Triathlon at Retirement

I have completed two more triathlon competitions; September 5, a sprint at Cane Island, Katy TX, place 2 and September 12, a sprint at Rose City, Tyler TX, place 1. Both competitions went well. I  usually  have a feeling that I exhaust myself more than other people, both on training and on races. For example, sometimes competitors talk to me during races, saying things like "looking good", or "go girl". This happened again during my last race. There is no way I have enough spare breath to talk during a race. But I don't know how other people really feel. My Garmin smartwatch gives me a score on aerobic training effect after each workout  on a 0 to 5 scale that accounts for my personal fitness level and training habits. Now, I can get some sort of measure of my suffering. According to Garmin: 5.0 Overreaching 4.0-4.9 Highly Impacting 3.0-3.9 Impacting 2.0-2.9 Maintaining On my last triathlon competition, my bike ride was registered at 4.3 aerobic impact with an a

I have to confess, I look at Strava way too much. What really has my attention are the "segments" where my time is compared to other people. A big incentive is to appear on the list of top 10 of all times. As I am older, this is rare, but then there is the top 10 in my age group, or in my training group... Not on a Strava segment.. . If you are out biking with friends  and suddenly one person sets off in a mad pace, recklessly passing parked cars and loose dogs, you can be sure it is a Strava nerd that just entered a segment. Must have that record time! Recently, I did a longer run up a mountain in a rural area and my smartwatch lost contact with the GPS for part of the run. Consequently, Strava did not credit me with the segment. Grrr, I had a really good time... I tried for hours to fiddle with the settings on Strava to see if the program could understand that I had not been teleported from halfway up the mountain to the top, but I could not change the result. Then it happe

Strava is a program on the internet where you can upload your exercise if you have a GPS supported fitness tracker. There is a free version and a paid version with more features, but the free version is very useful. If you are regularly active, you will hear a lot about Strava, and I suggest you join. (I am not paid or supported at all by Strava, this is my personal recommendation.) Start with the free version and see if its interesting to you. My Garmin tracker automatically uploads the training to Strava when I am done. For cycling and running, there will be a map of the course covered, data from the tracker like speed and heart rate. What I find most interesting are the "segments". Individuals can map any course, short or long, and all Strava users that pass the segment will have their best time uploaded in a table for other Strava users to see (unless they opt out of this feature).  The segment leaderboards allow you to see how you stack up against other people. There are