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Riding with power, swimming without rubber

I'm getting excited and nervous about this weekend's race. Right now the forecast says it'll be 85 degrees, which isn't too bad. But the swim, which is in a dammed section of a very shallow river, may be an issue. The latest water temperature reading was 77.5 degrees F. If it hits 78, wetsuits will not be allowed. (You can actually wear one, but won't be eligible for awards, or something like that. I think the absolutely-no-wetsuits cutoff is 82 degrees.) At any rate, even 77 is pretty darn warm, so I may be swimming without the wettie.

You triathletes out there know the trade-offs: wetsuit = faster. No wetsuit = slower, maybe more comfortable, with the potential for extra drag from race clothing. But no wetsuit also = faster transition time since there's no wetsuit-peeling dance. I'm actually thinking about wearing a regular swimsuit over my race top and shorts so the pockets on the tank top don't catch water. Maybe I'll wear a skinny elastic belt and fuzzy hand-knit leg warmers to complete the Jane Fonda look. Feel the burn!

My non-triathlete readers, if they have gotten this far, are probably thinking, "How much energy can you possibly spend worrying about these minute details???" The answer is: A LOT. That is the life of a triathlete. I admit I go a little mental the week before a race, but so does everyone else. (And by the way, I was kidding about Jane Fonda. I could never emulate a woman who got bicep implants.)

So about that wattage-based cycling class I mentioned in my last post. In that post I talked about my problem of essentially getting lazy on the run. I've been having the same problem on the bike: I just haven't been forcing myself to go harder for extended periods. There are a couple of places here in town that offer wattage-based cycling classes, so I tried both of them out a few weeks ago thinking it might help me address this problem.

The first place has rooms full of CompuTrainers, which for the uninitiated is like a regular analog bike trainer, but with resistance controlled by a computer. You bring your own bike, set it up on a trainer and do an instructor-led ride, controlling the wattage with a little console. (CompuTrainers are actually extremely valuable training tools -- you can download real-life routes to simulate a race course in your basement, and do many other cool things with them. I'd love to have one at home.) This place also offers state-of-the-art physiological testing and coaching, and sponsors a professional women's tri team. Very cool. Also very expensive.

The second place I tried is a studio run by a local triathlon coach. The classes bear many similarities to spin classes at a regular gym. Except that they are 1,000 times better. Most gym spin bikes have no electronics at all (and that can be a good thing sometimes). The bikes at this studio have an electronic display that shows speed, cadence, heart rate and wattage. The coach leads the class through a wattage- and cadence-based series of intervals. And it's all cycling-specific, unlike some of the goofy moves spin-class instructors do in the name of getting a good workout.

I chose the second place primarily because it was a lot less spendy. I'd love to go to the first place, but the total expense and the inconvenience of schlepping my bike across town twice a week were turn-offs.

Watts are the ultimate measure of power on a bike. Going by heart rate, you know how hard you're working, but not what the results of that work are. Watching the wattage number on the display motivates me to maintain a steady rate of work, and also to smooth out my pedal stroke. (The number of watts jumps around quite a bit, more so with an uneven pedal stroke.) The class time absolutely flies by. It's really fun (the good music doesn't hurt). Hopefully over the next couple of months, I will see the watts I can sustain go steadily upward.

I have to admit, I enjoyed being told at my first class by the woman next to me that the max wattage number I was working with was quite a bit higher than hers. This is not a surprise, since I am a lot heavier than she is. On the road, she is probably faster, since wattage alone does not determine speed. What's more important is power-to-weight ratio. My plan is to increase my power and decrease my weight to improve that ratio. And thus go faster!

And since I just signed up for Ironman Arizona, I've got about eight months to see some results.

July 31, 2007 3:39 PM