Archives for Factoids category
This is a great video analysis showing the benefits of engaging the hamstrings as part of running technique. Turn-over drills make more sense to me now. Definitely something I’m going to start keeping in the forefront of my mind as I run.
Anyone who’s watched a Kona IM championship where Chrissy Wellington was racing knows that she’s well known for smiling in the face of intense physical challenge and discomfort. Her twitter id is even @chrissysmiles!
The other day I was talking to someone about the power of body position on mood. There have been many studies on this over the last few decades and they all point tot the same thing: you can change (or at least strongly influence) your mood by changing your posture and/or facial expression.
So I started thinking: I wonder if this is something she does actively or by instinct, or completely by accident. In any event I decided I’d give it a go. Last weekend, I did a 3.5hr ride in some pretty good hills north-west of Toronto. As an experiment, while climbing some of the hills I’d relax my face and smile, on others I’d grimace and snarl and swear and gnash my teeth. At the end of each hill I’d evaluate perceived effort.
Sure VERY unscientific. I’ll admit that. But good enough for my laboratory of 1 (me).
My results? Absolute! Smiling and relaxing the face when climbing had a definite impact on perceived effort when pushing up the hills (and at most every other time on the route when I was feeling tired or worn down).
So next time you’re out there slogging it away, put a cheery smile on your face, smile and say hi to the cyclist you’re passing as you seemingly effortlessly roll up the hill beside them. It’ll still hurt, but somehow, it just won’t seem as bad.
Do you read the Sweat Science blog? If you don’t you may want to. Great articles over there all the time. Here are a couple of recent ones worth a read.
Sweat Science » Dehydration and change in body mass: not linked after all?.
and also this:
Extreme heat, dehydration and sodium balance
via Sweat Science » Extreme heat, dehydration and sodium balance.
I’ll jump straight to the answer…
My survey has attracted about 40 responses so far which is awesome (if you haven’t done it yet, please do!). Of the 275 triathletes I follow on Twitter 40 is a reasonable percentage. I’ll take a 1st cut at summarizing the data over the weekend and after randomizing the order of the entries, I’ll make the raw data available via a link to anyone who wants it.
In the process of badgering people to do the survey, I had a twitter conversation with Russel Cox (@russmcox) who pointed me at a report done by the USAT that answered a lot of my questions (and many that I hadn’t thought to ask). Their research is online here, make sure to look at the PDFs as well as they have a lot of very rich data. I wish the raw data were available so you could do analysis on it and drill down to ask specific, unanswered questions, but their data is great none-the-less.
You’re probably going to swallow… You may occasionally spit…
Oh my goodness there’s so much going on right now! It’s awesome, daunting, and massively fun!!!
1st and Foremost! Last night I was up a Nineteen Wetsuits. I met Steve Fleck and picked up an evaluation Frequency wetsuit. I’ll be trying it out over the next couple of weeks and will be posting my thoughts here, so stay tuned. Some initial thoughts below…
2nd: This weekend is the Toronto International Bike show. Thankfully for my bank account, this show, for me, is mostly about window-dressing and window-shopping. I’ll be looking for some small accessory deals, but in terms of bike, wheels, etc. I’m super happy with where I am now, so I won’t be leaving a great deal of cash behind at the show. *phew*! If you want to go drool over some of the nicest and newest bikes on the market, this is the show for you. Maybe I’ll see you there. Definitely will follow-up my visit with a blog post or 2.
3rd: My Finis tempo trainer and a drag chute arrived in the mail this week. Both devices to spice up my swim workouts. The tempo trainer should be an interesting addition for me. I usually listen to music and find my stroke cadence syncs up with whatever I’m listening to (so I tend to listen to 140+ bpm electronic music), so having a waterproof metronome may be a useful way to crank up my stroke cadence for tempo sets. The drag chute may be a solution to the “lane is filled with slow swimmers” problem, that I encounter so often. I’m hopeful that with the chute, I can work on my strength while slowing myself down and not constantly being frustrated by having my hands in their feet and not being given space to pass. We’ll see 😉
Finally: Travel. On Tuesday I leave for Pycon 2011 in Atlanta. The weather there compared to here (mid-teen’s C vs freezing here) makes Atlanta look like a tropical get-away location 🙂 I’ll definitely be running while there. In fact, I’m in the JLA Shamrock 10k run on the 13th. I’m thinking that I may take my road bike to keep my bike base building in play. Definitely taking my Y membership and swim stuff, that’s an easy one – tho finding the closest Y to the hotel may be a challenge. Finally, I’m really hoping to find open water swimming while there. I’m going to take the wetsuit and even if the water is cold (by Atlanta standards) I’d like to get out for an open-water swim or 2. If anyone knows where this could become a reality for me, please leave me a comment and let me know. I’m desperate to get out of the pool for a while.
Ok, enough blather.
Nineteen Wetsuits: Frequency 1st Impressions
Fit and Finish:
This is one well assembled piece of equipment! The seams are smooth and clean without any visible weaknesses or poor glue jobs. I’m an interesting test case for the suit as I fall right on the size boundary for 2 different sizes. Steve says they recommend smaller in this case and so we went with the medium-small. It fit like it was made for me. The 1.5mm material of the upper has good elasticity and the wingspan material is different from that of the arms giving it even more stretch. Nineteen has added a zipper-cord-pocket at the top and rear of the collar so there’s a place to store the leash and not just have it flapping around behind you for others to snag on. The pocket is a great idea as you’ll always know where the leash is when you finish the swim and are running toward T1.
Comfort:
So far I’ve only been able to judge this from the Nineteen office and my living room, but from what I can tell without yet having the suit in the water for a long period of time, it is very comfortable. The choices of material let the suit stretch (and recover) in all the right ways such that your stroke is not interfered with at all.
Clearly, in water testing will provide much more info on this suit. So far, I have to say, I’m very impressed.
Stay tuned.
8 Cooking Oil Facts Everyone Must Be Aware Of | Small Bites.
Very informative, worth the read!
@SteveFleck from Nineteen Wetsuits posted this link on twitter today. Awesome find! Definitely worth the read!
Thanks Steve!
A great article from @SteveFleck from @NineteenWetsuit about how to get a good fit on your wetsuit. Thanks Steve!
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