Riding machine

Well for my standards, I have had some good miles recently on the bike. Last week I ended with around 112 miles this week I am at 117 thus far. I had the day off Thursday and decided to tackle a long run, the heat made me shift from a more interval based ride to hitting the long ride early in the week. I missed a turn and ended up doing 36 rather than 40, so I decided to run when I got home. A quick 3 mile run. There must be something to do with the cadence/turnover of legs during brick workouts or races. I sometimes struggle to get down in the 6 minute miles when only doing a running workout, but seem to dip in with less effort after a good ride. I won't argue with this one bit!

I cleaned the drive trains on both by Cervelo and my Orbea in the afternoon and then Thursday night I rode with a group of people from work in prep for the MS150 that is rapidly approaching. We hammered out another 29 miles and felt like I made the most of my day off.

Since I am around home for this holiday weekend, I decided to get in on the group ride someone had been telling me about. Rosemount Cycling Club takes off Saturday mornings at 7:15, so I decided to hop in this week. I took the P2 and rode the bull horns most of the time. It was a great ride, hit 59 miles which was a good experience. There was one interval where we had some strong pullers that just about dropped me, I was pushing out what I could and noticed my wattage was significantly higher than normal. This tells me my 5 min power is not where it should be. My endurance is pretty good, and I climb shorter hills moderately well, but that 5 minute range is where I seem to be lacking. Luckily... I think... one of the guys behind me, who may or may not have been significantly older than me, gave me a little push, yes really. This gave me both the physical and mental boost to keep up. Thanks!

I had a great ride and learned a ton about group riding etc. The 10 mile 'home stretch' was anything goes. The group broke apart and I was in the third group that resulted. After a few miles we passed the group ahead of us and then had two guys break forward, after another mile or so I decided to make a push and catch up with them. I got out front and cleared my group and decided to hit the aero bars if I was alone. Little did I know I was also pulling another from our group that decided to break for it. We caught up and a few miles later we were done.

It was a heck of a way to kick off the weekend. Looking forward to an OWS Monday morning to get the dust off the wetsuit and ready for next weekend.

New Brighton next weekend! This should act as a good litmus test for what I have gained in a year. Last year I did it in 1:35. I have some pretty high ambitions that will hopefully kick off the season with a bang.

Have a great weekend everyone and be safe!

A week in review

It has been an odd week of training etc with some weather not being real friendly, being out of town this weekend, and flats... unfortunately I am not talking about the stretch of road you can just hammer out.

Last week I did my first group ride... well sort of. I started the ride with about 15-20 people who are also participating in the MS150 I got my new road bike assembled and ready to ride. We took off and stopped at the first light. After crossing the intersection, We moved onto the road. I saw a bus behind us and knew he was getting close to my position so I tried to give him room since at this point there was no labeled shoulder I got to the right. All of a sudden I see a storm drain, this one happens to have the grates running parallel to the road, not the typical one that is perpendicular which can still be a nightmare for bikers. At this point the bus is now along side me and I did not have room to get left of the grate. I do the only thing I can think of, I pop the front tire up and wheelie over it, but did not get my weight forward enough and the back wheel lands in the grate and I hear a loud CLUNK! Then I feel myself pulling backwards as the wheel starts to slide back into the grate. I push hard on the pedals and somehow get forward out of it as I feel myself starting to lean, quickly unclip to hear PSSSSSSSSSTTTT!

My first group ride... foiled by a flat. I was running my HED Jet 60 rear with Powertap, and did not have a spare 80mm valve tube with me. Time to turn around and head to the bike shop and see if they have a tire. Luckily I was only 3/4 a mile away, I took off my shoes and walked barefoot back. They changed the tube, 9 dollar tube, and 8 dollars to install.

I ended up biking back and making it about 11.5 miles before meeting my group coming back, so I turned around and got another 12 miles in with them. Friday, I was messing around with the bike and noticed a large bulge in the rear tire. Wondering if I damaged the tire too would have been my luck. I let the air out to find that the tube was pinched under the tire/rim thus causing the bulge, but I fixed it and inflated, all seemed well.

We got home last night and I swapped the wheel back to the P2, go about 13 miles out and turned around, feeling very slippery on the back end, I stop and clip out. Yep its flat again. After calling my wife to come pick me up (yet again with no kit) I decided I will be buying valve extenders and not messing around with the long valve stems any longer.

Keep tuned for a few reviews in the near future... 2 different items with a few different clues as a teaser:
- Rhymes with a popular search engine
- Recovery Time
- ANT+

I also just realized I never posted my Garmin 310xt Review. Look for that as well as a review of the Garmin Forerunner 50 in the next week or so.

RoadID Winners

Congrats to the lucky few who partook in this contest.  A first for my blog, but hopefully the first of many to come. 

 

 

Again the winners will have their choice of the RoadID Sport pictured on the left, or the AnkleID as pictured on the right.

And now to the winners.  For being the first giveaway, I am happy with the turnout, and everyone took advantage of a great opportunity with a low number of entrants.  Luckily (for me) after generating a number for everyone, I stayed under 100 entries.  This makes the job of drawing much easier!

Rather than using numbers, my wife and I used an Ace through ten, ten being equal to a zero.  I shuffled the numbers up and my wife would cut the stack of cards, two independent cuts with shuffling in between.

Now that I feel like this has drug out longer than American Idol, the winners:
#1 - 48 – Lewisrachel08

#2 – 32 – Meg
Last but not least:

#3 – 59 – BmanFrank

Congrats to the winners, please get in touch with me through my profile as soon as possible.  Please visit the RoadID webpage and experiment with the options for which product you would like.  Send all information to me and I will get them on their way to you.  Don’t forget size/color and information. 

Thank you to everyone who participated, check back often as I hope to have some more giveaways in the near future.

Road ID Giveaway

Now that the weather has been nice for a while, I find myself outside on the roads much more often for my training. After hearing multiple accounts of bikers being struck by vehicles, I am coming around to realize what a great product RoadID has and that every active person should own.  Guilty as charged, I had heard of RoadID but had never got around to ordering one, so I am going to take that out of the equation and offer a way for you to get

I have decided to run a contest that is very easy to enter in order to get a few more people out there using RoadID.

Contest Specifics:
You can earn entries by doing any of the following:
1 - Subscribe/Become a follower of my blog
2 - Follow me on Twitter @jvanistri
3 - Add RoadID as a friend on Facebook
4 - Follow RoadID on Twitter @RoadID
5 - Every $1 dollar donation to my campaign for the MS150 bike ride on June 12&13 earns 1 entry

Simply comment on this post indicating which ones you have done, and I will mark you down for that many entries.  Don't worry, for those who follow already simply indicate that and you will still be entered.

The drawing will be held Sunday May 16, so I will make the deadline Sunday at Noon CST.  There will be three winners who get their choice of WristID Sport or AnkleID in whatever color they may chose.  After the winners have been chosen, please contact me with the details you would like engraved, and I will get them on their way.

Edit: I messed up the date initially, modified that to be correct. I am also waiting to hear back from RoadID that could expand the give away and figure people would be alright with that.

Evotri: Making the Team 2010

I have been working on my video application for Team Evotri 2010. After some hassles with videos, editing, and many attempts to compile the whole video, I almost said to heck with it. Luckily my wife reminded me how excited I was to apply which pushed me to finish it up in the last few hours last night. Take a look at the video here. I will work on getting the video embedded here tonight when I can get to Youtube:
Jeff Vanis - Evotri Making the Team 2010



Feel free to comment or rate the video. It would be a great opportunity for me to grow and get into longer distance races as well as an opportunity to work with some really amazing people along the way and pass things onto my readers.

2010 Chain of the Lakes Triathlon Race Report

First tri of the season has come and gone so here is the first race report!

The Location/Race:
We have some family that lives in Alexandria so that is how we decided on doing this race. A 600 yard pool swim, because lets be honest... May 1 in Minnesota could still have snow on the ground. We drove up Friday night after packing the car with our bikes inside due to some weather rolling in. Luckily we did. 30 miles away from our destination we hit snow, and the ground looked like it was covered in snow, but it was hail. After a brief stop on the side of the interstate it passed, and we drove through some heavy storms.

The Race:
Swim:
600 yard pool swim. A good way to start the season, I had registered to be in the elite wave (not class like many races, but just determined when you started) Well, this race, elites started last. First wave went off shortly after 9, I got in the water about 11. I expected to go about 9:30, which seemed about right for missing a month in the pool due to my snowboarding mishap. I got paired with two guys that planned on going 9 minutes in the end lane. We debated going 3 wide in the lane and not circle swimming, but with a 4 second stagger, decided circle swim it was... at least I thought.

Got the Garmin 310 setup and ready to go, but not knowing how it would work going from inside with no reception to outside. Oh well a detail for later. I waited for my turn, "Race number?" "109" "Go" (Pokes Garmin) I started off well, for only doing about 50 yards of warmups, I quickly settled in, right on the toes of the guy ahead of me. Hoping he was on pace to what he wanted, I decided to hang behind him and not pass as I tend to fatigue a bit as we go on. I spent about 4 laps right behind him, and then magically we all decided to start swimming 3 wide. This took away some of the turning confusion and we did our thing. I hung in with pace and all three of us were close. Somewhere between half and 3/4 of the way, I wondered what lap we were on as I had never seen the lap counter be dipped in the water. I had to take an open turn to look up one time, 19 (lengths). Cool I thought, at this point I was a little bit back from the other 2, so I started pushing and got back closer and we all exited the water within about 10 seconds.

Mr Garmin says: 9:08 as I climb out of the pool. Official time 9:23 by the time I got to the mat, not too shabby. Will count this as better than expected. Remember how I said it was an indoor swim? Yeah the weather outside is next. I got to the door and got hit with what felt like an arctic blast. The conditions outside, low 50s 25 MPH winds gusting to 35 MPH.

Transition 1:
I run out to my bike, read where my bike was supposed to be, and see my shoes, but do not see my bike... "WTF" I look around distraught and finally spot my bike, a good 10 feet downwind, aka the other end of the bike rack, hanging on barely upright at all. I snag my long sleve shirt off the bike and struggle to put that damn thing on while still dripping from the pool. I finally get that on, and then realize, my helmet is missing. I look around, nothing..."WTF" Naturally it was another 10 feet down from where the bike had blown. I snag it and luckily my new sunglasses (more used for wind that day) were untouched, and the helmet did not crack or anything from the fall. Out I go... 1:40 ouch.

Bike:
Oh the winds, outside of an inclined drive coming out of transition making mounting and clipping in difficult for everyone, the winds were howling. I start moving up my gears, luckily I had made sure to shift them to something easy before the race. The 13 mile (advertised), 12.5 mile (explained), 12 mile (raced) course was good all things considered. Some rolling hills, a bike path with a mini jump, and yes some wind. I had aimed to push 230 watts for the race, right at threshold, since this was my first race, and really my first "brick" I wanted to make sure I did not kill myself so I did back off a little bit.

The bike path was good condition all things considered. One spot had a bump that went over a drainage ditch that I feel like I caught air on (wind at my back and going about 27MPH) Then some "exploded" spots a bit further on, but outside of that, very good area, although it could have been tight if more people were on it at the same time. Winds were a challenge, slowing me down and making wattage become an issue on some of the climbs, so I shifted down and kept going.

I recently got my cover for the rear wheel, and have used it in some heavier winds comfortably, so I decided to keep it on. I don't know that it hurt me, but I also don't know that I gained anything from using it. Only one time did I get a gust that about knocked me sideways, because I was not paying attention to the bike, I was looking ahead at my upcoming turn.

Heading back, my bike was at around 20 MPH, (according to the results, 21.4 or so, but Garmin says 19.8) Not bad considering the winds I suppose.

Transition 2:
Much better than the first, drop off the bike after spotting the yellow Zoots, and swap shoes, out I go, keeping the long sleeve top on for the wind. I was sweating, buy far from overheated. 40 seconds

Run:
Again up and out of a small inclined drive, on the road, and off I go. Let's see what the Garmin saaaays!!! 6:00 min mile pace. 'Holy Sh!t, I better dial it back a little" I try to slow down some, but my legs were having none of that. Eventually I settle into a 6:40 pace, still shocked that my legs are putting out those numbers after the bike especially. Only a little "clunky" feeling, so I keep going. Hitting 7:00 a couple of times, but most times I saw the pace, it was under 7. The course said 2.8 miles. So I ran like a 2.8 mile course. Remember a month or so ago I ran a 5k at work, and finished with 7:01 min miles, yeah how the heck am I going to keep this pace up when a standalone race I was 7:01... Oh well just keep running. I weave in and out of some streets after making the turn around, and get back to a baseball diamond I had seen earlier, on the back side of the school. Knowing I had about a half a mile left. The road was now gravel, quickly fading to dirt/mud and potholes filled with water.

I pushed on and then saw the school, all uphill on gravel/grass from here. Pushing hard, I ran and ran and ran. Gave a little guy a high (low for me) five and kept pushing. Hitting the finish line. Run segment just under 20 minutes, holy cow!

Overall time 1:08, 2 minutes higher than my anticipated goal, but with the winds on the bike, I was happy with the results.

Summary:
Good enough for 6/24 in my AG and 18/191 Overall. All things considered, I am happy with the race. I leaned that I can push the bike harder, or closer to LT than expected with no ill effects. This race makes me very excited for New Brighton, on June 6!