Triathlon at Retirement

I recently heard about another bike crash with broken bones involved.  Crashing on the bike is too common, biking is dangerous. I admit I brake on some downhills and tight turns, I know as a late comer to triathlon, that my biking skills are not the best. As much as I want to gain a few seconds, I rather be safe and bike another day. I often get left behind on downhills but so far, I have not had any crashes and I am trying to keep it that way. A few times I have fallen in slow motion with some scrapes as a result and once I tipped over in my own driveway, but no damage! Turning up is half the battle and you need to stay healthy and injury free. Think long term, never take risks on the bike or train with illness or pain. Yes, you may loose a little fitness, but you will actually be on the start line on race day. It is depressing to not be able to participate in a planned race, maybe a championship. Not to talk about potential long term harm to your health.                             

If you are not driving to a far away event, it is a problem to bring the bike. Here are your options:  1. Rent a bike at location  2. Fly with your bike as luggage  3. Transport your bike with a commercial triathlon bike transporter  4. Drive anyway  5. Not go  1. I have tried renting in Sweden which resulted in a summer with no competitions at all. Basically, there are not that many competitive bikes to rent and I am not a common size. I have given up on that solution. On big events, local rentals run out quickly. 2. I have flown with my bike on several occasions and it works, but includes a lot of preparations. First you have to make sure that the plane you are boarding accept packed bicycles. Small planes do not, and popular routes can have black out dates for oversized luggage during peak season. For example, flying to Europe during the summer months with a bicycle is not allowed on many airlines. Cost for the bicycle is around $150-200 per leg. Clearing those hurdles, you have to

This was a really great race weekend. On Saturday, the Rookie Sprint, a slightly shortened course with only 300m open water swim and a 2 mile run, while the bike leg was 14 miles. On Sunday, Quarter and Half Distance of the ironman lengths. I was intending to do the sprint as I have been polishing my speed for the Sprint World Championships in Bermuda in October, but as the championships got cancelled due to corona, I decided to do the quarter distance at Kerrville instead. After all, I am no rookie anymore, and I am in my home town, right? The weekend came in with a cool front, which in September in the Texas hill country, is good news. I looked at the rookie race, and it was a glorious day, perfect temperatures, beautiful location and a flat course. Swim was in the Guadalupe river. The competition was big and well organized, I think about 1800 participants. Swim Exit Being a home competition, I definitely felt pressure to do well. I started to worry weeks in advance. Aches and pains

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

This was the biggest triathlon competition ever in the USA, maybe the whole world with over six thousand competitors over two days. The athletic village and transition area dominated the pretty sea front near the Art Museum and Discovery Center. I did the sprint distance. Women's age group 60-64 was completely full at 100 qualified athletes! I did not feel particularly nervous, I knew I would not have anything to do with the top. I did a business like swim at 16.50 for 750m coming in at 32nd place. Swimming is not my forte, and if I try too hard, I just get tired without swimming faster. Getting out of the water, I was not exhausted and I passed several people on the run between water and bike.  Rather than pressing the leg time button on my smartwatch, I pressed finish. On the bike, I fiddled with the watch trying to restart, and I was not totally focused on the ride from the beginning. I passed people on the uphills, and they passed me on the downhills, even though I peddled like

Lots of events have been cancelled in Sweden due to corona, but 11 July, Mora Trail, a cross country running competition was allowed to take place. I signed up because it is such good training, and I always push myself harder running against other people.  I choose the 8km course, but longer courses were available. Starting at Mora cross country ski stadium, the trail was winding up and down little hills on mostly rough trails. It was hard, in the middle I actually walked up some of the hills but I still feel I had a good race at 50.02. I got 14th place amongst the women, all ages were in the same class and I was one of the oldest. My Garmin watch recorded the training effect at highly improving! It was probably correct, a week later I PRd on one of my training routes.  Mora Trail | 11 juli 2021