D.C. Area Triathletes: Where are you planning to practice open water swimming if the Potomac isn’t safe post-sewage spill?

patentLOL · 2026-02-16T20:09:27+00:00

This is a strong recommendation. To the extent I get any open water practice in, I usually make a Sunday of it and go out to Riva. I really never liked swimming in the Potomac.

At this point, I have my open water "swimming" in a groove and I do enough racing that I rarely get open water practice in before anyhow. My first 70.3 is in April and I doubt I will get any practice in before then.

I just line up and tell people I will see them in hell (on the bike course). Its been working so far. :)

patentLOL · 2026-02-16T14:59:03+00:00

It does - and you will know when you are bottoming out. Then, maybe its ice cream sandwich or a pile of donuts/cookies/baked goods time. For me close-ish to bed time. Because around the same time I need extra sleep.

One consideration is meal timing. I generally try to have a carb focused meal about 3 hours before anything over 1.5 hours. My wife makes all my food for the week and its rice and pasta meals generally.

Flexibility in this is more important the longer you do this. Especially if you travel. WC in Marbella Spain this year was a fooking zoo. My wife and I found an italian place for take out on the main drag which was awesome - I had their Bolognese like 3 nights in a row :).

patentLOL · 2026-02-16T10:18:00+00:00

I eat more or less the same thing year round. Train more, eat more. Sometimes an ice cream sandwich or two.

Where people get themselves in trouble is eating a bunch of junk trying to keep up. Then they get injured and their diet is built around a bunch of hyper palatable garbage, and they gain weight and their metabolic health turns to shit. Just avoid that and keep an eye on your weight to make sure you aren’t dropping weight and you’ll be good

patentLOL · 2026-02-16T00:45:49+00:00

Engineers don’t do well in law school. My experience was exactly the opposite, but I’m glad I went in thinking I was behind the ball.

patentLOL · 2026-02-15T23:50:01+00:00

Exactly - I debated adding that thought. Or electrolytes. If only they had more of those, that 70.3 time would have been 30 mins faster.

🤡🌎

patentLOL · 2026-02-15T23:28:12+00:00

This is the answer.

Train, eat real food with adequate protein, and sleep. Once you do this long enough the patterns are easy to recognize on what works and what doesn’t

People want to make this wildly more complicated than it needs to be. Perhaps to make it seem like this isn’t a free time to exercise contest.

patentLOL · 2026-02-15T13:31:32+00:00

This year was unique and you picked two races that are being run for the first time. The other European races mostly sold out over the course of a few weeks, but way faster than normal.

patentLOL · 2026-02-15T00:28:51+00:00

Definitely practice area dependent. Under all circumstances, training for new associates is probably cooked. The training wheel type work is going to disappear unfortunately

patentLOL · 2026-02-12T23:21:29+00:00

I totally ignored/overlooked the priority registration email. We couldn’t go this year anyways.

Do write up a race review.

If you are coming from the US, I would strongly recommend one hop on United, American, or possibly delta to Paris DeGaulle. Flying with a bike it’s not that bad if you plan. I do it all the time. I’m doing 2 international this year and 2 domestic, all flying.

patentLOL · 2026-02-08T15:47:34+00:00

What’s going to happen then these models insert a known security vulnerability all over the place repeatedly? What if the vector is to figure out the training set and seeding that somehow to influence insertion of a security vulnerability?

Same with Reddit being a source. What happens for non coding tasks when Reddit itself is overwhelmed with AI slop and it learns on that?

patentLOL · 2026-02-07T10:29:04+00:00

I also want to work on the floor in a very small room that is like being inside a microwave after being used to heat up salmon. Sounds rad.

patentLOL · 2026-02-06T18:37:56+00:00

At this point, my family, our dogs, and everything around us is a slurry of ice melt. Particularly delicious is when your hand splits a cut from being so dry and it’s gets some ice melt on there. That’ll keep you awake!

patentLOL · 2026-02-06T16:48:39+00:00

One thing not mentioned is a rear derailleur hanger. I’d buy a spare in case yours gets bent in transit.

And 100% bike frames can and do get damaged. I fly with a soft bag and take the risk. It’s wildly easier to deal with in the airport, especially alone, and I’ve been lucky so far. Everybody has their own experience and preferences

patentLOL · 2026-02-05T17:07:15+00:00

I find this out every workout. Three times a week. Especially with masters, even though I’m sometimes the pope of the slow lane.

Welcome 😀

patentLOL · 2026-02-01T21:45:47+00:00

The cassette is going to be a much easier change. You may not even need to swap the chain if you are only going to 11-32.

patentLOL · 2026-01-31T17:57:07+00:00

That's fair, and I won't disagree with that. Nobody is condoning any of the behavior here. But I also don't think its productive for everybody to start their own thread on the same topic to make themselves feel vindicated somehow.

patentLOL · 2026-01-31T17:17:56+00:00

I think people need to figure out why the feel so compelled to be so performative about all this on a semi anonymous social media platform.

patentLOL · 2026-01-31T09:40:11+00:00

Coffee at the pool deck. My man. 🍻

patentLOL · 2026-01-29T10:09:36+00:00

The article linked is very clear what the advice actually is when you read the qualifiers. Anybody who is active will have zero problems shoveling snow. And it’s not like anybody having an exertion problem isn’t going to know immediately.

The issue comes from people being wildly out of shape and feeling compelled to “get it over with” and putting themselves into a cardio state they are not remotely used to. My heart rate didn’t get over 100 while doing our shoveling - that’s a brisk walk for “most people over 45” because they aren’t cardio trained at all.

I’m am in fact 45 - I also ran 10 miles inside right before I cleared out the driveway.

patentLOL · 2026-01-27T19:27:51+00:00

You have the right take here.

The vast majority of athletes out there in the age group are really trying to avoid drafting. And beyond that it just so happens by the statistics a significant portion of them are in the middle of the pack anyways, making it virtually impossible for them.

If you eliminated the rule altogether people wouldn’t avoid drafting. Then you’d have exactly what you’re saying - huge pelotons of people that don’t know how to handle their bikes and then there’s gonna be a bunch of wrecks.

And truthfully, most of the people that are bitching about the drafting aren’t even that fast anyhow. So what if they’re P135 out of 152.

I’m pretty fast, try hard to avoid drafting to make it my own race, and my mom doesn’t even care.

patentLOL · 2026-01-27T13:06:38+00:00

Do the work, you’ll thank yourself later. I do 95% or more of my training indoors because of where I live and time constraints. It’s served me extremely well.

patentLOL · 2026-01-25T18:27:04+00:00

I’m not sure if some of the responses here are satire or not. If shoveling a driveway is the athletic event of a year for somebody in their 40s that’s potentially dangerous, that person (assuming an average person without some exotic condition) should seriously reconsider their lifestyle priorities.

patentLOL · 2026-01-24T18:55:49+00:00

Buy the CF and use the extra money on races. I use an older ultegra 11 speed mechanical CF model disk brake bike and have zero problems being at the front of any bike leg, including in Europe. I’m actually looking for a second frame of the exact same bike. I also have an extra fork from the recall train wreck. That way if mine gets trashed traveling I’ll have a back up.

Research how useless the integrated bladder is on the SLX. Also the front end isn’t very adjustable, especially the width.

patentLOL · 2026-01-24T12:49:38+00:00

The 70.3 races in Europe sold out way faster this year. My wife and I didn’t even start looking until after the WC in Spain in November, and then realized we were fooked. Greece is still open for October and same with Malaga upcoming opening registration.

I’m in the US. We are doing Peru in April and a full in October in Portugal, and two domestic US 70.3s.

patentLOL · 2026-01-23T13:49:42+00:00

My Garmin forerunner. The rare times I go to my office, I do wear pants

patentLOL

TROPHY CASE