Chrissie’s book is due out (or maybe even out) immanently. This article in the Guaradian is a pretty great teaser for the book.
Chrissie Wellington: I have got nothing to prove to anyone anymore | Sport | The Guardian.
This review has been a long time in the offing. I’ve been putting off swimming with fins because I’ve been babying my shin splint. The splint is under control and rarely bugging me these days, so I put in some km with these 2 different fins to get a feel for each of them and specifically how they compare and contrast.
Zoomers Gold
The Finis Zoomer Gold is a pretty great training fin for building leg strength, and for developing a shorter and more powerful kick when swimming freestyle, back or fly. The Gold, however, doesn’t really lend itself well to breaststroke. The Golds feature a full foot pocket with open toe. It’s made of solid rubber and is pretty stiff but has a little give. I found that the Golds generated hot-spots where my toes exited the foot pockets – at least until the fins were broken in a bit. Perhaps with swim socks or a slightly larger size this wouldn’t have been an issue, unsure.
Positive Drive Fins
The Positive Drive Fins (PDFs) are a rethinking of the typical swim fin shape and design. The foot pocket and heel strap are very comfortable and the closed toe helps transfer more power to the fin. The fin is not floppy, but is pretty flexible. The foot pocket is asymmetrically set into the fin encouraging a “toe in” propulsive kick. The fin design also lends itself well to all strokes.
The closed toe, flex, foot pocket asymmetry and size of the propulsive surface really drives your legs to work hard. A couple of hundred meters with these guys and my legs were really feeling it.
A Fin Is a Fin, Right?
Well… no, not right. Sure, almost any fin will help push you through the water, but we aren’t snorkelling or scuba diving here, we’re training!
Many fins on the market have very large propulsive surfaces compared to either of these fins, but unless you’re training in a 50m pool, that much propulsion in the water is almost contrary to what you want. You want to encourage short powerful kicks, good body position, ankle flexion and good kick technique. Both of these fins excel in these aspects with some notable differences:
Foot pocket design: I find the PDFs more comfortable. I also really notice the pocket asymmetry and improved power transfer. I only really swim freestyle, but the design lending itself to other strokes could be a big benefit to more rounded swimmers.
Propulsion: I feel that the PDFs provide a little more propulsion than the Golds, and provide a harder leg workout. This may be a drawback in a smaller pool or a plus if you’re working your leg strength.
Summary
These are both great training fins. Given that I only swim freestyle, either can happily have a good home in my swim bag. In the end, if I could only choose 1 pair, I’d lean toward the Positive Drive Fins because of the asymmetry and heavier workout than I got with the Golds. Who knows: one day I may even learn fly 🙂
Just wanted to put up a quick shout-out for the folks at Running Room in LIberty Village.
This store has been open for less than a year, but already feels like home! The Running Room staff are generally good, but the manager and staff at this location are amazing! They regularly go out of their way to make sure I have what I need. The shop is small but really well stocked and able to get anything they don’t have, but Running Room carries, quickly.
If you drop by, tell them Rick sent you and say hi for me 🙂
Joe’s blog is always full of well researched material. Here’s a quick blurb on improving your run economy in various ways.
Joe Friel – How to Optimize Your Economy, Part 2.
Also, yesterday, my coach showed me a website that my geeky data-monkey type-a self just loves. I haven’t yet fully explored the site, but love it!
Enjoy!
In an attempt to step away from heavily processed food stuffs for race nutrition, I’m experimenting with home-made “energy bites” for some solid fuel on the bike.
Experiment Version 1:
Dehydrating for several hours… will divide into 16 “bites”. Each bite breaks down nutritionally as 86.25 calories (16.625g carb, 1.8125g protein, 1.8125g fat, 2.125 fiber). The dates and cranberries will give me some immediate energy, the chia and cashews some fat for longer term fueling and to slow the carb uptake a bit and a little sodium for replenishing sweat losses.
Pre-dehydrating they taste alright: not super sweet. I’m most concerned with them being too sticky or too crumbly. I guess I’ll see in a few hours 😉
Follow-UP
So, the bites dehydrated overnight. They’re about the density of a caramel and not very sticky. They kinda taste like Christmas Fruit cake (which is good by me 🙂 ). Riding 90k today @ 200w average, so I guess I’ll see how they sit in my belly 🙂
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!
We have decided to cease our t-shirt business and sell all of our inventory. We want to spend more time coaching and having a good time with family!
The folks over at TriathlonRocks are getting out of the t-shirt biz and have having a clearance sale:
First come first serve basis – get your FOREVER UNIQUE shirt at a 40% discount – enter code: STORM (this discount applies to all products sold at www.TriathlonRocks.com )
These are great t’s and your last chance to get one!
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!).]
Sportiiiis are now available from their website, I love them, and think that anyone who trains and/or races based on data rather than feel will love them too!
When I was down in Panama, after bailing on the run part of the race, I decided I needed to get “back on the horse” as quickly as possible. 2 races seemed possible based on location and timing: Syracuse and New Orleans. Syracuse much closer, but really badly timed with respect to my full Ironman Mont Tremblant race in August. New Orleans, much better timed in mid April, but much further away and, as a result, more costly.
I’d talked to Kim about it and resigning myself to closer and poorly timed, I went ahead and registered for IM70.3 Syracuse… or so I thought.
Turns out the net in Panama was flakey enough that my registration never actually made it into active.com. Pain in the butt, but all is not lost!
Today, Kim and I visited with my folks, who said that, provided they can get travel insurance post my dad’s recent bout with GBS, they’d come to New Orleans with us! So now, New Orleans may be looking possible!
I’m cautiously getting excited about this possibility. Clearly there’s a lot of leg work to get done: dog kennel, flights, accommodations, vacation time from work, etc. Nothing that isn’t pretty easily managed but 1st things 1st. See if my folks can get insurance and confirm I can get the time away from work. Those are definitely the largest hurdles, neither I expect to be issues. Once they’re out of the way, then it’s a big green light for IMNOLA and I’m ONE HAPPY CAMPER!
Cross your fingers! Mine are 😉
Right back on that horse!
Well I tried to talk Kim into going to New Orleans for IM70.3 New Orleans in April. Thought that we could have a week in the “Big Easy” and I could take a couple of days in the middle to race prep and race perhaps allowing her to explore sites that I otherwise wouldn’t be interested in (museums, galleries, etc.). But, she’s not biting. Too bad, I really thought this could be a fun vacation.
IM70.3 Syracuse is June 24. Its close to home, only a 4 hour drive and I can probably rent a van or find someone with a camper to borrow and do it on the cheap (i.e. camp).
So I’m now registered and training for Syracuse. Same goal: IM70.3 Worlds qualifier slot for Vegas in September.
18 weeks, 5 days of training… divide by 4… 4 cycles build/recovery cycles with 2 weeks and 5 days of whatever Ian throws at me. Oh my… I’m gonna be an ANIMAL!
RAWR!
Ok Ian… BRINGIT! Let’s gett’er done!
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