Week 2: Increased Metabolism, Snake-Bites, and lots of other random bike trivia...

We've completed Week 2, where the triathlon training has begun to wage war on my body. I took it easy on Thursday and Friday after the workout fest that was Sunday-Tuesday of this past week. The plan was to workout again on Friday, however, I believe fatigue has kicked in. Think fatigue, allergy season, and an overall lack of sleep. The triathlon for sure is getting me pumped up, but I feel like the overall comfort that I have in my current body is rapidly decreasing.

As I increase my weekly activity I can tell that my body is fighting to keep up and burn fat. I can tell that my metabolism has increased over 2 weeks, and I can feel my body burning and working when I am in complete rest. That said, I know this is the challenge that is the tri! I have to keep up the pace of the workouts, and not let my mind play games with my ability to push myself!

Its not May yet, but based on the monsoon-like weather and umbrella-busting winds, you might be surprised! Yesterday, I showed up at Prospect Park for our 8:30am run to find that only about 1/4th of our original group was out to brave the wind, rain, and cold temperatures. Our coach, Jon (Stewart, and its actually his name!), let us through a quick warm up, followed by subsequent 10-minute runs with 10minutes of conditioning between the runs. Because of the weird weather, he told us to take it easy, and in the end, I did about a 45minute workout. There were a few who opted to go for an additional 10minutes, but being that I was a little sick still from Friday, I opted for easy.


After the run, it was a quick stop at a diner to grab breakfast sandwiches and hot chocolate, and then we headed over to Brooklyn Bicycles aka 9th Street Cycles (http://bklynbikes.com) for a informational talk about choosing a bike, protective gear, essential accessories, bike maintainence and a demo on how to change the inner tube of a bike. It was really great info, and I'm definitely going back to this store! For the duration of our training period, they are extending a 10% discount to all triathlon participants. The guys that spoke with us were really knowledgeable about bikes, and gave us a lot of tips on how to maintain our bikes in cost-efficient ways. They had all sorts of gadgets and cool things for us to buy, but still told us how we could save money and not have to buy certain tools.

Things I learned today:

• The actual names of tire valves: Schrader (old-school) and Presta (new, but very fragile and can be easily warped)
• Bike maintenance is essential, and I should consider keeping an eye on grease amount, and if my tires have picked up any random NYC shrapnel, especially pieces of glass.
• A snake-bite is an actual term in flat-tire puncture vocabulary. I will try to NOT laugh in the next demo when they say you should be aware of your tires getting damaged by glass or snake-bites.
• Too much grease can: a) damage your bike b) affect your braking ability and c) make your bike not pretty looking
• CO2 cartridges can be used to inflate inner tubes of tires, but are one-time use only, and come in different amounts based on your tire needs
• Brooklyn Bikes has some cute undercarriage bags, and I want one.
• Bikers usually like other bikers, so even if I don't learn how to change a tire or patch a tube, someone will help me, but I shouldn't count on it on race day.
• Out of 4000-5000 people in the NYC Tri last year, about 4 people got flats. I like the odds, but I'm not counting on any luck!
• Its best to buy a pump with a pressure guage, and keep your road bike's tires pumped between 100 and 120 PSIs (Pounds/Square Inch). However, based on further research, I've discovered that the appropriate PSI range is dependent on your weight as defined on this page.

Just some fun factoids, but I have a feeling they are really going to come in handy for this season of training.