Quick and dirty IRON update

I'm back at home at the folks house, just chilling and relaxing. Already had a big bag of Lay's potato chips. (only my second bag in 8 months!) I'm not too sore, just more tired than anything. So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good. Here is the quick and dirty IMC 2006 update:

swim: nailed it. Wanted 56:00, swam it in 56. Nice and easy, pacing was spot on.

bike: 5:31. Very solid. Small bummer about the bike was when I hit the top of Richter's Pass, I had a very bad tire puncture, totally tore the casing on my front my tire. I was S.O.L., but a tech van was fairly close and they got me up and rolling with a new tire. Cost me a good 12 - 15 min.

run: 4:2? Yup. Still my nemesis. It was hot. It was hilly. It was windy. Settled into a comfortable pace for the first 10 miles, then slowly faded from there. Legs just got heavier and heavier. Had to slow due to tummy issues numerous times. Hey if it was easy, they'd call it FluffyMan or something. :)

That's it for now, I'll get a more extensive race report up later in the week - as for now, I think there is glass of wine nearby with my name on. :) Cheers!

Last post.

Hey everyone.
This will most likely be my last post until post race and it will be a lengthy one, got lots of stuff to cover.
Let's start off with a funny story. I went for my last bike ride and got my first flat of the season. I seem to get one flat a year and it figures it would be on my very last ride. No biggie, might as well get it out of the way now instead of during the race. I pull out a brand new spare and lo and behold it has a busted seam. Great. Two tubes, both with holes. Murphy's law is kicking in. I rumage around in my emergency kit and find some old patches, fortuneately the patch held until I got home. Phew.

'06 Mileage
Mileage report from Jan 2 - Aug 21.
Run: 1582 km- A 13% increase over last year.
Spin: 104 hrs 30 min- A 45% (!) increase over last year.
Bike: 3429 km- A 5% increase over last year.
Swim: 187.7 km- The same as last year.
Dryland: ~50 hrs of stretching, weights and core work.
Starting weight: 168
Ending weight: 159
Comments: A large part of the early part of the season was 'running focused', a 13% increase over last year is nothing to sneeze at, but I know it needs more work if I'm going to continue to make gains in that department. Looks like next year will be running focused again.
The large part of my biking gains was time spent on the spinner. 104 frikin hours - zoinks. That's basically the same amount of time that I actually spent outside on the bike. So if you do the math you are looking at ~ 6700 km on the bike. An almost 25% increase in time spent on the bike compared to last year.
Umm.. ya this year was running focused.. riiiiiight.
About swimming. The mileage is virtually identical to last year. The only thing I did different this year was log some big swim weeks later in the season.

Goal
In all seriousness this isn't super important. Yes, I have some time goals I would like to meet, but I fully realize that long endurance type activities can take years to learn and do well at. I'm only now starting to understand my specific nutrition needs and all the little physical cues my body tells me during an event.
That being said, I'm still going to tell you what I'd like to do and if the weather cooperates and if I can pace well and if I can 'nail' my nutrion and if I can race smart. Notice the ifs.
Swim: ~56 min. I can go faster, but I won't. I must control myself and take it easy.
T1: roughly 4 min. Puts me on the bike 1 hr into the race.
Bike: ~5:20. I took a recent half Ironman bike time of 2:30, doubled it and added 20 minutes. I hope that's reasonable.
T2: 4 min.
Run: the hardest one to judge. They say if you take your best stand-a-lone marathon time and add 30 minutes, you've nailed the run. All my long runs are roughly at a 5:00 /km pace. Is it reasonable to run at that pace after the bike? Doubt it. But my recent half Ironman pace was 4:36 /km. So maybe it is. So I'm going to take the 5:00 /km pace and add 10 extra minutes. Run time: 3:40. I feel like I'm going out on a limb on that one.
Total: 10:04.
You just know I really want to find that 4 minutes and 1 sec somewhere to break the 10 hr mark. Ya that would be the holy grail. Honestly, I think I have a 25% of chance of acheiving that. But it's on the mind.

Thank you's
Obviously first and foremost is my wife, Sally. Could not have got this far without her. Yea, she's my rock.
Canada Post Was awesome enough to come on board as a sponsor. This is a rather expensive sport and working for a company that has an employee sponsorship program and having the powers that be recommend me for it - is rather cool. This would have been a very tough year if they didn't come on board. A big thanks to them.
My family and friends for being understanding. I know some of you don't get "it", but you put up with my eccentricities and that alone deserves thanks. (My folks are going to be at the race!)
My fellow tri-wienies. With special mention to Cliff, and Sheila.
Thanks to the lurkers who read the blog, the people who have taken the time to drop me a line or an email. It's appreciated.

Before I forget, tune your browser to Ironman Live , this Sunday to get live updates of the race throughout the day. You can even plug my number in (754) and get a status report. (send some positive vibes too, will ya?) The race starts 7am Pacific time which is 10am EST.

Eep, it's getting late and I need some quality zzz's. Next update will be post race! Cheers!

Lucky number, brick, swim, details.

And my lucky number for Ironman Canada is..... ... 754! Can't say it really does anything for me, it's just a number. However, on race day, you can just punch in my number on Ironman Live and you will get a progress report on me. It's kinda neat, you can share in my suffering. :)

Workout update:
Wednesday: bike 75k, run 4.5k (my last brick)
Thursday: swim 3.3k (my last pool swim for awhile) The main set was 2(4X400) descending. The fast 400's were 5:13 and 5:09. Felt good. Felt strong.

Some little details to take care of in the next few days: tune & clean bike, get bike box rental, start 'pre packing', goto bike store, get a run in, pick up tux and go to one of my bestest buds wedding, party.. but not too hard, get a ride in on Sun - final bike check, visit sis & neice, pack a zillion little things knowing full well I'll forget something, get an open water swim in, final run and pack up car on Tues, go over list one more time, catch flight on Wed. I have no idea how the pros do this for a living. It's crazy.

Will power > lethargy

Ug. Feeling very lethargic today. Went to the pool for a my last scheduled 4k swim, did 3k and called it. (2k straight, 1k drills). Later I did a short 7k run and it took a supreme amount of effort to get my sorry ass out the door. Well at least I didn't bail. Phew.

I figure a good night sleep will set me straight. My problem is that's it harder for me to sleep due to reduced training volumes, so now when I go to bed I keep going through race scenarios and questioning my season's master training plan. Intellectually, I know there is nothing I can do now, I truly believe I trained better and smarter this year and I know I'm ready. I just can't help questioning all the prep work.
Back to basics:
-race smart
-pace well
-follow nutrition plan
-the race will take care of itself.

Monday weigh in

The 'official' leg taper began last week, here's the mileage report:
Run: 46.5k
Bike: 230k
Swim: 13.5k
Dryland: 1.5 hrs
Weight: 160

I've adopted what I call a 'staggered taper'. The theory is that since running punishes the body the most, I need to recover the longest for that particular sport. My running miles have slowly been decreasing for the last 2 weeks and last week's decrease was ~25%.
I had a big cycle week 2 weeks ago and overall mileage since the big week has been cut in half.
The swim taper is now officially started. I did an extra swim session last week, but this week the swim mileage will be cut in half. So mileage totals for the coming week should be something like this: run: 30-35k bike:180k swim: 7k
My weight jumped 2 pounds? I find it hard to believe I gained 2 pounds in just one week of tapering. I'm not sure if that's an anomoly or what. Some weight gain is to be expected as I'm reducing the workout load but still eating like a pig. :)

Still no race number yet...

Still numberless, open water swim, cherries.

T-minus 14 days.

So it's Sunday afternoon, my long run was done long ago, all my chores around the house are done and I'm sitting here eating a bowl of cherries and updating my blog. My usual routine involves an afternoon nap, but I don't need one of those today as I only ran for 1:15. (15k) As far as training goes for the next two weeks I'll be using a 'less is more' philosophy. Here's the workout update for the past few days:
Fri: swim 3.2k: 2k straight, 1.2k drills. Run: 13k
Sat: swim 2.4k. An open water swim with the C3 triathlon club. Gosh, I've been missing out. The swim was in nice clear and clean water. All the people were super friendly and I got a chance to break in my new wetsuit. Gotta hang out with those guys more often. Afterwards, I did 100k on the bike.
Sun: run 15k

Race numbers for Ironman Canada were suppose to be out on Friday - they still aren't out yet. It's no biggie, Ijust want to know what my lucky number is. :) Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Cheers!

13:10, Brick Thursday.

Not a heck of a lot to report, all is still going according to plan. At the end of this week, I'll have reduced 'leg miles', by 25% over last week. Swim miles will be up this week, but come next week all 3 sports go into hardcore taper mode. Here's the mileage report to yesterday and today:

Wednesday's workouts:
Run: 11k (trails)
Swim: 3,000m. 1k warmup, 1k time trial, 1k of drills. The 1k time trial came in at 13:10 for a 1:19/m pace. This tells me a couple of things: 1) my 400m 'hard' sets are not hard enough. I maintain the same pace (1:19/100m) during a 400m 'hard effort'. Should be faster. 2) my swimming endurance has improved. I was winded after the 1k time trial, but not blown out.

Today was brick day. A 75k hilly ride followed by a 7.5k run. Physically felt strong, but mentally was not 100% 'into it'. Lol, taper is already messing with my head. :) Cheers.

Tuesday weigh in

Ok, so I missed yesterday's weigh in, however it was an off day - so I decided to take the day off blogging too. :) Actually yesterday was pretty sweet off day, Sally and I both had the day off work and we both took advantage of it by being lazy bums.

The stats for last week:
Run:59.5k
Bike: 150k
Spin: 5 hrs
Swim: 9.7k
Dryland: 1.5hr
Weight: 158
About the only thing of note was the spike in spinning time. Due to weather I had to do two bike sessions on the trainer. I'd equate 5hrs of spinning to the rough equivalent of 160k of road work.
Everything else is pretty solid, run and swim k's are good and weight has seem to settle in at 158.

This is my first week of tapering. The plan is start decreasing the 'leg mileage' and add an extra swim session. I recover fast from swimming and I just want to tweak the swim mileage a bit. If you've noticed I upped the overall swim mileage over the last 8 weeks, the theory being, this will put me in a better physical state for the bike. I've already done all my big bike and run mileage and I can't absorb any more fitness in those departments, however I do feel I'll benefit from a few extra swim k's even though I'm tapering. That's my theory.

So that being said, I did a nice 4.9k workout in the pool today. My current favorite long distance set:
4X400, 2(4X200), 4(4X100). Each set of 4 was 1 pull followed by 3 descending. Oh yea, and 100 cooldown.
Afterwards I did 60k on the bike. See? Only 60k - I really am tapering! Cheers.

Taper time, T-minus 21 days

Exactly 3 weeks from now, it will be 1:36pm (BC time). In theory, I should be just starting out on the run, I'll have wobbly legs and I'm sure I'll be asking myself 'why?' or saying something like: ' ahh crap, I still have to run a $%#@! marathon.' Whatever the case, I just hope I have the mental fortitude to pace correctly and stick to my nutrition plan. If I can just do those two things, the race should look after itself.

Upon looking back, I say to the tri gods: I held up my part of the bargain. I trained better and more importantly I trained smarter. (or so I believe). I've learned much and will undoubtedly learn more, but I am ready. I am excited. I am scared. I can't wait.

Yesterday was the official start of the taper, I went out did a nice 150k ride with Cliff. Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful, perfect riding weather and nothing but miles of deserted country roads to ride. A pretty sweet way to start a taper. The other cool thing was that there was a re-broadcast of the '05 Ironman World Championship in Kona on Saturday afternoon. Watching it gave me the spine tinglies, a shot of inspiration and a tear to two for Blazeman.

Today was long run day. I ran about 6k less than my last long run. Total distance was 22.5k. Pretty uneventful.

I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself as I forgot to mention Friday's workouts; heres the scoop for Friday:
swim 3.7k 1k warmup, 5(5X100m) on 1:30. First 100 was pull, then descend the next 4. The fast ones were coming in 1:12 to 1:15.
run: 11k. Just a steady run, always thinking of form and cadence.

That closes out week number 32. As usual, I'll give you the hard numbers in tomorrow's weigh in. Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Cheers.

115F, EZ(er) Wed, lollygag Thurs.

Ok, it's official, Tuesday wasn't just hot, it was Africa hot. The thermometer on the back porch read 36C, but the humidity was stifling, adding another 10C to the 'humidex'. Yea, that's right it felt like 46C /115F. Whimper. I can deal with the heat and humidity, just hydrate well and dial down the intensity, but when you throw smog in the equation... let's just say instead of the 100k bike ride I had planned I ended up doing 3 hours on the trainer.. in the air conditioning. :) Three hours on the trainer is a tough workout, easily worth the 100k I wanted for the bike. Done deal.

Yesterday I did an easy 11k trail run and a 3.7k swim. The swim set was: 3(3X400) pull, moderate effort, hard effort. The hard ones were 5:15's. They felt strong, but I should have been faster. Cooldown was 100 easy.

For today, I'm in between workouts. I'm sort of dreading my second workout because it's raining out with a chance of thundershowers and I have a bike workout planned. Sigh, trainer time.... again. My first workout today was a 15k run with 10 hill repeats. The legs were lethargic and I had real trouble hitting my usual time goal, so to punish my legs for acting up like that, I gave them 15 sec less rest for the last 4 repeats. There. That'll learn em. Naturally, those last 4 were more inline with my regular times. Go figure, I give them less rest, THEN they perform.

Sigh, I guess I should go hop on the trainer now, can't really put it off much longer. I think I'll go do 2 hours of time trial work. Running hill work + cycling time trial = good sleep tonight. Cya.

Monthy & weekly mileage report.

The last 7 months have gone pretty much according to plan. I wanted to do at least 1 more big bike week in July, but the Peterborough half Ironman ended up taking precedence. This was a tactical decision that actually paid off. It was in Peterborough that I really started to understand the feel of a race, the nutrition and pacing components. So in hindsight, doing that race was probably the best decision I've made all year. Here are the July numbers:
Run: 206.5k
Bike: 1389k
Swim: 41.6k
Dryland 7 hrs
Mileage wise, a pretty good month considering there were 2 easy weeks sandwhiched before and after Peterborough.

Here is the breakdown for last week:
Run: 63k
Bike: 446k
Swim: 5k
Dryland 1.5k
Weight 158
Last week was a hard week. I had to nuke a swim session to get the extra bike time in and I ended up doing those 446k in 4 days. I would have thought my legs were going to be fried, but you know what? They held up pretty good and I was still able to get some decent run mileage in. A good week.

Today is my off day, I went to the pool and did an easy 2.6k and that's it. Slacked off, read my book and listened to tunes for the remainder of the day. I like Mondays.

Float like a butterfly, hard week, T-minus 28 days

I know, I know, I usually update more frequent than this, but I did say that this was going to be tough week and unfortuneately something had to give, so let's get caught up.

I mentioned in Wednesday's post that this was going to be a bike focused week. After playing chicken with the weatherman (and winning!), I was successful in logging some good saddle time. Here's the workout break down for that last few days:
Wed: bike 88k (hills) run 4.5k (brick workout)
Thurs: bike 102k ( mostly flat), run 4.5k (brick)
Fri: bike 70k, run 11k (trails)
Sat: bike 186k
Sun: run 29k

Some good work done in the last few days. Friday's workouts kinda sucked, here's why: During Thursday's ride I was cruising home at a pretty good clip, when all a of sudden it felt like something just punched me in the stomach. I'm like 'what the hell??' I pull over, lift up my shirt and sure enough I have to pull a bee stinger out. Damn thing flew down my shirt and got me good. By Thursday night, the whole left side of my abdomen was swollen, red and itchy as hell. It kinda looked like that scene from Alien. Needless to say I slept like absolute crap on Thursday, which made Friday's workouts a bit of an ordeal. Right now I'm taking quadruple doses of Reactine just to keep the itching at bay and I think my little 'alien friend' is starting to subside.

A good ride on Saturday, pretty much the same ride as last week minus 10k. I met a guy in the last 10k of my ride who is doing Ironman Canada and we are leaving on the same flight out. How cool is that?

Today's long run was suprisingly good. The legs were a little cranky but they got the job done and I felt OK. I just told myself 'hey, this is the last 2.5 hr run you will have to do for awhile, let's just get it done.'

T-minus 28 days. Wow. I have a couple of hard workouts planned this week, then taper officially begins next Saturday. I'm excited.

Eat, work, eat, train, eat, train, eat, eat. Sleep. Repeat.

That title about sums up my life at the moment. A few years ago I would have looked at someone doing that and walked away scratching my head. I suppose I still have the ardour of the newly converted - but I really do find it fulfilling.

I train 98% alone, not necessarily by choice, but it's difficult to get schedules to jive and it's difficult to train with people of similar abilities and attitude. Oh sure, I really enjoy meeting up with Cliff for a long ride, or having Doug share my lane at the pool. But the day to day training is primarily solo - this has both it's good and bad points. It's good from the aspect that you rely on yourself to get the job the done. If you have a tough workout planned and you bail, no one to blame but yourself. But I must admit, there are times when having a training partner or crew would be nice - just to push each other when the going gets tough.

I was talking with Richard Pady of Healthy Results at the pool the other day, (RP is a former pro triathlete ) and he's thinking of putting togethor a sub 10 hr Ironman crew for Lake Placid next year. What an opportunity, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat. I don't quite think I'm at that level yet, but who knows, by next year, maybe.

Ok enough ramblings, here is the workout update:
Tues: swim 5k: 4X400 (descending, last one was 5:15), 2(4X200) first one is pull, then descending, last 200's were ~2:25. 4(4X100) same as the 200's, the last 100's were ~1:10. 200 cool down.
That workout pretty much pooched my energy stores. I went home ate and rested. Then did a 14k run.
Wed: a hilly/windy 88k's on the bike, followed by a short 4.5k run. A good brick workout.

The plan for Thursday is to get 100k done on the bike. I'll throw in another short transition run too. Hopefully the thundershowers won't show. Friday is a short bike/longer run day. I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers.

Monday weigh in

I'm starting to get a little nostalgic. The fact that I'm down to my last week and half of hard training got me thinking about just how fast the last 7 months have gone by. I've blogged every training session, the ups, the downs, the good and the bad. It's been a fun ride and I'm really digging the journey. I don't know if it's the endorphin addiction or what, but hard training certainly does seem to open so many doors. Physical, mental and spiritual doors seem to be opening all the time - it's so cool. And it true, YOU really can do anything you set your mind to. Nothing is impossible.

Rumour has it that Ironman Lake Placid for 2007 sold out in 30 minutes today. So you see, there are plenty of us 'crazy folk' out there. Actually when an IM sells out in 30 minutes I'd say it's turning into a phenomenon. Everyday more and more people are waking up to the fact: 'hmm... you know what? I can do this'. A good example is Cliff - he secured his spot this morning. (huge congrats Cliffy!)

And now the weekly mileage report:
Last week was suppose to be a moderate week, well it sort of got kicked up a notch and went to more the moderate/hard side of the scale. Here are the numbers:
Run: 54k
Bike: 366k
Swim: 10.3k
Dryland: 2 hrs
Weight: 159

The plan for this week is to kick it up another notch. Tomorrow is long swim day and a ~14k run. Bike week starts on Wednesday. That's the current plan - always subject to change. Cheers.

Weekend update

I did some quality saddle time on the Spirit of Koo on Saturday. Actually, I figured out that if I started at the CN tower in downtown Toronto and road directly up Younge St (which turns into Hwy 11), I would have ended up 20k short of Huntsville. Zoinks. A 196k ride in total. This was easily my toughest ride of the year, quite hilly with the hardest climbs starting at the 154k mark. (Hockley Valley Ski hill, Forks of the credit switchback and Mississauga road -by the ski hill) The good news is that I felt pretty good for the whole ride. I probably should have rode the extra 4k just to make it an even 200, but I was out of water, sports drink and food. :)
Oh yea, broke a speed record too - I hit 82kph descending down Heart Lake road. I'm still looking for a decent hill where I can break into the triple digit territory.

So the big question for today was how well are the legs going to hold up for the long run. Well they were a little cranky for the first 5k, but once they realized I wasn't going to let them off the hook, they got the job done just fine. Actually, today's 29k long run felt better than fine, I'd say closer to very good.

This concludes my 3rd Ironman-in-a-weekend and it was by far my best. I think a large part was due to the weather, cloudy and not too hot= perfect training/racing weather. The thing that is scaring the crap out of me is that Penticton BC (where IMC is held) is currently in a heatwave - today's temperature is a mere 39C (that's 102F). I really hope it's not that bad come race day - or I'm toast.

Lastly happy anniversary to me! Ironman Lake Placid is going on as I write this update. I can't believe it's already been one year since my first IM and I'm having a hard time believing I'm doing another one in just over a month. Weeeeeeeeeeee!

The weather network, inspiration and more

You would think that the Weather Network with all their dopler radars, satellite imagery and electro-ionsphere scanners could get a frickin four hour forcast correct. Isn't it funny, they'll have predictions for the next 7 days, give you broad generalizations on entire seasons yet they can't even nail down a 4 hour forcast. (sorry for the WN bashing, Mark).
Yea, I'm bitter I got caught in the rain yesterday. I busted my butt to get home so I could log a quick 100k on the bike and maybe get a run in. Instead, at the 40k mark, it started to thunder and lightning. So I had to hightail all the way home and try to outrun the oncoming T-showers. Fun stuff.
Ok, so I managed 80k in total and instead of a run, I did a full body weight routine, so all was not lost.

Today, I did 4k in the pool. They only give us an hour for lane swim and in order to get my whole 4k in I can't really dilly dally around. The main set was the same as Tuesdays.. 10X400m @ 5:45. After the swim I was talking to this older gentlemen (by older, I mean he's 80), he wanted to know about flip turns. (!)
(flip turns are those fancy schmancy turns that swimmers do) So, I explained to him how it was basically a half sommer sault near the wall. What struck me most during our conversation was a number of things 1) his joie do vie (hanging out the pool, being active and asking about flip turns at 80 - yea he has a zest for life) 2) he's 80, looks fitter than most 50 year olds 3) an excellent listener. (such a rare commodity these days) We all could learn a lesson or two from Bill.
In addition to the swim, I did a 14k run.

Lastly I just wanted to mention an inspirational story that happened a couple of days ago. Jenna Lambert completed a 32k swim across lake Ontario. Jenna is 15. Jenna also has cerebral palsy. Talk about heart. You can read the CBC story here.

Sometimes it's tough to 'dial it down'. This is a moderate week, with the idea of building into to the next two weeks, which will be in the 'hard' category. Note to self, stick to the plan.

Yesterday, I did 90k on the bike. This was my hilly ride, 3 tough climbs and multiple rollers. I entertained going for run afterwards, but had to remind myself to reign it in.

Today, I did a 11k trail run. My second workout was a 10 X 400m on 5:45 set at the pool. My swim has come up a notch, each 400m was consistently around the 5:30 mark. By about the 7th one, I was really starting to feel it, but I toughed it out and got it done. This was a harder than Ironman effort and I must remind myself to dial down the intensity at IMC. The goal for the swim at IMC is to get to the bike while expending the least amount calories as possible. I certainly don't want a repeat of what I did last year at IMLP!

Monday weigh in

Last week, being a recovery week, the mileage was cut way back. Here's the stats:
Run: 25k
Bike: 230k
Swim: 10k
Dryland: 2 hrs
Weight: 159
Recovery has gone well and I'm hoping by Thursday or Friday I'll be back to 100%. The plan throughout this week is to up the mileage to the 'moderate' level and hopefully by the weekend I'll be able to go nuts.

Today was slacker Monday, so I just went to the pool and did an easy 2.3k, mostly pull work. Tomorrow I have a long swim planned and either a bike or a run, I haven't decided which.

If you want a quick laugh, check this video. It's true, cheaters never prosper!

Weekend update..

I scored a new wetsuit! I picked up an Orca Pflex through Ebay and it arrived yesterday. It's sweeet. Perhaps I'll model it for you. :) Now I just have to find a local lake to get some open water swimming in..
Yesterday I got a decent 3.8k swim in. I was pretty happy with that because the pool was actually crowded for a change and they only give us an hour. My second workout yesterday was to stack a half bush cord of wood. This took much longer than anticipated and I had to blow off my easy run. It's OK, I'm allowed, after all it is an easy week.

Today was long ride day. Had 100k on the schedule, but did 120k. It was a fairly flat course I road today, about the only item of note was the wind. One of the strongest headwinds I've experienced this year. However on the way back it was also one of the strongest tailwinds I've experienced this year. Grin. The last 50k, I averaged 40kph! Zoom Zoom Zoom. Did the whole ride in sub 3:40, way too fast for an easy day, but I just felt good so I went with it.

Tomorrow is the day that will tell me how well recovered I am from Peterborough. It's long run day. However, I'm only running for 90 minutes tomorrow, so it won't be too bad. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Cheers.

Recovery

Recovery since Peterborough is going quite well. No residual soreness or muscle fatigue. So right now I'm just trying to balance between the mind, which tells me: 'you must take it easy' and the heart, which tells me: 'hey, you feel good, go go go!'

Yesterday I did an easy 8k run and a good 1 hour pool session in which I did a 10X400m set. It's cool that I can up my weekly swim mileage during this recovery week - it makes feel like I'm not slacking. :)

Today I did just over 70k on the bike. Just focused on technique and recovery and chose a flat route. I followed that up with a good 30 minutes of stretching and some upper body weights and core work.

And the recovery continues...