My Favourite Pieces of Bike and Running Gear

Now that race season is just around the corner I thought it would be prudent to write a blog post on some great pieces of equipment for multisport athletes. Triathlon is a relatively new sport and as such its very cutting edge and there are a lot of things to spend your money on, some are great investments and some are just a waste of money. I'd have to say the triathlete side of me is the gear junkie that uses carbon fiber, aero equipment, and a power meter to derive speed, whereas the roadie side of me is the side that just tells me to HTFU up the hill. What you should do is try and find a balance between the two.

So in ascending order of price, here are a few things that you should consider picking up new or used once you decide you want to commit to the sport (I'm not going to say things like goggles, helmet, or shoes, you know that already).

The little things that count

Body Glide- If I had to choose between rolling deoderant on or Body Glide on before a race I'd choose Body Glide 100% of the time. Deoderant makes everyone else more comfortable, Body Glide makes me more comfortable. You basically apply it to every conceivable point of friction on your body, in your shoes, back of your neck (where wetsuit zipper meets skin), and of course between/under your legs for the bike ride. Its also great to apply on top your wetsuit so when you pull it off, it slides a lot easier (Shirl came up with that one!). You can find this at any tri or run shop, and it comes in a roller format similar to deoderant.

Easy laces/lock laces/bungee laces- These can be life savers in the frantic chaos of transition between the bike and run. Rather having to tie your laces or do the classic "finger under heel stomp down because I'm too lazy to untie my shoes" move, elastic laces allow you to pull up the tongue of your shoe, slide your foot in, tug the lace, and be on your way. In the time it took you to read that sentence you'd literally have both your shoes on and be ready to go. Any tri shop will have these.

Number or Nutrition belt- A number belt is simply that, a belt with a clip that you put your number on. Its a beautifully simple piece of equipment that identifies the rookies from the veterans and keeps you from sticking safety pins into the same article of clothing you'll have rubbing against your body for a couple hours. A number belt also prevents you from having to listen to that piece of paper crinkling every time you move. Add some bottles on to the concept of a number belt and you have a nutrition belt which is an invaluable tool for gels/liquids/ipod on long training runs where you don't have the luxury of a supported course.

Okay, so how do I spend my tax return?

Garmin 305/310xt-This is my desert island piece of equipment that I hate to go without. the Garmin 305 is an obtuse looking wrist watch that you can pick the Garmin 305 up at MEC for $160. The beauty of it is that it is a GPS watch that can tell you your heart rate, speed, distance, time, cadence on the bike, etc etc. With the 305 you can basically forego the need for a bike computer since this does all that anyways. If you have a little more money to burn you can pick up the 310xt which you can wear swimming, and which will read the power data off an ANT+ power meter (more on that later). Both of them have multisport modes that allow you to swtich seamlessly from one sport to another in triathlon races.

Tri Suit- This is a great piece of clothing that can save a lot of time and hassle in transition. If you watch any of the ITU races you'll see that the athletes simply swim, bike, and run wearing the same article of clothing. Tri suits/shorts always have some degree of padding "down there" to make sure you're somewhat comfortable, however not so much padding that it feels like you're doing a 10k in a pair of huggies. In any race above 15C I can almost definitevely say that this is all you need to wear (except maybe a wetsuit depending on where you live).

Sunglasses- These are not luxuries, they are must necessities. It doesn't matter if you pick up a $20 set of Ryders or a $220 set of Oakleys, sunglasses are necessities on the bike for several reasons. First and foremost, if you crash the composite materials glasses are made of won't shatter in your eyes. I know that sounds dramatic but two years ago I endo'd pretty bad on a descent and ground my face into the pavement, my Oakleys were badly damaged, but my eyes weren't. Secondly, if you've ever got a bug in the eye at 30km/hr you'll know how scary that urgent need to get it out can be. Thirdly cycling glasses may reduce the glare of sun blindness which can cause you to lose sight of other riders and the course.

I'm not planning to save for retirement anyways, what do I buy?

CycleOps Powertap- Full disclosure, as you can see on the right hand side of my page, I'm sponsored by CycleOps. I recommend CycleOps powermeters because they're cheap and since they're hub mounted, you can switch them between bikes. As I talked about in one of my earlier blog posts, cycling with power will completely change how you ride. I'm not going to say much more about it but I'll tell you, if I had to choose between riding with an HR monitor and a power meter, power meter and I'd never look back.

New Bike- The formula for the number of bikes a cyclist should have is "s = n + 1" where "s" is the number of bikes the rider should have, and "n" is the number of bikes the rider already has. This can also be stated as "S = sn - 1" where "s" is the number of bikes they should have, and "sn" is the numerical constant at which the rider will be single if they buy another bike. If you only have a mountain bike, you should buy a road bike, if have a road bike and a mountain bike, you should get a tri bike, if you only have a tri bike maybe pick up a mountain bike... You get the picture.

So thats all for now, my next blog post will be a quick race report on the Police Half which I'll be running this Sunday. And my next post after that will either be on choosing the right bike for you, or choosing a good coach or training group. It depends on what strikes me first.

Anyways, stay warm everyone and I'm wishing especially good luck to anyone racing Boston, London, or the Calgary Police Half this weekend!

Cheers,

Raf

Yoga and Training

The benefits of yoga for athletes are well documented all over the internet and if you do a quick Google search you'll find tonnes of information about how yoga relieves pain, and improves core strength, flexibility, balance, and spatial awareness. I won't get into those benefits any more than that but I will share with you a little revelation I arrived at yesterday that hopefully will convince anyone on the fence about taking up yoga, that its a valuable way to spend you time. What I am going to talk about are the mental benefits that yoga can provide not only triathletes, but anyone leading a busy life.

Yesterday I had a track session of 5x1000's early in the day. For anyone who's done track workouts, you know its a hurt like few others. Track workouts are fast, turbulent, physically demanding, and can be incredibly challenging mentally even if for a few seconds or minutes at a time. Then in the evening I had a swim workout, which was one of my best swims I've had in a long time because it was the complete opposite of the track work. It was an incredible contrast. That swim was a calm, focused, graceful, and balanced, but it still provided me with a challenge. It struck me how much it was like doing yoga.

Preparing for a triathlon, even more so for an Ironman, is an incredibly demanding endeavor. The numbers range, but training can easily add anywhere from 5-15 hours of commitment to an age grouper's already busy schedule of work, family, and friends. The tendency when you try to juggle all your commitments is to allow one thing to creep into another. So when you're training you start to think about work, and when you're at work you're thinking about making dinner for the family, and when you're with your family you're thinking about the training you might have missed earlier in the week, and so on.

What yoga provides is a sense of mental focus that is difficult to find elsewhere. I find that one of yoga's greatest benefits is simply from the feel you get when you walk into class, the feel of the outside world being left behind at the door, a sensation some of us are challenged to duplicate in other circumstances. Just as track sessions should be used to improve top end speed even for long distance runners, yoga should be used to improve mental focus for endurance athletes. Its a fact that many athletes who practice yoga regularly are able to stay focused and relaxed even during high-intensity games or races.

In endurance events like Ironman, your coach will tell you straight up that when you get out of the water and get on the bike, if it feels like you're racing, then you're going too fast. I've had coaches tell me about how in the frantic chaos of transition they've had they're athletes leave transition with their helmets on backwards, I've seen people fall off their bike when they're barely on it, and I've had far too many fellow racers push too hard on the bike only to blow up on the run be it in a sprint triathlon or an Ironman. In each of those examples what is chronically absent is the focus and calm that should prevail on a day where you need to be in absolute control of your mind and body. I used to climb quite a bit and one thing I always said to newcomers was that "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast". There is nothing fast about a lack of focus.

My favorite part of yoga class is almost always the Savasana, where you lie down for 10-15 minutes at the end of class while your brain calms, your body relaxes, tissues and organs repair themselves, and you release any mental tension you may have built up. I find that calmness feel great and it usually sticks with me into my next few training sessions until my next yoga tune-up.

Here's a great example of how yoga helped athletes in another sport focus and keep cool when it came down to gut check time. During the Chicago Bulls' 1997-1998 preseason training camp, the basketball players had scheduled yoga workouts every day after regular practice. Their yoga instructor's goal was to not only improve their physical capabilities, but also achieve a more relaxed mental state. According to the Yoga Journal website, the instructor's hard work seemed to pay off. After losing the first game of the championship series that year, Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls seemed relatively unconcerned. When asked about his calm demeanor, he responded, "I just decided to use a little bit of Zen Buddhism and relax; instead of being frustrated, I just smiled, channeled my thoughts and let the game flow." (reference, Livestrong- The Best Yoga for Athletes).

Thanks for reading I hope you found this post valuable and please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Namaste.

Branding, Sports, and Sponsorship, Part IV: Bringing it all Together

I was perusing the Slowtwitch forums the other day and someone asked what they should do to increase their exposure and hopefully attract some sponsors. I posted a link to my blog and it seems a lot of people read what I had to say.

Tom Demerly of TriSports, a major online triathlon retailer, had a few succinct words on how to get sponsorship that I'll share unedited here.

"When an athlete approaches our sponsorship coordinator with a proposal that includes things like, "I got 100,000 exposures by getting a feature article about me printed in the lifestyle section of the local newspaper, I coach 15 athletes, teach spinning at the local health club and have an active blog with frequent, regular readers." we want to hear more about an athlete like that. They are a candidate.

Bottom line: We're hiring you to advertise. Why should we hire you?

It isn't about victories or race results, it's about exposure. Some of our top atheltes aren't Kona winners, but they are at every public appearance event, they are at every clinic, they are on their Facebook page four times a day and on internet forums every day. Then, they come back to us with specific examples of their exposure: "I have 5,000 Facebook friends who see my posts, I tweet from every event. I put on a charity bike event to get bikes for underprivleged kids and got press coverage for it- here it is..."

It isn't about races and results- unless you win Ironman. That is the only race that counts from a sports marketing viewpoint in this sport. Here is an example:

Do a Google search on the woman ranked as the number 1 female tennis player according to Wikipedia, Chris Evert: 544,000 results.
Now, do a Google search on doubles tennis player Anna Kournikova, a 6 time tennis doubles champion: 10,440,000 results. Ten million results compared to a half million. Who would you sponsor?"

For the record, the marketing company of which I am a partner, redlime marketing, provides in kind sponsorship to the TriCommitment Team of Jordan Bryden and Janelle Morrison. But in terms of big money sponsorship, its worthwhile to heed the words of a guy like Tom.

If I had to leave you with one thought from all the four posts in this blog series, it would be, know your audience. If your audience is a large online retailer like TriSports, or a big brand like Newton, 2XU, Cervelo, then your work is cut out for you and Tom's laid it out pretty well there. If your audience is a small local retailer, then think about what they're needs are, who their market is, what they can offer you in terms of product or sponorship, and in return what you can provide them in terms of exposure. If you're realistic about your expectations and are smart about how you market yourself, then you're on the right track.

Anyways, thats all for this series and if there is anything you'd like me to talk about specifically in future posts, feel free to let me know.

Raf

Quick Update

Hey everyone, just wanted to put a quick blog post up to let you all know I haven't totally fallen off of the grid.

I've still got one post to go in the Branding and Social Media series, where I'll briefly summarize the key components of building your own brand as an athlete, and how that can help generate sponsorship, and put you a step ahead of all the other athletes winning races out there.

As a quick update on how training is going, things are going very well. I laid out a PB 10k a couple weeks ago at the St. Patrick's Day race here in Calgary which was awesome, and am looking forward to the Calgary Police Half Marathon in less than three weeks. I was debating doing the SpeedTheory Cycling ACME 40k ITT the day before, but my coach suggested that may not be the wisest idea, and I'm inclined to agree.

Anyways, one other note, I'm actually putting together a Twitter list of all the athletes I can find on Twitter who are racing at Ironman Canada in Penticton this year, and you can follow that here.

Thats all for now, look forward to my next blog post later this week!

Branding, Sponsorship and Sports Part III: How to Use Social Media

Social media has become the great equalizer between brands and fans and followers. It allows celebrities, brands, and public figures to interact at a personal and direct level with interested individuals such as you and me. As I've mentioned in the previous two blog posts in the series, a high level of interaction between an athlete and the online and real world community plays a large role in attracting sponsors and keeping them happy.

More followers, or friends, or tweeps, means a higher level of exposure for you to promote your brand, and in turn the brands of your sponsors. So how exactly can you use social media to your benefit? The specifics can be a little overwhelming for the social media newcomer, but here's a quick run through with some good examples of social media brands for each.

Facebook offers a few options for how to register your profile, and if you happen to have more than 5000 friends then you actually will need a public figure profile, but if you're like the rest of us chances are that your existing profile will do the trick (FYI, if you're reading my blog I'm just going to assume you have Facebook already, if you don't... well then...).

Most people know how to use Facebook and I suggest you continue doing so keeping in mind that as your fan base grows it will be important to maintain social interactions balanced with the level of privacy that you are comfortable with. Responding to friend requests often means others will be able to view your pictures, your status updates, and interactions you have with others.

The expectation around Facebook is that it is kept fairly current with status updates at least every few days. That being said, communications initiated by other users should be responded to within a day or two. A couple really good examples of interactive Facebook users would be Michael Phelps or Craig Alexander. They obviously have very different fan bases, but both offer up information themselves rather than simply having a Facebook wall where others admire them but they don't actually post anything themselves. Note that Crowie has way more fans that Macca, also note who uses their profile more.

Twitter is a bit trickier for the uninitiated. Its pretty common that some people simply ask, "whats the point?". To put it simply, Twitter is a medium for an ongoing, online conversation between friends and strangers, celebrities and fan, or brand and consumer. In 140 characters or less you can talk about what you did for training today, your thoughts on the latest current events and trending topics, ask a question for the masses, and the list goes on.

This Twitter 101 page actually provides a really good crash course on how to use Twitter, because I know that disseminating hash tags from @ symbols can be a bit tricky at first. With Twitter the trick is to not be intimidated and to get involved in the conversation. It can be a great resource to establish new connections and build your brand since you can converse with people without really "friending" them. If you see a trending topic or search for a particular keyword you have an opinion on, feel free to engage others in a friendly and concise manner.

There are actually quite a few really good Twitter using athletes out there like @LanceArmstrong (or his triathlete alter ego @JuanPelota), or @MirindaCarfrae but I want to give special mention to @MyTrainerBob and @KSwiss. I've found that Bob Harper from The Biggest Loser and K-Swiss actually do a really great job of interacting with their followers on a one on one basis in spite of the popularity of their brands and huge number of specific mentions they receive.

Lastly, with Twitter, frequent interaction is key, if you're not tweeting at least a couple times a day, you may find you may get some unfollows. Additionally, try and keep the topics you tweet about limited to two or three main topics, plus current events. For example, I try and tweet about sports and marketing, plus whatever is trending or current that I have an opinion on. Try and keep the useless personal tweets to about 1/10, people like to see that you're a real person who runs errands and watches movies, but they don't really care that you couldn't find your socks this morning.

Blogging is another component of the social media mix that is worth doing if you have the time. Its more time consuming and harder to fit into your schedule than Twitter and Facebook, but it can be a very rewarding way to document your triathlon journey.

Similar to other social media channels, people often wonder what to talk about in their blogs, even when it comes to training and racing. Simply put, it could be similar to a journal where you talk about how your training is going, how your races went, and how far you've come. Triathlon is a sport of challenge, adversity, and learning, so reading about how others handle everything from tough training sessions, to challenging group rides, to balancing sport with life can be very enlightening.

As with training for the sport of triathlon, consistency is key when it comes to blogging. I know that I break my own rule here a little bit since my blogs seem to skip a week every once in a while, but once every week or two is ideal. As for length, use your own discretion, sometimes you'll have lots to write, sometimes you'll just have a few sentences.

Networked Blogs has a fairly comprehensive list of some of the most followed blogs pertaining to triathlon, check it out for ideas.

Anyways, thats the quick rundown on social media. As I said at the beginning, social media is a great equalizer that can be an excellent channel for brands, consumers, public figures, and the general public to communicate. Its important to take advantage of the reach that it can provide to build your own brand, broaden your base of sponsors, keep your friends and fans updated on progress towards your goals, and of course recognize all the people that help and support you towards those goals.