Tri Club Marin Bi-Weekly Bulletin

TCM Newsletter: Tuesday July 31, 2007

Club Events – Mark your Calendars

August event: Lane Lines to Shore Lines. Come & fine tune your swim skills with this video by Gary Emich and Phil DiGiralomo. Tam Bank, San Rafael, Friday August 10, 2007 at 6.30pm.

Recap of 7/20 Speaker Event

On July 20, Marvin Zauderer gave a presentation to a small but appreciative group of TCMers. His topic: The 5 Core Skills of Mentally Fit Triathletes.

In brief, Marvin covered the following Core Skills:

1)      Goal-setting. Objectives/goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound. If you don’t ensure that your goals are set correctly, you may be setting yourself up for needless disappointment, frustration, and self-blame, not to mention under- or overtraining and burnout.

2)      Self-talk. Pay close attention to any chatter in your head. If the din isn’t too loud, parse out the things you’re saying to yourself. Things like, “I’m really feeling strong today,” “I’m definitely going to get dropped,” “I need to be in the front third of the field,” or “She’s much stronger than me today.” Are these thoughts helping you? Distracting you? Making you feel worse? Better? Thoughts affect feelings, and feelings affect thoughts. Becoming more aware of how you talk to yourself is the first step toward improving  that conversation.

3)      Arousal management. This refers to emotions: anger, disappointment, elation, frustration, fear. If your stress level is above threshold, so to speak, or if you’re having bursts of unproductive anxiety during a ride or race, you may be paying a price. Anxiety can drive lapses in concentration, needless energy-wasting, increased heart rate, poor decision-making, panicky braking or swerving, and all sorts of other Bad Things. On the other hand, a bit of anxiety – as any experienced public speaker will tell you – can push you to be razor-sharp in your performance. Achieving that “edge” means not just managing but also using your central nervous system’s arousal. It can be a Good Thing. Your tools? Self-talk, mental imagery, and breathing techniques all come in handy when you’re working on managing arousal during a ride or race. And having an effective pre-ride or pre-race mental preparation routine can get you off to a great start.

4)      Concentration. Managing your attention is critically important to your chances of attaining optimal performance. To improve concentration, it’s important to recognize recurring distractions, to know at all times where your focus should be, to manage your anxiety and reactions to stressors, and to have a refocusing plan (often involving self-talk) for each of your major distractions.

5)      People skills. If you’re training with other riders, if you’re a member of a cycling club or racing team, or if you have a coach, your people skills are likely to have a direct effect on your enjoyment, stress, and performance. For example, you may feel the need to train alone in order to do your workouts effectively, but you may have team members who resent that. Or you may have difficulty telling your coach that his approach isn’t working for you. Or you may need to step forward and be the leader of your team. Assertiveness, communication, and empathy are only some of the people skills that you may need to improve if you’re going to reach your cycling goals.

Marvin leads the Mental Training program at Whole Athlete (www.wholeathlete.com), a performance center in Marin County that provides a comprehensive set of coaching, testing, fitting, and consulting services for amateur and professional athletes. He is a licensed psychotherapist with a private practice in SF and Marin, a USA Cycling Level 2 coach, and Masters road racer.

Race Report – Tiburon Tri 7/29/07

Date: July 29th, 2007 7:30 AM Start

Event: Tiburon Tri : Sprint  261st / 320 entries (1:21)

Weather: Foggy

Last year this was my first Triathlon and this would make my second.  I spent a great deal of time last winter training for a few events this year.  but other obligations and a knee injury took priority this spring and I quickly found that Tib Tri be my only event.  Last time I swam was a month ago, rode my bike 2 months ago and ran... last year?  My approach was have fun, take it easy.  I hadn't been training.

I arrived at the event early got my registration.  Got a great transition location, and waited for the gun to go.  This year the event was strangely smaller.
I was in wave 5 of 6.  Randomly chosen. The 4th group went and I jumped in early to acclimate to the water temp.  The fog helped to soften the contrast of water temp which was nice.  I had been training in these waters at least once a month since January.  Tide was low, and last time Lisa, Phil and I swam (Phil stayed on land and laughed), we were able to stand at the channel markers.  My wave came and I took the advice of Ken and Lisa by taking the outside.  We were off!   Staying on the outside was key.  I passed quite a few people in the swell and in the harbor.  On the return leg I misjudged my speed with the swell and over swam the marker a bit. With the low tide the water was clouded with mud, and disgusting at the exit.  In all I swam a personal best of 14.45 minutes (183rd place) for about half a mile.

Off to the bike.  You have to run a few blocks to get to the transition area, which is great for me that way I don't keel over changing.  I forgot a water bottle to wash my upper body, and the salt water started to evaporate on my skin.  The result was I was very sticky.  Throwing on a jersey must have been fun to watch, but it was hell to experience.  My number was pined on to the jersey, and in my struggles I managed to turn off the safety portion of the pin.  Fingers were poked and sliced, blood drawn, and some not so eloquent words were uttered. After starting over twice, I managed to dress myself and get moving. Kiss lots of time goodbye.

I told Phil earlier that the advantage of starting towards the back is you get to pass people.  A neat way to keep motivated.  So as I put it I went Duck Hunting.  Some people passed me, however as soon as they got to a hill it was like someone threw out an anchor.  By the time I got back to Tiburon there was a very cold headwind, thank god I wore a jersey and vest, I would have frozen.  38 minutes (146th)

So into the final transition I took my time.  I then started to jog.  Then I felt it.  My left knee was full of fluid.  It was like running on a water cushion.  No pain, just you could feel the swelling.  Steve - be proud here...  I walked the run.  Injuries are no fun and I have spent the past year working on it with great improvement.   I have to admit it was odd finishing a race with a low heart rate.  But I felt good, and my knee hasn't felt better. 29 min walk (313th).

Looking back, a sprint is great for beginners or practice, but I found my rhythm swimming after about 5-10 min, cycling was over in a blink and the run.... well it was nice to see all those people that I passed on the bike again.  I guess I was giving them a little boost.  But I think I'm up for bigger and longer endurance type events. 

I would like to thank, Andrew for his advice, Lisa for her swimming trident/whip, Phil for his humor and support, and Steve for the cool thing you do that makes my knee feel better.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the next workout.

Alexander 

Training Tips

Four KEY Tips for getting more Aerodynamic

by Lee Zohlman - BodyZen on July 24, 2007  in Bike

As your body accounts for up to 80% of the drag on the bike below are some good ways of getting more aerodynamic. It is always a good idea to be able to quantify these improvements but if you are without the proper resources for doing so just try it out and see how they work:

1. Bring your elbows in on the aerobars so they are a little bit narrower then your hips. This will help create a smooth flow of air down the sides of your body. Be careful not to go to narrow and inhibit your breathing by squeezing your chest together.
2. Get an aerohelmet. Yes the funny looking ones with a point. They don’t look good on anyone unless you racing. BZ faves are the Rudy Project Syton and the Spiuk Kronos.
3. Check your bike and see if there is a 5-10 centimeter difference between the height of your seat and the aerobars. Now 5-10 cm is a big window but for most people this will allow for a good range to get low and aero! When dropping the height of the handlebars be conservative by going down 2-3 millimeters at a time.
4. Keep your clothing tight and reduce the number of seams and zippers. Every little bit helps

Links and Other Stuff

Don’t forget our fab website – www.triclubmarin.org – for workouts, events, links to our sponsors and other interesting items about the Club.

We are always looking for suggestions/content for the newsletter. If you have any ideas, links, articles you want to contribute email me at: seacap@netscape.com before Thursday.

TriClub Marin
PO Box 829
San Anselmo , CA 94979
www.triclubmarin. org

Previous Newsletters:
March 30, 2007
April 12, 2007
May 1, 2007
May 21, 2007
June 5, 2007
June 27, 2007
July 10, 2007
July 31, 2007