Zozi and Bear Team Up! Go Get Your Bear On!

Get points, get gear and a ridiculous low rate. This is similar to the Marlboro promotion in the late 80's.
Here is my link: http://zozi.me/1bIFEmZ

Swim Training vrs. Run Or Bike!

Now I have always taken off the months between October and January, even slowed down on the running and biking. I would start my training in January, with running and a lot of indoor biking. The biking is where one can make up a lot of ground, running is where the race is won. So swimming, what should one do... Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. I am not sure, from this article I am one of the 10% been swimming since birth, the past couple years I have dramatically reduced the time I have spent in the water.
TriFuel sums it up..

Swimming holds a unique space in triathlon. It’s the shortest of all three distances on race day, yet it often holds the highest level of stress. From our perspective as coaches, swimming is also the most costly training activity you can engage in. For these reasons, we strongly recommend that you implement a swimming ban in the winter and focus your swim training within the final 20-26 weeks leading up to your “A” race.
More @ TriFuel

Calf Problems, Might Not Be The Shoes!

Runners World has a great article on calf muscles cramping up and the causes.

Cramping in the calves has several causes, but the true cause is not fully understood. Your history will likely give the most clues. True muscle cramps involve intense muscle contraction and the muscle needs to be lengthened to resolve the spasm. This differs a bit from calf pain from causes other than cramping that results in muscle spasm.

Exercise-related cramps are likely caused by muscle fatigue and may involve the Golgi tendon bodies, which normally fire to inhibit the muscle from contracting too hard. If the Golgi body fatigues, the nerve input to the muscle is overstimulated and the muscle cramps. This is an oversimplified explanation of a rather complex interaction proposed in the late 90s by Martin Schwellnus from South Africa. This may also be the cause of a “Charlie horse” type of cramp that strikes in the night or when sitting with the calf in a shortened position after an exercise bout. (I used to get them on the bus ride home from away track meets.) 

More..

14 Workout Mistakes!

The 14 Biggest Weight-Training Mistakes

The science around strength training has changed in the last decade. You’re older, stronger, and hopefully, smarter now. Don’t make the same mistakes you made in your high school weight room.

By: GORDY MEGROZ

The bad news? There are a lot of exercises you grew up doing that are dead wrong for building power. If you want to get stronger faster, you’ll need to embrace the new science. The good news? The fixes for those old mistakes are fairly simple. We enrolled two of the country’s leading fitness experts, Rob Shaul of Mountain Athlete in Jackson Hole and Ben Bergeron of CrossFit New England, to get you back on track. 

Complete article at outside magazine!

Buyers Guide for Cyclocross

From RCUK

We’re in the midst of the cyclo-cross season: knobbly tyres, mud, cow bells, beer and frites take over from September to February.

Cyclo-cross racing is, in our opinion at least, one of the most accessible forms of competitive cycle sport, with a packed calendar of mass start, first-across-the-line-wins local league races up and down the country. MORE>>>

Ultra's, So Your Thinking Of Going Big!

Gear Patrol, really gets it right! From ramping up, to training, nutrition, etc...

An estimated 60,000 people finished an ultra in the U.S. in 2012, up from about 10,000 in 1990. That number is still small compared to the 487,000 people who completed a marathon in the U.S. in 2012, but it’s still an awful lot of people running exceptional distances. The sport has been bolstered by author-athletes like Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner), Scott Jurek (Eat and Run) and Christopher McDougall (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen). Pros are pulling down sponsorships from serious outdoor companies like New Balance and Salomon; The North Face sponsors a series of high-profile ultra runs with growing purses and a competitive pool; mainstream media are starting to cover races. There’s a growing interest in the exceptional.

And now you’re thinking about toeing the line for an ultra. Good for you. We’ve got a handy guide to help you through, complete with advice from a few pros at the top of the sport. Here’s a preview: it’s going to be hard work, but well worth the trouble.

Finish the article, here...

HeadStrong Posture Trainer, Simple & Perfect!

So many different techniques to get the body in alignment while swimming, do this drill, try this method, etc.. 

Headstrong™ was invented to help athletes achieve their maximum potential while swimming. It gives insight to proper head position and aids in the correction of total body posture. Headstrong™ is a training tool like fins, paddles, or buoys... designed to aid in the development of your skill level.
With its patent pending technology, Headstrong™ delivers continuous "real-time" feedback while you train. With this innovative training device, you now have the unique ability to easily correct your head position leading to a more efficient stroke. Headstrong™ is made of HDPE which is chlorine resistant and UV resistant. Headstrong™ works for all types of swimming techniques - Freestyle, Breast or Butterfly stroke. Swimmers can also wear the device to provide a focal point... which is especially helpful for doing the backstroke. It was developed for male and female triathletes and swimmers training at any skill level. It's design uses "range-of-motion" to alert athletes of their head position and is completely undetectable to the swimmer until head position exceeds the recommended posture range. Headstrong™ took years of conceptual thinking, research, development and testing to perfect. Headstrong™ is a "one-of-a-kind" tool designed for swimmers, by swimmers. We are excited to be able to offer you the latest in swim training. Our goal is to help athletes become better athletes. Start getting the results you are searching for.
HeadStrong posture Trainer

CrossFit, Ironman Meets the California Bear!

Crossfit is many things to many different people, the one thing that stands out story after story is the ones about broken athletes. Yes they know how to train, which helps them not get injured, but doing CrossFit to re-build themselves is amazing, going from unable to move or compete to a functional and competitive athlete again!

In 1985, Chris Hinshaw finished the Ironman in second place, and at the peak of his career, he was one of the best triathletes in the world. But years of endurance training left him brittle and barely functional.

Today, at 50 years old, Hinshaw runs a 4:58 mile.

“The only thing that I’m doing differently is adding CrossFit. That’s it,” he says. “I’m not only functional, I can do things that I could never have imagined myself doing even back when I was a triathlete, back when I was one of the best in the world at it.”

Hinshaw trains at NorCal CrossFit, home of Jason Khalipa, who placed second at this year’s CrossFit Games. Khalipa credits Hinshaw with helping him get to the podium.

“He’s just like the Rich Froning of running to me,” Khalipa says of Hinshaw.

For his part, Hinshaw has equally complimentary words for the 2008 Games champion.

“Look at him,” he says as Khalipa begins a track workout. “This is his fifth mile. Fifth mile. Jason Khalipa, 220-lb. man, sub-six-minute pace.”

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Bike Frame Build, Price $-$$$$

from Gear Patrol

For a long time options for buying a bike were limited to what was at the local shop, which was a roll of the dice in terms of selection and service. In many ways, the manufacturer-distributor business model is antiquated and direct-to-consumer sales are the way forward. With e-commerce consumers have limitless information available at a mouse click. What does this mean for the bike buyer? You have options.

Purchasing a bike online used to be nigh impossible, but sites like Competitive Cyclist and Wrench Science are making it easy and worthwhile to get a high-quality ride off the web. However, if you’re in the market for a performance bike, it’s still expensive. Luckily e-commerce has also allowed for inclined customers to buy individual components. The wonders of a global marketplace also mean that in some instances you can buy components online from reputable European shops for less than your local bike shop can get them wholesale.

This availability opens the door for a bike purchasing option that didn’t really exist until the last 10 years: riders can now build their bike piecemeal, purchasing each individual component either new from online retailers or used from auction sites and classifieds. The result is a bike that can be built entirely outside of the bike shop system and that can be tailor-made to fit your specific wants and needs. That’s a recipe for high quality at low cost — so long as you know what you’re looking for.

With the experience of working in a bike shop under my belt and a good idea of what type of bike I wanted, I decided to try the “internet bike build” myself. With a budget of $2,000 I set out to best some of the similarly priced complete bikes for sale at the local shop.

Steps...

Sub 2 Hour Marathon!

Is the sub-2 hour marathon imminent?  Don't hold your breath!
From Science of Sport!

Yesterday Wilson Kipsang took 15 seconds off the marathon world record, running 2:03:23.  It triggered, as it always does, talk of how close they are to breaking the two-hour barrier.  But that's very, very premature.  For reasons of physiology, performance evolution, and the inter-connectedness of performances from 10km to the marathon, we are a long, long way from going under two hours. 

It's not the same as for you or I, who find ourselves a few minutes outside a barrier, and know that six months of hard training and a good day will break it.  This is a world where the margins are tiny - that's why we can look at the pacing strategy and the splits and comment that perhaps it was a little too fast in sections, when in reality, "too fast" means 1 second per kilometer, accumulated over 20 minutes!  The precision of the physiology to run a 2:03 is extra-ordinary.

So consider for instance the progression.  In the modern era, catalyzed by da Costa's breaking of Dinsamo's 1988 record, the improvements in the record are as follows:
23 seconds, 4 seconds, 43 seconds, 29 seconds, 27 seconds, 21 seconds, 15 seconds.

This record is not going to be "smashed" by anyone.  Anything greater than 20 seconds is a big improvement. 
More...

Running Injury Free, Success, Secrets, Be Patient!

From Jason Fitzgerald is a 2:39 marathoner and USATF-certified running coach at Strength Running. Get his latest coaching advice and free injury prevention course here.

It isn't hard to get started running, but once you get into the swing of things, it's easy to injure yourself or ignore little things that make you a lot better. Running coach Jason Fitzgerald shares some of his secrets.

Hindsight is 20/20. As I look back on nearly 13 years of competitive racing, I want to change a lot of my past training. I made a lot of mistakes—small decisions that resulted in an injury, a poor race, or missing half a year of running.P

Many of my injuries can be attributed to impatience and a feeling of invincibility. I refused to reduce a training run by a few miles and I skipped the strength exercises. My carelessness showed with my constant battle with injuries. Achilles tendonitis, lower back pain, ITBS, shin splints, quadriceps strains – I had it all (with the exception of a knee injury, knock on wood!).P

No longer. These days, I’m fanatical about the little things and it’s paying off: I haven’t had a major injury since 2009! As I’m writing this, it’s been over two months since my last day off. I’m on track to run over 3,700 miles in 2011. That’s over 20% more than 2010.P

I want you to learn from my mistakes so you can be the best runner possible. “Do as I say, not as I do” seems appropriate for this post. Without further ado, below are the 7 things I wish I knew when I started running.P

Success in Distance Running Takes TimeP

A lot of time. Greg McMillan tells his elite runners that it takes 2-3 years to start seeing their potential. This amount of time is on top of their high school and college running years—so it’s really about 10 years. Distance running success is about consistency and a gradual, yet progressive, pattern of training.P

One of my previous problems is that I jumped from 40 miles per week to 70 in three months. I got hurt. After six months at 60 miles per week, I tried to jump to 90 miles per week. I got hurt. I disregarded the basics of gradual training. Be patient and recognize that modest increases in mileage done over a long period of time will have you running fast over the long-term. There are no shortcuts.P

Runners Don’t Just RunP

I used to think I only needed running to be fast. I thought I just needed a strong heart and powerful lungs. I never did core exercises, rarely did drills, and avoided the weight room entirely. That was a huge mistake.P

Being athletically well-rounded and coordinated helps you prevent injuries and run more efficiently, which corresponds to long-term consistent training. I’ve talked a lot about this recently, so I won’t beat a dead horse. Check back on some recent posts if you missed them:P

• Developing Running Coordination and AthleticismP
• Inefficient Movement PatternsP
• Creating More Holistic Training

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Brand New Tri Bikes @ $3000, Sweet!

The price is coming down and to get a sweet Carbon bike for 3k is amazing. Well that is the news at Interbike.

Three thousand dollars is a sweet spot for triathlon bikes. There are plenty of excellent bikes for less money and a few better ones at higher price points, but $3,000 is the figure that often includes all of the most important features and few of the superfluous ones, making many bikes at this price a good value. These are the tri bikes on display at Interbike at this important price point. Many tri bikes, however, are not on display at the show and as a result this is not a definitive list. Triathlete

Leather, Simple, Technology Holder, Hard Graft

These are beautiful, simple, well thought out, leather and yes expensive. Really $109, cashing in on the iPhone revolution. Price withstanding these wallets are perfect and since Apple stopped shipping the holder with phones a while back well I guess you get two for one.

Hard Graft

Put your iPhone in the case, pull the rope to close and wrap it round to fix. But that's not all, this iPhone case also transforms into the perfect stand so you can use your iPhone as a bedside alarm clock, music or movie player. The marl grey rope closure does all the clever work. We put a lot of thought and design into this closure and we think it is pretty ingenuious (* saying whilst proudly patting our backs). Maybe this could be the perfect start to your hard graft addiction and in case you are already hooked: No need for words, just look at the photos...

Measures 7cm x 14cm. Fits iPhone 5, iPhone 5s & iPhone 5c.

Trail Running

From Gear Patrol

As running continues to grow in popularity both in the US and worldwide, so too do the variations on it. Marathons, ultra marathons, team relays, obstacle course races, and costumed 5ks are just a few examples. There truly is a run for anyone. One of the simplest and probably the oldest variations is heading into the woods for some trail running. Ever since human beings started walking around on two feet, we’ve been trail running, well before cobblestones and asphalt made permanent paths for us to follow. Getting out into nature and doing something we were arguably born to do can be a welcome respite from the modern world and a chance to connect with nature in a very primal way.
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Top Tips on How to Become a Natural Swimmer

TriFuel.com 

The most important skill a swimmer can develop is body awareness in the water. Swimming is not natural for humans. When we dive into a pool we lose all sense of coordination and balance. Moreover, we are asked “not to breath,” which goes against everything we have done since we came out of the womb. Consequently, swimming, except for a rare few of us, is not second nature and feels unnatural. The key to swimming well therefore is to make it natural, but how? Over the next three weeks I am going to be giving you my top tips on how to become a natural swimmer.

The first thing a swimmer can do to make the water feel natural is simple: just get in the water. The more time you spend in the water the more your body will adjust to it and, more importantly, the more you become aware of your body and what its doing in the water. Proprioceptive awareness or “body awareness” is critical. You have to know where your hand enters; it crossing over or too deep a catch? What about your lower body? Is it fish tailing as you twist your hips? Are your toes kissing each other or do you scissor kick each stroke? All these questions are important to ask and know as you swim. When you can not only answer them but also feel the answers then swimming is becoming more natural.