Frederick Triathlon Club in Frederick, Maryland

Has anyone been to a Tri It Now or Mid-Atlantic Multisport Camp? Are there other camps you would suggest for the winter season? I’ve never been to one myself so this is new to me. Thanks!

http://www.triitnow.com/

http://midatlanticmultisport.com/camps.html

Now that Fall has arrived and Winter’s not too far behind, time to start thinking about your off-season training. Club member Vicki Bate is taking the lead here and organizing CT sessions at Kelley Acres Speed Shop.

 From Vicki:

 ”We will be organizing a computrainer class again this winter on Sunday early mornings. If you are interested, please let me know. Probably be 2 to 3 hours for 20 sessions starting @ January, 2010. The cost could be as low as $250 for the entire winter session, Sundays 8-11 AM . In addition, if anyone would like to investigate the possibility of a weeknight class, let me know and I can try and work something out with Chris Kelley.”

 Note that the price may vary here depending on what could be setup with Chris.

 If you’re interested, contact Vicki at vickibate@hotmail.com

UPDATE – weather looks good in the morning so I’ll be there barring some unforeseen event.

In preparation for the upcoming Hagerstown Sprint on July 26, I’m planning on doing a double brick on Saturday 7/18.  THIS IS WEATHER DEPENDENT.  If it rains or really looks threatening, I’ll have to cancel.  I’ll be at Martin Snook park around 9:15 AM as the park doesn’t open until 9 AM.  First brick will be a bit casual, just trying the course and the brick.  Second one will be more intense.  Let me know if you’d like to join me so I know to look for you.  I’ll provide confirmation here early Saturday.

Weather permitting, Vicki Bate is leading group rides Tuesdays and Thursdays out of Utica Park, which is just northwest of Walkersville along Old Frederick Road.  Start times are about 4.30 and loop back for folks about 5.45/6.00 p.m.  Utica has the porta johns and plenty of space to park.  Vicki is also going to coordinate Saturday long rides.  Most of these are “B” rides.  Just to note that there are the hard core folks that still go from Glade on Tuesday evenings (i.e. bicycle racers).  They are averaging over 20 mph. 

If you want to receive notifications of the rides, ask Vicki to add her to your email list: vickibate@hotmail.com.

Due to schedule conflicts, Hank is unable to consistently conduct a run on Saturday mornings.  If this changes, I’ll update the website and the club.

From Lisa Houck:

Tri It Now in Manassas VA offers clinics, kids events, and short sprint distance events.  There are two clinics during January.  The first is a women’s only clinic on Jan 10 and the second open to all on Jan 31.  In addition, they’ll have a reverse sprint tri (run, bike, swim) in late March to tune up your skills.

Check out what they offer at www.triitnow.com

During our Sept club meeting, Chris Kelly of Kelly Acres in Middletown and HPC Racing let the members know that she and her husband were designing a multi-rider Compu Trainer facility on their property.  She asked if any of the members would like to be “guinea pigs” for the first test sessions.  Many of us enthusiastically said “Yes!”, yours truly included.  So, Hank sent word that Chris was looking for test subjects last Saturday for two sessions and I promptly signed up for the 10:30 one.

If you don’t know anything about the Compu Trainer, there’s more info here:

http://www.racermateinc.com/computrainer.asp?gclid=CKq1keSKhpYCFRoSFQodFHYNFg

Basically, it’s a pretty high-tech computerized measuring and course simulation system for indoors training.  You can input different course profiles and the computer adjusts the resistence based on rider weight and course profile.  Plus, you can have 8 riders plugged into the same course to add a bit of competitiveness.  The computer tracks your stats (power, speed, distance, time, distance to next rider, etc).  It even simulates drafting if you are very close to another rider and reduces the resistence accordingly.  Pretty amazing stuff!

Tribe members Lucas, Mike Matney, and myself attended this session along with some other cyclists who were invited to attend, making 8 total.  In honor of Lucas, Chris decided to put on a 19.7 section of the Kona course Lucas would be riding in two weeks.  In addition, part way through, Chris said we could go through a ladder interval period: 1 min hard, 1 min rest, 2 min hard, 2 min rest…up to 5 min.  Then come back down the ladder after that.

What a session!  The ladder really stressed all of us and there was an abundant amount of sweat produced during the session.  The Kona course itself had a few interesting climbs and one sweet downhill which was really cool.  As expected, Lucas came in first finishing this segment in a little over 54 min, avg speed of 21.6.  But, several of the cyclists weren’t too far behind.

My overall first impressions are positive.  I really liked the multi-rider session and all the stats that the Compu Trainer produces.  It definitely was a step up from just using the Spinerval DVDs on my trainer in my basement.  Plus having an actual course with a sense of resistence adjustment according to my abilities/physical makeup definitely adds to the realism and ability to gage one’s self.

I let Chris know the only things at the moment for improvement would be:

- Fans in the front in addition to the back.  I tend to overheat a bit without something simulating air movement from the front as if I’m outside riding. 

- The resistence equipment platform is a bit slippery at present.  Chris said they’re going to make these nonskid in the future so someone doesn’t get hurt.

Chris plans more in the future such a changing rooms and expansion of the facilities overall.  When she does get going on a business basis, she plans to charge $20/session.  Mike Matney had the thought of perhaps giving discounts for frequent visitors or a multi-session pass. 

For me personally, I plan on using this as a gage during my off seasson time on how my training is going, probably attending a session once or twice a month.  Hopefully, this becomes a permanment training facility for cyclists and triathletes in our area.

Check out the photos from the session in the Photos area!

More info will be posted on Kelly Acres Speed Shop blog site

http://kelleyacresct.blogspot.com/

as it becomes available.