazing job reviewing gear at a depth level that I sometimes have a hard time consuming, never mind producing!
What I’ll give you here are my initial impressions of the 910… kind of a reader’s digest view of the Rainmaker review if you will
Likes
Pool swim mode: it’s nice to be able to collapse 2 devices (swimsense and 310xt) into 1. The pool mode works well and the screen is much easier to read than that of the swimsense
Battery life is stellar. Though I haven’t tested it yet, the quoted specs are great!
GPS sensitivity feels much better than the 310′s: it seems to find satellites faster and keep lock in poor weather better
Has “Training Effect”, which I haven’t currently used, but will explore (TSS is, in theory, coming soon and I’ll look forward to that for sure)
Because the 910xt is ANT+, all of my existing ANT+ devices “just work”
Dislikes
The smallest pool length it allows for is 20m. My neighbourhood’s YMCA’s pool is 18m. Hopefully a future firmware update relaxes the 20m limit. I can’t see any good reason for it to persist.
It appears that in order to upload swim workouts to TrainingPeaks I have to export them from Garmin Connect and then manually import them to TrainingPeaks. This is pretty clunky and hopefully new releases of TrainingPeaks device agent or the Garmin ANT Agent resolve this
No Heart Rate data on the swim. Currently Polar is the only manufacturer of a strap-based HRM that transmits on frequencies that can be received in the water. Why Garmin doesn’t do similar is beyond me.
Curiosities
I have the quick release for the 310xt and anticipate getting it for the 910xt, though given the size of the 910 adding the quick release may just make it too unwieldy
I’m really curious about the battery extender, though given the published battery life expectancies, you’d only need this additional battery life if you were doing ultraman or some other super-long event.
In Summary
If you’re a data addicted triathlete, like me, this is probably the closest to the ultimate training watch on the market today. I can’t imagine you regretting the purchase. Shame about the backlog but I know that Garmin is working hard to get caught up.
If you’ve never seen these wheels they’re pretty spectacular! They don’t have spokes per se, but rather, carbon ribbons that are an integral part of the rim and the hub.
They’re super light, pretty stiff, faster, deeper and more aero than my old zip 404′s. These will come with me rather than my 404s. I’ll have the following wheels in my arsenal:
Madfiber Front
HED Trispoke Front
Madfiber Rear
Zipp 808 Rear
Zipp Disc Rear
I expect that unless it’s terribly windy, I’ll be running the disc at the back and the Madfiber or trispoke in the front. During my taper and acclimatization rides in Panama I’ll be riding both combinations to see which I prefer and keep the other as a backup (just in case) for race day.
Posted on Jan 24, 2012 under Rants, Raves | Comments are off
I picked up a Tyr Torque Pro Speedskin for IMPanama. Apparently the water temperature will be in the 80s (26-27C) and definitely not wetsuit legal and wanting to get any legal boost I can, I figured a speedskin is a plus. My Torque arrive a few weeks ago and on Sunday I finally had a chance to take it for a dip.
The suit arrives in a specially designed box that rivals any packaging Apple could come up with. You immediately get the feeling that you’ve bought a quality product that has spared little expense. The suit itself is well made: the zipper is strong, the stitching smooth and flawless from what I can see and the fit, while snug, is flexible and “suitable” (sorry, couldn’t help it) for the task at hand.
I took the suit for my Sunday easy swim: just an easy 2k at the local Y. Sometimes the pool is empty, but lately, with all the New Years resolutions in play, it’s been pretty crowded so my expectations of doing any kind of 2k time trial were very low. Unfortunately, my expectations were correct. The pool was kinda silly-busy and the “fast” lane was filled with breast-stroking, unaware, “casual swimmers”. What this meant to me was that I wouldn’t get any hard data about how much faster the suit would make me. I did manage to get some data and some perceptions though and I’ll share those here.
I did manage a few lengths over the 2k without being impeded, those lengths were clocking in at the 1:32/100m range, where my normal swimsuit pace lately has been about 1:40-45/100m. One place that the suit was VERY noticeable was pushing off from the wall: it’s hard to describe but with the same effort you seemed to cover more distance and just felt smoother.
I’ll definitely get more data on the suit and have a post-race followup on it, but my first impressions on the design, manufacture and textile selection are all very positive.
There is one negative with the suit. After my 40 minutes in the water, most of the adhesive logos were literally falling off the suit. I’d left some in the pool somewhere. Some were just barely holding onto the suit. The rest came off in my hands with no effort. I contacted Tyr asking “what gives?!” and they just directed me to the retailer that I got the suit from (I kind of felt brushed-off). The retailer Swim2000 tells me that this is a common complaint and the cause for many returns. That Tyr will accept the return without issue, even after IMPanama I can just exchange it. So on one hand, it’s great that Tyr and its’ retailers stand behind the product and offer a great return/exchange policy; but, I have to admit, given the price-tag of this suit, such a blatant manufacturing glitch should be addressed before the consumer gets the product in the first place. Further, I think that Tyr’s response should be (at least it would have been better received by me): “We understand this problem exists with some suits and we’re working to address it in manufacturing. Please accept our apologies and get in touch with the retailer where you purchased the suit to arrange an exchange.”
Anyhow.. I’ll stop ranting. The purpose of the suit is not to display Tyr’s logo, but to make you faster in the water. It’s goals seem to be met. More data to come.
Posted on Jan 23, 2012 under Raves | Comments are off
It’s all started feeling very real lately: Panama IM that is. Flights and accommodations have been booked for a while, but lately I’ve starting finding myself thinking about what to pack, how and when to pack. Wave start times have been announced and more vicerally my training during this last build cycle (which ends this week sometime) has been intense! I’ve been loving the intensity, but I’ve learned to look forward to, and take full advantage of my rest days. :)
Today it’s 19 days to the race and I’m feeling good. My nutrition is dialed, my equipment is behaving itself, my body is healed and uninjured and I’m in full-on risk avoidance mode (it it’s not helping me toward my goal and has even a remote chance of causing a race-limiting injury, I don’t do it). Both eyes, mind, spirit (and hopefully hands will be) on the prize.
I’m going to attempt to write a daily (or near daily) ramp-up blog post here for the next 21 days as I do my final ramp up. I’m going to take my GoPro camera (a chrismas gift from Kim) and so I’ll shoot some training videos, scenery videos while I’m there and try posting them here.
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