rudi-h

So I get an email from "finisherpix" with my IM70.3 pictures. After such a great event I'm so excited, just to find out it's 16 Euro for a single digital pic download and 45 Euro for the full set. Absolutely FKN crazy!! Please organizers, this is just sick. Get local photographers to do this for us at affordable prices!!!! And don't come with this BS about local companies not being good enough. Local photography companies can handle events much larger in participant numbers than the IM70.3 Regards, One seriously pissed off finisher!

+1

it doesn't make sense to "chase" down the hill as fast as you can... Wind resistance increases with the square of the speed, so if you go down a hill @ 60km/hr, it's 4 times more resistance than it is @ 30km/hr. Just saying this to illustrate that you're wasting effort by riding hard downhill. Stay with the bunch or maintain a comfortable pace downhill, but your HR should drop on the way down! IMO

i'm no expert, but what does help is to keep your momentum through at least the bottom of a dip starting the hill. If you're going at 50km/hr, and you maintain that for 10 seconds going into the hill, you get quite far up the other side before slowing down to normal climbing pace! I'm also reasonably heavy (86kg @ 1.85m - 5 kg's heavier than the heaviest guy in the Pro Peleton) and also find it hard to stay with the lightweights! Much stronger than them in time-trialing though!

I just bought a new bakkie and will soon have finished building a NICE bike rack for it. 2 bikes only... Will post pics when I'm done. The plan is to bolt a small bracket to the lip of the "front side" of the bed. It's got tapped holes in it, so I won't have to drill / modify the bed in any way

Overnight list: 1 x Floor pump 1 x Extra tyre if you're racing with light tyres that are likely to get sidewall cuts. 1 x Brush / rag for cleaning your bike 1 x can of condensed milk

my list: 1 x deraileur hanger 1 x set extra brake pads 2 x tubes 1 x pump 1 x patch kit 3 x master chainlinks 1 x multi tool 1 x knife / leatherman 1 x tyre levers 1 x bottle of wet lube (wet is my preference for stage races) 1 x pack of cable ties 1 x roll of tape (insulation or duct tape) That should sort you out for 99% of issues! Some okes take extra spokes, but I get my rims checked and spokes tensioned before the race, so chances of breaking wheels / spokes are slim. All the best with the prep!

I'll drive down on Friday, so will only ben in EL for one day and a bit before the race! No, haven't done any sea swims, that's why I'm asking about sea sickness...

The problem with this thread is, that it tries to "measue" love and caring through things that are measurable or visible, like the use of seatbelts / carseats. However, a good loving parent does millions of things for their kids that aren't noticable / measurable. Things like: do you get home early to play with your kid; do you spend your saturdays in front of supersport, or do you take your boy on a hike or teach him how to make a kettie and a peeshooter; do you talk / play cards after dinner, or do you hit the 8 o clock movie till everybody doses off to bed; Do you show interest in you kid's sport or other interests, or do you leave it up to the teachers? Imo, it's the other things that make a good loving parent. I've been lucky not to be in an accident, even after 500000km of driving. So the seatbelt issue is small in relation to the real problems of parenting! PS I'd also buy a car seat and use it 95+% of the time when I have kids one day

short answer is Yes. Very few parents don't love their kids with all their heart. That does however not mean that some parents (people in general) are not very often very stupid! I guess everybody has a different "appetite for risk" (to put it in political correct terms) Some of us speed with our cars, some of us don't allways wear helmets when cycling in the park, some of us drink more than we should, some of us eat too much fatty foods, some of us take chances with the Tax man and some of us just don't care. There are also people who never do anything wrong or stupid, but normally they're a pain in the arse. I've ridden above the speed limit with friends / girlfriends / family in the car, I've chased super fast on downhills not knowing the trail, I've drank 20 tequilas in one night and passed out in the bath while I was studying, yet I in general I don't think I'm a too bad guy, and it's rediculous to say that I don't love my family, friends or myself for that matter. So no, sometimes a parent might feel that the "risk" is small enough to hold a kid on your lap i guess... Everybody does stuff wrong all the time, and everybody has certain "wrongs" that don't bother them too much, so if we go into a judging game, we'd have to judge everybody on the face of the earth. We're all sinners, and we're all stupid (some more often than others )

So after this morning's training session, I don't think there's much that I can do from now on to improve my physical condition for IM 70.3, so I've gotta live with however fit I am. There are a few other things that might make my race a bit better / faster, so if you've done any IM event before and won't mind answering: 1) Altitude: I've heard that if you're conditioned to higher altiutde (JHB) it's harder to get your HR up at sea level than what we're used to. If IM 70.3 was in Jozi, I would have aimed for about 145 - 150 average HR on the bike leg. Should I adjust this target at the coast. If yes, how much? I normally get into a pretty easy pace on the run without worrying about HR too much, so this is only for the cycling leg. 2) Sea sickness: I've been told that some people get sea-sick from sea swimming, and have been advised to take "sea sick" pills. Is this necessary for IM 70.3, or only applicable to the longer swim in full IM? If you take pills, what kind, when and do they affect you negatively otherwise? That's all that I can think of now that's an obvious difference between IM and an "inland" tri, but if there are other things to consider or you've got some NICE tips, please share too.

so its just a HR chest belt that talks to your cellphone via Bluetooth? Not a watch or a physical monitor then?

i guess i'm being a noob, but what the hell is a bluetooth HR monitor and what makes it better than a normal hr monitor?

So I just spent R5k this week on a wetsuit and IM entry... Hurts like hell now, but I hope it will change when I run down the red carpet How many hubbers have bit the bullet so far?

you meant that a given volume unit of body fat contains only 85% (7.7 / 9 = 85%) actual fat. That means that you will lose 1 kg of weight (by burning 7700 kCal), but 15% is water, so you still didn't lose a kg of fat... Fact is that a kg of fat is a kg of fat, and it allways has 9000 kCal per kg. Whether you consume it, or whether you burn it, so no, you have to burn 9000 kCal to lose 1 kg of fat

EINA, you got shafted BAD

didn't read the whole thread, but here are some calorie basics: Calorific value of common food types 1) Calories (in normal spoken language) actually refer to Kilo Calories (kCal), so that's the unit here. A kCal is NOT a kJ (kCal = 4.18 x kJ) 2) Average red meat portion: 3 kCal per gram 3) Average White meat portion: 2kCal per gram 4) Pastries, crossaints & chocolates: Between 3 and 5 kCal per gram 5) Fat / Oil: 9 kCal per gram 6) Dry starch (rice / pasta): can't remember to the pin, but think it's about 2 kCal / gram The hard science about "fat" weight loss Every kg of fat contains 9000 kCal. Most of us (reasonably active males) burn 2500 - 3500 kCal per day. So even if your body would only use fat as fuel source and you don't eat anything (which is never the case), it would take 3 + days to burn a kg of fat. If you lose weight faster, it's water, muscle or something else. Its very hard to maintain much more than a 500 kCal deficit (eat 500 kCal less than you burn) on a daily basis, so it's typically about 2 weeks of work to lose a kg of fat... Not saying this to discourage anybody, just to keep realistic targets in mind!!! Good luck with the challenge

don't know if oakleys have the same features, but the Rudy's with impactX lenses are really unscratchable. Especially cool for MTB if you ride into low hanging branches or for the occational "moer off your bike" The photochromic lenses (gets dark only if you the light is bright) are also cool and especially convenient for rides starting early mornings, late afternoons or when night-riding! Only downside is that you don't get the Photochromic lenses in a "polarized" version as far as I'm aware! I got a pair of Rudy's for my birthday a few years ago and doubt if I would consider something else in future.

last comment I promise!!! Wrong again. Just because engineers that build supercars are good and because supercars are expensive, does not mean that they can go around 90 deg turns @ full speed and stop within 10m from driving 400km/hr. Sometimes physics is just against you, and there's no way of getting around it. Same with a 5cc (volume) polar computer exposed to shitloads of sunlight for many hours! So no, Polar Engineers (company based in Finland, they have like 3 sunny days per summer - you need to show them a postcard to explain what sunshine looks like) do not build in a "tolerance" for the effects of severe radiation. The ambient heat thing that you're talking about is also not nearly as bad as you think... Bottom line again: Look at the temperature shown after the news (of luister soggens na RSG) to get the shade temp... Very seldom is this temp over 40 anywhere in SA if you listen to RSG carefully. I would say that you can add another maybe 3-5 degrees at MOST for radiation and other ambient effects if the sun is really cracking it! Car thermometers have similar problems of being stuck somewhere underneath the bonnet in a poorly ventilated area, thus the car standing in the sun will show a similar "inacurracy", just on a smaller scale. To put things in perspective. If a stove-top is @ 60 deg Celcius, then you will only be able to hold your finger against it for 3 seconds before your burn so bad that you have to pull your hand away. Imagine what air temp of 60deg would do to you then. It's #$%@$#% hot!!! Honestly, not many of us experienced temps higher than 40 - 45 degrees, whatever your thermometers might have said

Apologies for getting all technical, but sometimes there's a need for an explanation... There's a number of very good reasons why temp cannot be measured in sunlight, and therefore a very good reason why the 56 measured on someones Polar during van gaalens is way off. In a very simple explanation, a thermometer has a given volume which is much lower than the volume of your body. If you put the thermometer (polar in this case) in the sun, the tiny volume of the polar easily heats up due to radiation. Also if you look at the shape of a polar, it is flat with a big screen, thus it has a very large surface area exposed to sunlight in relation to the volume / mass. The polar is also typically coloured dark, with a grey screen and maybe even with a matt type of paint on the sides. Your body on the other hand, is light coloured (if you're white), you sit upright, thus the exposed area to the sunlight is way smaller in percentage terms, a lot of the radiation energy gets absorbed AND dissipated by your clothes. You also sweat, which cools down your body when the sweat evaporates. A polar doesn't sweat, thus it doesn't get the same cooling effect that you do. The bottom line, is that even you and your polar are both in the sun, you (as a human) are not nearly "heated" to the same extent through sunlight as your polar. Getting more technical, you can heat stuff by either convection (movement of hot air / water) or by radiation (exposure to sunlight). it is not practical and repeatable to measure radiation heat (which is also only a small percentage of the total heat that you experience when cycling anyway), but it is practical and repeatable to measure convection heat (shade air temperature). If one would do some calcs regarding a specific individual, sitting on a specific position on the bike, with a specific colour top, with a specific wind temp and sweat evaporation rate, yes, then it is possible to determine the "actual temp" that that person is experiencing (maybe a degree of 3 higher than the shade temp). Hope this wasn't too boring and makes sense. I'm not even gonna comment on the 76 degrees!

Sat, I fixed it!

Yes, go test yourself or push as hard as you think you should be going!!! If you're doing an interval, it's gotta hurt. If you're cruising, its gotta be easy. Takes notes and remember where these HR numbers lie. After a while you'll know exactly where your HR needs to be for what type of training / racing Also, as you get fitter, your lactate threshold, anaerobic threshold and all these things will change too in relation to your max HR, so in a year from now your HR limits / zones can be way different from what it is now, even if you had it tested in a lab...

Thanks Just phoned Heia Safari Ranch, and they say it's R50 to swim there, but pretty close to my house, and suited in the cradle for some road biking afterwards. It's a bit steep for an every weekend outing, but since I just spent R2k + on my wetsuit, I thinks its worth a try, at least once! If possible I'll ride out to the cradle from there (+- 1hr swimming + 80km's road bike - avg speed 26-28 km/hr) Drop me a PM or reply on this thread if anybody is interested in joining. Start time: Meet 6:30-6:45 @ Heia for a 7:00 sharp start! Oh yes, forgot to say its Saturday!

Hi Just bought a wetsuit for IM yesterday and REALLY want to check this thing out on the coming weekend!!! Anybody know where I can swim in Jozi / or are there a bunch of you hubbers that do some open water swimming every now and then? Please let me know, will be keen to ride afterwards. MTB or Road, whatever suits the area better. Thanks! Rudi

Agree with Luke... Look at HR. If I'm well rested, then I can push my average HR for something like the 94.7 to 160 BPM over 3 hrs. If I'm stuffed, like last week after a whole week of hard IM training, I hardly manage 170 BPM on steep hills and average about 145 BPM.