F.I.S.T. Bike Fitting @ Tri Your Best (aka Decatur Bikes)
Finding the exact point of rotation on my hips...
Pre-fitting, as he takes a long look at my pedal stroke and body positions....
Mid-fitting... I think he was trying to find my hip rotation points while in the saddle
And... FIT! (check out that leg extension!!)
After this fitting, I gained about 1 mph on average, but the most valuable gain from this fitting was confidence... I feel so much more power going into each pedal stroke and my long rides are MUCH more comfortable. Huge thank you to Dave Wilson from the Tri Your Best shop!!
A few pics along my bike route (Silver Comet Trail)...
As for what's new with my training with Endurance Planner... I've finally nailed down a potential nutrition (calories, water, & electrolytes) plan for the IM world championship, and it turned out to be a little insane on the water side!! I'll be taking in 2-3 cups (depending on the size of the cups) on each mile of the marathon... this equates to ~90-96 oz/hr, or 1 large water bottle every two miles!!! Fortunately, my stomach is finally becoming accustomed to taking in so much fluid every mile (yes, that means I have to drink 1/2 a water bottle every mile!), so I'm getting very excited to concentrate more on building my speed for each discipline... gonna be awesome! As for calories... I'll be taking in ~350 cal/hr on the bike and ~280 cal/hr on the run via Hammer Perpetuem. And electrolytes... entirely thanks to nuun!!! I couldn't finish long workouts without my nuun.... I've recently learned this from experience when I forgot my nuun tube for a 4.5hr bike ride... long story short, I got (what I think was...) the beginning stages of hyponatremia (too much water, not enough salt... LINK). What it feels like.... I felt lightly cross-eyed w/ blurred vision, sense of balance was a tad off, and I couldn't get thoughts into words very efficiently. If you've ever seen "the crawl" (video) or many other dramatic videos of people stumbling to the finish line, hyponatremia, insufficient calories, or dehydration are the leading contributors to this state.
As for performance, I'm certainly feeling a little quicker this year in the bike and run. This is primarily a result of working on my cadence (pedals strokes or strides per minute) and overall form. My swim is still sub-par... but, I recently went to see Tracy Palmer with The Sport Factory for a brief swim consultation and I'm beginning to get some hopes for some moderate gains in my swim performance. So far, I'm definitely seeing improvement only 6 days later!!
I threw that out there in a bit of a ramble b/c I'm hungry (as usual) and it's getting late. Later, I really want to talk a bit about some thoughts I had recently on what it means to me to "finish strong"... this seems to be very popular amongst most people, but I am not much of a believer in the common practice of sprinting to the finish.. but, that's just me :)
Till next time...
