Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Bloody Toes and Garmins

Had quite the surprise after my interval run this morning:

Gross, right?
No idea where the blood even came from? Looks like just underneath the nail, I think? Strange. Happened once before on another toe, but again, never felt it.

Notice my big toe nail? Let me remind you what it USED to look like:


The nail never fell off!!! It just grew out, even though it took 6+ months.

This is probably the goriest post I have ever written....


In other words....or, ANYWAYS.....

My bike form is starting to come together, finally. Not sure why it took so darn long, but when I notice that my sit bones don't hurt as bad, it just shows that I have finally been putting in ample time in the saddle.

Take for example last night, an interval ride through the mean streets of Greenwich where the probability of getting mugged by a billionaire is pretty high, considering you HAVE to be a billionaire to live in that town.

I did a 15 min WU, then 6 x (6 mins @ 250 watts, 2 mins easy), 15 min CD.

My time trial bike (with the power meter) is in the shop this week, so I used my road bike and went by feel for the 6 min hard intervals. Despite not having power to guide my effort, it was actually liberating! It was the first interval ride this season where I could just hammer it on some curvy and hilly roads alternating between standing and sitting and just having fun.

Sometimes just going by feel is what is needed. I am pretty sure, based upon how my legs were burning and how they felt afterwards, that I was in the range of 250 watts.



I got the Garmin Edge 800 the other week, since my little yellow computer went flying off my bike mid ride back in early March. (I found it, just, I had no way to reattach it and I could no longer change the battery because the battery cover was stripped) The 800 is a piece of magic! It is SO amazing how you can customize 5 training pages to show off every nitty gritty detail of data you could ever need. Right now I have a page for general time and watts, but then I have a page for intervals that shows interval time, interval power avg, interval HR average, etc etc etc.

(source)
 After all, more data is more speed. Its science!

So if you are looking for a new cycling computer that can read power, I HIGHLY recommend the Garmin Edge 800. I have yet to get into its GPS map capabilities (mostly because I always know where I am riding) but I can imagine it is quite good.

11 comments:

  1. Congrats on the nice new Garmin. That toe looks pretty painful, but if you don't know where it came from, then it must not be too bad. Nice work on your interval training. You kicked some booty! Keep it up!

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  2. Nice. After my first marathon... I have never had a toe nail issue again. Weird.

    Toes must be rubbing the tip of your shoe, you have kinda wide feet (not the typical shoe shape foot) might want to look into getting a shoe w/ a wider toe box that is not as narrow at the tip of the shoe?

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  3. you are such a data whore. that's right, I called you a WHORE.

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  4. Glad I wasn't eating lunch for this one.

    I have that happen every so often with my toes. I end up wrapping one of the toes with athletic tape for a couple days and then it goes away randomly.

    Don't you need Di2 to even just ride through Greenwich? Especially if you are slumming it on the roadie?

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  5. Damn your toe looks like it hurts!

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  6. I was looking at the 800 for the GPS map capabilities because I am always getting lost. But in the end I went with the 500.

    And ugh, your toes ...

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  7. Was already a little queasy from a stomach bug - the toe was a bit much. But glad you are finding your bike groove.

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  8. I NEED the 800!!

    dude, if you would just start running in Brooks (Launch, Pure Flows) like someone has recommended like a million times to you those toes issues will not happen. Brooks = Large Toe Box = Happy Toes!

    Just got the TT back from the LBS with the Compact Crank and 165mm crank lengths. Going to toss it on the trainer and screw with my fitting and then ride for an hour. Will let you know how it turns out.

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  9. whoa, you linked to the garmin map. That's fancy.

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  10. nice toe, not gory at all...

    what are you using for power on your tri bike (asks the data whore)?

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