The Second Arrow

When people react poorly to a bad situation, they are both continuing and amplifying the problem in a new form. But think about it - getting hit with one arrow does not require you to turn around and fire off a second.

When somebody is having a bad day and then turns around and is rude to those around him, he is unnecessarily shooting that second arrow. And when you get injured and then fall into a funk, you just shot yourself. Just be injured. No need to be injured AND miserable.

Before you react to a bad situation, ask yourself if you can end it right here and right now with a simple change in attitude. Be an adult and spare the world from the extra drama.

The Comparing Mind

We are constantly comparing ourselves to others, which is both good and bad. It motivates us to be better, but can also create frustration, jealousy, and poor decisions.

When you train, you are training yourself, not the pro triathlete you want to be. Keeping your workouts in line with your current abilities keeps you moving forward without injuries.

Why are you letting that P5 that the rich banker guy is riding make you miserable? Do you realize how you were just fine before you knew they existed?

You want to make your brain your partner, not your boss. With practice, you can learn to recognize when it is working against you and sucking up your time with negative comparisons that drag you down. You can quickly train yourself to ignore that voice and keep working on the biggest thing in life that you can control - yourself.

ZenTri Podcast 528 - Hydration Systems

Click here to download or listen!

(Keep repeating to self, "Triathletes are not crazy.")

I interview Chris Hague of Bonzai Sports about all the hydration options on the bike.  I follow that with a long episode of The Training Log.  Enjoy!  

ZenTri Podcast 527 - Ironman Trademark Interview and Surfing Trip

Click here to download or listen!

(One of several giant shark sculptures in Port Aransas, TX)

On this episode of ZenTri, we interview Rob Goldman about the Ironman trademark. Find out what counts as infringement, what doesn't, and everything in between.

After that, we have lots of audio from our surfing trip to Port Aransas, TX.  "Port A" is a great little surf town on a coastal island, full of outdoor fun.

(Kai standing up on a surfboard for the first time.)

I should also note that we took delivery of our new Suunto Ambit 2 S.  We are going to have Emily use this one for her training for the Austin 70.3.  I'll use a regular Suunto Ambit 2 for my own events.  Lots of great gadget testing to come!

(The red matches her bike, which is apparently very important.)

Back to Port A, you can't go long without noticing everybody is driving golf carts to get around the island.  We eventually had to rent one ourselves.

(Skizzle on the rizzle, yo.)

And it wasn't long until we found ourselves in a headwind, which makes all the aero position training come in handy.

Texas Beaches are a little unusual in that you can drive down most of them.  You pull up your car to where you want to surf/swim and have at it.  Also, Texas beaches are some of the cleanest in the USA. Oddly, California beaches have far more contamination.  I believe it has to do with the fact that you can't build or live too close to a Texas beach without Mother Nature shoving a Cat 5 hurricane down your throat in no time flat.

And for the gratuitous family beach shot, here's photographic evidence of just how much I improved my family's gene pool by convincing Emily to marry me.  I know this because my parents remind me frequently. 

 Ok, on to some triathlon stuff!  Here's a couple of screen shots of my surfing sessions as recorded by GPS on my Suunto Ambit.

You can tell where I caught a wave to ride it in, then paddled back out again.  The line is colored by speed.  All this was done in Movescount's "surfing" mode.  Pretty cool!

That's it for now, more later.  Much more!

Smarter Racing with the Ironman Bike Time Remaining App

The Suunto Ambit comes with an app store that allows you to customize the watch with all kinds of cool data readings.  So, I built an App for the Ambit that calculates how much longer you have left on the bike during your Ironman race.  This is far better than only knowing how long you have been out there or just how many miles you have gone.

The app takes the average speed of your current lap, figures out how many miles you have ridden, then applies your average speed against the distance remaining.  In the example above, I was two hours into a three hour ride, and it calculated that it would take nearly 3.5 more hours for me to finish 112 miles.

This is a much smarter way to race Ironmans. How much time is left is what you are trying to calculate anyway when you look at chrono, average speed, and current speed.  This does all that mental heavy lifting for you, live.  

When you know how much time is left, you get a reality check that this is going to be a LOOOOONG bike ride and to pace yourself.  You also can evaluate the amount of fuel and water you have left, which is where a lot of people get into trouble.  

Below, I took a photo of another screen that is pretty typical of what people usually show.

You can see that I'm 40 miles in, my heart rate is low from stopping to take the shot, and my time elapsed.  

But I can get to the first screen with a single button push, telling me that I will spend another 3+ hours out there to finish 112 miles, it's getting near 10 AM, so let's put on some sun screen.  I used this app during Ironman Texas and LOVED it.  For example, knowing that I only had another 20 minutes left before I needed to run was fantastic!

Here's what it looks like while you are making in app in Movescount, Suunto's web-based software that controls your watch.  Pretty cool - 

Simple inputs tells me how much longer I'm going to be on the bike, based on how far I've gone and how fast my last lap was. If you don't create laps, it will just use your overall average speed.  You can move the sliders around and it will show you sample results on the right.

What is super cool is that any app you use on your Ambit will also graph its results when you download the data.  From my actual race, here is Ironman Bike Time Remaining decreasing from 7 hours at the start to just 2 minutes near the end (in orange).  

You can see how the time would start increasing if I slowed down, but decreased gradually over the entire ride.  If you want to look at the app in more detail, you can find it here. 

What is amazing is this is only one of around a thousand apps for free in Movescount.  And the amount of variables that you can use to make your own apps are mind blowing.  If you want the watch to flash its backlight and beep six times every time you climb a hill that is over 10% grade, but less than 11%, I'm pretty sure you could build that.

For example, here's my effort at building a Normalized Power app (for bike power meters).

I eventually got in over my head with all the complicated math, quit, and then found a better one that somebody else had made anyway.  (Smart move.)

Any Suunto Ambit can do one app, and the new Ambit 2 and 2 S models can run multiple apps AND can also pick up watts from power meters.  Good stuff for sure.

Does this give you some ideas?  I bet it does.  I've got an Ambit 2 S on the way for Emily to train and race with, and I oredered my own Ambit 2 (longer batter life) for the longer events I like to do.  Can't wait. :)

Lots more on the Suunto Ambit models can be found here.