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Race Prep Summary

8/10/2018

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Have had a few clients prepping for big events lately, so thought I would consolidate the links and share these articles from a few years back that hit on some key things to consider for event prep. Enjoy, hope they help!

Event Prep 1: Know Your Course
Event Prep 3: Thinking 'bout the Weather
Event Prep 5: Nutrition Planning
Event Prep 2: Equipment
Event Prep 4: Bike Contingency Planning
Event Prep 6: Travel Tips

And for funsies...  Check out the Oatmeal's take on do's and don'ts of your first marathon for a few chuckles relevant for any big endurance event. If easily offended, please don't click, a few off color jokes!
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Athlete Updates

8/17/2017

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Check out what is going on with our athletes on Instagram!  https://www.instagram.com/otterhauscoach/
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April Athlete Updates

5/3/2017

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Big congrats to Lori Nedescu and Alex Driscoll on completing their first Tour of the Gila this past weekend! . This was Lori’s first ever @uciwomencycling stage race finish and she had the unique experience of helping her Rise Racing teammate @jamiebikies win the green points jersey! She also finished a very respectable 30th on the grueling "Gila Monster” stage on day 5. Amazing for a first time outing. Thanks again to @riseracing and @tourofthegila for connecting Lori with the team and giving her this incredible opportunity. . Alex spent a good part of the week doing a lot of work helping to defend his @cosracing teammate’s high GC placing. Unfortunately, during the Stage 4 criterium, a rider from another team slid out on the last lap and took down Alex and one of his teammates. Both were pretty banged up but were able to start and finish the final day’s stage. Alex even spent a good part of the morning on Stage 5 in the early break! . Super proud of both of these athletes! #progression #raisethebar #togetherwerise #racebold #coachinglife #cyclinglife #cyclingphotos

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 24, 2017 at 12:44pm PDT

Super excited for Alex Driscoll and Lori Nedescu @cadencekitchen as they start their first ever @tourofthegila tomorrow! Alex will be racing with his @cosracing team out of Colorado in the Cat 1/2 race and Lori will be making her first @uciwomencycling start as a guest rider for @rise_racing (thanks for giving her the opportunity)! I was fortunate to start and finish 5 editions of Gila and it rates as one of my all time favorite (and most challenging) events. Good luck to both of these awesome riders and everyone starting this amazing event tomorrow! □□‍♀️□□□□□#raisethebar #progression #coachinglife #racebold #gila2017 #cyclinglife

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 18, 2017 at 4:23pm PDT

Weekend race highlights: . Congrats to Brad Sponaugle on taking 5th overall at the Hagerstown Duathlon in MD and Coach Alex Driscoll on taking 3rd at the Front Range Classic ITT in Colorado! . Awesome to get the chance to race alongside @bikesunnybike with @bikedoctorracing and see him on the podium with a strong 3rd at the Elkridge Spring Classic in MD! #coachinglife #progression #racebold #raisethebar #bikedoctor

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 18, 2017 at 2:20pm PDT

Sometimes its about racing, sometimes it just about enjoying the ride! Clockwise from top: . Jay Lowell takes in some vacation time in Florida; Lori Nedescu enjoys the spring weather in OH as she looks forward to Tour of the Gila this week; my Thunder Bay, ON crew of Rob Coffey & Jen Bell get outside for their first outdoor rides of the year with spring finally creeping into the great white north! . Jose Solis is trying to start a revolution in Boston, sneaking in a ride while supporting his wife at the Boston Marathon; and Jay ShalekBriski gets out for a soul ride in Japan before a work and racing trip to the US for a few weeks! #coachinglife

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 17, 2017 at 1:04pm PDT

Fantastic weekend for Otterhaus athletes: . Lori Nedescu forced the winning break again this weekend and took the win at the Hueston Woods Road Race in OH! . Rhandie Thompson won the Florida State Time Trial Champs in the 30-34 Age Group! . Sunny Gill rode to a strong 2nd out of a 4 up break in heavy crosswinds at the Farmersville RR in PA! . Bradley Sponaugle took 2nd overall at the Race 2 Zion 5k in Williamsport MD! . Jose Solis took a hard fought 8th at the 80 mi Foothills Cup Road Race in NC! #coachinglife #raisethebar #progression

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 11, 2017 at 3:22am PDT

Great to see lots of happy bike racers this weekend! Big congrats to Lori Nedescu! She initiated and drove an early 4 up break that stuck to the finish and took second at the Nelsonville RR in Ohio! Big smiles from Jose Solis, Sunny Gill and Chris Burns who all had strong rides at the Jefferson Cup Road Race this weekend in VA. Chris unfortunately went down in the finale of his race but has already bounced back ok! Stefan Zavislan and Rhandie Thompson both gained some national level stage race experience at the Joe Martin Stage Race in AR. Strong rides by both with the highlight being Stefan’s 10th in the opening time trial! #raisethebar #racebold #progression #coachinglife

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Apr 5, 2017 at 5:10pm PDT

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March Athlete Updates!

4/3/2017

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What a weekend for playing bikes! . Stefan Zavislan got his first Kermesse experience in Hoogstraeten, Belgium. We think he is hooked! Good luck to him racing the Joe Martin Stage Race this upcoming week. . Jay ShalekBriski got a huge training weekend in Japan, and this great black and white shot. . Coach George helped support the Black Hills Circuit Race in MD as part of Team Bike Doctor. Great to see Team Integrity's Chris Burns with a strong showing in the Cat 4 race; Nessim Mezrahi and Sunny Gill both doing some great work to support their DVR and Bike Doctor teammates in the winning move in the 1/2 race; and David Flaten impressively surfing the 1/2 field on his MTB (yes he is getting a road bike again soon!). □: @velogirl22. . Brad Sponaugle took the win in the C race and the overall series win at the Team Integrity Winter Training Race Series in WV. The old coach won the A race and series overall with Tyler Waldron taking 3rd on the day and second in the series. Great training race venue and organization, hope Team Integrity carries on with this event next year and more MABRA and PA Cycling folks come out to support. □: @mr1photo and Ruth Fedor Burns. . And finally Rhandie Thompson pulled a strong 6th at the Velobrew Crit in Florida, capping off his preps for his first Joe Martin Stage Race next week!

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 28, 2017 at 6:36am PDT

Great crew at today's Beginner Racer Clinic at the Team Integrity Winter Race Series! Awesome to help these 12 riders improve their skills! □ ❄️ □ #coachinglife #cyclinglife

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 25, 2017 at 2:57pm PDT

Athlete updates from the past couple of weeks! . Congrats to Wes Anderson on setting a 15k PR and taking 2nd in his age group at the 7th Get Pumped for Pets Run on Kent Island, MD! . Rafael Amorganda took part in the 40th Annual Cape Town Cycling Tour in South Africa this weekend, the world's largest timed cycling event with over 35,000 riders taking part. Unfortunately, the event was shortened due to severe winds that were blowing riders off the road, but he made it through safely and got a chance to ride with the Jensie! . Jay ShalekBriski took his first win of the year at the Risner Century Race in Okinawa Japan after breaking away solo for 20 miles! . Jose Solis and Lori Nedescu both had big smiles putting in big miles and picked up lots of PRs on Tucson, AZ’s iconic climbs at US Military Endurance Sports' winter training camp! . The Otterhaus Thunder Bay crew of Jenny Bell and Rob Coffey along with some local friends celebrated a balmy -2 F day in Ontario by getting together for a trainer party. Great to see the smiles, spring is coming soon! . #coachinglife #raisethebar #progression

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 13, 2017 at 2:50pm PDT

Congrats to @rafaelamorganda (left) who took 8th on Stage 1 after a mechanical, and 6th on Stage 2 at the Ronda Pilipinas! Good luck to him as he tackles the legendary Capetown Cycle Tour in South Africa this weekend! □□ □ □

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 10, 2017 at 7:26am PST

Last day we are all together, great to finish up @m_mcycling for donuts and coffee after a spicy weekend San Pedro Surge ride. Awesome to see the cycling community thriving in our old stomping grounds! #cyclinglife #raisethebar #coachinglife #progression

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 4, 2017 at 10:21am PST

The gang in Tombstone. #cyclinglife #coachinglife #cyclingphotos

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 2, 2017 at 1:51pm PST

Blue skies, great crew, looking forward to some fantastic riding in Cochise County over the next few days! #coachinglife #cyclinglife #raisethebar

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Mar 1, 2017 at 4:23pm PST

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February Athlete Updates!

3/2/2017

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@jose.solis87 riding strong front and center at the Wolfpack Classic last week. Jose helped his Happy Tooth Racing teammate take the win in the P/1/2 field and took a strong 8th himself. Great season kick off! □: Jim Deese #raisethebar #progression #cyclingphotos

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Feb 28, 2017 at 5:49pm PST

Sure, just a winter training race, but still cool to make the break and podium with @tylerwal. I started riding with Tyler when he was a Cat 5, awesome to see him rolling up to the line and throwing down as a new Cat 2! Congrats to Eran Preble for playing the break smart and showing us how to sprint. Also great to see Cat 5 Bradley Sponaugle take a strong 4th in the B race! #progression #raisethebar #coachinglife #cyclinglife

A post shared by Otterhaus Performance Coaching (@otterhauscoach) on Feb 19, 2017 at 7:43am PST

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January Athlete Updates!

2/7/2017

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Busy winter as athletes are deep into prep for 2017! (left to right) . @szavislan1 has had an eventful month. He hit the lab in early Jan, then broke his collarbone a few days after… He has bounced back quick though and is already back on the pedals after a successful surgery. . Always fun to ride with clients, and great to get out and share a West Virginia long ride with strongman Nessim Mezrahi. . @dcflaten hits the cross country trails with GF Catherine at Whitegrass WV. . @cadencekitchen took a break from the Ohio winter to get a few days in the sun in Florida. . @jose.solis87 meets up with Papa Solis in Florida as well for a few days of warm weather riding. . Sunny Gill getting in the big miles with his @bikedoctorracing teammates in chilly Maryland. . Racing has already kicked of for some as Rafael Amorganda hits a MTB race in the Philippines and Alex Driscoll knocks out a cold TT in CO! □: @joseph_wm . #coachinglife #progression #raisethebar #cyclinglife

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Feb 5, 2017 at 5:53pm PST

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Team Cuore Store is Open Through Feb 3rd!

1/30/2017

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Otterhaus Cuore Clothing Order - Open Until Feb 3rd - 10% of all sales go to support grassroots racing!

Excited to announce that we have a “Team Store” through CUORE of Switzerland! The spring order window is open from now until Feb 3rd. Details on how to order are outlined here: http://www.otterhaus.com/cuore.html
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This is very high quality clothing, the chamois is about as nice as you can get, its the same style that the US National Team wore for the past few years. Questions? Please drop us a direct message! 10% of all sales will be used to support organizations and/or individuals that put on races in the Mid Atlantic Region.
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Quick Guide: Download TrainingPeaks Workouts to Zwift

1/19/2017

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TrainingPeaks Workout Builder

TrainingPeaks has released a new feature that greatly increases the usability of created workouts.  Up until now, workout specifics in TrainingPeaks were simply written out in text in the workout description block, and this continues to work fine for more general endurance or organic workouts (such as group rides or races).  For more structured workouts, however, the new capability allows the author to give the athlete a better visualization of the work to be done, along with detailed specifics based on the individual athlete's power, heart rate or perceived effort targets.  Here is an example of a micro interval workout with both the text description and the new workout builder side by side:
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Transferring Workouts For Use in Zwift

The big benefit of this feature, is from the athlete's view you can now download this workout into a format that is usable in a number of popular 3rd party virtual trainer environments that have similar workout builder applications such as Zwift, Trainer Road, Performance Pro etc.  Along with this download, the athlete's specific power and heart rate targets transfer as well fully leveraging the power of the virtual training environments.  As an example, let's step through how you would do an export for Zwift.  The same steps would be taken for most other third party apps, the difference being what directory you save the export file in and how you select it through the application.
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The steps to do this are pretty straight forward.  As shown in the the image above, there is a small icon in the upper right hand corner of the workout overview image, if you click on it, you will be presented with the screen below.  From this screen, for Zwift, you will want a ZWO.  Once you select that,  it will download to your whatever your default download folder is on your computer.
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After the ZWO file finishes downloading, navigate to your download folders and copy or move the ZWO to the Workouts folder in the Zwift folder.  This should be the "\Documents\Zwift\Workouts\" directory on both Windows and Mac operating systems by default unless you have customized the install of Zwift.  If that is the case, you will need to find the "Zwift\Workouts\" directory within your structure.  You can rename the default download fine any name you like (as long as you keep the ZWO file extension).  You can also build sub folders in the "Workout" folder to store workouts in any type of structure you prefer.  The files you put in here will be recognized by the Zwift workout mode, and workout mode will also inherit whatever directory structure you create.

Once this is done, if you launch Zwift and select workout mode in the course selection menu, you will see your newly added workout in the menu of selectable workouts.

Acknowledgements and Additional Resources

For more info on Zwift workout builder and how to open user created files, checkout this blog post: http://kb.zwiftriders.com/load-custom-workout ​

For more on TrainingPeaks Workout builder and export:

http://help.trainingpeaks.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000325647

Thanks to both authors for the additional background info!
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Athlete Highlights - December 2016

1/4/2017

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2017 season training is ramping up in earnest in a variety of ways! A few early winter ❄️ athlete updates: . @troy.rhandie looking sharp in the new kit, and reminding us all he lives in FL #noarmwarmersneeded . @jay.splus11 repping in Japan □□ (obviously the warmer part!) while mixing it up with a bit of off road on the road bike. Also, #noarmwarmersneeded . Awesome (but coooold) ride with @xcrunner611 @dcflaten @bikesunnybike and Adam Driscoll in WV and MD over the holidays! #notinflorida . @jose.solis87 dropped a 10 mile running PR in NC as the last act of a little break from cycling. He is now back on the bike fully recharged and motivated! . @cadencekitchen rocking the cross country skis □ in sunny MN taking a break from the trainer, also #notinflorida □ . @dcflaten spent some quality time in the gym in WI with Coach Craig Manthe getting a kick start for his season! . #coachinglife #cyclinglife

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Jan 17, 2017 at 12:26pm PST

Great ride with great friends this week, and luckily no kittens needed rescuing. Looking forward to new adventures and new directions in the coming year! #coachinglife #cyclinglife #raisethebar #progression

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Dec 24, 2016 at 2:34pm PST

Awesome stuff from Alex Driscoll and his teammates from @cosracing finishing up a 24 hr trainer relay in support of Kids On Bikes in Colorado this morning!

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Dec 11, 2016 at 9:20am PST

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Athlete Highlights - November 2016

12/1/2016

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Few highlights from athletes in November: . It was the month of half marathons with 3 athletes running in them this month. . On Thanksgiving day, Patty Cohen finished 7th in her age group at the Atlanta Half Marathon in GA, and Jose Solis took 3rd overall and set a PR by over a minute at the Skinny Turkey Half Marathon and Just Think First 5k in NC! His wife Jordan also won the women's field overall! They all earned their turkey! . HUGE congrats to Mattew Mix who finished his first ever half marathon in Annapolis MD just under 2 hrs (his goal pace!) and it was his longest run ever! Even more impressive was just a few months ago Matt was coming off an injury and could only run 3 miles with a prior longest run ever of 5! Fantastic to see him progress and see him fired up and ready to tackle new challenges in 2017! . Awesome to see Dave Flaten getting back into training and spending some time doing trail maintenance in Harrisonburg VA. . Great to get long time friend and client Stefan Zavislan out to West Virginia for a few days of fall training camp and show him some great WV roads! #progression #raisethebar #coachinglife

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Nov 30, 2016 at 3:09pm PST

Good looking group supporting @dcflaten at Airman Leadership School graduation last night. We clean up ok! Proud to be part of the support crew. #nospandexhere #morethanathletes

A photo posted by George Ganoung (@otterhauscoach) on Nov 11, 2016 at 3:29am PST

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    Otterhaus Blog

    Coach George Ganoung shares tips, observations and the occasional attempt at humor, sometimes all at the same time.

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