Posted by: Joe Nuss
on May 25, 2009
By Sonni Dyer
It could take weeks, even years, to shave a few minutes off your run, bike or swim split in a triathlon. But, don't worry, while you're working on the physical improvements to garner a faster time, there are a couple of things you can do right now to make you a faster triathlete. In a race where the difference between first and second can be a matter of seconds, smooth transitions are key to a successful race. Depending on your current skill set, my tips for faster transitions could save you up to a minute or even more during your next race!
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on May 25, 2009
By Thys Wind
Depending on your athletic background, taking up the sport of triathlon is essentially like taking up three new sports at the same time. This can be overwhelming, particularly with respect to learning the sports' best practices, getting the right gear, and making sure you don't break the bank.
When it comes to basic etiquette and safety precautions during your training, there are a few very simple things that you may want to know. Let's break it down by discipline.
Swimming
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on May 24, 2009
By Michael Sharp, MS, LAT, ATC To be able to compete in the sport of triathlon, a person must commit themselves (and often times their family) to the necessary rigors of training for three events. With such a vigorous training regimen, we typically see a few common injuries among triathletes. While certain injuries are common, injuries themselves are not inevitable. With the proper preventative stretches and exercises, triathletes can compete without the fear of injury limiting their performance.
Swimming
The constant overhead motion of the swim stroke can put a lot of stress on the shoulders and puts swimmers at risk of rotator cuff tendonitis, which happens when the swimmer repeatedly reaches up overhead through the stroke and pinches the rotator cuff due to the shoulder boney anatomy. This tendonitis also occurs when the swimmer uses his or her shoulders to overcompensate for weak core muscles. As the swimmer rotates the torso with each stroke, if the core muscles are weak and the technique breaks down, additional strain is put on the shoulders to compensate, resulting in an overuse injury of the shoulders. To prevent this impingement, proper strengthening of the rotator cuff and posterior shoulder muscles is needed. This strengthening helps keep the shoulder in proper alignment and limits the potential impingement with each stroke.
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Apr 27, 2009
The cold rain was coming down so hard Alyse Kelly-Jones had almost decided to not run the Ramblin' Rose triathlon in Chapel Hill. That's when she saw the 8-year-old girl and her mother.
"A lot of people didn't even start the race, but she not only started, she finished," Alyse said. "I later found out she also helped another little girl run the race. This little girl acted as a mentor to another little girl and her own mother. I was inspired."
Alyse realized if an 8-year-old girl could help to change lives like that, then surely an obstetrician/gynecologist at Mintview Women's Care with years of experience in triathlons could do the same.
"Every day in my practice I see women, overstressed and downcast, who need a change in their lives. I know these women could benefit from participating in multi-sport training, but I'd never thought about how," Alyse said. "Then I remembered that little girl."
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Apr 27, 2009
If you're looking for your first wetsuit or just a good suit to get you through the early season cold water races, the Orca S2 is the wetsuit for you. Orca is probably better known for their high-end wetsuits, selling for well over $500. Based in New Zealand, Orca has traditionally focused sponsorship on ITU and Olympic triathletes, most of them Australians, Kiwis, or Europeans. It is not surprising then that in the U.S., Orca is not as much a household name as Blue Seventy or Quintana Roo. However, their experience in making wetsuits dates back to the mid-1990s, and they sponsor athletes like Craig Alexander, who won the world 70.3 distance title using an Orca wetsuit during the swim.
Orca actually hit the U.S. market more than 10 years a
go, with sleek looking black wetsuits with some white patterns that resembled those of the killer whale by the same name. The suits performed well, but sizing and fitting were an issue: they seemed to be made only for the lean athlete with 3% body fat. The average age-group athlete had a horrible time getting one of those suits on. Distribution was also a problem, as the suits came from Southeast Asia and the U.S distributor never seemed to be able to fulfill orders in a timely way. Better knowledge of the U.S. market and new relationships has changed all that. The current Orca wetsuit sizes now fit age-group athletes even better than some U.S. competitors, and a distribution partnership with Orbea bikes has ensured prompt availability in the U.S.
The S2 builds on the success of Orca's S1 wetsuit but uses a lighter, more flexible neoprene. It is a no-frills suit, but incredibly functional. It offers all the basic features that are necessary for a swimming wetsuit to work without the gimmicks that are often found in other wetsuits.
The material used is a water-resistant neoprene with a smoothskin outer layer that is durable and yet flexible. Orca uses varying thicknesses in different parts of the suit to achieve the perfect balance between buoyancy and flexibility. Generally, the thicker the material, the more buoyancy it will provide. In turn, the thinner the material, the more flexible it will be. The 5 mm "HydroLift" panels are strategically used on the front and back of the legs as well as front torso to provide outstanding buoyancy and warmth. The 3-mm back offers more flexibility and helps prevent overheating. The 3-mm "Flexiseal" Neck provides flexibility and comfort in an area that can be troublesome for a lot of athletes. Finally, the 3-mm Speed Transition Calf Panel ensures a fast wetsuit removal in transition. This is a nice touch for an entry-level suit. Anyone who has ever watched a triathlon transition knows that it is the novices that have most trouble getting off their wetsuits.
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Feb 05, 2009
There's nothing that quite matches the sense of accomplishment I get when I finish planning my upcoming season's race calendar because truth be told, I'm lazy. Had a publisher of a coach-potato oriented magazine approached me to edit it rather than a fitness magazine, I could have very well been writing this from my sofa with a Coke and an open bag of potato chips sitting next to me on the coffee table. Instead, I'm writing this as clearly and concisely and quickly as I can so I can go out and run 9 miles in preparation for the Uwharrie Mountain Run, which hopefully I will have set a new PR on by the time you read this!
Seriously, as someone with a family history of diabetes and heart problems, I made a decision a long time ago to take charge of my health and lead an active life, but I never quite knew how to define it. Then I signed up for an Ironman. Having completed only a handful of triathlons prior, it wasn't the best decision I ever made, but it roused a need to call a plan into action. As I pieced together my training to accomplish this goal, I started formulating a race schedule so I could run a few triathlons and road races as benchmarks prior to my big race. With the volume of training required for an Ironman, I soon realized that in order to be successful, I would have to structure not only my training, but my life.
As I put together my daunting training and race schedule, I was forced to consider family vacations and work obligations prior to making any race commitment. Surprisingly, those needs opened the doors to include a few "destination" events on my schedule. Without that "limitation" I would never have run the beautiful Boulder Backroads Half Marathon in Colorado and meet up with an online training friend preparing for the same Ironman race. I was also fortunate enough to travel to explore other cool locations, like White Lake, which my wife and I knew nothing about except that there was a race there. To this day, one of my fondest memories of training for Ironman Florida is cooling off in White Lake on our semi-private beach as my family played in the sand and splashed in the crystal clear water beneath the sleepy cypress tress on a beautiful spring day.
I consider that year of Ironman training as one of the most fulfilling years of my life. The race schedule I put together incorporated my personal goal of adventure, my need for a healthy lifestyle and my family's desire to experience new and exciting places. A good race schedule, I learned, incorporates not just your personal fitness goals, but your overall lifestyle goals as well. A good schedule can help you develop realistic goals for your training which can help you manage stress. A poor schedule, consequently, includes unrealistic goals for training that only generates more stress and leads to both yours and your family's dissatisfaction with your fitness-oriented lifestyle.
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Feb 05, 2009
By Jay Crooker, PhD
It's still not too late to sign up for that big race in 2009 or set a goal to set a new PR at your favorite distance. Here are some general guidelines for creating a successful workout plan that will see you through an exciting year of training and racing.
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Dec 01, 2008
By Richard Jones
Ashley Milano is a planner. She always knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
"Three years ago, I was planning my wedding. I was a bride," she said. "Two years ago, I was planning my husband's funeral. I was a widow. A year ago, I was angry and depressed and felt betrayed by my god and my universe. I was a victim."
Posted by: Joe Nuss
on Oct 27, 2008
Endurance Magazine's Ramblin' Rose Women Only Triathlon Series wrapped up in October and capped off an amazing first year of our "green" initiative, "Race Without A Trace". All of the athletes who participated in the series, as well as the Carroboro Classic Endurance Festival, The Tarheel 10-Miler and Franklin 5000 helped contribute to a cleaner environment with respect to the amount of event-related waste they reduced and recycled.
Rather than hand out throw-away plastic bottles at the finish, the Endurance Magazine/Sport Often team hands out re-useable plastic bike bottles participants can use to fill up at one of our many water stations. In addition, race packets including flyers and coupons are all distributed digitally via e-mail. Shirts, bags, and other items are handed out at packet pick-up without plastic bags as well.
Earlier in the year, it wasn't unusual to find our team sorting compost, recycling, and trash in the few bags of waste generated at our events. As the year wore on and more people became aware of our different recycling, trash and compost bins, our job became easier and the environment a little bit cleaner!
Posted by: Thys Wind
on Oct 22, 2008
The other day I was running through the quiet forest in Umstead State Park. With the leaves falling to the ground around me and the oxygen-rich air feeding my brain, I started thinking about the Bailout Plan. Not the one that we've all heard so much about on the news lately, but the one that you actually have some degree of control over, and one that has been shown to be absolutely 100% effective. Having a training plan before the weather gets cold and wet is highly recommended if you want to come out of the other end of winter in reasonable shape - ready for a breakthrough year of racing.
So as you train during the next few months, save yourself from a physical recession by employing the following (bullish) Bailout Plan:
