Categories
Gear

CompuTrainer Improvement CTANT+!!

No Racermate One was not released. Recently I go tired of watching my heart rate disappear during my training rides on the CompuTrainer. It seemed like every ride all of the sudden I would lose my heart rate for a few minutes. I would fiddle with the wires and try to get it to work. I even purchased the ear clip one from Racermate in effort to rid myself of this problem. That didn’t work either. Instead of dropping out, my heart rate would jump all over the place with the ear clip version.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I’d had enough. On the Racermate forums I happen to see someone mention a 3rd party product called CTant+. I’m assuming that CT is for CompuTrainer and ANT+ is for the wireless technology that many of the devices employ to be compatible with each other. I downloaded a trial version from their website http://www.ct-ant.com/ and tested it out. I’m now able to use my Garmin heart rate monitor instead of the CT one. I’ve used it for the last two weeks and it has worked flawlessly! It’s a little pricey at $49.00, but it does get the job done, something that Racermate can’t seem to figure out.

You can also override the Cadence and power source, but if you do that you will lose the SpinScan feature. If you are tired of having your heart rate drop out during your workouts on the CT, I really think you should give CTANT+ a try!

 

Categories
Race

Salem Wild Turkey 5 Miler

Instead of doing the Feaster Five again this year, I decided to join the group heading to Salem for the Wild Turky 5 miler. It’s been a while since I’ve run a 5 mile road race. It was a pretty chilly morning, temps were in the lower 30s. I had two goals for this race, one was make sure I beat Heidi, only because Julie kept telling me that she was going to beat me. The other goal was to try and run 7 minute miles. I knew my friend Ron was going to shoot for 7s and he is usually right on the money.

Heidi and myself started right next to Ron up near the front. Ron shot out in front of us and at what felt like a pace I had no chance of keeping up. I even turned to Heidi and said, “I can’t keep this pace up for 5 miles”. Ron did slow a bit after the first half mile or so and I managed to catch up to him just as we passed mile 1. At that point we had done a 6:50 and Heidi was just behind us. We continued to do the next two miles at 6:55 and 6:57. As we started to head back on mile 4 I was feeling good and picked up the pace a little bit 6:53 and 6:45 for the last one. My official time was 34:37 and my Garmin had the course a little long at 5.07 miles.

I didn’t have any issues with my IT Band, so I think I can say that it has healed up. Although I will keep up the Foam roller and stretching exercises just to be on the safe side. It’s been 8 years since I have gone under 7s in a 5 miler. Felt good and I if the weather is nice I hope to break 7s again at the Frosty Four on the same course.

Categories
Running

IT Band healing

Well, I went out for a run yesterday and for the second time I have had no pain while running. I haven’t been running as much, just 5 miles a week, but I have been on the bike 4 times a week. I have also been doing a lot of stretching and using the Foam Roller.

Yesterday I did the same 5 mile loop that I had done the previous Wednesday and was about 1 minute faster overall. For the last 3 miles I was able to hold right around 7 minute mile pace. I think I will go another week and see how it is and then add another day of running.

Categories
Cycling Running Swimming Triathlon

Damn that Java Updater!!!!

Time for the weekly update. This morning was NOT a good morning. Well, it was an good morning for the workout, but I’m pissed because I lost all my data from the CompuTrainer workout. I was using the Coaching Software this morning, the software that was written in the 80s or maybe earlier! Anyway, I was 80 minutes into the workout and the Java updater popped up. Of course the Coaching Software can’t handle that and crashed. The entire ride was lost. You would think that they data would be saved out to the drive so in the event of a crash you could at least have the data that was recorded so far. Nope, not with CompuTrainer software.

Racermate, Inc, the company that developed the CompuTrainer and the software has been promising new software for over a year now. Last year at this time, it was “New Software coming Fall 2010”, well, here we are a year later. Still no software! They suck, to put it kindly.

As for the past week of workouts, I hit the pool for the first time this fall at the ANA Y. Had some really good workouts and could really feel the lack of swimming, or structured swimming anyway.

On Wednesday I did get on the treadmill before the swim for a few miles. It felt pretty good to be able to run 2 miles with absolutely no pain at all from the IT Band. I was kind of expecting to feel something after the first mile, but nothing and just kept on going up to 2 miles before heading to the pool. Hoping to go further this week.

On the cycling side I started up the CompuTrainer PIG program again. While I was hoping to use the new Racermate One software, I guess that isn’t going to happen. This year I do a 10 minute warm up and calibrate before I even start my workouts to make sure the power is accurate. The workouts have been good so far, and I felt like I was working pretty hard this morning before the crash. Wish I had the data to be able to compare to last week!!!!!!

Categories
Cycling Running Swimming Triathlon

No Power

No, I’m not talking about the Powermeter on my bike or the CompuTrainer. This weekend the Northeast was hit by a Nor’easter. This storm took down a lot of trees and power along with them. The heavy wet snow combined with the trees still having leaves on them had the trees snapping and falling all over the place. That left me spending most of my Sunday getting the generator running and no riding on the trainer. We are now heading towards 48 hours without power.

I did manage to get in a few swims this past week at the pool and I felt pretty good on my run Wednesday morning. Hardly felt the IT Band at all. Still looking for the new CompuTrainer software but haven’t heard a word from the company.  Looks like another long winter of battling the old software. I did ride it a few times this past week before we lost power.

This coming week I will be heading back to the pool at the ANA Ymca. Actually, I was there this morning. Tough workout, and I need to get back in swimming shape. All of these short swims at the pond has not helped my swimming. Hopefully the power comes back on for the CompuTrainer, or I will be running the generator early to get my time in on it.

Categories
Cycling Running Swimming

58 degrees and going down…

Time for the weekly training update. I’ve managed to get out and run a couple of times this week. Not very far, just the 5K loop around the Danvers Y. The good news is the IT Band is not killing me so I can run pretty good. The bad news is that I can still feel it a little bit. I know that it is there and not quite ready to push the mileage yet.

This week was also the first week of the CompuTrainer. Yup, back at it and guess what!? Still no Racermate One software. Not a big surprise really, reading the forum you can tell they have absolutely no idea how to design/develop/distribute software. It’s a good thing they don’t have competition on the hardware side or they would be out of business all together. To start out this week I did a couple of the 3D videos. Soon though I will get setup with the performance improvement program that they have and start using the coaching software as well. It feels good to be riding more than once a week again.

Only made it to the pond once this week. This morning and it was 58 degrees, but I think it is colder. I can’t remember feeling that cold doing a full 1.25 mile crossing in a wetsuit. It’s almost time to head back to the ANA Y pool. I did hit the Danvers Y pool this week for a short swim after a run and some lifting.

Speaking of lifting, my legs are feeling stronger since I started lifting again. I’ve been focusing mainly on my legs to try and build some strength back up. Also thinking about doing some P90x, have never tried it but I hear a lot of good things, so I might give it a go.

Categories
Swimming

Textile free swim

Headed down to the pond this morning for what was probably my last open water swim of the season. Water temp was still 64, but Glacier George needs to get a new thermometer before I will believe that reading, and air temp was 47.

Since it was probably my last day and I knew the rest of the guys were not going to do a full crossing I didn’t bother bring the wetsuit. We did the October “L” as it is known by the pond Scummers. Out to Rohr’s dock over to the Haunted house, back to Rhor’s dock and in to the beach. I felt fine until we got out of the water, that’s when you realize just how cold you are because you shiver so much it’s hard getting your clothes back on. Just another crazy morning at the pond!!

I guess it’s possible we could be back, but there is rain in the forcast….

Categories
Cycling Swimming

Great weather for mid October

Sunday turned out to be a beauty of a day. Started out a little chilly on the bike in the morning, but by 8:30 it was noticeably warmer. The group took our usually ride up to Newburyport and this time we came back 1A. I don’t think I have done that ride in over a year and it was a nice change of scenery. Leaf peeping isn’t quite at it’s peak here yet, but it was still a great day for a ride. I managed to get 50 miles in and felt pretty good considering I haven’t been on the bike since the Century ride a few weeks back.

Ride Data

This morning a group of us headed down to the pond for the official “Closing Day”, although we will probably keep going since the water isn’t that cold yet and the weather is holding up. Mike K. and I did a double, water temp was 64 degrees. We think that Glacier George’s thermometer is broken as it has been reading 64 degrees for a week now!! Hopefully we will be back again on Wednesday for at least a full crossing.

 

Categories
Swimming

Another beauty of a morning at the pond

I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to show up this morning. We had over 3 inches of rain yesterday and the water temp was going to be colder. I packed a gym bag just in case so I could head to the Y. George finally showed up and it turned out to be a pretty good morning. I’m amazed that he did a full crossing without a wetsuit. Water temp was 66 degrees, but I have to say it felt colder.

Categories
Swimming

Refreshing swim at the pond

I hadn’t been down to the pond in almost a week, so when George sent out an email to see who was in for this morning it sounded good to me. He had also mentioned that the water temp was 70 yesterday. That’s pretty warm, so I decided it was a no wetsuit morning. The water might be warm but the air is still chilly and it make quite a difference. This morning the official temp was 71. We didn’t chat long on the other side because it just gets too cold standing around. The water was like glass this morning, some of the leaves are starting to change and quite a few of the leaves were on the pond. Perfect fall morning for a swim.