Day 161 – Some Visual Aid

There’s a quote we used a few months ago that says: Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, engage me and I will learn”. This is a Chinese proverb that pretty much says a lot about the learning curve. If you really want to learn then you need to really practice what you are learning, or else, eventually you will forget. Today’s video is the second part of this proverb: Show me and I may remember… The idea is to start practicing this as soon as possible, but for now, some visual aid is what will help us remember. If you go to the Livestrong Youtube channel, you are going to find this video and also the one to learn How to Unclip From Pedals. Of course this channel is full of biking advice (which is great!), but there are also 2.661 other videos about, nutrition, swimming, strength exercises and many many other categories that we recommend you to check when you have some (or a lot) extra time. We are showing the skill for everyone to remember, and now we invite everyone to go out and engage yourselves on the practice! Good luck!

Day 160 – Biking advice anyone?

As it is well known at least by the ones that have been reading our blog for the past 160 days, or those that have read the Calli&Jose Tab above, biking is not our strength. Every time that I find some advice about it I go through it very carefully, to make sure that I’m getting all the possible good information from it. I have no idea of how many biking articles I have read, I think I lost count after the 50th. The article that I found this week is about How to Get Comfortable With Clipless Pedals. This article is only an excerpt from a book named “The No-Drop Zone” by Patrick Brady of which the cover is shown in the picture today. If I judge the book by this excerpt, I would probably say that this is a great and useful book. This one goes to my wish list and I hope to have it soon in my hands. I will comment about this one too. Reading about triathlon never makes me tired, especially when I know that I’m learning, because then the price I’m paying becomes nothing when compared to the knowledge I’m getting.

Day 154 – Rev3Tri Conchal

Today was an outstanding day! It doesn’t matter how motivated we were before this event… it was nothing compared with how motivated and excited we are feeling right now. The Rev3Tri staff is just amazing. We had the pleasure to meet most of the people related with the event and each one of them made us feel like family. I can’t wait to compete at Cedar Point and see all these faces along the course and at the finish line. We are going to upload all the pictures we took at Let’s TRI on Facebook so that you can see a little bit all the experience we had. Unfortunately for Costa Rica, Leonardo Chacon had a hard time on the bike and he finished 6^th still with an amazing time though.

We had the chance also to talk to Bree Wee, second place on the Women Pro Race and the first PRO that hit Like on our Facebook page (Thanks one more time Bree!!). Also Calli took a picture of me and Jesse Thomas, third place on the Men Pro Race, a really talented guy who also is co-founder of the Picky Bars, which we hope to try someday.

After we were done volunteering, we went to try our new wet suits in the open water. After this moment, I feel completely ready to race! I can now finish the whole sprint and even an Olympic distance using it. Of course I won’t be as fast, but these suits basically make you float, so my dragging problem vanished completely. Of course I’m training hard to reduce my time, but at least I can rest assured that I will save energy and also I won’t drown in the ocean. What we need to do now is practice a little bit with the suits at the pool and also go to the ocean more often.

Overall: one of the best days for us on our journey to the Triathlon. I’m sure we could do this for a living very gladly. Special thanks to Chris, Krista and LJ for all the help and for making us feel part of the team for a day! You guys are the best!

Day 152 – Dealing with the Inevitable

For today I found this great video at Active.com on how to fix a flat tire. I guess most of the time we are thinking that the worst that can happen is is actually a very “friendly” scenario. But as you can see, flat tires are more than common and they can take you by surprise even more than once during a single race. I can’t think of that happening to us during a sprint triathlon. If we need to bike for 20 km, hopefully in around 30 minutes or so, a flat tire can make us loose at least 5 more minutes that are simply too much during a race this short. Instead of starting to reject the possibility of a flat tire, we need to make sure that we can be efficient during the process.  Don’t forget to bring an extra tube (or two), patches and everything that you might need during an emergency. This can save you many valuable minutes.
Happy weekend to everyone!

“A winning effort begins with preparation.” – Jose Gibbs

Day 146 – The Bike Proof Core

 This is not the first time we insist on this topic but when we find valuable information like this one we NEED to share it. Who knows how many people actually read this. We like to think that we have at least a hundred followers. One hundred triathlon enthusiasts. But even if we only have 10 or 2, we write all this for everyone to enjoy, to learn and hopefully to get a lot of comments one day.  

Anyways, there are 8 Core Exercises for Cyclists that we find very useful to perform. The benefits of a strong core on triathlon are priceless and I can tell you this by experience.  Keep this article close and even more important, take 20 minutes of your day to perform each exercise. I can guarantee that once your core is stronger, you will be wishing to have read this before. Thanks for following us and we hope you share this blog too with your friends!