Triangle Adventure Racing Team

This is a topic I saw posted on Trailblazers, our parent site (shameless membership plug) …. anyways never thought much about the issue and often ride MTB with shorts with temps into the 30’s…..I noticed alot of racers at the “training race” in Sanford wearing knickers….interesting topic: Here’s one racers perspective after dealing with knee problems…

I am going to make a big plug for using tights or leg warmers.

Racing in temperatures below 55 degrees with your knees bare care severely injure your knees!!!

Last fall I raced a 24 hour race (Wasatch Adventure Race) and we did win. But I injured my knee in the process. About half way through the race my right knee started to hurt. I would run until it hurt too badly and then walk for about 1 minute and then start running again.

I have completed many races like this in the past, and even much longer, more difficult races. Five months later my knee is still not better and could be something that affects the rest of my racing career. The only difference was that I didn’t cover my knees when it got cold.

When I started to do some research on preventing knee injures I came across several articles about covering your knees in temperatures below 55 or 66 degrees Fahrenheit.

Several professional road bike teams require their riders to cover their knees if the temperature in below 60 degrees. This is because they can damage their knees biking in cool conditions. Think about trail running over rough conditions and mountain biking in cold conditions and how that could damage your knees.

During the Wasatch Adventure Race this year, temperatures dipped to 30 degrees. We never stopped to put on tights and did the whole race in shorts. This was a big mistake! At the time, I didn’t even know that cold conditions could damage your knees while cycling or running. Now I am paying the price for my ignorance.

It is my hope that someone else will prevent a knee injury by knowing this information. Tell your teammates and training friends to cover their knees in cold conditions too, and make sure that you do the same!

Edited by Bruce Dale on Jan 29, 2007 at 8:29 AM

Many racers either require this skill beforehand, or sometimes on the fly in the middle of the race. A common theme will be the race director handing a list of UTM coordinates for Checkpoints, firing the starting gun and let the plotting begin. Most opt to plot most if not all of their checkpoints in the comfort of the start area in controlled weather conditions. Being skilled at plotting speeds this process up and increases your odds at locating your checkpoints.

This is one of the better guides I have found to explain this process using common Navigation guides to plot.

UTM PLOTS

After a recent hike in the Mountains of WV…I was forced to bushwhack an overgrown section of trail..which featured the god awful stinging nettle. After hacking most of it down with Trekking poles, I still suffered some slight stinging on my shins. I began to wonder what the hell the stuff was…so check out the link. It is actually more beneficial to us than I would have ever believed given it’s painful stings. Another site advised that as the needles release an acid it’s best to of course try to immediately rinse the area via camelback, water bottle or stream and in worse case use human spit which is neutral based and should relieve the sting of the acid. In most really bad exposures, apply a mixture of baking soda (again neutral) and water to the area to relieve the sting!

I still refuse to drink it as TEA simply as a matter of spite given the pain it has inflicted on me over the years………..

Many areas of the country are affected by air pollution these days. In North Carolina, athletes living in Charlotte, the Triad, Triangle and mountain regions need to be aware of ground level ozone pollution and adjust their training routines accordingly.

Ozone in the upper atmosphere is a good thing, but ground level ozone creates environmental and health problems, including temporary and/or permanent reductions in lung function, increased water pollution and plant damage.

The formation of high ozone levels occurs during the warm, sunny months and the N.C. Division of Air Quality creates daily forecasts from May 1 to September 30. These forecasts contain an Air Quality Index (AQI) value and color code.

As endurance athletes, we should consider ourselves members of a sensitive group as seen in the chart above. When training, we are breathing a lot more polluted air than the average person and are more likely to be affected. Also, it is important to note that the forecast levels are based on 8 hour averaged data. The hourly levels may actually be much higher.

Ozone levels are the highest in the afternoon to early evening, which means that training after work on the weekdays is often a bad choice during the height of the ozone season. On high ozone days the best times to train are in the mornings or late evenings. However, if you are near the mountains, the evening hours may be a poor choice as well, since pollution from other areas is carried by wind and caught in the mountains.

To help racers in the Triangle area, we are gathering hourly data from the Millbrook monitoring site in Raleigh and making it available on the front page of our Web site during the ozone season. It is probably a good idea to check the latest levels before your workout and reschedule any time the current AQI is near the orange level or above.

By: Charlie Roberts