the RUNN is the most accurate. i have 3 outputs for the woodway: built in woodway; a device plugged into the CSAFE port of the woodway, and the RUNN. the RUNN is the most accurate, per my measuring wheel, as are used by surveyors or for road run course accuracy.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

First one coming up tomorrow - hundreds of folks signed up already for the several start times - looks like generally a few more bike than run for each pair of events, so some are probably just doing the rides but apparently plenty doing both.

I've been checking Zwift Events w/ filtering and have yet to see the bike and run races for Feb. 17. I'm also registered on the WTRL webpage and only see a read-only schedule - no apparent sign-up links.

Am I missing something?

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tinman

The specific events just appeared this afternoon on zwift.com/events and in the companion app, as well as on zwifthacks. The times match what is in the readonly schedule on wtrl.com. First one is 3am (bike; 3:45 run) pacific time, then 7am etc.


This is a screen grab from zwift.com/events just now (filtering wise, apparently both are tagged as Cycling):

we have an article on this, up yesterday, and we put the links in there for the ride and run events for all 6 time slots. hit the INDOOR tab above and you'll see the article. you can enter just from those links provide.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I also got an email from WTRL with links to the 6 start time options.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Perfect - thank you sir!

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tinman

I've gotten 3 emails with the sign-up links for the slots. I'll take my arse kicking after work and see just how out of shape I am...

Anyone else do the bike but then miss the run because of tech issues? I guess I should've had things set up before everything started, but I tried to pair my TM with my Mac and that didn't work and by the time I grabbed my iPad it was about 45 seconds after the run started. It wouldn't let me join late, which I think is a bit lame considering it's based on time. Instead of 15 minutes, I don't see why I wouldn't just get to run for the remaining 14 or so. Whatever...live and learn.

i'll be doing mine in about 2.5hr from now. i practiced yesterday, which meant logging out after the bike and logging in for the run, and it didn't take me long. maybe 3 minutes and i was up and ready. however, i have a problem with my HRM just not delivering a signal to zwift, until it "kicks in." so i have a concern about that happening. otherwise, i'm okay. maybe famous last words.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

That really sucks that you couldn't join late and just eat that 45 seconds, but this all of course will be a huge beta test for future races. I think dan told me yesterday that there were nearly 1500 already signed up, so pretty good being that it was not well publicized. I think this thing could be huge, especially if they do the gender and AG pull outs in the results.

Dan is set to go off at 11am here, will be going over to see how things are going. He unfortunately has a colonoscopy tomorrow, so he is going to have to race on last nights fumes. I told him I have been doing this for over 3 years now(intermittent fasting) with no issues, so just go for it.

I have been training for a swim/run(future of course), but this little fun race might just get me back to riding a bike again. IT really looks fun, and Dan has the pain cave from hell set up now, 3 fully connected bikes, two treadmills, with a back up one sitting outside. I really have no excuses anymore, and have been enjoying a couple zwift runs lately..

Good to know, I am thinking about using different devices to speed things up, my appleTV works great for the run, but doesn't tend to like to connect my HRM while cycling. So I will likely bike on my laptop and then run with the appleTV...

I almost missed the run but due to not paying attention to the time. Got myself logged back in with minute to go.

I did the 4 AM MT event. Next week I'm going to shoot for later in the day.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

First race was fun.

Kind of a bummer you can't tell places very well since it's a fixed time not fixed distance. I get that they have to do that for the transition time to be the same for everyone though. Just wish Zwiftpower could tell run speed in the initial results.

As always, lots of watts and fast runners on Zwift.

Agree that mandating a cadence AND HR file would be a good verification source.

I use a RUNN sensor for accuracy as well as a Zwift foot pod for cadence.

My TM doesn't go faster than 10.8 MPH so I may have to find a gym or friend with a faster one for future races!

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Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

well, that was fun! and hard! i wouldn't have wanted it to be any longer. one circle i can't square is the difference between what i saw in-game versus what my activity feed says in the companion app. in-game it said i was X place out of 420 on the bike, and 398 in the run, but in my activity feed it says there were and 488 people in our bike our wave and 428 in the run. anyway...

i'm a much better zwift runner than i am a zwift biker. i was 325th or so in the bike and 155th or so in the run. which means i semi-suck at everything. but it was still great! my only connectivity/equipment issue is the HRM. i've got a tickr, and that darned thing needs to be kicked around a bit before it starts actually sending a signal. it'll pair, but it takes 6 or 7 or so minutes until it starts to reliably send a metric to zwift. any hints on that would be helpful.

LATE ADD: and i don't see results. but i suspect results may not be up until all heats are completed. unless i'm just missing where the results are hiding.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Agree on the results. I think we have to wait until WTRL compiles them and sorts the points. For future, it would be best if Zwift could add a component that ranks everyone by their distance right away since there is no finish line to rank us by time.

I noticed there were a lot less people signed up for the run and logged in a the start as well but same. Much better Zwift runner than Zwift cyclist.

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Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

our man herbert was in the heat, and was i think maybe around 100th or a little over in the bike and 15th or 16th in the run.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

No hints, just confirming that my TICKR takes a while to get sorted when riding too, though once it settles it seems to stay solid (zwift on ATV). Doesn't seem to be simply a matter of getting it wet, though once heavily sweating is when it seems OK. Firmware is up to date, and oddly it seemed much more reliable a few months ago, it seems to be deteriorating. And, it's far worse on the treadmill, seems to get really thrown by the motion, even though it's measuring electrically...? , to where I'm going to just use my garmin watch bluetooth broadcasting to zwift instead (shoved up to fleshier part of forearm where the optical pickup seems to work better than at wrist)
.

here's a weird treadmill thing. i'm still sorting this out, but, here's the situation. this is on the woodway. i have 2 BLE signals my woodway sends: the internal factory signal, and a GEM Retro from north pole engineering (same company that makes the RUNN). the GEM Retro was developed by wahoo, but sold to NPE because, i guess, it was just sort of this thing that didn't really fit into wahoo's long term plans. anyway, the GEM Retro plugs into the treadmill's CSAFE port, and you might wonder what the point of it is, since it's not doing anything different than the factory BLE emitter. the hope/notion/wish/idea is that, maybe, someday, that treadmill will be rigged not just to send, but to accept, a BLE signal, with an external game or program controlling the treadmill. anyway...

when i pair with the woodway, it seems as if the woodway hijacks the tickr signal, force-pairing with it, and i don't know that the tickr likes 2 BLE signals at the same time. it's buggy when i try to pair zwift with the tickr if i'm also paired with the woodway. however, if i pair to the GEM Retro, then i can pair with the tickr fine.

i might have to repent of what i just wrote, upon further testing, but that's kind of where i think i am right now. yes, technically, the woodway uptakes the HR signal and makes it part of the payload of data it sends to zwift. but it's very buggy when it does that. the woodway is not a reliable HR data delivery vehicle. i'm much better pairing with the GEM Retro and then separately pairing zwift with the tickr.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not sure what the issue was, but when I logged in to do the run, I wasn't given an option to join an event. So didn't do the run. I suspect it might be because I logged in at 3:45 on the dot (my ride ended at 3:37 so I figured the run would start at 3:47). Maybe I had to do it before the 45min mark. Oh well, I'll just run later today at some point.

It was fun to do the ride, I think my best 20min and 35min power ever. I was contemplating getting out of aero bars to push more watts, especially at the end, but decided to stay aero. Might try upright next time. I very rarely go without ERG mode in Zwift, so this is definitely very useful training!

I think it did start actually at 3:47, not sure why you didn't get a join prompt but yeah it could be that it wasn't able to account for the difference between the A and B starts and froze you out.

While riding I was wondering if I'd end up doing any better with the smoothing assist of ERG mode (not sure if you can induce it from, say, the wahoo app even when in an event?) I have trainer difficulty pretty low so the slight gradient changes weren't throwing me that much but I still felt pretty choppy, haven't had aerobars installed in a while so I was out of the saddle a lot to stay on top of the gear.

I did the 5pm CST bike/5:45 CST run option today. After the bike I didn't mess around much - close Zwift app, put run shoes on, log back in, choose run, get treadmill/sensors all connected, get on treadmill in the pen. I think I had 3 mins to spare. All said and done, I don't think I had the full 10 mins transition and not much of a margin for error if sensor connections are giving you grief.

But, it worked, was hard/fun, and I look forward to next week.

Once results are posted, time to marvel at the bike power and run speed in the age groups.

Cheers,

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tinman

I did the 1600 CET event yesterday. Had a great bike leg, which I won by 0.5km, 3rd place was over 1km behind, I covered 27.5km. I noticed another ST member pretty high up on the bike as well, not sure who it was though.

I use a Technogym MyRun, that transmits speed and cadence directly to Zwift, so no messing with footpods. All worked flawlessly. I am a good runner, but not in the same league as some of the guys out there. My pace was 3:40/km (5:53/mi) and covered 4.1km (2.54mi). I think I was a bit conservative on the run, and could have gone 10s/km faster

Really keen to see the results. Hoping for a top 50 overall and maybe top 10 AG (45-49)

Mattsurf: Great bike!!! That's awesome.

Dan: seems stupid to mention, but I always lick the sensor portion of the band on my Polar and Tickr HR monitors prior to wearing them, and they pick up immediately and accurately.

Loved the race yesterday. Was so pumped all day at work. Haven't raced since 2015 d/t a back issue. Had a lumbar fusion last June and am back at it and feeling great.

Very happy with my splits. Only issue was the RUNN sensor had me "standing on the side" 4 times during the 15 minute window. Was fine at 9.0, but once I went to 9.5 and 10.0 mph, it had trouble. Think the sensor needed to me moved over the belt a little better. Fixed it after the race and seems to be okay. But, probably "stood around" for around 2 minutes of the race. (True pace was 6:20ish, and I think it said 7:18??) Whatever. Something to baseline for next week.

E-racing is awesome. Never really connected with the bike races. Pretty much just did a few TTs only. The sprint at 500w thing right at the start just seemed stupid and wasn't motivated to train for it. However, for actual bike racers, I bet they get the same kind of motivation to train as I did yesterday.

Way cool. Hope it just keeps going year round.

Brian

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"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Chief Seattle

i was licking that thing like crazy. there are 2 connectivity hurdles. the first is no problem. when you snap the chest strap onto the transmitter, there's a blue LED that blinks, and that means it's sending a BLE signal. zwift picks that up okay. there's a second LED, it's red, and that means the unit is picking up a HR signal. that's the sticky wicket. i guess i wonder what helps the device pick up a signal from my heart quicker. after it's warmed up, or i'm warmed up, okay. but that's 5 to 10 minutes. if you get to the start of a race late, and you don't have a proper warmup, you may have your race not count. if there is a specific something. some kind of gel. or some trick. i'd like to know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman