Ironman-in-a-weekend. Part 2.

Hehe.. I didn't really plan on logging serious distance it just.. umm... sorta happened. The weather was perfect, I had nothing on the agenda except hang with Sal, the pooches and train. What a great weekend. Here's the low down:
Fri: run 11.5k (trails)
swim: 4k. (10X400m on 6:00) Great set, felt strong.
Sat: Bike 187k A fairly flat route, legs started to get cranky at the 5 hr mark. Finished in 5:50 for an average speed of 32.1 kph. If you're interested, here's the route.
Sun: Run 29k. Thought I was on my 30k route, but the Garmin only registered 29k.. jypped myself a kilometer. Last 5k was tough, total time was 2:28.

The astute will notice that technically I didn't quite make the running portion. A marathon is 42.2k I only managed 40.5k. I figure the extra 7k on the bike and the extra 200m on the swim makes up for the lack of running k's. (plus I walk 10-12k for work). So as far as I'm concerned it's a wash. :)

One of these days, I'm going to attempt to put into words why I do this - explain 'it'. In the meantime, please take a few minutes and read Thursday's post by Sheila. She does a pretty damned good job explaining 'it' - or as she puts 'The Drive'. Enjoy.

Feelin' Fine Friday

I'm feeling pretty much recovered from last Sunday's race. I know this is suppose to be a fairly easy week, but the weather for the weekend is looking good, I'm feeling pretty good, it's Friday, I already have run 11.5k (trails) and I'm about to hit the pool.... perhaps another Ironman-in-a-weekend?? I'm not saying it's going to happen, but the cards are falling in place.

Yesterday I did 90k on the bike. I went looking for some new territory and found a nice 20k flat section road. I usually do a fair bit of hill riding, so this was something a bit different. The beautiful thing about this stretch of road was that only ONE car passed me for the whole 20k stretch. So as I'm cruising along, passing farms, saying 'Hi' to the cows and rescueing the odd tortoise/turtle crossing the road, I see these massive wind turbines off in the distance. Very impressive. I don't why, but they filled me with wonder. It just seemed so cool, these huge structures, spinning away, generating clean power for the community. Hmm.. a municipality that is actually taking responsibility - I suppose that's the reason why I was awestruck. A single person that takes responsibility for their actions is pretty damned cool, but seeing a whole community do it is downright awesome.

I'm off to do 4k in the pool. Have great weekend!

Regroup Refocus

Did an easy 60k on the bike yesterday, felt good. Today I did a 7.5k trail run and an endurance swim workout. Here's the swim workout:
4X400m 15 sec rest.
2X(4X200m) 10s rest
4X(4X100m) on 1:40
Total: 5k
Each set was a build set, the goal being to get progressively faster through each set of 4. I felt strong and was thinking: ' why couldn't I feel like this on Sunday?'

Speaking of Sunday's race, Sally says I'm too hard on myself. I've come to the conclusion that she-who-must-be-obeyed is correct. But in my own defence, I'll just say that I really dislike being hampered by external issues - like this pesky tummy problem. Hey, if I'm outgunned by a more experienced, fitter, better athlete, I'm totally cool with that. I'll tip my hat to them and say to myself: 'I'll get ya next time..' That's the kind of stuff that makes me smile inwardly.

Regroup, Refocus. The topic of the day. Here's the plan from now until IMC.
Rest of this week: an easy build week.
Week 2: moderate/hard week, add an extra bike session
Week 3: easy week
Week 4: build week, running focused
Week 5: build week, cycling focused
Week 6: even split between 3 sports. Last 2.5 hr run
Week 7: taper commences, but will spike the swim mileage.
Week 8, 9 and 10: Full time taper mode.

About the only thing that may put a crimp into the plan is there is a Half Ironman in 2.5 weeks that I would like to do, at least to test out another nutrition strategy. My problem is that if I enter the event, I'll end up racing it and the subsequent recovery puts a crimp into the above 'plan.' What to do.. what to do..

Muskoka Race Report

The 5 words or less version: humbled?, queasy, #$%%! hot, good.
The plain vanilla short version:
Place: 11/102 Age group. 75/745 overall
Swim 2k: 29:12
Bike: 55k: 1:30:02
Run: 15k: 1:11:23
Time: 3:13:00

The extended version:
I'll try not to get too long winded for this race report. However, there are few things I'll have to get off my chest.
First and foremost, a GREAT race put on by the folks at Subaru and the town of Huntsville is fantastic - the people and the businesses really get into it. Overall, as a venue, I give the Muskoka Triathlon top marks.
Secondly, the chase format makes for a really exciting race. The pro women were given an 18 minute head start of the pro men. Then it's up to the men to to chase them down. Whoever crosses the finish line first receives 10 grand! Of the 26 pros at the race, there some big names: Simon Whitfield and Lisa Bentley were amongst the field. As a lowly age grouper, it's cool to compete against an Olympic Gold medalist and a 10(!) time IronWoman Champion. Very cool indeed.
The nitty gritty:
I went into this race with a 9 day taper, so I was expecting a strong, solid performance. I'm stronger than I was last year and more fit, so I wanted to use this race as an opportunity to test myself. Let's see how it worked out:

My latest pre race routine involves getting up at least 3 hrs before the start and consuming 2 cans of Boost. When racing, it's possible I'll experience stomach issues (nausea), so I'm trying an all liquid breakfast.

2k swim: My swim was merely OK. About the biggest thing that happened in the swim occured at the 500m mark. I was actually grabbed and pulled back. That's never happened to me before and I was quite shocked. My initial thought was to punch the guy in the head. But that's way bad karma, so I just motored passed him and let it slide. At the 1200m mark I said to myself, 'hmm.. I don't feel like I'm swimming well.' My pace was off, the water was very murky, I was sighting way too much and just I just felt off. The numbers: 29:12 or a 1:28/100m pace. I was looking for a sub 1:28, so in the end it wasn't too bad. Just not quite as fast as I wanted.

55k bike: T1 was smooth. I hop on The Spirit of Koo and settle in to a good spin. I can feel some mild nausea at this point, but it's not a big deal. It's feels like the Boost I had 4 hours ago is still sitting in my gut. I take the first 20 minutes at a moderate effort just trying to settle the gut down and to some extent I'm successful. My main problem with fighting nausea while racing is what the the hell do I do with my hydration requirments? Drinking liquids while nauseous can have disasterous results. But not drinking is equally as bad or worse. It's a catch-22.
I fight with the mild nausea throughout the bike and in the end I'm able to consume just over half of litre of InfiniT (sports drink).
The bike portion itself was rather nice, plenty of rollers and a couple of decent climbs through scenic roads. The time on the saddle was 1:30:07 at an average speed of 36.7 kph. Again, on the low end on what I was aiming for.

15k run: Think quick cadence. Make the run flow. Relax. Get in the groove. I think these when I run. It didn't help. Within the first 2k I knew I was in trouble and thought I was going to be sick. Damnit, I have to walk to try settle my tummy. I end up running the majority of the route at a slow, steady pace and managed to not barf. I ran the route in 1:11:23 for a 4:46/k pace. Ok, I'll be honest, that split ticks me off. Five weeks ago, I ran a decent half marathon with a 3 day taper. I train more/harder and get additonal rest and can only manage 1:11 for a 15k run. Damnit, my Sunday morning 30k jaunts are that fast.
Sorry, I promised I wasn't going to whine, but I did have to vent a bit there.

Synopsis
Ok, was the race as bad as I think? No it wasn't. For two reasons: 1) May have been over zealous about my run goal? Possibly. 2) I have to realize heat just kills me and perhaps this is the culprit of my nausea?? (Anyone feel free to chime in here, I'm really starting to grasp at straws.)
The good:
I don't mind being humbled. If analyzed, it can provide an opportunity to learn about yourself. I'm still trying to figure what I learnt from this race. I do have another nutrition strategy I'm going to try and if it works, I'll have this race to thank for it. Hmm... what else was good? Oh yea, I qualified for Ironman Canada and secured my spot. That's pretty cool too.

Good news, bad news

A quick update. I'll do a more detailed report tomorrow. Since I'm an optimist, I'll post the good news: I was fortuneate enough to secure my spot for Ironman Canada. Yay!
Now on to the bad stuff: For me, Muskoka was a very mediocre race. Once again, I was plauged by stomach issues. This, combined with the heat made for a mediocre swim, an OK bike and a very sub par run. I'm kinda bummed about by performance, so I'll try not to whine about it too much in my race report tomorrow. :)

Execution

Not sure if I'll have time to update between now and post race. So I'd thought put my strategy in writing now. The primary goal for Muskoka is to secure my Ironman Canada spot, that's of foremost importance. I've looked at previous years qualifying times and I don't foresee a problem, however, since I've not raced yet, this is still in the 'theory' stage.

My secondary goal for this race is to break the 3 hour mark. This is realistic but difficult. Here's a breakdown of my execution strategy:
swim 2k: about <28 minutes. I'm aiming for a 1:24/1:25 pace.

bike 55k: I hope to come in at 1:28. This is a 37.5 km/hr pace. Not entirely sure how this is going to pan out, I could be as low as 36.5 or as high as 38.5 ... so I picked right smack in the middle.

run 15k: sub 1hr. Perhaps my toughest split and it's going to take some guts. If I can maintain sub 4 min kms after a hard bike, I'll be a happy camper.
Add 2 minutes for transitions and the total time comes in at 2:58. Eep, a mere 2 minute fudge factor to come in under 3hrs. It's going to be close!

A quickie

Hey guys. Just a quickie today... got a case of the 'I'm feeling tired syndrome.' Not sure why, getting lots of zzzz's and the workout load has been cut way back. I'm feeling good.. just tired, like sleepy tired. Maybe something to do with tapering? Shrug.

Workout update:
Yesterday did an easy 60k on the bike, nothing crazy and the legs feel good.
Today, I hit the pool and got 3k in. 1k warmup, 5X100 hard with 100 easy in between each (the hard ones came in @1:05-1:07), 1k drill work.
It was kinda fun doing the sprint work, it's been a long time since I've done any that. Even though it's been almost 20 years since I could call my self a sprinter, I was pretty happy with my times. Next week I'll be back to the long, boring endurance work. Cheers.

Doubtful Monday weigh in

Here is the weekend report:
Taper officially began on Saturday with an easy 100k ride with Cliff, followed by a short 4k transition run. The weather was mediocre (windy and cool), but that's the beauty of meeting someone for a ride - there is no wimping out.
Sunday was a short long run of 14k. I kept the pace controled, even though the legs 'wanted to go' for the last few k.
Here are the stats for the week:
Run 43.5k
Bike: 177k
Spin: 2 hrs
Swim: 8.2k
Dryland: 1.5 hrs
Weight: 161

I look at a week like that and part of me says, 'jeez, you aren't doing nearly enough' and the first inklings of doubt set in. I know it's irrational and I understand that, but I still feel it. This is just part of the tapering process, I must decrease mileage even though I want to do more. So, to help alleviate and keep Mr. Doubt at bay, I tallied this year's total, here is where I'm at:
Run: 1124.5k
Spin: 93.5 hrs
Bike: 1083k
Swim: 96.3k
Dryland: 36hrs
This is from Jan 2/06 to June 11/06. Commentary: Running has been a major focus this year, basically increasing the frequency of runs (upto 6 times per week) and consistency. I've been able to do this and maintain an injury free status. So, even though I believe total kms are a tad low, I've met my goal as far as running is concerned. Is it enough? Bah, is it ever enough?
Spinning: that's some serious spinning time. Roughly 40 more hours on the trainer this year compared to all of last year.
Biking kms: Ok, this one looks bad and it is concerning. But I must remember, that the spinning hours count for alot and that up until July, running will/has been the primary focus. So, once again, I must tell myself all is going according to plan. Hopefully between now and IMC I can get 2k kms in.. then I'll feel better.
Swimming: way low kms, but this is not a problem. Coming from a swim background, the ONLY thing I must remember in Ironman Canada is to NOT NOT NOT hang with the fast guys. Even though I have that capability, I must not, I will not go out too fast. Discipline.

So what does this tell me. I guess it tells me things are going according to the master plan I set out in January. I ask myself 'am I training better/smarter then last year?' and I believe the answer is yes. Will there always be some doubt.. should I be doing more? Could I be doing more? During a taper it is natural to question all your previous prep work, I must remind myself of this and stick my plan. It hasn't steered me wrong so far.
Thanks, I'm glad we had this discussion. Cheers.

Taper & Koo

Well it seems blogger is back to normal. Everytime I went to update over the last couple of days, some sort of maintenance was being performed. Ok.. first things first, here are my workouts for the past few days:
Wed: Run 10.5k (trails), swim 5k (4X400, 8X200, 16X100, cooldown)
Thurs: Taper begins. 2 hours of hard work on the trainer.
Fri: Run 7.5k (trails), swim ~3k. (not sure .. as I'm heading to the pool after this post.. but the plan is to do 3k)

Notice I did say taper. I'm doing a 9 day taper for my race next Sunday, backing off on the mileage and getting lots of rest. Race? Did someone say race? Yea I'm excited. I'll tell you about my race plan next week.

You say :' Why is the word 'Koo' in your title?' An excellent question. Koo was our nickname for our dog Kuma. The word Kuma is Japanese for bear. Here's a pic of Koo and you can see why the name fits:

Actually, his registered name was Yuki-Kuma, which translates to snow bear. You can see why he just got 'Koo' most of the time.

Koo was the type of dog, that very few people actually knew errr.. knew well. Sally and I loved Koo for a multitude of reasons but one of the main ones was his spirit. During Koo's life he had multiple health issues, but his spirit always shone and he pulled through. Everything was always a big 'event' for Koo. Didn't matter if it was getting brushed or going for walk, these were HUGE events in Koo's life and he really didn't care what was going on.. just as long as he was hanging with you.
I could ramble on lots and lots about Koo.. but I do try to keep this blog on topic - most of the time. :) So what does this have to do with triathlon? Well the connections is a bit tenuous, but 'bear' with me.
A year ago, we unexpectedly had to put Koo down. Man that sucked. It still amazes how much Sally and I talk about him and of course miss him. He really did have a profound effect on us.

Many triathletes name their bikes.. well you guessed it, the name of my new ride is The Spirit of Koo. (it's '06 Cervelo Dual for those that don't know)

Eep.. must be off, going to be late for my swim...

Holy crap, I'm flying

Ever have one of those days, when your mojo just seems to gel? I had one of those workouts today. It was a brick workout with the primary goal of simulating an upcoming race. I wanted a hard/fast bike to build up some lactic acid in the legs, a quick transition and a run afterwards. I got what I wanted.
I was smoking on the bike, h0t damn it felt good. I was climbing like a goat and was a bullet on the straight-a-ways. Totally in the zone - yea that's the shizzle.
After 77k, I did a quick transition and put on my racing shoes for a 7.5k run. I went sockless for this run - wanted to see if the feet could handle it. I did have some blistering occur, so it looks like I'll have to waste 20 seconds in the transition to put socks on. :) Other than that, the run was aces. Relaxed. Good cadence. Felt strong. I think in another year or two, I'll actually be able to call myself a runner!
Gotta go, bedtime!

Monday weigh in

After a tough weekend, I really enjoy my Monday off day. Monday is the day to catch up on stuff around the house, chill out, maybe grab a nap or just hang out. It's totally unstructured, IF I do a workout, it's mega easy - there is no pressure. If I want to sit on the couch, watch a movie and eat pop-corn - then so be it. It's my recharge day. I like Mondays.

Here are the totals for the week:
Run: 73k
Bike: 259k
Spin: 1 hr
Swim 5k
Dryland 1.5hr
Weight: 161
I'm logging pretty consistent mileage and that's the key. Consistency. I'm eating well and sleeping well, which goes a long way in helping recovery. The weight just might come down another pound soon - a bonus indeed. One less pound to cart around is always a bonus. Hey, there are bike-wienies out there who will pay large dollars just to shave a few grams of weight from their bike. I'd rather shave a few grams of body weight and save the coin. :)

Ironman weekend #1 .... done!

Me: Ok you two, listen up, you got roughly 6 hours of work to do today, I want you to suck it up and just deal with it. I'll tell you what, you get through today, I won't make you do this again for awhile. Deal?
LL (left leg): damnit, aren't you ever happy? We gave you a pretty good long run yesterday...
RL (right leg): yea! You tell him lefty!
Me: That's it, no more lip from either on one of ya.. or I'll make you climb the ski hill.. twice!
RL: hey Lefty, we better shut up... he's just crazy enough to do that.
Me (quiet to myself): how am I ever going to get through this ride. It's windy, it's hilly and frankly, I don't want to play anymore.
LL: I should start acting up.. maybe he'll take a short cut home...
RL: Yea! Oh wait better not, remember last time when I made the ball of his foot hurt? He made us run afterward!
LL: eep.. ya forgot about that, man that sucked.
Me: Quiet you two! Keep pumping!

And that's how my day went. 182k... done and my first Ironman in a weekend is down for the count. I'm feeling a little like:



I'm off to go refuel the engine and spend some quality with my number 1 supporter.
Cheers!

Weekend update

Woke up this morning, checked the forecast, yuk, thundershowers. But I looked outside, it didn't look so bad... hmm what to do, what to do. Procrastinate some more, eat some food, drink liquids, I'm going to something epic, just not sure what. Ok, maybe not epic, but the plan is to do a big weekend. The forecast for Sunday looks better, I think I'll switch my long run and long ride - be flexible. The idea of cycling in thundershowers for 6 hours just wasn't appealing. So, I did my long run.
Today's long run was just under 30k. A nice steady 30k jaunt, with the last 10k being the fastest. The first 10k was a little bit faster than usual (48min), so I knew the last 10k would be nice and tough. (it was) At the 25k, mark there are few rather brutal hills, which made it tougher, but I was able to make the last 10k faster than my first 10k, so mission accomplished. A good, hard, tough run.

Here are Friday's workouts:
Trail run: ~11.5k
Swim: 5k. Check out this set: 50X100 @1:35 Each one came in on 1:24 or 1:25, excpept for the last 10 which were 1:25 or 1:26. The arms were getting a little tired by the end. Bad ass set though. :)

So, if I get a good 180k ride tomorrow, I'll have my first Ironman weekend done. Stay tuned..

Monthly totals

Want to read a good race report? Sheila competed in last week's IM Brazil... sick. Yes, I said sick. She got some bug a couple of days before the race and still managed to get through an Ironman. That's tough. Big kudos to her. Check her blog and report here.

Yesterday we had nasty thunderstorms and tornado warnings, so I had to bail on my long swim. The reason? My dogs were terrified and I could not in good concious leave them be. So instead, we hung out togethor, I did an hour of spinning followed by weights and core work. Earlier in the day I did an 11k run. Even though me and the pooches were hunkered down, I did manage some decent workouts.

However, today is another matter. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my hard days and since I did two workouts on Wednesday that primarily focused on the legs, today's hard workout was just not going to happen. The plan was to do some running hill work, rest for a bit, then get on the bike for some time trial work. Well I did manage the hill work, but I could tell right off that legs weren't up to par. It was a real struggle. I managed 8 repeats and the total run was 13k. As for the bike workout, I bailed. Yup, not too often I can say that. I do have a large weekend planned, so the extra rest will do me good.

Here are the totals for month number 5. Jeez, can't believe it's 5 months since I officially started training. Time flies.
Run: 237.5k
Bike: 600k
Spin: 10hr 45min
Swim: 30.8k
Dryland: 6hrs

A pretty solid month, decent mileage, a race, I'm healthy and life is good. I have nothing to bitch about.

Sweaty mileage report

I know, I know, the mileage report is usually Monday, so without further adieu here are the stats for last week:
Run: 52.5k
Bike: 175k
Spin: 4.0 hrs
Swim: 7.8k
Dryland: 1hr
Weight 161
Everything is pretty much hunky dory, I'm just chugging along and logging some miles. This week I'll be able resume my running mileage and get a good 5 or 6 runs in. Everything else should pretty much stay the same. Maybe some extra bike kms, but nothing too crazy.
Monday was a designated off day, just did 30 minutes of stretching and some upper body weights and nice easy day.

Today, was another matter. Smog. I work outside. I play outside. On these bad air days I can actually feel it in my chest and have a very slight cough. Yum yum, love that particulate air matter circulating in my lungs/system. Perhaps I should take up smoking to get some filtered air.
It's a tough question. Does training in this soup have any benefit? On one hand, I must get acclimatized to heat and you if you don't train when it's crappy out, then you can't race when it's crappy out. On the other hand, breathing on bad smog days is like wrapping your lips around an exhaust pipe. The net benefit is likely negative.

So what did I end up doing today? I didn't want to ride indoors so I said 'screw it' and did a 3+hr brick. A little extreme, but it was in the plan and I didn't want a bad air day mess with my plan. So I biked ~75k and ran 7.5k.
For dinner, I had an extra helping of antioxidants and 9 hrs of sleep tonight should put everything right for tomorrow. Cheers.

Ironman weekend

Close, but not quite. Swam just over 3k on Friday night (an IM swim is 3.8k), Saturday's bike was 175k (an IM bike is 180) and today's run was 23k, combine that with Fridays' run and the total is 32k (an IM run is 42). I shall easily meet an exceed these distances over the 3 days. However, the REAL trick is doing them ALL on the same day. :)

Let's back track a bit. Saturday's ride was rather wicked. I did not end up going to Kitchener as my buddy Ian was tied up doing wedding stuff. So I did a similar ride as last weekend, just longer. Naturally I structured the route so that the hardest hill climbing was in the last 50k and by the end I was rather pooched. Lessons learned from Saturday's ride:
- no matter how easy you think you are going for the first 75k - it's not easy enough.
- pack some InfiniT concentrate. (InfiniT is what I use for fluid/fuel)
Even with multiple pee breaks, stop lights, a few dirt roads and some tough climbs, I was able to hold 30k/hr - it was a good session.

Today was a 2hr run in the heat. I hate heat. I hate humidity. And worse yet, I hate smog. Fortuneately, today wasn't too bad, however the forecast is predicting somewhat of a heat wave starting Tuesday. Must get myself acclimatized.
Actually, despite my bitching, the run went well. I was afraid my legs might be a little too pooched from yesterday's ride, but all things considered I felt pretty damned good. Could have easily extended the run, but was short on H2O, plus it was my 2nd long run in 6 days. Decided to play it smart (cough) and head home. Distance: 23k Time: 1:52.

Finally, Ironman Brazil is today. Here's a couple of pics:


Plenty more pictures available here.

The other cool thing about this race is that Gordo Bryn was in it. Gordo runs a little site called GordoWorld. A top notch site with alot of quality information that Gordo and company freely dole out. Gordo did an incredible 8:36 and placed 5th overall. Amazing. By the way, there was only 21 seconds between first and second, talk about a close race. Luke Bell led for the majority of the race and was passed in the very late stages of the marathon by Argentinean Oscar Galindez. An awesome race.

TGIF pre swim update

Hey. A quick update before I hit the pool.

Since I found my legs, (re: Wednesday's post) yesterday I did manage to do two quality workouts. The first was a rather decent 13k run and the second workout was 2 hours of time trialing on the spinner.
I've really upped my spinning time this year compared to last year. I find coach Troy's spinerval dvd's to be great workouts and they help to pass the time. It's also a very focused bike effort with little downtime. That's the primary reason why I like it. The other tangible benefit is that there are no cars! It will be interesting to see if the extra time on the spinner will yield results.

Today I ran an easy 8.5k and soon I'll be off to the pool to log 3k or so. Tomorrow is looking sweet! So the plan is to get some serious riding in. I'm hoping my buddy Ian is home in Kitchener so I can do that 170k round trip.
Rumour has it that on Sunday Mr. Humidity is rearing it's ugly head. I really don't like the adjustment of having to workout in hot, humid weather. It'll take a few weeks to acclimatize. The plan for Sunday is a ~2hr run.

That's it for now, I'm off to the pool. Have a great weekend!

Found my legs

Eep, I must be getting old. It took me 10 days to recover from the Mississauga half marathon. Oh sure, I've still been working out regularly of course, but the running mileage has taken a beating over the last 2 weeks... something I shall soon rectify.

Here is the workout update:
Tuesday: 2 hours of aerobic spinning, plus 30 minutes of weights and core.
Wednesday: easy 9k+ trail run. (Love the trails!)
swim: 4800m
Today's swim was great... I felt like a swimmer. Check my set out:
4X400m on 6:15 (each one came in 5:45-5:50)
8X200m on 3:15 (each one was about 2:50)
16X100 on 1:40 ( consistently 1:20)

The good news, my times are starting to come down and it's getting easier. Since my times are faster, I'm going to have to start lessening the rest. I sure love that set though.

That's it for now, it's bedtime!

Monday weigh in

Just a quick update because bedtime is just around the corner. Last week was pretty much dedicated to recovery, there were no hard, intense workouts, no weights or hill running. The bad news is that I went for a long run today and my legs still have not recovered from last week's race. This is defineately something to be aware of this week.

Here is the mileage report:
Run: 40k
Bike: 140 km
Spin: 3.5 hrs
Swim: 7.3k
Weight: 161

It's looking like I'll need another 2 or 3 days for the legs to get back to 'normal', this is kind of ticking me off as I want to ratchet up the intensity, but I know better, so I won't. The last thing I need is an injury.

Workout wise, the weekend consisted of a nice 140k ride with Cliff, we got lots of quality saddle time. Notice, I'm not bitching about the crappy weather. :)
Sunday was a rest day and today was my long run, which was just over 23k. The legs complained after an hour into the long run. I had that deep tissue fatigue thing happening again. They have the nerve to complain after I gave them the day off yesterday. Sheesh.

Cheers!

I'm raising a glass to my buddy Ian who is off for what I'm sure is to be a wicked stag this weekend. Cheers Ian! For those with a worse memory than mine, Ian ran the Mississauga half with me last weekend.
So as Ian is getting primed for a weekend of debauchery, I'm slowly recovering from the race last weekend and getting ready for my Mom who is coming to visit us for a few days. (Hi, Mom!)

Today, I did an easy 11k run. I had originally planned 13k, but I can still feel deep tissue fatigue in my legs. Discretion got the better part of valour and I cut it 2k short.
They say that for every mile raced, you need a day of recovery. I frequently say screw conventional wisdom - if everyone was 'conventional', the world would be booooooring. However, intellectually I know that recovering is just as important as your 'hard' days, so I hereby swear not to ratchet up the intensity until fully recovered.

I also logged 3k in the pool this evening, the main set was a nice lactate acid producing 10X100m, with the first length butterfly. The good news is, each one came in on 1:15 or 1:16. Yay!

Have an excellent long weekend and as my good friend, Reddog, says.. Be Safe!

The virtue of selfishness?

Is that an oxymoron? I don't think so. I was thinking about this earlier today. If you have not effectively looked after yourself and met your own needs (mental, phsyical, spiritual etc..) , how can you help others? I don't necessarily think selfishness is bad thing, obviously, as with anything, if taken too far, it's a terrible thing. But if it takes a little bit of selfishness to further explore you, then I'm all for it. Regardless what others think. As with all things, a balance is needed. Give a little bit, take a little bit.
So take some time for yourself, you never know where it might lead. After you have done that for you, turn it around and do something for someone else, maybe your significant other, a friend or even a total stranger.
Pay it Forward
(for those that don't know, it's a movie - a definate worthwhile rental)

All this talk about selfishness makes me want to go spend some quality time with my wife. :) Before I go, here is what I did today:
-spin: 2 hrs
-weights/core: 30min
-planned next month of training.

Still in recovery mode

Listen to your body! This is probably one of the biggest things I've learned over the last couple of years, how to effectively listen to what my body is telling me. All things come in to play here, sleep, eating habits, the previous days workouts, the previous week's workouts and one's own daily ups and downs.

I know it's too early to do anything intense, one does not engage in high intensity workouts a mere 3 days after a half marathon. My legs still have some minor residual soreness, but it's really not that bad and I did a 5.5k easy/recovery run without any problems.
Wednesday is also my swim day, I was feeling a little tired - didn't sleep so well last night. But swimming is great for recovery workouts, so I couldn't really come up with an excuse not to go. I have to do some long endurance type swimming and Wednesday is the day to do it. Besides feeling a little tired, I was having a hell of time trying to think of something fun to do in the pool. Endurance swimming comes down to logging laps and it can get tough being creative when the ultimate goal is to just get the laps in.
So I get to the pool and just started swimming, no sets, just laps. This lasts for 30 minutes before I start getting really bored. After my straight 30 minute 'set', I did a 10X200m alternate swim /pull set. So in the end I did roughly 4300 m. Not too shaboo.

Tuesday weigh in

Ok ok ok, I know, Monday is suppose to be weigh in, I got sidetracked steam cleaning @#$!! carpets! I wonder if that constitutes a workout? It should, because it's such a pain in the ass.
Last week was week number 19, which culminated in an actual race. Finally, after 19 weeks of training I got to race. Now that it has been 48 hours after the race, I've been reflecting on my status for the season. The verdict is I'm happy where I'm at. My work on running is starting to pay off and I'm only 6.5 minutes off my long term goal of breaking 1:20 for the half. Although, it may take me an additional 2 years to knock off that 6.5 minutes. It certainly does get exponetially harder, the faster you want to go.

Here's is week 19's mileage report:
Run: 40k
Bike: 100k
Spin: 2 hrs
Swim 7.7k
Dryland: 2 hrs
Weight: ~162
I'm happy with the week, mostly because I had 2 fairly easy days and still managed reasonable mileage AND got a race in.

My lack of time on the bike is starting to creep into the forefront of my mind. It's not imperative I log mega miles yet, but in a few short weeks, I'll be looking for a solid 300k ++ on weekly basis. I have another 'soft' goal of logging a 500k week on the bike in June and the end of July.

The goals for this week are very flexible, I have to make sure the legs are fully recovered from racing before I crank it up too crazy. Yesterday, was my designated off day, just did some light stretching and that's it. Today, the weather is crap, so I'm going on the spinner for an easy 1 hour followed by upper body weights and core. May get a swim in too.. not sure on that one. That's all for now... later!

Mississagua half report

Ahh.. feel much better, just got up from my post race nap and I'm good to go! For those that don't like details, here is the short version:
Time: 1:26:27 (chip)
Place: 40th overall, 9th in age group.
Bottom line: The quads acted up at the 15k mark, but it was good race.

The slightly more detailed version:
Slept ok, not great, merely ok. Got up at 5 am and chugged down two Boost and a cup-o-Joe. I'm testing out going with purely liquid calories/carbs for my pre race breakfast. My stomach can act up on longer races and since this was a B race, I figured it was a good time to test the new breakfast out.
Sally, my number 1 fan, and I arrived and met up with some good friends of ours, Ian, Mark and Lori. The guys were running and the girls were our support crew. :) (not next year though... right Lori?) After the usual pre race banter, we warmed up and headed to the start, along with the other 4000 particpants doing the half.




Mark saw the camera and ran away. Ian's wearing orange, so that makes me the other guy. Lori wasn't racing, so she wasn't allowed in the photo. :)



Off to the races! As stated yesterday, I had simple plan. Run hard. The first 5k was quick, but a controlled quick. A very nice wind at our backs was a definate help, however this would come back to haunt us. My split at the 5k mark was 19:28 or 3:54/km. I took this is as a good sign, breathing and heart rate felt fine and I was in cruise mode. A small stitch made itself noticeable, but it never really materialized. (phew)

The next split was 5.3k as indicated on my Garmin. The time was 21:07 or 3:58/km. I thought, good almost at the halfway mark and I'm maintaining sub 4 minute kms.
The next split was just over 6k. I somehow missed the 15k marker and so took it at the 16k marker instead. The time was 24:45 or 4:06 /km.
A couple things came into to play at this point in the race. Number one was my quads, they simply were not rested enough and I was starting to feel them. (I did 2 hours of time trialing on the bike on Thursday - undoubtedly the culprit) The second, was the wind. By now we are running near the lake and the nice tailwind we had near the beginning was now staring us head on. I kept looking for a big guy to hide behind and draft off, but alas, that wasn't going to happen.
The wind was bad enough, that at one point my cap blew off! That's never happened before... doh. But it's one of my favorite caps, so I stopped, turned around and ran back for it. So I ran a little extra.. :)

So from 16k to 21k I have choice. Blow the legs out and maybe finish 90 or seconds faster or stay in cruise, save the legs and continue my workout schedule this week. I did the right thing, stayed in cruise mode. The last 5k came in at 21:06, a 4:13/km pace.

Not having alot of experience (this is my 3rd half), I'm happy with the way I paced the race. A 1:26 is a PB, so no complaints there and my quest for improved running continues..
Ian came within 1 minute of a PB and Mark, who only got talked into doing the race at the last minute posted a great time. A pretty damned good day for our little crew.

The 'plan'

Actually, I'm not sure what the 'plan' is. This is in regarding tomorrow's race. You say: 'Darren, you are racing in less than 24 hrs, and you aren't sure of your plan?' I say: 'Yep'.
You see, I'm not fully tapered or rested as this is a B race for me. But on the other hand, I'd like to nail a good time (duh). The math indicates, I should be able to run sub 1:25, however I don't think that's realistic, so I'm going to aim for 1:28. I know.. I know, it's a 3 minute difference, big deal.
But, on the other hand, it's a fairly fast course, so posting a big PB is a possibility... Then again, if I go for the big PB, I have a very real chance of just blowing up at the 15k mark.. Perhaps I'll go for the big PB and if I blow up, I should still straggle in at 1:28, but if I don't blow up.. who knows?
Bah, I think I'll just play it by ear and run hard. Hey, that sounds like a good 'plan'. Just run hard. Phew, I'm glad we had this discussion. Thanks!

Here is the workout update: Yesterday I did an easy 6.5k run and my second workout was a 2700m swim. The main part of my swim set was a 10X 100m on 2 minutes. First length butterfly, the next 3 lengths are freestyle. Each one came in 1:18 or faster. So I got lots of rest between sets.
Why do I do set like this? Here is the reasoning: the first length (butterfly, the toughest stroke), produces lactate acid in the muscle, for the next 3 lengths (freestyle), I'm forced to deal with the lactate acid produced from the first length of butterfly. I then get enough rest to absorb some of the lactate acid, but not enough rest so that's it's dissapeared. So by the 6th set, it starts to get hard. I'm trying to get my body used to the elevated heart rate and lactate acid produced during the swim part of my triathlon.
There is method to the madness.

C'est tout for now. I'll update tomorrow with a quick race report. Cya!

Totally time trial

Today was my last hard workout before Sunday's race and since it was raining cats and dogs, the workout was done on the spinner. I fired up coach Troy's Have Mercy 2.0 dvd and settled in for a hard two hours on the bike. At times, my legs screamed at me and when they complained, I turned it up another notch - just to shut them up. Sweat was pouring, I was huffing and the legs were screaming - my kind of workout.
I need to get a few of these types of workouts done, these are the ones that make you faster. My first 'A' race is a mere month away and I'd really like to see my average kph in the 38 range for that race. I need to gain as much time as possible after the swim and bike because I know I'll be passed on the run. :)

My short mini taper starts tomorrow. The plan is to do an easy run and an easy swim. I'll start horfing down the carbs and on Saturday I'll do a very short run with some stretching, then it's off to the races baby!

Status Quo

Are you content with being the status quo? I think most people are. I'm totally cool with that, who am I to judge you? You are the one that has to live up to your standards and no one else. If you are happy being Joe status quo, then by all means, fill your boots. The only real problem I have with the status quo is when they try to bring others to their level.
Example. Let's say Herb is trying to quit drinking. Herb's 'buddies' think this is foolish and exert a negative influence, thus making Herb's goal that much more difficult.

I'm not sure why it's human nature to try to bring others down when they are trying to accomplish something. It's a sad commentary about us. Why is it we envy others successes so much? I guess it's easier to be envious then to actually work and be a success yourself. Just because others don't 'get' what you are doing, doesn't mean you shouldn't be supportive. So, if you have a friend who trying to something new, or is expanding their horizons, clap him/her on the back and say ' you know, I think it's really cool you are doing such and such, way to go!'
Such simple words can go so far..

Alrighty then, on to today's workouts. It was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, so I went for an easy 8k trail run. I'm not doing any hill or speed training this week, as I'm trying to give the legs a little bit of a break for the upcoming half marathon.

My second workout was a neat swim set:
4X400m on 6:15 (each one came in on 5:55, which gave me 20s rest)
8X200m on 3:15 (each one came on 2:55, again, 20s rest)
16X100m on 1:45
The last set was something I could really sink my teeth into. It reminded of my old swim days. Shorter intervals with slightly longer rest. Much more fun then the long endurance stuff. I started out on a 1:25/100m pace, but by the end of the set I was at 1:15 /100m. Not as fast I was 20 years ago.. but I was pleasantly happy with my swim today. The total mileage was 5,000m.

100k Tuesday

Cracked off a relatively quick 100k on the bike today. A bit of wind, lots of hills, some dirt roads, a couple of stops and my average speed was just over 31k/hr. After the ride, I did my usual post workout stretch routine followed by weights/core work.

I'm starting to keep half an eye on the weather and though it's far away, Sunday's race is looking soggy at this point. I think that predicting weather that's 5 days away is kind of stupid, heck I'm happy if they just get tomorrow right. Yet, like an idiot I'm checking the forecast..

Monday weigh in

I had a good long run yesterday, it was difficult in a good way. Here is the breakdown: first 10k was exactly on my 5:00 min/km pace. The second 10k, which is hilly, I maintained exactly the same pace. I was hungry, low on energy and only carried a measley 10 ozs of water with me for the whole run. (it was a water/honey mixture) So I knew the last 10k was going to be hard. Truthfully, it wasn't so bad. The only hard part was a brutal hill at the 25k mark. It's the hill I do my all my hill repeats on. It's kind of sadistic to put that in at the 25k mark of a long run... which probably says something about my personality, but let's not go there.
The total run was just over 30k and the last 10k, I brought the pace down to 4:51 /km. Not as fast as I thought, but I'm sure that hill really cut into my average pace.

Today is my rest day and I've already fixed the sink and walked the dog. I'm going to do a good 45 minutes of stretching, some upper body weight and some core work. A nice easy day.

Here are the stats for the first week of May:
Run: 73.5k
Bike: 185k
Spin: 1:15
Swim: 8k
Dryland: 1:30
Weight: 162
It was a good week. My body has adapted well to the 70k+ running weeks. My biking is ok, I'm defineately going to have to start logging more saddle time in the coming weeks. Any week I get 8k in the pool is good. So, like I said, a good week.

This Sunday, I have a 'B' race, so I won't be running as much and will be taking an extra rest day. I'll talk more about my plan for the Mississauga half marathon later in the week.

Weekend update

It's Saturday night and I just finished some chores around the house - yup, if you want to hang with me, it's life in the fast lane baby. Actually, I was procrastinating my household duties because I went for a long ride with Cliff.

Let me back up a bit, I emailed a few people on Wednesday about doing a long ride on Saturday (today). The weather forecast was looking iffy, so honestly, I didn't think anyone would want to come. But I said, the first scheduled group was May 6... and since I said it, I could not in good concious wimp out. So I figured I'd invite everyone, no one will come and I'll go do 3 hours on the trainer instead of biking in icky weather. (ok, so I admit I'm a fair weather cyclist) So, Cliff was the only one to call my bluff, for which I'm grateful.

Under the threat of rain and relentless wind, we set out to do a 120k horribly hilly route I mapped out. I admit, when I train, I'm a hardass. I see a hill, I want to climb it, I want to push my personal limits, not because I want win, I do it because I just simply love to train and wish to extend my personal limit. I think it's a zen thing or something. So when I go into Zen mode and I have a tendancy to forget that maybe others are not used to the hills, I suppose it's kind of selfish, but it's not meant to be.
The cool thing is that every time I looked back at Cliff , he's always has a grin on face. I like that attitude. No matter the conditions, the headwind, or the hills.. not one complaint and a big grin on his face.

We get to the 80k mark and I give him the option of extending the ride a bit, which will involve yet another particularly nasty climb, or cutting it short. He chooses the former. I think to myself, yup we are going to get along just fine. By now, the sun was out and wind was at our backs and we sailed home. What a great ride. Oh yea, I broke 80km/hr on the way home. Wheee!

Here is the last two days in a nutshell:
Friday: Run: easy 7k on the trails. Swim: 3000m, it consisted of a 1000m straight swim, 10X100 m on 2 minutes (first length butterfly) and some drill work.
Saturday: Bike: 120k followed by a short 2.5k run.

Eeep, long update.. I'm off to bed, got to get plenty of rest for tomorrow's long run. Cheers!

5k PB!

Did my monthly 5k 'test' run today and cracked off a PB. Yay me! :) Here is the breakdown of the run: 5k warmup, 5k hard, 3k cool down. My time for the 5k hard was 19:30, which is 24 seconds faster than my last 5k test. Now if I can improve 24 seconds everytime I do this test .... It's kind of wierd, my limiter seems to be my legs. My heart and lungs say "go faster" and my legs say "not gonna happen". I think with fresh legs and in an actual race, dropping that time by 90 seconds is a realistic possibility. Ever so slowly, I'm getting faster.
I recall reading that you can realistically see improvements in speed and endurance for the first 5 to 8 years. That's how long it takes to get good. So I have a ways to go, but it's still nice to see an improvement.

My second workout was some time trial work on the bike - yea running speed work followed by time trialing on the bike = fried legs. I did 1:15 on the spinner to a new dvd: coach Troy's Have Mercy 2.0. Spinning can get boring at times, but it's SO effective. You are always pushing gears, no rest, no coasting downhills, it's go go go. The downside is the scenery sucks. :)

Tomorrow I plan to do an easy run on the trails then hit the pool in the evening. Cheers

You gotta have passion

I could not imagine going through life without being passionate about something. So many dreary souls in the world, clocking in and clocking out - they have no passion. You know the type, heck perhaps you are the type, the person who has no passion is in a perpetual state of unhappiness. That misery is reflected in their actions and others pick up on it. In effect, the miserable person is a mirror of their own misery. Worse yet, it's contagious. How many times have you been around an unhappy person, only to find yourself starting to feel that same unhappiness? You get what you give. If you're grumpy all time, well people around will have a tendancy to be grumpy too - it becomes a self fullfilling prophecy.
Get a passion. Pursue it with all your heart, learn from it, if you are lucky, maybe teach others. I'm not saying you have to go do an Ironman or anything, but get out and try something and really delve into it. Of course don't let it interfere with friends, family and commitments. If you have passion, you also need balance. I'll talk about balance another day. That's enough philosophizing for one day. :)

Today, I did an easy run on the trails! I hadn't planned to hit the trails, but I was running by a Bruce Trail access point and said what the heck - I yinged intstead of yanged. Running the trails today made me realize how much I miss it. So today, I vowed to incorporate more trail running in my regime. It's also noticeably easier on the joints, so I'm sure the body will thank for me that. Total distance was roughly 8k.

I also hit the pool today. It's been 2 weeks since my last swim, so I was feeling a little rusty. I figure it's about time to start bringing my swimming up to speed. I did have a good workout though - check my main set out:
20X 200m on 3:15 Fun stuff.
8X 100m drills
200 easy.
Total was 5000m. Any day I log 5k in the pool is a good day. Cheers.

Just a quickie..

Hey guys, just a quick update. The hardest part of getting back into the grind is the mental aspect. It's funny how your own mind plays tricks on you and how you can easily talk yourself out of doing something 'hard.' So as my mind was playing games with itself, the body went for a run and I did my hill repeats today. Was it fun? No. Was it worth it? Yes. Total run was 13k with 8 tough hill repeats each ascent came in at 91 sec. After my stretch and cool down, I did 45 minutes of weights and core work.

Sometimes you just gotta tell yourself to shutup and get on with it. I'm glad I did.

Back in the saddle, monthly totals and more!

Officially, my mini-hiatus is over. Last week was dedicated to resting, not thinking about triathlon, getting perspective and tweaking the 'plan'. I did get a couple of workouts in, just so that I don't lose any fitness and now I'm ready for the big push. So in a way, May 1 is chapter two in my little journey.

Chapter one was from Jan 1 to April 30 and was running focused with a good chunk of spinning time and very little swimming. In the coming weeks, I'll be doing more biking, while trying to maintain some good running kilometers. I'll also be adding an extra weekly swim session.

I have a race in less than 2 weeks, so the above formula won't become fully in effect until the end of the month. The short term, 2 week plan, is to focus on running, add some extra bike sessions, then take it easy for a day or two before the Mississagua half marathon. That race is a "B" race, so although I'll be going hard, I will not do a full taper for it.

Here are the totals for the month of April:
Run: 223.5 km
Spin: 16.5 hrs
Bike: 124 km
Swim 8.6 km
So although I may not be happy with the totals, it's not really that bad considering I had a week of forced rest.

Lastly, Monday is always a rest day. I usually take the day off to catch up on chores etc.. But since last week was so easy and since today is the beginning of chapter two I had to do something. So, 65 biking kms go in the books followed by my routine of upper body weights, stretching and core work.
Ok, I think you are up to date now.. cheers! :)

Monday weigh in

Ok, let met start off by saying yesterday's long run sucked. I really don't like to post negative stuff, but I did have to get that off my chest. I've rarely been so wet or chilled as I was yesterday. I'm talking about drenching, soaked to the bone, feet squishy wet - in 5C weather. Fun stuff. The good news is I did get a 2 hour run in, the bad news is I only did 23.5k. I was wishing I had a partner to run with, there are times when solo training is tough.

Here is the recap and mileage report for week number 16:
Run: 73k
Bike: 64k
Spin: 4:15hrs
Swim 4k
Dryland: 1.5hrs
Weight: 162
This week ended up being very similar to the previous week. It caps off another 3 week build period and I'm pretty happy with my current fitness level. I was short a few k's on my projected run total, but on the other hand I got 6 good runs in each of the last two weeks. Bike and swim goals were met and weight has come down another pound.

Next week is a special week, as it marks the halfway mark to Ironman Canada, I only have 3 key workouts for the entire week, I have numerous rest days planned and I'm going to tri not to think or do anything with triathlon. Call it a system purge. The reason for this is to get fully rested and focused for the next 3 months. In May I'll re-examine my workout schedule and tweak as necessary.

Today is a scheduled rest day, I did 45 minutes of stretching, some light core work and upper body weights. I'm a big fan of stretching, hmm.. I mean proper stretching. Few people incorporate stretching in their routine and even fewer do it properly. It's a shame, personally, I've found flexibility to be very helpful in injury prevention. It increases range of motion, which in turn can aid in technique and give efficiency gains. I can't back that statement up with any scientific data - just personal experience. Besides, after a good stretch session you just plain feel good.

Lastly, due to the 'system purge', I may not post too frequently this week - do not despair! I shall be back with a vengenance and will keep everyone updated. That I promise. :) Cheers.

Weekend update

So Lance Armstrong is doing the New York City marathon. Good on him. Personally, I'm hoping this is one step towards him doing an Ironman. It would be great for him to come back to his triathlon roots and compete in Kona. For those that don't know, Kona is in Hawaii and is the site of the world Ironman Championship. In order to qualify for Kona, not only do you have to complete an Ironman, you have to qualify. Due to the increasing popularity of the sport the qualifying times are getting progressively more difficult. It sounds perverse, you put yourself through absolute hell and if you are really good at it, you get to qualify and do it again! Hmm.. perhaps I should make this a goal of mine... grin.

Here is the workout update. Yesterday was an easier day, I did a 10k easy run followed by a core workout and upper body weights. Today was 3 hours on the spinner to coach Troy's Tough Love dvd; I immediately followed that up with a short 4.5k run. The plan f0r tomorrow is a ~30k run, I hope the legs can hold out. I'm starting to close in on 80k of running for the week, which is somewhat of a milestone. The good news is that next week is a super easy week. Next weekend marks the halfway point to Ironman Canada and I plan and doing sweet F.A. Got to get fully rested up for May, June and July because they will be hard.

Pooched

My go hard days are Tuesday, Thursday and the weekend. Tuesday is hill work for running, plus a bike workout and if I'm feeling spunky I'll do some weights too. Thursday is running speed work, plus a bike workout. The weekend is pretty much dedicated to 'going long' - endurance work.
Yesterday, was an easy day. Here is what I did:
Run: 9k easy
Swim: 4000m
Ok, so swimming 4k may not be easy but it does give my legs a break. Actually, I was going to swim more, but at the 3k mark I was so hungry I only managed an extra 1k and called it quits, went home and stuffed my face. Here is the swimming set:
1000 warmup
4X600m on 9:30
500m drill work
100 cool down
Today was a hard day and yes, I'm pooched. My total run was 14k and sandwiched in the middle of that run was my tempo pace intervals. They consisted of 2k @ 3:52/km, 1k easy, 3k @ 3:55/km, 1k easy and 2k @ 3:53/km. It was a tough set. I was starting to think I may not make my goal pace of sub 4 min /kms on the last set, but I just told myself to relax and focused on cadence, lo and behold it wasn't an issue.
My 2nd workout today was a nice 64k bike ride in beautiful 24 degree weather. Naturally, I further pooched myself by doing some hill work. :)
Fortuneately, tomorrow is easy day Friday. Cheers.

The trickle down effect

I knew work was going to be rough today, so I hit the ground running and got in a few minutes early to get a jump start on the day. I still ended up working later than usual, in turn, my run was later then usual. As a result, I almost blew off my 2nd workout - note I said almost. :) Here is what I did today:

Run: total 12k. Did 7 hill repeats. Fastest 89sec, slowest 94 sec.
Bike: spin for 1:15. Planned on riding outside but time was an issue. So hopped on the trainer and actually got a really good, but short session in.
Weights: 30 minutes.

Since I was running late most of the day, my workouts ran later than usual, as a result I'm a little keyed up and I'm suppose to be in bed in 30 minutes. Hopefully I'll get tired real soon. :)

Monday weigh in

It's always good when you accomplish your goals for the week. Last week was actually week number 15, I think I mentioned earlier it was week 14, but I just double checked and it's actually 15. I can't believe 15 weeks have already past buy. I find when I really start to focus in on something, the time just flies. Ok, so here are the totals for week 15:
Run: 73.5k
Bike: 60k
Spin: 4hrs
Swim: 4.6k
Dryland: 1 hr
Weight: 163
A couple things to note: I ran 6 times last week and 73.5k is my highest mileage to date. I'm glad the body is adapting well to the running stress I'm putting on it - I plan on adding more running miles in the weeks to come. Bike and swim are good. I want to start adding some more bike mileage, but must keep reminding myself of the 'plan' - which is to still focus on running. Must keep reminding myself to stick to the plan.
As for weight, I'm a light 163. The increased running frequency is slowly changing my body composition (which I want). I'm trying to trade a couple pounds of fat for lean muscle. Seems like a fair deal, ya?

Next week, I'll be running 6 times again with expected mileage closing in on 80k. I'd like to bring saddle time up to 7hrs and maintain swimming mileage. Cheers.

Easter update

So far, it's been a great long weekend and the bonus is, on Monday, not only do I not have to work, its' also a scheduled off day. I think every weekend, should be 4 days off instead of the standard 2..
I see I haven't updated since Thursday, so here's a quick mileage report of the last few days. Friday was an easy run day of 11k. Did some strides and a couple short sprints. On Saturday I did 3 hours of 'Tough Love' with coach Troy. This is my 3rd of 6 sessions I've planned to do with that particular dvd. This one involves lots of standing/hill work and gives my legs a really good workout. After the spin session, I did a short 4.5k run.

Today was long run day and even though I had a hard spin session yesterday, the legs weren't too bad. I guess that shows they are adapting to the stresses I'm putting on them. I had 25k planned, which is a little less than usual, but I brought the mileage down a few k's for three reasons: 1) this is highest run mileage week of the season so far. 2) I have another high mileage running week ahead. 3) We have company coming over and I don't want to be too tired for the festivities. :)
Pacing for the run went as follows: first 10k @ 5:05 /km - a tad slow but I had a pee break, a pebble in my shoe, and had to adjust my mp3 player... twice! :) The next 10k is quite hilly but I was able to bring the pace down to 5:00 /km. The last 5.5k I was feeling good and the tunes were rocking so I brought the pace down again to 4:44/km.
That's all for now, see you tomorrow for Monday's weigh in. (looks promising, I think I shaved another pound. :) Cheers.

The running man

As most of you who have been following me for the last few months know, I've been running focused and plan on staying that way for another month. I've been upping my running frequency, endurance and added hill training and tempo runs, all in the hopes of becoming a 'real' runner.
This week and next week I'll be running 12 times. Somewhat of record for me, but I'm in my 14th week of training so I should be able to handle the increased load. Don't worry I haven't forgot about the other 2 sports, I just don't need to do them 6 days week. Phew.

Today was tempo run Thursday. I did a 3.5k warmup, then ran 2k hard, 1 k easy, repeated that 3 times and did an easy cooldown run home. My first 2k was at a 4:05/km pace and the next two sets were 3:55/km and 3:52/km respectively. Total run was just over 13k.
My second workout was an hour on the trainer, did some big gear work, some steady state work and some cadence work. Afterwards I spent 30 minutes doing weights.
That's it, I'm off to bed and I totally plan on sleeping in as much as my body will let me. Damn, I love long weekends!

Tic toc tic toc tic toc

Time.
I wasn't planning on getting verbose this evening. But I can feel the words are going to flow a little bit better than usual, so I might as go with it. I'm going to talk a little about time management. Yea, I know one or two of you have smirk on your face, just hear me out.
It's said that the average working Joe actually has about 8 hours of free time each and every day. The problem is that free time comes in a little chunks throughout the day, thus it's difficult to get a long stretch of free time. This makes it easy to put off stuff we know we should be doing but just don't have enough 'time'. Going for workout is a good example. Making excuses not to do something is the easy way out. Anyway, back to the topic. Where do you find time???
My trick is get as much as free time in a row as possible. Here's a typical day/example. Up at 5:30. Out the door in 15 minutes and at my desk working by 6:20. No lining up at Tim's for 10 minutes to get a coffee, no stopping to read the paper - all of these little things cut into my quality time. I eat at my desk, while working, I work through my breaks and lunch and I sure the hell don't go outside for 10 smoke breaks a day. I snack on the go and eat in the car on the way home. Within 15 minutes of arriving home, I'm out the door and doing my run workout. Yea it can be tough - but that's just mental, just suck it up and get it done.
Bam! Workout number 1 already done. Next I eat, do some chores, grab snack and get ready for workout number 2. If I'm lucky, I can grab a 20 minute nap. Do workout number 2, get dinner ready, get all my stuff ready for the next day. Food, coffee, uniform laid out, showered etc. If all goes well, I have an hour to chill with Sally or fart around on the computer. Then it's off to bed.
The point is. YOU have the time - just stop wasting it. No excuses and nothing is impossible.

Ok, let me climb down from the soapbox and tell you what I did today. Yesterday was a bit of leg frier, so today was an 8k easy run and a pretty hard 4600m swim session. Here's the swim details:
1000m warmup
6X400m on 6:15
5X200m on 3:15
cooldown
Other then my arms getting a little tired, I have no complaints and I'm pretty happy with the day's workout. Cheers!

Inaugural ride

Well it would appear that switching shoes did the trick. I did hill repeats in my new Saucony's and my ankle seemed just fine. It was perfect weather and I really wanted to stoke the engine and just run. However, the plan was hill repeats, and I have to stick with the plan. End result was 11.5k with 6 hill repeats - it felt great.

Yes I did it. I finally got my new bike on the road. I figure it's 20 degrees out, there is hardly any dirt and salt the road, there is NO excuse to not ride on a day like this. So I took my bike on a 60k jaunt around Caledon. It was sweet, it was fast and it was fun. Could you ask for anything more? At one point I hit 70km/h, I think with the right hill I could get that sucker well into the 90's. Muahahaha. Not a bad inaugural ride.

Monday weigh in

Today is my designated rest day, so instead of working out, I spent a couple of hours tweakin my bike. It's amazing how fast a couple of hours can fly by, a tweak there, an adjustment here, swap a tire, test stuff out, check emergency kit...

Last week was a fairly easy week, I ran myself down pretty hard during the previous week's training camp, so I needed the rest/recovery time. Here's the stats:
Run: 49.5km
Spin: 5 hrs
Swim: 0 (!)
Dryland: 2 hours
Weight: 163
I guess the only thing of note is the lack of a swim last week. Really, it's no big deal though, swimming is the easiest sport for me, it's the other two sports I have to concentrate on.

The next two weeks are scheduled to be running focused. This may be subject to change, depending if I get that ankle pain I mentioned yesterday. I should know tomorrow if new shoes will solve the problem as I'm scheduled for a hill workout. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. So here is the tentative plan: run: 70km, bike 7hrs, swim 5k.

A taxing issue

Hey guys, just a quick weekend update because I'm actually putting off doing my taxes at the moment.
In case you're wondering, Friday ended up being a write off - it happens, not very often, but it does happen. Naturally, being well rested, Saturday's spin session was wicked. I did the same session as last week and my legs felt much better this time around. They are defineately getting stronger. Afterwards, I did some stretching, some core work and an upper body weight workout.

Today, was long run day. I felt awesome and was going to crack off a great run, except at the 17k mark I got a niggling little pain in my right ankle. It did go away after a few kms, but I'm not happy that I had it in the first place. Going to change shoes and keep an eye on it. I did manage to negative split the last 10k and the overall distance clocked in at 29k.

Ok that's it on the workout front. In other news, I'm thinking of putting togethor a Saturday morning long bike crew. Something fairly harcore and geared towards people training for Ironman. So, if there are any other tri wienies out there, drop me a line, the email is on the left. I'll compile a list and send out more information if I get a decent response.
Ok ok ok.. back to doing taxes. Sigh...

Rem cycle

Ever have one of those nights? I love and need my zzzz's, especially when training. So I hunkered down for a solid 8.5 hours of sleep last night - yes, I go to bed at 9. Sally woke me at 5:30 and I swear I was in the middle of a rem sleep cycle. Oh joy, waking up tired and sleepy. I wanted to call in sick for work, oh sure could you imagine that? "Hi, ya I won't be coming in today because I'm in the middle of rem sleep cycle." Somehow, I doubt they'd be understanding.

I did have a small after work run scheduled, but I blew that off - this is a moderate mileage week, so I can do that without feeling guilty. (ok, I still do) Instead, I went for nap. Usually a 20-30 minute nap sets me up real fine. Not today. I'm still sleepy. See? That's what you get when you wake up in the middle of a rem cycle.

Here is the workout update. Yesterday, run 7.5k, spin for an hour and 30 minutes of weights. Tonight I have a pool workout planned, but I'm soooo very tempted to pop a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie instead. I'll let you know what happens. :) As for this weekend, I'll be doing a 3 hours spin session to coach Troy's Tough Love volume 13. This did a good job frying my legs last weekend, so in a sick way I'm kinda looking forward to it. I'll follow that spin session with a short run. On Sunday, I'll be running ~27k.
Have a great weekend!

The 'wave'

Still pretty much in recovery mode from last week's training camp. Yesterday, I did 2 hours of aerobic work on the trainer and a 30 minute weight session. Today was a steady 13k run. It took some mental effort to get it done, but as usual, once you get going - it's not so bad. Hopefully, another day or two of easy workouts and I'll be back to 100%. The next 2 weeks will be, once again, running focused, so I need to be fully recovered.

What is 'the wave'? The wave occurs when I'm running against traffic and a courteous oncoming car moves over and gives the runner (me) lots of space. Usually, if there is no oncoming traffic for the vehicle, they will cross over the centre of the road and give me lots of space. This is a nice gesture, it tells me they see me and that I don't have to worry about them.

So who gets the wave from me? Basically, anyone courteous enough to move a few feet over and give me a little extra space. I wave at them to acknowledge their coolness, they wave back saying 'hey, no problem'. I actually, consider myself fairly fortunate. Country roads have far fewer cars and at least 75% of the vehicles that pass me, earn a wave.
I have to admit it boggles my mind when someone doesn't move over, especially if there is no oncoming traffic. I have hard time understanding that type of mentality. Obviously, they don't get a wave. No wave for you!

So, if you are in my neck of the woods and you see a runner waving at you, it might be me thanking you for your courtesy.
/wave

Monday weigh in

Phew. Training camp is done. Lots of quality workout time last week and back to work today = one tired puppy. Today is a rest day, I'm taking full advantage of it. Instead of working out, I watched Shawshank Redemption. An excellent movie. Here's the mileage report for last week:
Run: 72 km
Spin 10 hrs
Swim 7.8 km
Dryland: 1.5 hrs
Weight: 163
What can I say. I accomplished what I set out to do. I wanted a tough week, I got a tough week. Mission accomplished. The only other thing of note was that I dropped a pound. One less pound to cart around is always a good thing.

This week will be a moderate week. I have to see how well the body bounces back from training camp before I start beating myself up again. The *tentative* mileage plan for the week is: run:50k, spin: 6 hrs and swim 5k.
Cheers.

Careful what you wish for

Training camp is done!
I would slide the last 6 days into the 'difficult' side of things. I had to carefully guage each day and make each workout just hard enough so that I could get through the week without blowing up. Well I didn't blow up, but today's long run was tough. So in the end I calculated well, got what I wished for and made it through the week.
Here's is the quick version of the last two days. Saturday, was a 3 hour spin session. I "rewarded" myself by spinning to a new dvd, Spinervals 13.0 Tough Love. Yikes, this was a leg frier. Lots of standing and hill work, this chewed up my quads rather nicely. (mental note - I want to do that dvd at least 6 times). Afterwards, I did a short 4.5k run and I just knew that Sunday's long run was going to be epic.
Fast forward to today. Damn, what a gorgeous day, perfect for a long run. I wonder how well the legs will hold up, they took a beating this week. Oh well, it's my last work out of training camp - let's get er done. My pace was slow, but I wasn't worried about that, today was about just slogging through some tough miles. I'll tell you a secret. I actually walked the tougher hills. I had scheduled 30k and wussed out at just over 27k. I was starting to hit that "grey area" of doing too much. So instead of tacking on the last little mini 3k loop back to the house, I just headed straight for home. Yay, now it's recovery time!

Side note about recovery. I was reading this brief science article about laughter. Basically, just thinking about laughing is good for you. We've all heard of the therapeutic value of laughter. What struck me in this article is that the participants had higher level of HGH (human growth hormone) when just thinking about laughing. So how does this relate to recovery? Well, HGH is a huge factor for athletes and greatly aids in recovery and is primarily released during sleep. Faster recovery = better quality workouts. So, by putting two and two togethor, I figure laughing may make me a better athlete. I'm sure someone, somewhere will find that funny.

Monthly mileage report, 5k time trial &training camp

Lots of stuff to catch up on. Here's the news in chronological order. Yesterday, 2 spin sessions of 2 hours each - done. Had to catch up on my bike trainer time and give the running legs a break. So 4 hours on the bike yesterday.

Today, my a.m. session was a 13k run. It went like this: warmup 5k, hard 5k, 3k easy. I like to a hard 5k once a month to guage fitness, it's a 90%+ effort and I use it that as an indicator of my current running speed. The good news is that all my focus on running is slowly but surely paying off. Today, I came in at 19:54, which I'm very happy with considering my best time all last year was 20:00 AND I'm in the middle of training camp. I would have been happy with a 21:00 and I broke 20 minutes. This bodes well... and it's only March!

I met two other IronPeople today. One woman who was at the local bike store - will be doing her seventh Ironman this year. Awesome. The other was a guy I met during my p.m. swim session who is heading down to Lake Placid for his second. Very cool indeed. It's always nice to meet people who think what we do is 'normal'.
As I mentioned, my p.m. session was at the pool, which was a moderate effort with a total of 2800 meters. The workout was as follows:
1000 warmup
10X100 on 1:45. First 25m butterfly, next 75m freestyle.
2X400 pull.

This finished up March and my totals for the month are:
Run: 244.5 km
Spin: 30:45 hrs
Swim: 27.7 km
Dryland: 10 hrs
A great month. I'm very happy with where my current fitness level is and this year is shaping up just fine thank you very much. :) I can't wait to race.

Lastly, I have 2 more days of training camp. On tap for tomorrow is 3 hour spin followed by a short run and then a 30k run Sunday. Yay!

Get shorty

Had a restless sleep last night. Occasionally this happens and it seems to correlate with large amounts of aerobic training. It's like the metabolism gets cranked up for repairs and the result is a tossy turney night. Not sure if this signifies anything of importance, but I'm going to do some research into it.

Today's a.m. consisted of a 17k run. It's really enjoyable to be in shorts in March and running in the morning sun. It's good for the soul. This is my mid week longish run and I could feel my legs as they were still tired from yesterday's hill work. However, I was able to maintain a good steady easy pace for the duration.
Afterwards, I ate 2nd breakfast, did some chores around the house, grabbed a nap, ate 1st lunch, had a snack and got ready for my p.m. session. The p.m. session was a long swim of 4900m and the majority of it felt pretty good. Here's the breakdown:
warmup 1000m
6X400 on 6:15. Each one came in at 5:45 to 5:50
5X 200 on 3:15. Each one was about 2:45.
4X 100 on 1:45. Each one came in on 1:20.
100 warm down.
Overall, a great day and all goals were met. Cheers.

Training camp is well underway

Wow, did I score a good week of vacation. The weather is awesome. Actually did my run in shorts today, yea spring fever, bring it on!

For the rest of the week, each day, I'm doing two seperate workouts. One in the a.m. and one in the p.m. So for today I did a 2 hour aerobic workout on the bike as my a.m. workout. My p.m. workout was a 10.5k run in which I hit the hills. I did 5 hill repeats, each one coming in between 90-92 seconds. It's a long, tough journey in becoming a runner, but I know I'm making progress. I wasn't able to consistently hold 90 second hill climbs last year - so I'm improving. I just wish running improvement wasn't so slow! I'm secretly jealous of natural runners, I realize that I'm going to have fight for every little improvement in my run times. The good news is I've only been doing this serious for 3 years, so after 5 or 6 years I might actually be fast. Mind you, I'll be over the hill then, so it will probably be a wash. :) Seriously, if Ed Whitlock can run sub 3 hour marathons at age 72, I know I'll be coax some extra speed out these legs for some time to come. Ya see? Inspiration is everywhere.

After my run workout I did my Tuesday weight routine. So all goals for the day are met and my legs are tired, but not too tired, which again is part of the plan. I know they will be plenty tired by Sunday. Cheers!

Monday weigh in

As of yesterday, I have 5 months until Ironman Canada, it also marked the official end to base training. Being as it was the last day of a recovery week, I celebrated by doin a short long run of 18.5k. The first half I did at my regular pace of 5:00/km and for the second half I went progessively faster, coming in at 4:36/km.
Here are the stats for week number 12:
Run: 36km
Spin: 4 hrs
Swim 7,500m
Dryland: 1:30
Weight: 164
Recovery week did what it was exactly meant to do, leave me well rested and ready to tackle training camp, which officially begins today. The beautiful thing is Monday is a designated rest day, so I'll be starting training camp nice and slow. The only thing I'm doing today is an easy 1 hour spin followed by a 45 minute stretch/core session. Tomorrow is when the real fun starts.

A 3 hour tour..

Just doing a little procrastinating before my 3 hour spin session this morning.. Here is the news in order of importance:
1) I'm on vacation. :)
2) Training camp begins
3) My easy week worked. I'm recovered.
Before I expand on the news, I'll tell you what I did yesterday. Friday, I kept my promise and stayed off my legs. I did 3000m at the pool, which involved some I.M. work. (meaning I was swimming all 4 strokes: butterfly, back, breast and free). That was fun as it was nice to mix things up a little bit.

Yes, I'm on vacation and yes I'll be training hard for the week. "You are taking a week off work to train?" Yes, I am. Ok now that we got that out of the way, here is the plan:
Training camp officially begins Monday, which although it is a 'rest day', I will be doing 1 hour of light spinning followed by a good stretch session and core work. This will set me up for the rest of the week. Here are the goals:
Run: ~ 75k
Spin: 10 hrs
Swim: 7500 m
A considerable spike in mileage, but defineatly doable. I may have to follow up training camp with back to back rest days. :)

Back to the present, in a few minutes I'm going to hop on my trainer for 3 hours and watch Return of the King. Sunday, I have a ~17k run planned. Sunday marks the official end of base training. A milestone of sorts. The next 12 week block will feature more hill work and tempo runs.
Ok enough procrastinating, I'm going on a 3 hour tour ... a 3 hour tour.. (everyone sing along).

Run... down

Still feeling a little too tired for comfort. I've been going over the last 12 weeks of training and I'm pretty happy with where I'm currently at. However, it's obvious I need some extra recovery time. It's the smart thing to do, after all, it's the recovery phase that makes us stronger.
For today, I only did one workout which was a 10k run with a 2k tempo run sandwiched in the middle. The tempo part was at my usual tempo speed of 4:00/km. The body can still go through the motions ok, but I'm still feeling the need for extra rest. I did not spin or do any weights today. However, I was able to finish a good book while listening to some Pink Floyd, which in itself is pretty damned good therapy.
Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day off my legs - with the exception of the 11k I walk at work. :) Workout wise, the plan is to do some swimming or do a stretch/core session.

I'm glad this week is an easy week. I've been extra tired and the body is telling me to chill out. So instead of doing something stupid and ignoring it, I'm doing the smart thing and taking it easy. The body is always telling you stuff, it's up to us to listen to it.
I notice I've not posted my workouts for the last few days, so here's an update. Monday - off. Just did stretching and core work. Tues: easy 7.5k run, 1 hour on the spinner doing drills and 30 minutes of weights. Today: swim 4500 meters. I met another triathlete at the pool today, which is always nice. We got yacking about races, so the last 10 minutes of pool time was spent talking instead of swimming. Hey, I did say it's an easy week.. :) We were talking about how addicting triathlon can be and frequently encourage our friend to go out and "just try one." I've seen it frequently when a person tries one and before you know it, they want to try it again or want to go faster. I suppose it's the same in most sports and I guess the bottom line is go get off your ass and do something. We're only the planet once and our time might be up tomorrow - so live in the now and just giver. I never heard of anyone on their deathbed wishing they worked more.
Ooops, went off on a tangent again. Oh well, it's my blog, I suppose I can do that. :) Cheers!

Monday weigh in

Ended a 3 week build period on a high note. I met my goals for last week and I got my new ride. Can't argue with that. Here is the mileage report week number 11.
Run: 67 km
Spin 6.5 hrs
Swim 3500 m
Dryland 1 hr 30 min
Weight: 164
I've been steadily increasing running mileage and I'm pleased with my progress in that department. Time on the trainer is boring, but since spring arrived a mere 3 hours ago, I know I'll be able to get the bike out soon. Swimming is still in the maintenance phase, I will not add another swim session until mid/end of April. As for weight, I'm a light 164, I'm thinking next week I'll be able to knock that down a pound.
This week is an easy week, the plan is to cut running mileage by 1/3 and bring the spinning time down to an even 5 hrs. I have to get get nice rested for the following week, which is training camp.

Want some free motivation? Check this 2 minute movie trailer of 4 elite level Iron athletes. It's a spine tingler.

Weekend update

An excellent training weekend. This weekend marked the end of a 3 week build cycle and was my toughest since training started a mere 11 weeks ago.
On Saturday I did 3 hours on the trainer, it was a great session on the new bike. I followed that up with a short 4k run. Yup, my first brick of season is done.
Today, was a 27k long run on tired legs. I broke the run into 3 sections. The first 9k: ok, who stole my legs? Tired, don't want to run, but luckily I found them after 6k. Whew. The next 3k was against the wind. I feel slow, like I'm running in molasses. I check my split at 9k - 5:03/km. Wow... much better than I thought. ( I like to maintain a 5:00/km pace for long runs).
The second third: this part of the run is hillacious. The goal is just to maintain the same pace as the first third. This requires some extra effort because the hills are wearing me down. My pace ended up being 5:06/km. Eep. Slowed down a bit, but not too shaboo. Finally the last 3rd. I was able to pick up the pace to 4:51/km, but I felt like I was running faster. :) Total run 27.3km.
The coming week is an easy training week. Some extra recovery time is on tap and I'm looking forward to it.

Turn down the wind

Did an easy 11k, that was uphill and in the wind the whole way. Seriously, if anyone could turn down the wind a little bit - I'd appreciate it.
The goal of easy day Friday, is to make my legs just tired enough so that biking on Saturday isn't a cake walk. The goal of long ride Saturday is to fry my legs for long run Sunday. Once that's over - it's on to easy day Monday - a mere two workouts away.
So here is the weekend plan: Saturday - my first brick! In case you don't know, a brick workout is when you run after doing a bike session. Generally, legs do not like it when you do this and it can feel like you are pushing against a brick wall.
The plan is to do 3hrs on the spinner and follow that up with a short run. On Sunday, I have a 27k run planned.
Have a great weekend!

Tempo Thursday

The first thing I noticed today was that's it's getting light at 5:30am. I'm liking that! Time was the major issue of the day, got home from work a little later than usual and had to get some household chores out of the way. So my designated workout times kept getting pushed back. No biggie, I still got em done. Here's what I did:
11k run - 4k warm up, 3k tempo (3:57 pace - I always like seeing that sub 4 min pace) and a 4k cool down.
spin 1.5 hours.
weights 30 minutes.
I was going to squeeze an extra 30 min on the bike - but ran out of time. I'll still make my spinning goals for the week though - so it's all good.

Trivial complaints

I overheard this awhile ago. Here's the situation: someone is complaining about a rather trivial thing, the person he was whining to said: "you think that's a problem? Cancer is a problem! Now go deal with it."
I love the line and frequently think about it. It came across my mind as I was running into 70km/hr gusts of wind today. This is no biggie, just deal with it. And so I did. End result: 14km. Booyah.
I ran a little farther today to help make up for my missed run yesterday. However, I don't think I ate enough between sessions, because my swim was a tough slog. I sorta mini-bonked. :) I did manage 3500 meters in the pool, which is better than nothing.
Cheers.

New baby has arrived!

Went to Enduro Sports today to pick-up and get fitted for my new ride. Wow, what a difference from my previous bike. Different good? Time will tell. I'll let you know in May when I have a couple 5 hour rides under my belt. It's aggresive, it's smooth and now I just have to ride the snot out of it!
It should also be noted that the people at Enduro are first rate. These guys know triathlon, they have premium products, excellent service and weren't satisified until I was satisfied. Hats off to them.
After I get my new baby home, naturally I set it up on the spinner and settle in for a good 2 hour session. Overall, it was good. The new geometry will take some getting used to - that's a given. I'll put it to you this way, if I can walk away afer a 5 or 6 hour ride and feel as good as I did today, I'll be a happy guy. :)
After my spin, I did 30 minutes of weights. Unfortuneately, no time for a run today.

Monday weigh in

Week number 10 comes to a close, with me hitting my goals plus a little extra. Here are the stats for the week:
Run: 61 km
Spin: 6 hrs
Swim 5000 m
Dryland: 2 hrs
Weight: 164
The basic plan for the coming week is to add an extra 5k on to the run and 30 minutes on to the bike. The swim part could be interesting as they've tweaked the pool schedule for March break. Also, tomorrow I'm picking up my new bike, so that will be cutting into some designated workout time too. It's a bit of a domino effect, you miss a key workout, you want to make it up, but there are only so many hours in the day. I'm sure it will all work out in the end.
Next week is an easy week and then it's off to training camp!

Weekend update

Hmm... where to begin? I guess chronologically is the best way to go. As mentioned on Friday, I got my dvd exchanged no problem and was up and spinning by 11am. I decided against doing an outdoor ride - the weather was amazing but the roads were still a little ooky. So I did a solid 3 hrs on the trainer. Now is the time for my favorite epic movies - The Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended versions, of course. The whole session was dedicated to being aero and maintaining a 90+ cadence all while watching The Fellowship of the Ring. I even cranked a tougher gear for the last 30 min, just for the heck of it. Solid.
For today, the only thing on tap was my long run. I woke up and immediately felt a slight twinge in my knee. Great. I notice as my running mileage starts to creep up, my right I.T. band can act up. So I message it (ouch!) and gave it a good stretching and in the end the run went great. The first half was at my regular long run pace of 5 min/km and I brought the second half of the run down to 4:49/km. Negative split. That's the shizzle.
Lastly, I'm currently bikeless! I'm getting fitted on my new ride on Tuesday, so it's just a temporary thing. A good friend of mine came over this afternoon, intent on "checking my bike out" and ended up walking away with it. So I'm kinda sad of letting my old ride go - we went through alot togethor, but I'm defineately pumped about getting new wheels!

First outdoor bike ride?

The only thing on tap for today was a 10k easy run with a few drills. Not a problem. I'm exactly where I want to be for the week and should not have a problem meeting my goals. Although, I have to get to Future Shop to replace the dvd player I bought a mere two months ago. This is somewhat a necessity because I have a 3 hour spin session on tap. So, that's number one on the agenda Saturday morning. It could be interesting as I'm notorious for not keeping receipts etc - although I can be most persuasive when I want to be. :)
This all maybe moot as there is a possibilty the roads and weather will be good enough for an outdoor ride. We shall see.
On Sunday I have a 25k + run planned, hopefully it will go as well as last weeks.



Ever wonder what the swim of an Ironman looks like? There is about 2000 people swimming in that photo. This picture was taken at Lake Placid last year. All I can say is that I'm somewhere in the foreground. :)
Have a great weekend!

The Big Melt

The big melt is officially underway. It was 10 degrees with rain today and the forcast is calling for more over the next few days. Yay. All we need is some rain to wash the gunk away and some wind to dry up the place and the bike will be on the road. I'm looking forward to it because spinning is boooooorrriinng.
Today was tempo Thursday. I did a 10k run with a 2.5k tempo. The tempo pace was 4:04/km. I wanted 4:00/km.. but it was windy. :)
The second workout was a 1.5 hr spin session on the bike. I followed that up with my bi-weekly 30 minutes of weights. I'm looking forward to grabbing some quality zzzz's tonight.

200 laps..

Yet another great day. I must be turning into one of those googly-eyed "isn't today wonderful?" freaks. Either that, or I've developed an addiction to endorphins. Bit of a segway here... I was reading an article on happiness, the bottom line is, generally, we are just too lazy to be happy. BOGGLE. It takes a bit effort to be happy and since it's human nature to do things the easy way, happiness continues elude us.
Here's a couple of tricks that work for me. 1) Before I get out of bed, I take 2 minutes to get into the 'zone'. A couple deep breaths and some positive thoughts - might as well start the day right. 2) isolate the negativity. We all have 'em - the 'downer' guy at work, the complainer, the 'why does everything always happen to me?' person etc... Isolate them. Ok, I'm talking mentally put a block up, say something positive and move on. If you hang around the negative long enough - you will become so. If you see yourself as a negative person, do yourself a favour and change. It will take effort, but no one will do it for you.
Ok, I'm off the soap box. Back to the topic. Training today was great. I did a 7.5 k easy run. My second session was an endurance swim set of 10X400m on 6:30. Each one was under 6 min, the last one was a 5:40. Also, that's with 30 seconds less rest than last week. Since I'm only swimming once a week, I'm very happy with that. I rounded out my swim session with 800m of drill work and a 200 cool down. Total 5000m, or 200 laps. It's been awhile since I've logged 5k in the pool in one sesssion. A good swim session indeed. Cheers.

Terrific Tuesday

Terrific Tuesday indeed. As I've said before, the day after a rest day can be tough, not in the sense as difficult, I mean tough in the sense: "I want to go out hard, but I shouldn't go out too hard, or I'll blow my legs out for tomorrow's workout." So here is what I did today: Run: 9.5k. It consisted of 3 hill repeats (1:40, 1:36, 1:33), I felt great so I picked up the pace on the way home, but tried not to go too hard. (2.5k @ 4:20/km)
Later, I did 1.5 hrs of spinning. It was a solid 90 minutes of aero time, spinning at 90 rpm in a slightly more difficult gear than normal. It felt great. Afterward I did a quick 30 minutes of weights. A very solid Tuesday indeed. :)

Lastly, I'd to wish a very happy birthday to my support crew. My beautiful wife is celebrating today and I certainly could not commit to serious Ironman training if it wasn't for her. Happy Birthday sweetie!

Monday weigh in

Sorry I missed the weekend update, but my nap after the long run on Sunday took precedence. Post long run naps rule. :) The weekend went well, on Saturday I did 2:45 on the trainer and on Sunday I had a great 24k long run.
It may be early to say, but I think I may have had a bit of breakthrough on my run. The run just flowed. It was very relaxed and I was able to maintain a good cadence for the duration. I remember thinking: "this is what good running feels like." I now have to take it to the next level - make it an unconcious effort. Become one with the run. :)
Here is the stats for the week:
Run: 55.5 km
Spin: 5 hrs 15 min
Swim: 4000 meters
Dryland: 2 hrs
Weight : 164
All planned goals for the week were met. I'm getting good sleep and eating like a fiend. The plan for the this week is run 5 times with a total mileage of 61k, spin 6 hrs and maintain the swim and dryland portions.
That's about it for now, I'm off to do a solid 45 minutes of stretching and some core work. Cheers.

"You're crazy"

Oh man what a wicked sleep last night. It's funny how a good sleep sets up the next day so damned fine. Today was a scheduled 'easy' day, it's tough to go easy when all you want to do is cut loose. Many age groupers make the mistake of going too hard on their easy days and not hard enough on their hard days. I've been known to make that mistake on the odd occasion too.
So I go for an 8k run, mainly just focusing on form and doing some cadence drills.. no biggie. I pass a smoker who's relegated to the porch, she's freezing but needs her fix. Her expression was as plain as day.. "you're crazy". The funny thing is, the expression on my face was undoubtedly the same.
The weekend is looking mint. Sunny with daytime highs around zero. I'm actually looking forward to my long run. Damn, it's not very often I say that! I'm telling you spring is around the corner.
Saturday I've got 2.5 hours scheduled on the trainer. Sunday is a 24k long run. Stay tuned for the weekend update. Cheers.

First tempo run

A tempo run is run where you do a good warm-up, typically 20 minutes, run at 'tempo pace' for 8 to 12 minutes, then do a cool down run. Tempo pace is the pace which you can sustain for one hour. I estimate my tempo pace at 4 min/km which equals 15k/hr.
So today I did my first tempo run of the season. It lasted 8 minutes at my 4min/km pace. The total run was 9k. I know running fast doesn't get easier, but I do wonder if there will come a time when running 4 minute kilometers won't seem so hard.

Spinning was also on the agenda, of which I did 1 hour on the trainer and followed that up with my bi-weekly 30 minute weight routine. Not a bad day... I am looking forward to getting some quality zzzz's though.

Over the hump

So here I am all pumped because it's March and the light is at the end of the tunnel as far as winter goes... naturally we are expecting some sort of snowstorm tonight. I should have kept my big mouth shut.
Today I did a 6km run - nice and easy. I want the legs recovered for tomorrow's tempo run, the first one of the season. So I'm hoping this snowstorm is minor.
Swimming was also the agenda. The set was similar to last weeks and went like this:
1000m warmup
7X400m each one came in under 6min and I took 1 min rest between sets.
200 cool down.
The total was 4000m. That's 160 lengths, which does get a little boring after awhile. Although back when I was a real swimmer, we logged a hell of alot more mileage than that, so I really don't have anything to complain about.