Tri-Fusion

RETIRED

2009-03-05T14:47:00.002-05:00

From blogging.

I know. I know. You deserved better, just thought I'd make it official. No big drawn out good-byes, no words of wisdom, I'm exiting the blogosphere and entering the ..
twittersphere.

http://twitter.com/tridork

To everyone who's every posted (all 3 of you!).. Thanks and..
Cheers!
Darren

2008-11-18T19:15:00.003-05:00

A wise person once told me 'if you don't have anything intelligent to say, don't say anything.' So, knowing my own limitations, it's been rather quiet around here.

I do have a few tidbits of news, probably the most important of which is my occasional training partner, Gary, competed in the Miamiman half Ironman and pulled off a rather studly 4:22 - good enough for 2nd overall! I'm super happy for the guy, as he ended his season on a high note and I'm also super happy that he's not in my age group!

So, it's been 21 years since I last competed in a swim meet. Last Sunday I had a chance to rectify that. I was rusty and am obviously no where remotely close (or ever will be) of setting a PB, but I was very happy I went and had a chance to mix it up with other masters. (of which there were numberous tri-nerds). I competed in the 100FR (:59), 100IM (1:12), 400FR (4:50), 50FR (27.2) and 100BK (1:15), I was also signed up for the 100 FLY and 200 FR, but time was running short and Sally and I had to leave early. Well, I was a tad tired too, so I didn't put up too much of fight about having to leave early.
The competition was pretty good, they seed you according to your expected finishing time. So you are swimming with guys who are at or near level. You may have a 24 year old one one side and a 55 year old on the other side of you. It's all according to time. However, your actual placement is according to your age category. I was fortunate enough to get first in the events I competed in, which is primarily attributed of remembering how to swim fast. (now I just have to learn how to swim fast for long periods!) Always learning.

Run update! The 100 runs in 91 days is progressing well. I'm on track, but it's been tougher than I thought it would. Not physicaly.. more of a mental battle. It's day 48 and I've got 53 runs done, not much room for error, but still plenty doable.

Bike? What bike? It's still a distant memory, but hopefully in Decemeber I'll crank it up another notch and start logging the miles. The more I get into training, the more the blog will updated. I promise. :)
Cheers!

22/100, making a habit.

2008-10-23T14:16:00.003-04:00

22/100 runs done. Target of 100 runs in 91 days still very achievable. Swimming 5 days a week. Whoa, the former 'swimmer', sure is swimming alot these days! Well, not really. I still dread going to the pool, but I'm trying to form a habit. I figure if I can keep up the swimming frequency for another 2 weeks, I'm golden.

By the sounds of it, you'd think I'm training alot. All untrue. My swims are quick in/out affairs lasting 30 to 40 min - just enough time for a quick 2k and I'm outta there. And my runs, well they are all short, averaging 40 minutes each, which in all total is a mere 8 to 9 aerobic hours a week. Two goals are being accomplished here: consistency and frequency.

So I finally got off my duff and registered as an unattched swimmer for Masters Swimming. My first swim meet in 21 years is November 16. Should be interesting. I really hope I've been able to talk some other tri-nerds into going, it'll be a hoot.

A quick congrats to two of my sometimes training partners who ran the Toronto marathon last weekend. Cliff, who not only PB'd, he also beat his goal time (by 6min) AND negative split that sucker. Impressive. Aaron, who missed a PB by a mere 1min and 7 sec, but also somehow managed to raise (how many thousands of dollars for the Princess Margaret Hospital?) By hanging out with people who raise the bar and push their limits encourages me to do the same.

Gotta run.. #23 is next.
Cheers!

Turned "On"

2008-10-13T15:55:00.005-04:00

I need triathlon more than triathlon needs me. Since Muskoka, I've managed to gain a very quick and alarming 10 pounds. Not bad, 2 to 3 pounds a week! My metabolism just hasn't caught up with my current activity level and I apparently lack the self control to EAT LESS!

So clearly something had to be done. So, on October 2nd, after my shortest 'off season' ever, I started training. VERY light training, but training none-the-less. It's unbelievable how much fitness one can lose in a very short time when reverting to being a sloth. I needed a goal. Including Oct 2, there are 91 days left in the year, the goal is to run 100 times between now and then. A quick nod to ST's Paul Devashish for doing this last year as it's the catalyst for me this year. (a 'run' must be at least 30 minutes in duration)
I'm currently on run 13 and today marks my first day EVER of doing two runs in a day. Hey, if I'm going to address my limiter, I gotta pay the piper.

A brief outline of my training plan:
Oct, Nov, Dec: run and swim, focus on running. Currently running with a HR cap of 140, which reduces me to walking hills. Ug. Planning on doing a swim meet once a month from Nov-Mar.
Jan, Feb: early season "A" race. Chilly Half marathon. Focus on running speedwork and laying the base down on the bike trainer.
Mar, April: back to base building, and hillwork.
May - Sept: Threshold and Vo2 work. Muskoka Chase will a B+ race, Peterborough Half Ironman will be a "A" race and it looks like I'm going to do Muskoka 70.3, though I'm lolly gagging on registering. Race wise, it's almost a carbon copy of last year.

Cheers!

Turned 'off'.

2008-09-24T15:55:00.004-04:00

Workouts since Muskoka: 0
Pounds gained: ~2
I guess it's officially the off season. Catching up on lots of stuff around the house, all the things I put off while training throughout the summer. Guess I have to pay the piper sometime.

Other more tri specific things that are on horizon that may or may not happen. I guess you could classify this as mere ponderances at this point.
-starting a Tri-nerd swim club, the goal being to improve our swims and also do a couple of Masters swim meets for fun. Drop me an email if you wish to be updated on this.
-talked with Rich Pady today about the idea of getting a not for profit Triathlon Club/Team off the ground. This could quickly go from a back burner project to a front burner project soon. Hopefully details to follow in the coming months.

Stuff that's going to happen in the near term:
-Octoberfest 100k ride 'for the hell of it'. No HR or power meter allowed! Aaron and I did this last year, it was 5C and rainy - good times. Open to riders of all calibre.
- 3rd Annual Hockley Hike-n-Run. A 22.5k/3.5 hour hike-n-run through some challenging terrain. Probably in the first half of November, traditional pancake lunch at my place afterwards.
Farther down the horizon..
-2nd annual Alton Half Ironman end of January. Upping the entrant cap to 5 this year. With only 5 spots available, you may just want to reserve your spot ASAP, expecting interest to be exceedinly high in '09!!

In regards to training..
-I'm starting to chomp at the bit and I'm looking forward to get back at it, however I've got vacation coming up and lots of non tri stuff to do (possible canoe trip!), so probably won't start any consistant type training for another 2 - 3 weeks. I figure by then, I'll be fat, unfit but raring to go.
Cheers!

Doing the old farts proud.. Muskoka RR.

2008-09-15T14:41:00.009-04:00

+1 for the over 40 crowd, but it was oh so close. Six seconds to be exact, which in a Half Ironman, isn't that much!
Rewind...
Putting ones doubts 'out there' for all see, exposes one's vulnerable side, yet I also think it puts a distinctly human perspective on things as it's something we all experience and can relate to. That being said, I'm going to expose myself... (get your mind out of the gutter!), as I was saying, the last 3 weeks before my last and biggest race of year, I was having trouble just keeping it together. Physically, I did OK at keeping some sort training schedule (mostly due to my new found training partner.. Gary - to which I owe a debt of thanks), but mentally I needed break. I was at the point where I didn't know what I wanted more, to race, or to be done racing for the year. It's been a fantastic year, but I really just wanted to chill out for a bit, pack on a few pounds and relax! Yet I had to race, I paid my fee, I said I was going to Muskoka and by golly I sure the hell wasn't going to let some self pity and nagging doubts stop me!

Cool things about Muskoka 70.3:
The volunteers were simply outstanding. A+++++
For an inaugural event, organization, parking, busing of people to the site etc.. again, outstanding.
The course itself, in the words of the Joanna Zeiger (top woman overall): "Brutal".

On the other side of the equation:
The course is.. ahem.. brutal. Ok, the soggy conditions and the intermittent high winds didn't help, the course may not be 'brutal' but make no mistake about it, it's a tough course.
Questionable pavement. Some crappy 'paved' areas and rough sections of road were leaving people covered in specks of tar by the time they got their bikes. You need to be confident on your bike if you plan to do this race next year.
The run course is punishing, and I'm not just talking about the hills. Sometimes you're on pavement, a dirt path, crumbling walkway or just plain gravel.
Being spackled with tar bits, running in the rain on a dirt path I thought I was doing an Xterra race!

Damn, this report is getting long winded. Sorry about that. On to the meat and potatoes:

The Crystal Ball.
After a VERY quick registration procedure (sub 5 minutes has to be some sort of a record), I run into Lisa Bentley manning the Power Bar booth, she's an incredible athlete, but did you know she also can predict the future?? She says, and I quote: " just don't pass me on the bike." I replied: " even if I did, you'll smoke me on the run." Foreshadowing?

The Swim: My age group is wave 4. (did I mention I hate wave starts??) We started 6 minutes after wave 3, which at the time, I thought was plenty. However, after about 1k we ran into wave 3 and had to play a little dodge swimmer. Other than that, uneventful.
Swim 1.9k: AG 3. OA: 35 Time: 29:03.

T1: Uneventful. Ha! Not really. It's long, it's uphill, it's on pavement and by the time I got to the bike I was hoping my feet weren't bleeding! Time 3:40. (no, I didn't stop for a sandwich)

The Bike: Challenging under dry conditions. Very wet roads, intermittent rain and the occasional wind gust made this bike the toughest I've done so far. Rough patches, freshly tarred stretches of pavement and slick cornering compounded the challenge. I took advantage of my new found bike fitness and rode comfortably hard. At one point, I got into a little back and forth action with a young'un who really didn't like getting passed by a 40 year old. He'd hammer up a hill, pass me, and then on the downhill and even stretches, I'd pass him. We went back and forth a bit and I think he realized that he was just smashing himself and eventually let me go. I was pretty sure I had my age group lead at this point, but with the wave starts it can be hard to tell. I started passing some pro women and by the time I hit the 70k mark, the ride was VERY lonely, I was starting to think I took wrong a turn! I think I went for 20 minutes without seeing another rider. In the late stages of the ride, guess what? I passed Lisa Bentley...
Bike: 94k AG: 1 OA: 13 Time: 2:36:58

T2: Mr. Announcer says 'and here we have our first age grouper coming off the bike!' I'm like.. huh? He can't be talking about me, there must be some mistake. Nevertheless, the crowd went crazy and I, for about 2 minutes, felt like a star! Naturally I started out too fast! (but at the time, I didn't care) :)

The Run: Oh, how I envy the people that can run well. They flow, it's effortless and they are fast. I held that flow, for about 8.. maybe 9k and then I could feel wheels starting to fall off. Suck it up, hold it together and don't stop. I get passed once and only once, by guess who?
Lisa Bentley. The prophecy is complete. She's in the zone. So focused. So intense. I borrow some of that strength, buck up and soldier on. The 16k mark is where the real fun begins, in a sadistic sort of way. The brochure says 'run through the gentle rolling terrain of a beautiful Muskoka golf course', the reality is: 'oh my God is this ever going to end, the ups, the downs, the twisty turny... is going on and on. Oh yea, must give honourable mention to the ... rain.
One more twist, one more turn, one more little jaunt up a hill and back down and finally.. finished!
Run 21.1k AG: 5 OA: 41 Time: 1:34:41. (owie!)

Finally the end of this report is almost in sight! Cheers for getting this far. The bottom line:
Time: 4:45:37 AG:1 OA: 17. The kicker: scored top age grouper by a mere 6 seconds. So this race is dedicated to all the 40+ old farts! Yea Babay!

Quick sidestory: Sorry for the name dropping, but this is cool. Briefly, ran into Joanna Zeiger post race and congratulated her on her win. You know what her first words were?? " Thanks!, how did YOU do?" No ego, real humbleness and what appeared to be a genuine interest in a fellow athlete's race. Yea, that's what I'm talking about, man I dig this sport.
Cheers!

Psssst! Wanna tip?

2008-09-08T14:37:00.002-04:00

It's been 5 years since I got off the couch and ran a marathon for the 'hell of it'. In hindsight, that definitely falls in the 'what the hell was I thinking department!'. Running a marathon with 3 months of 'training'.. Is. Not. A. Smart move. I took the lessons learned from that mistake and jumped into triathlon the following year. Made some more mistakes, learned some more lessons and of course, repeated some mistakes. Eventually, (ok, so I'm not the fastest learner) I started making fewer mistakes and as a result, this year has been an excellent year. Why is that? Well, hold on to your chair, because I'm going to spill the beans...

Stuff I learned this year:
1) Protein is your friend. Don't short change yourself in this department, your body needs protein to help rebuild from all the damage we do to ourselves from training. Having a serving of protein with every meal has made a noticeable difference in my recovery and general well being. Less/no sickness, giving the body the fuel in needs for repairs = better recovery, which in turn = more training = more fitness = faster times!

2) Intervals. Holy crap, my cycling has improved HUGE this year. Why? Intervals. Riding fast to get fast. Now keep in mind I have a massive 3+ years of base building, so when I started to incorporate speed work into the plan, the effect was huge. Why? The engine was built, it just needed tuning. Once or twice a week, I'd hit the hills or do interval work. I never really got around to do doing V02 workouts (that's for next year!), but I did get alot of time spent at just below FTP - usually 30 to 40 minute sessions. The result? FTP went through the roof and I'm currently able to sustain much higher speeds on the bike for a longer duration. I had the base, I just now had to teach myself to go fast.

I'm trying to come up with a 3rd thing I learned this year, but I'm drawing a blank. They say you should learn something everyday.. hmmm, I think I'm behind the curve on that one. Anyway, if those 2 things make a difference in your future training - then I'll be a happy guy.
Cheers!

The 3 least important words, Guelph Lake II RR.

2008-08-31T14:44:00.005-04:00

It's that time of the year, blogging obviously is starting to take a back seat. I can't say I'm a particularly good or passionate blogger, but I do try to update semi regularly.
Soooo, what's new?
Not much. Training has been going well, been incorporating interval sessions into both bike and running and it's paying dividends. I've been going pretty hard since January and I'm looking forward to the 'off season'!

Moving on.. to the Guelph Lake II Race Report!
I'm throwing out the standard race report template. I secretly harbour ill feelings towards it, because it's so redundant and narcissistic. I think I should probably entitle this one: "Things I thought were cool at GL II. "

Number 1: my wife accompanies me to every race I do. After 5 years, she's still batting 100%.
Number 2: Mark, Lori, Fred, Joanne and Joanne's nephew Jake from Prince George, B.C. actually took time out of their days to come down and watch the race. (cheers guys!)
Number 3: Trisport. From a race director's standpoint, I think this was probably a very stressful day. As usual, Trisport did exceptionally well. Think about this and ALL the headaches, pressure and stress it would entail: short notice venue change. ie: swim location is now at a different beach, race course, transition zone, parking etc.. etc.. now all must be changed. With the change, people are now arriving late. Start time is now moved up. This obviously has a trickle down effect that affects everything down the line. A man collapses and nearly dies at the finish line. Paramedics and fire are called in and apparently revive him, he's currently hospitalized and is going to be OK.
Number 4: In the women 50-54 category, Sheri Fraser smokes the course in 1:31, placing 22nd overall!
Number 5: The prancing and preening of my fellow tri nerds- gives me a chuckle everytime.

So. Even though this is my blog, sometimes it's not about me, myself or I. Which, coincidentally, are the 3 least important words in the English language.

Race Pace

2008-08-18T15:56:00.002-04:00

Boy have I learned alot this year, umm.. well I've read alot, how much of that actually sinks is another story! As we start to near the end of the season (only 2 races left!), I've already got an eye on next year and what sort of training protocols I'm going to adapt. I'm on the right track, but there will be some serious tweaking.

One of my major weaknesses (and/or strength, depending how you look at it), is that I have a tendency to focus to a little too hard. This can definitely yield results, but I'd rather open my eyes and mind to the possibility that are even better ways to maximize my training time. One of the strategies I'll be implementing next year is more time at 'race pace'. Training faster to race faster, pretty simple. I'll be coming back to the 'plan' at a future date, but I'm really jazzed about next year and this year isn't even done yet!

To give credit where credit is due. I've been picking one of my new training partners brains on exercise physiology, periodization etc.. Gary, recently came back to the sport of triathlon after a 2 year layoff, is very knowledgeable and freely shares his knowledge (it's no wonder I like hanging with him). He's not a coach (yet), but if I were to ever get one, he'd be on the short list.

Random swimming tips for the week:
- flexibility! Yes, I'm a big fan of proper stretching, as I truly believe it's one of things that helps keep me injury free. Swimmers are a flexible bunch and one of the main benefits is that it gives you range of motion to do proper technique. I'm not saying being flexible will give you proper technique, but if you have the range of motion, it's certainly a good starting point. This link has some good shoulder stretches:
http://www.nismat.org/traintip/swimmershld
- masters swimming. Ok that's half the battle, you signed up and are going to practice, the other half of the battle: use the coach. Everyday, ask the coach, "what's the ONE thing I need to concentrate on today?" Use the coach to master the technique, then and only then are you allowed to train fast.
- lastly. Always, always and I mean always... be concentrating on form. Once your form breaks down - you need a rest, otherwise you're only reinforcing bad form. It's easy to swim 'well' fast (although your form will break down very quick), it's much harder to swim 'well' slow. Once you can swim well at a slow pace (a pace you can continually maintain with no rest and no form breakdown) - you'll have the hardest part nailed. Going fast will be easy because now you'll have good form.
Points to ponder..

The week in review:
Mon: swim 2k easy
Tues: bike 75k. 5X10min at Olympic pace. Run 8k easy.
Wed: run 10k, spin 1 hour. (zone 2)
Thu: run 17k. 4X8min @ Oly pace. Swim 2.8k (400's)
Fri: easy 10k run. Spin 30min.
Sat: 3.6k OW swim. Bike 5 min easy, 10 min hard, quick transition run 2k hard (Oly pace) repeat 5 times. (good workout!)
Sun: run long. 22k.

This race pace stuff is fun. Must be the endorphins. :)
Cheers!

The fitter you are..

2008-08-10T14:13:00.002-04:00

The faster you bounce back. The caveat being.. you probably aren't as fit as you think you are. So smart money says err on the side of caution and rest up! OR.. you could risk injury, over training, burn out... all in an effort of trying to squeeze one more workout that in all likelihood will result in a negative net gain. Hardly seems worth it. Yet we do it. (guilty!) Well at least I try to find the balance - it's a work in progress.

So with an opener like that.. here's what I did this week:
Mon: race (Oly distance)
Tues: swim 2.4k
Wed: bike 72k run5k
Thur: bike 37k, run 11k, swim2.8k
Fri: run 8k
Sat: swim 2.8k open water, bike 70k (rainy, cold and miserable), run 10k
Sun: bike 104k run 10k (to do..)

Signs of over training and /or over-extending myself include: being grumpy, and not sleeping well. The good news is the grump factor is at an all time low and I'm sleeping like a baby - good news indeed.

So I get an email from Aaron entitled: "F the rain- I'm riding on Sunday!!! " Well, after much fence sitting, I buck up and we went for a nice spin. I'm a total froo froo boy when it comes to riding in the rain - oh sure I can suck it up, but I don't have to like it! Training for me is all about maximizing my enjoyment of a given activity and riding in the rain, for me, is generally not fun. BUT.. when you training partner throws down an invite.. you kinda, sorta, haveta rise up to the challenge. It's just the way it is.
By the way, it didn't rain, traffic was nil and the ride rocked. Sometimes the sun shines - even when it's cloudy.
Cheers!

P.S. Phelps's 4:03 in the 400IM = UNfrickinbelievable.

Provincial Champs Race Report!

2008-08-04T18:29:00.002-04:00

Owen Sound hosted the Ontario Provincial Champs today for the Olympic distance triathlon. Doing well here means you get to go to the World Championships being hosted in Australia next year, which would be nice, but prohibitively expensive! So here is how the day went down..
Time: 2:05:35
AG placing: 2
Overall: 10

Swim 1.5k: Time: 21:12 AG placing: 3 Overall:17
My age group was in the second wave, which started 4min after the first wave. I immediately fell in line with the top 2 swimmers and the 3 of us basically made a line around the course. I was content on following their feet and we all exited the water very close together.

T1
Uneventful. Wetsuit off. Helmet on. Unrack bike. Go.

Bike 40k: Time: 1:02:17 AG placing:4 Overall: 8
Was looking to to come in about 2 minutes faster but without knowing the course I'm happy with my bike time. Not a particularly difficult course, best defined as a rolling type course with some longer easy ascents - I did have to drop to the small chain ring once. Going out was pretty zippy, nice tail wind and was holding 50kph for some good stretches. Coming back was obviously a tad slower as we had to contend with a headwind. But overall it's a pretty good course.

T2
Tried to rack bike at the wrong rack. Doh. Quickly realized the mistake as I didn't see my shoes there! I was one aisle off - no biggie. Probably only cost 10 sec. Rack bike. Helmet off. Shoes on. Go!

Run 10: 40:34 AG placing: 5 Overall:27
I'm stuck. Seems like no matter what race I do, I can't break the 4min/kph barrier. Becoming a runner has been a long arduous journey and it would appear I still need work! The run is a two looped affair that goes by fairly quickly. Psychologically it's not a far distance, so no matter how hard I'm sucking air, I just tell myself 1 more km! And before I know it, it's done!

Overall I'd give this race a solid 8. Good venue, lots of parking, plenty of facilities, very well organized (as usual Trisport), and great volunteers! This is only the 2nd year Owen Sound has had this particular race, but I can quickly see it becoming a fan favorite, plus it also received Sally's seal of approval - which always bodes well!
Cheers!

Tabata!

2008-07-27T19:04:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday I did my very first set of Tabata intervals. Ummm... to say these are challenging is an understatement. Here's the quick and dirty: 20 sec MAX intensity, followed by 10 seconds rest. Repeat 8 times. Yup, that's it. Sounds easy, I mean that's a whopping 4 minutes of work, it should be cake.... right?
Wrong.
Wrong.
WRONG!
I did a measly 3 and was utterly and completely fried. I think for the first one I hit ~750 watts, the second one I'm not sure, I'd guess maybe 550, the 3rd one I may have peaked around 420 and I was done. I did take a rest and banged off a couple of more, just because I was so humbled by the initial 3 and that I couldn't live with myself by scheduling to do 8 and walking away only doing 3!
Ahh well, now I have something to shoot for, next time I'm going to shoot for 5 in a row - probably a little more realistic.

Training for last week was OK. Bike time suffered a bit, but got some good running mileage in. Sally and I threw a party last night, so today I'm suffering from lack of quality sleep and partaking in a tad too many beverages. I paid my penance though.. by running 22k... it was challenging. The numbers: swim 9.6k, spin: 3 hrs, bike: 50k and run: 75.5k.

This is a scheduled rest week, but I'm mixing it up a bit. Looking to log a bit of bike time Mon-Thurs, then do a 72hour mini taper/rest and then race Owen Sound on Aug 4. Did someone say race? Yes!

Off to sleep now.. I'm thinking 10 hours should suffice.
Cheers!

The Genetic Excuse

2008-07-20T13:12:00.004-04:00

What's easier?
Saying that you do not have the mental fortitude, desire, time, physical ability, willingness to sacrifice, focus etc...
OR..
"I'm limited by my genes."

It's human nature to take the easy road. It's unfortunate that many of us define our ability before we even get to the start line. Somehow I doubt a true champion does this. I read that the great Peter Reid, didn't think he was genetically gifted and that he only did as well as he did through years of hard, consistent work. (imagine!)
I'm sure you could probably map out the genetic component on some sort of bell curve, BUT and this is a big but, you wouldn't be able to map the mental aspects of what makes a champion. These are the intangibles that will transcend any genetic bell curve and make truly great athletes. So if you want to use the 'genetic excuse' by all means do so, but all you are really doing is self imposing your own limit.
~~
Cycling story of the week.
Was out riding the other day when I saw some sort of black, very stealth looking helicopter skimming the trees. It was buzzing around, disappear, pop back up - it seemed to be flying pretty aggressive. Not something I see everyday and was pretty cool. Something was going on, though I had no idea what. Fast forward....
Same road, about 15k down. A woman wearing pink leathers driving a large Fat Boy Harley passes me. Yea that's cool too. Men on Harley's = obnoxious. Women on Harley's = cool. Anyway, about 10 minutes later, the road comes to a "T" and she's pulled over to the side. Ahhh a damsel in distress... and we're both on two wheels.. even if I'm completely dorked out in cycling spandex. (what have I become...?)
It turns out she's looking for some TV shoot that's suppose to be happening on this very road. It slowly dawns on me that maybe.. just maybe that helicopter I saw way back was involved. She said 'that's it!'. But before she goes, I ask if she'll trade rides - just for a spin. She says, and I quote:
"Well I would, but this one is my Mom's - mines in shop!"
Gee, didn't see that one coming.
Being a TV-o-phobe, I have no idea who it was - but we wished each other a great ride and went our separate ways.
~~
Training.
A solid week. Monday: easy 2.7k swim. Tues:15.5k run featuring hill repeats, 1 hour hard ride. Wed: 3k swim, 12k of interval work on the treadmill. Thurs: run 17, spin 1 hour (4X9min at threshold). Fri: run 8k (treadmill, 7% incline at 7mph, held it to 140 HR), 45min spin (5X3min at 115% of threshold). Sat: O/W swim 2.4k, bike 100k, run 10k. Today: 2.5hr spin (did the Ergvideo of Lake Placid while watching IronmanLive of the Lake Placid race-at the same time, cool.) To do: run 10k before dinner.
But first..
a nap!

Cheers!

Focus

2008-07-13T19:51:00.003-04:00

There was interesting thread on the board I hang out on but hardly ever post - Slowtwitch. If you didn't read the link, it has to do with "fast guys" and over 40. I thought about this alot during training this week and was trying to come up with some sort of underlying principles.

First, I'm not even going to define fast. It's relative term, what's fast to me might not be fast to you. It's also completely elusive as the definition changes as goals are met and you start entertain new possibilities.

I think one of the primary attributes ANY "fast" athlete has is Focus. Focus trumps all - it encompasses stuff like dedication, consistency etc. When one is 'focused' things naturally start to fall in place; it could be diet, rest, a tough training week etc... I look back on my training log for the last 7 months and I can count on two fingers the number of workouts I've bailed on - solely because I've been in a focused state. (don't worry, I'll go very UN-focused in the fall). The point being, at age 25 I was more concerned about having a good time. Now at age 40, I don't care if I crash at 9pm on a Friday night, I have early Sat morning ride to look forward to!

A willingness to learn and/or try something 'new'. At the beginning of every year for the last four years, I ask myself "how can I train smarter this year?" Most of us have jobs and responsibilities and a result we have limited time to train - using that time as wisely/smartly as possible is a must. Personal experience: for that last 3 years, I tried to 'race' an Ironman and each time I was schooled.. hard. Each year, I'd train 'more', go longer and think I was ready by the time the next one rolled around. I wasn't. I finally got it through my skull, that starting at an Ironman level maybe wasn't the best thing to do. Totally changed my approach this year and have been lucky enough to score a PB in each race I've done. (5/5) Fortunately, I'm *usually* not that slow of a learner! EVERY year, I've changed or tweaked the program. EVERYday, I peruse Slowtwitch and host of elite athlete and coaches blogs and glean very helpful tidbits of information - some I use, some I don't. Ultimately, only you can figure out what's best for you. (though a good coach can help/speed the process up).

Look down the road. Two years down the road. Long term is not 2 months from now.It takes a long time to get good. Most coaches/athletes say 10 years - only then you've made it the first rung. Patience. Re-adjust your focus to the long term, then start taking the necessary steps to get there. One step, one building block at a time.

Lastly, go outside the box. Even at the elite level, athletic formulas and training protocols are always changing. Why? Because someone, dared to go outside a prescribed mode of thinking. Dabble outside the box every so often, who knows what you'll find. My personal 'outside the box' thing is take 4, 6 .. 8 weeks off, completely off. No training, no triathlon, no blogging. Just time to rest, pursue other interests, gain some weight, do whatever. Sure, I'll lose a ton fitness (don't care), but once I start to get that itch to start back up again, the slate is clean, the system is purged and I'm ready to go.
~~

Training for the week:
I'm totally amazed at how fast I bounced back after Peterborough. An obvious function of improved fitness! Monday was an easy 2.1k swim. Tuesday was a short 6k treadmill run and a 1hr spin. Wednesday was 3.3k swim and 9k run. Thursday was back in the groove with a quick 90k ride followed by a 7.5k run. Friday: 10k run, spin 1 hour. Sat: Run 22k, spin 1 hour. Sun: Bike 130k, run 7k.
Totals:
Swim: 5.4k
Spin: 3 hrs
Bike: 220k
Run: 62k

This week the 'plan' (always subject to change) will be tougher than normal. Some mid week 10mile runs and some back to back long rides on tap for the weekend. Have a frikin awesome week!
Cheers!

Some PB pics from PB.

2008-07-10T19:37:00.017-04:00

In the beginning...

In the middle...

peace!

In the end...

Resting at peace.

My friend watching over while I snoozed.

Kickin it ... old school.

2008-07-07T14:44:00.003-04:00

Peterborough Half Iron Race Report

So I admit, I haven't been around this sport long enough to know what 'old school' is, but I'm certainly 'old enough' to theorize! No heart rate monitor, no power meter, 2 bottles for the bike, no patch kit, spare tire or CO2 -something I don't necessarily recommend - arrive, setup and get to the swim start with 6 minutes to spare - again, something I don't recommend! Instead, I used perceived effort (sometimes known as deceived effort), listened to breathing (I can pretty much tell what HR zone I'm in by how hard I'm breathing) and lastly.. the ol stomach trick (any hint of nausea means back off bucko).
So..
did it work? Read on..

The Swim (2k)
Time: 29:46 AG placing: 2 OA placing: 12.
Actually the guy who placed ahead me only did 1 loop on the swim and DQ'd... so technically the places are bumped up by 1.
My swim was OK. The time includes a fairly long run to the TZ, but in my head I'm wondering why I'm not faster. In the pool, my 'swim all day' pace is 1:27-1:29/100m, so I'm barely just meeting that in a race. I'm seriously contemplating ditching my wetsuit and only using it for cold water swims - but that's a topic for another day.
It was fairly uneventful, there was a long line of about 7 swimmers and we all seemed to be content with following each others feet. Which was basically the way it went for 2 loops.

The Bike (90k)
Time: 2:22 A/G placing: 1 Overall: 7
After a reasonably quick transition, I was on the bike and wasn't exactly sure what position I was in. My strategy was simple: controlled chaos. The first 10 to 20k I wanted to take it easy, get the HR down from the swim, breath deeply and relax. I passed couple of young'uns and was passed by a pro and that was all the traffic I saw for a very. long. time. I never looked back, just buried my head, tried to be as aero and slippery as possible and pedalled away.
I enjoyed the course, it's not super hard, probably best described as rolling type course. A few hills, but I didn't even need to use the small chainring and the weather /wind was damn near perfect.
After the turn around, I was mildly surprised to see about half a dozen guys only a 2 or 3 minutes behind me. It's deceiving, I had no one in front of me the longest time, so it was a kick in the head to see the guys that were chasing me down and they weren't far behind! I counted the guys ahead and was riding in 5th place and was moving at a good clip. I got surprised in the last 8k when a guy passed me, he wasn't hammering, so I just stayed about 50 feet behind him, dialed the effort down a notch and cruised in T2.
In the end, it was zippy bike split and I blew away my own expectations. I was expecting to average to ~37kph and ended up at 38kph on the nose. Was quite happy to see that!

The Run
Time: 1:32 A/G placing: 4 Overall: 20
Ahhh the run. Now comes the point in every race where you start to pay the piper. Did I bike too hard? Are my legs pooched? I leave T2 and immediately start banging off 4min/k - whoa, too fast. I know I'm going to fast, but do I slow down? No, no I don't. I held 4min/k for the first 7k THEN started to pay. Not the smartest move. But I'm running scared. After each turn around I see guys that are breathing down my neck and some of them look STRONG. I'm scared I'm going to blow-up and they are just going to pass me and put me out of my misery. But I held on.
Aaron spots me yells out: "Go Walton, you're in 6th!" Despite being an unhappy camper, I chuckle to myself, he brought me out of the I-feel-sorry-myself-funk I was in and I tried to step it up a notch.
In the end I get passed by a pro and 2 fast young'uns - real runners. I have no chance in keeping up with them. But I can feel the guys in my AG breathing down my neck.. 'just hold it together'.. I say to myself.
4k to go... I think I saw Cliff at this point, but I wasn't in my happy place and couldn't give the props he was due.
3k to go..
they are gaining...
2k to go..
don't look back, just run..
1k to go..
man this going to feel so good to stop..
500m...
ok, look back..
what the hell? I'm safe? SWEET!
Cruise the last 500m.

Time: 4:26:27. A/G placing: 1. O/A: 8.

What the hell? Better than my wildest expectations. My A+ goal was to go sub 4:30, I thought realistically I'd come in the 4:32-33 range. So yea, I'm a happy guy. :)
Mike Woodford scored 2nd place and was a mere 1 minute behind me. Honestly, he just ran out of real estate, he was going to run me down, no question about it. His run was about 4 min faster than mine, but I had enough of a cushion from the swim and bike to hold him off. So, like I said, I was running scared.
Devashish Paul came 3rd in our age group a mere 2 minutes behind Mike! A tough, close race, with 30% of the top 10 overall being of the 40+ crowd! And I thought the 35-39 age group was competitive - these guys are animals!

Cheers!

No Title

2008-06-30T15:07:00.002-04:00

Ahhh.. just ate homemade pancakes, a couple eggs and 3 pieces of ham for lunch. I'm sated and feeling fine.

In the news..
-scored a treadmill. It's cool. Nothing beats running outside, but I can feel the benefit that a treadmill will provide. I seem to run 'lighter', cadence seems higher and there is noticeably lesser impact on the ol joints. The 'boy cave', (the one room of the house that's actually mine) is getting a little full though.
-Canucks rocked IMCDA. For a relatively small population, we have some bad ass triathletes. First place men AND first place women were both Canadian.
-watched the US Olympic trials for the Men's 400 IM last night. One of the best races I've seen. Phelps leads after the butterfly and backstroke, Lochte catches him on the breaststroke and they duke it in the freestyle head to head. Both under the world record with Phelps winning. Incredible.

"Other" stuff..
-this year I had the 'revelation' that there will be no 'training races'. Every race I'll be rested the only question is how much rest I get. For lower priority races I'll take 3 or 4 easy days, for a high priority (half IM) I'll do a full 14 day taper. Generally, triathletes have a tendency to get addicted training (guilty!) and always want to squeak just one hard day of training before I race. Resist! We train so much and race so little, make every race count! This small change philosophy has yielded a PB in 4/4 races so far this year.

-is going 'hard' tougher than going 'long'? The last couple of years I went 'long' - well long for me. Keep in mind, this is relative. I think this period was very valuable as it laid down some good groundwork for the future.
This year I've added considerably more 'hard' sessions - especially on the bike and I have to say there are times I believe that a short 1 hour interval session on the bike is harder than a 100k mid week Z1/2 ride. When I went long, I'd zone out and just ride. When I go hard - I suffer. Mental toughness is required - that little imp on my shoulder is always telling me to stop.

-Peterborough Half Ironman is this Sunday and I still have not got my wetsuit back from being repaired. If I don't get it back in time, I'm seriously thinking of going old school and doing the swim in a bathing suit.

By the numbers..
For the week of June 23- 29
Swim: 8.1k
Spin: 4.25 hrs
Bike: 100k
Run: 50k
The key sessions for the week was: Tues: brick- bike 100k moderate effort followed by 7.5k run. Thurs: swim 3.1k, spin 1 hour (27min @ threshold 310watts -upped it by 5W :), run 6.5k. Sat: Ergvideo loop of Lake Placid.

This week is taper week. Rest. Rest. REST.
Tomorrow is..
Canada Day!

Have a great one.

2008-06-23T19:36:00.003-04:00

Slid right back into training after last week's race. Mostly zone 1 and 2 work from Monday to Friday and then picked it up on the weekend. The stats:
Swim: 8.8k
Spin: 4 hrs
Bike: 240k
Run: 53.5k
The weekend rocked. On Saturday, I did a 120k ride that featured Hockley Valley hill repeats. I'm not sure what the grade is, but the climb is about 1 mile long and takes me about 8min at 'steady' pace. Not hammering, just grinding. I was finished up repeat number 6 when the skies opened up - quel suprise - with all the sporadic rain/thunder showers we've had lately. Last hour was soggy but mission was accomplished. Later on Sat I ran 11k. Sunday was similar, minas the hill repeats. 10 hours of training in two days. Rar!

This got me thinking.. har har, yea it happens. I may slightly change the structure of my basic week to something like this: Monday: recovery swim, 30m spin. Tues: run ~80min/ ride 1 hr. Wed: swim 1hr/ride or run 1 hr. Thurs: same as Tues. Fri: same as Wed. Sat & Sun: longish ride max 4 hrs / 1 hr run. That's a pretty solid week. The only thing I'm missing is the dedicated long run, but instead make up for it by doing 2 medium long runs. The main benefits would be:
1) 2 longish run = ~34k whereas 1 long run is 22-25k
2) back to back longish rides on the weekend = quality saddle time. Doing 8 hours split over 2 days is much easier than doing one 6 hour stint. Four hours is about my max in terms having fun while riding, anything after that and riding becomes a chore and this I don't want. Plus I can still get an hour run in later in the day.

Other news..
I'm this >< close to getting a treadmill.
Small change in the diet. Fewer carbs, more protein. Been training on much less carbs in an effort to become a more efficient fat burner and more protein in an effort to make sure the old bod has enough for repairs. So the tip of the week is make sure you have some protein with every meal. If you wish read more on becoming a more efficient fat burner browse through Alan Couzens blog - some good stuff there.

Off to play Bubble Bobble with Sally - she's such an addict! :)
Cheers!

Muskoka Race Report

2008-06-15T19:07:00.006-04:00

What a great day for racing! Who am I kidding, anyday is a good day for racing! Here's the breakdown for the day:

Swim: doh. Terrible! Somehow, while putting on my wetsuit I managed to pop the zipper! A very difficult thing to do and will require a professional to repair it. So now I have no wetsuit and wave starts in 15 minutes... Time to panic? NO! Be calm.... be calm.. think soothing thoughts.
I run all the way back to the transition zone and LUCKILY, D'Ornella's Tri shop had a spare suit they'll rent me. PHEW! The guy, I'm guessing it was the owner, was super cool and totally saved my ass. So a don of proverbial chapeau goes to D'Onella's!
I run back, don the wetsuit and have a quick 5 minute warmup before my swim wave start. Hey, at least I made it.
My navigation was terrible as I forgot set landmark navigation points, having direct sun in the eyes really didn't help so I really was all over the place. All things considered I was about 2-3 minutes off 'my regular' pace.
Swim stats: Distance: 2k Age group placing 4/93th. Overall placing: 39/777. Time: 31:24 Pace: 1:35/100m.
Glad that part is over with... on to the bike..

Bike: For me, the bike was zippy. I'm still learning on how hard to push the bike without blowing up for the run. Now that being said, I decided to push the bike a little harder than usual. Since I started in the 5th wave, there was many people already on the bike course and had I had to pass alot of them! Actually, I was fortunate enough to not get passed once - this made me happy as the work I put in on the bike was starting to show results. I wasn't sure, but I thought I was leading my age group at the end of the bike. (As it turned out I was actually in 2nd)
The stats:
Distance 55k. Age group placing: 2 (!) Overall placing: 18. Time: 1:30:58 . Speed: 36.3
I'm happy with that result as the course is a toughie and it's an improvement over last year.

Run: So, now the question is did I ride too hard? The answer is I did not! Two real highpoints on the run: 1) I was complimented by my fellow athletes 3(!) times on how well I was running! Not only is this a total ego stroke - yet humbling at the same time - it proves to me that even I, a complete non-runner 4 years ago, can transmogrify into an actual runner! Anything IS possible!
The 2nd highlight was when I was passed by Mike Keene, who I noticed was in my age group. Time for battle. It was apparent that Mike can run, so I just wanted to try to keep him in my sights for the last 6k. Soon, he had a 200m lead and no matter what I did, I couldn't bridge the gap. I was running out of steam. The good news is he didn't really extend the gap, so I did have him striking distance - just couldn't close the deal. -This time.
Run stats:
Distance: 15k Age group placing 6/93. Overall 35/777. Time: 1:00:20 (argh, missed goal by 21 seconds!) Pace: 4:02/km.

Final: Time: 3:04:36 Age group placing 3rd. Overall: 21. You know what's funny?? If, me, the swimmer, hadn't screwed up his swim, it would have a 3-way battle royale for the top age group spot! Either way, it was great day and big congrats goes to Eric Fernando who won our age group and Mike Keene who came in 2nd. A big thanks to my wife Sally (my fan!), Canada Post for their continued support, Trisport Canada for putting on a first class event and of course to D'Ornella's bike shop for totally saving my butt today!

Cheers!

We have a contender..

2008-06-12T20:04:00.003-04:00

for idiot of month. Incidentally, I just bypassed the idiot-of-the-day and idiot-of-the-week award and went straight to idiot-of-the-month. This guy is just begging for a Darwin Award.

The award goes to a cyclist who:
-was riding on the wrong side of the road.
-was not wearing a helmet.
-was talking on a cellphone.

Now fortuneately (or not, depending how you look at it), he didn't hurt himself during the brief time I saw him. However, it would have been supremely funny if he ran into a telephone pole. Congrats on the award.. you idiot.

Yet another pseudo funny story happened today. I was out for a quick ride and was grinding up a hill when I saw these two mountain bikers pushing their bikes up the hill. So being the smart ass that I am, I casually said: "ummm.. you do know your suppose to ride them.. not push them". I was obviously joking and he got the gist of it right away.. she, however, didn't seem to like my smarty pants comment and said: "Give us a break, we rode all the way from Elora!!" (a town about 40k away). I was dutifully impressed, her ego was assuaged and we both went our merry ways.

Cheers!

Sometimes I'm too dumb...

2008-06-10T17:25:00.002-04:00

to follow my own advice.
Rewind.

a) What can I do?
b) What should I do?

When training always opt for option b. When racing always opt for option a. Pretty simple.

So last week, I scheduled in a 17 k run with 5X6min hard, 2 min rest interval session. The problem was the previous week was a heavy training week, capped off with a HIM. I should have taken an easy 48 hours to recover. Instead, by Tuesday I'm out there ripping it up. Consequences? Yup. A minor pull in my right calf. Dumb, dumb, dum. So, no running for 72 hours just because I chose the wrong time to push the envelope. The good news is it was very minor pull and now 1 week later - all is good. Lesson learned.
Again.

Stats for the week:
Swim: 10.4k
Spin: 3.5 hrs
Bike: 110k
Run: 47.5k
Did OK, considering I was a dum dum. Thursday was a good session on the trainer. The ol 2X20 min @ threshold on the trainer. I fired up the Ergvideo, set my threshold to 300w (gotta retest that.. soon), and had a great time. Yeah, that's a fun set.
Had a zippy, albeit short swim on Friday. Did a 1k warmup, 10X100m free on 1:30, was banging those off in the 1:15-1:16 range. Easily 2 seconds faster than 'normal'. I blame the pool. It's a newer facility that I occasionally get to and it is a 'fast' pool. Seriously.

Looking forward..
Taking it pretty easy this week as it's a scheduled easy week and I'm hoping that will set me up for the Muskoka Chase which is in .. oh.. what.. 5 days?
Yes!

Would you ... cheat?

2008-06-07T12:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, the title may be a little mis-leading, or is it? Here is the scenario: Subaru, puts on a damn fine triathlon here is southern Ontario, they also give the option for 'swimmers' to start in earlier waves. (wave starts are done by age group and there is usually 2 minutes between each start.) Personally, I hate wave starts, I'd much rather see a mass start and just let us hash it out. However, I'm biased because the swim is my best event and I get to avoid alot of the thrashing that occurs in the mid pack.

The problem with wave starts is that if you're a good swimmer, you very quickly catch up the wave in front of you and end up swimming up, over and around the poor slower guys from the earlier waves. So the question is:
If given the opportunity would you cede yourself in the early wave?

Pretty innocuous question, but remember this is coming from a guy who will actually put on his brakes in a race to avoid even looking like I'm drafting. I try to race ethically well and I can't help but wonder if cedeing yourself in an earlier wave is .. well.. ethical. I suppose ultimeately I'm the one that has to live with decision and if there is any ambiguity, I should just start with my age group and be done with it. The flip side says, the opportunity is afforded to anyone who can swim 'fast', so it's not like you are being given special treatment. The two advantages you get by cedeing early are: no swim traffic to deal with and a cleaner T1 transition with less people being in front of you on the bike.

I'm still not sure which way I'll go, but by this time next week, I better have it figured out.

What do you think??

Check!

2008-06-02T17:13:00.002-04:00

Lots of checks this week.
Swim 11+k. Check.
Run Hills. Check.
Bike LT session. Check.
Bike Hills session. Check.
(Aaron and Cliff would have enjoyed this: Hockley Valley ski hill X2, Old Base Line, Forks of the Credit switchback, McLaren and Mississauga ski hill. 92k of leg smashing goodness.)
Do a Half Ironman. Check.

It was one of those weeks where you JFT'd. Don't complain. Don't whine. Just F'n Train. Weekly Total:
Swim 11.2k
Spin: 4.25 hrs
Bike: 187k
Run: 64k

So as I was working on building my mitochondrial density and trying to improve my body's ability to burn fat as fuel, I was begining to wonder about how much (if any!) I'll improve this year. Realty check time. Up until this year it's been about building the aerobic engine, essentially, just logging miles. This year, it's more about improving muscular endurance (hill reps!), working lactate threshold and improving speed. Obviously, like anyone, I want a MASSIVE improvement and I want it NOW. But, hold on there bucko, is that realistic? Not really. Let's take the improving run speed component. Including races and weekly run speed workouts, I'll be lucky if I can hit maybe 20 sessions... for the entire year. Clearly, a monumental breakthrough isn't going to occur with just a paltry 20 sessions. However, the year in, year out, tweak the program here and tweak the program there is obviously where it's at. Hopefully improvements will just follow, at least for a few more years. :)

Lastly..
(bet you thought I forgot!)
The Oakville Inaugural Half Iron Race Report!

My day began at 5:13 am. There is a part of me that can't comprehend that I'm actually a person who will wake up at 5:13am on a Sunday, drive for an hour just to do a Half Ironman for 'fun'. Twenty years ago if you told me I'd the 'that guy', I'd say your crazy now pass me a beer. Now, it's just Sally who roles over and has the bed to herself who says 'your crazy' and goes back to sleep. Just like what a normal, rational person should be doing on a Sunday morning.

Since this is the event's first incarnation, only two of us managed to show up and 'break the event in'. We decided to forgo race numbers, though in my mind I assigned the host as number 1 and since I was the only other person there, I went with number 2. This will bode well, as at least I'll place in the top - overall.
Transition was top notch. Lots of space, pebble-free surface and very secure. Couldn't ask for more. The cheering section as incredible, it was basically a 1:1 ratio of cheerers and athletes.

The swim: We make our way to the pool and.... there other people there! It's actually busy! This is an odd experience for me. There are short, fat, old, young, swimmers and non swimmers. There is a flipper lady. With all these people, there was things.. umm.. oh yea, they are called waves. I felt like I was open water swimming. I chose 5X400 fr set and capped it off with 300m of drill, so the swim was a bit long, but it was my own doing. Can't blame the race director on that.

The bike: Aaron hopped on his brand new P2C and immediately started showing off by blowing past me, hammering through a green light and by the time I got there it had already changed. Oh. So that's the way we are going to play. Mr fancy-schmancy pants sporting his brand spanking new carbon frame bike with sparklers shooting out the seat post. (ok, he had no sparklers, but I have to admit, that would be a bad ass upgrade). Oh, if it sounds like I'm jealous, it's because I am.
The bike route was great, lots lof hills, LOTS of wind and many, many other bikers 'out and about'. This was a real treat for me, even though I fantastic cycling all around me, I rarely see a guy up the road I can give chase too. This was decidely different. Example:
Me: See that guy up there? Let's chase him down!
Aaron: OK!
(ramp up speed, blow past guy)
Me: See that guy half way up the hill?
Aaron: Let's get him!
Once we blew past a roadie and with in 2 seconds he was hung on my backwheel and we had an impromtu peleton cruising at 50kph! Drafting schmafting!
THIS is what cycling is all about and it was a hoot.

The Run
Primarily all trails. The perfect crushed stone kind. Ravine setting. Plenty of ups and downs and lots of rollers. Not sure we could have had a nicer run. We ran for 1:40, which either means we were insanely fast or the course was a tad short. I'm going with insanely fast. (ha!)

Post Race
The cheering section came out full force and we felt like super stars. I had a beer that was probably in my top 5 beer moments of all time. Yes it was that good. A don of the proverbial chapeau goes to Val, who chapperoned the cheering section and is understanding enough to put-up with a 'crazy' husband. (Thanks Val!)

In conclusion, I HIGHLY recommend you check this event for next year. The price is right and there is post race beer! Post race beer! Post race beer!

Cheers!

Do 'it' well

2008-05-27T19:56:00.003-04:00

So I was out grinding hill repeats today and stopped at 9 reps. Why 9? Why not just do the 10 and be done with it?? I have yet to do 10 this year, my max so far has always been 9. The fact is I'm saving 10, maybe for next week. Actually, I just may blow past it and crank out 11, any dial that goes to 11 is obviously much better than one that goes 10.

It's unfinished business, as long as I don't max out the hill repeats, I'll have to make room for yet another hill session and maybe, just maybe next time I'll hit the double digits. I have a feeling that once I do that my hill training for this season will be 'done', however, as long as I have unfinished business, I'll just keep plugging away.

Did a 22k run on Sunday. As a side note, I'm really enjoying 'the-I-don't-HAVE-to-run-for-2.5hrs-because-I-have-an-Ironman-coming-up-mode' I'm currently in. Not having an Ironman scheduled this year is nice, not feeling compelled to log crazy mileage in Zone 1 is refreshing. I also find intensity training more rewarding. If I choose, I can totally shell myself on the trainer in less than an hour - at times it just seems more productive.

Anyway, during my run, as always I'm trying to run 'well'. Not fast, that wasn't the goal for the workout, just run well, keep HR down and concentrate on form. Soft landing of the feet (can hardly hear them!), high cadence (90 strides/min), relaxed upper body (shoulders, neck, face - yes face, no sense wasting energy grimacing), deep regular breathing... and I noticed that running well is finally becoming a habit. (ha, it only took 4 years to finally get 'it') Now I just have well and fast. (sigh... another 4 years?) The lesson is: whatever you do, do it well. This whole running thing is rather humbling.

Last week's training:
The good news: hammy is 100%.
The bad news: been fighting some sort of bug that seems to want to reside in GI tract. Enough said. (it's not serious)
Despite that challenges did OK training wise:
Swim:6.3k
Bike: 100k
Spin: 3 hrs
Run: 54.5k
The only real highlight was a bike threshold session: 10min @305W, 8 min @310W, 6min @315W, 4min @320W and 2 min @325W. That's 30 minutes of threshold work in a 1 hour trainer session...
talk about bang for the buck!

Cheers!

Key workouts

2008-05-19T16:35:00.003-04:00

A key workout for me, usually requires an extra day of recovery. So I schedule them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on the weekend. The purpose of the key workout is to walk the fine line doing something difficult, but not so difficult that a) you can't workout the next day and/or b) you miss your next key workout. If you screw up and miss either one of those, you went too hard, time to dial it back.

This week featured plenty of dialing it back. The last two races strained my left hamstring, very minor, but just to be safe I did no running. Swimming, biking and walking were all fine but if I tried to run there was definite, minor, 'bad' pain. I was able to do an easy 7.5k recovery run today and the hammy is about 85% and feels good, so it looks like a I dodged a bullet. I did manage an excellent 'key workout' for both the swim and bike and the weekly numbers look like this:
swim: 9.2k
bike: 214k
spin: 4.25 hrs

Swim highlight: Friday's 3.6k swim featured 10X100m on 1:30. Was coming in on consistent 1:18's or faster. My zippiest set so far this year. Followed that up with 10X100 IM, don't why, but I just love IM.
Bike highlight #1: did the Ergvideo Lake Placid and averaged 251 watts! Another season high. This was the same workout I did 2 weeks ago and failed, so I was pretty happy nailing it this time around. My FTP is still consistently marching upward, and this is a good thing.
Bike highlight #2: completely disassembled my entire drive train. Degreased and cleaned to the FD, RD, crank and couple of cassettes, threw on a new chain and the bike is like new - silky smooth.

So for a rest week, I managed a bad ass swim set and some decent saddle time - not bad. This week, I'll be getting back into 'regular mode' with a definite eye on the hammy. I'll play it very safe and make sure it's 100% before doing anything too crazy. Promise. Less than a month to the Muskoka Chase, looking forward to my first tri of the season - I can't wait!Cheers!

Goal setting.

2008-05-12T16:30:00.002-04:00

What's your long term goal? (2 year or more time frame)
What's your goal this year?
What's your goal for this training block?
What's your goal for this month?
What's your goal for this week?
What's your goal for tomorrow?
What's your goal for your next work-out?

Run down the list. Now run up the list. When you ask yourself the questions working up, do they actually help you accomplish your long term goal? The long term goal you set should be realistic, yet difficult to attain. Failure is a possibility. Though I really don't believe in failure in the conventional sense. If you learned something during the journey and still didn't reach your goal, that could hardly be considered a failure.

I'll share a few of my goals.
Sub 10 IMC in 2 years.
Sub 4:30 at a half iron this year.
Increase speedwork this training block.
Bike more this month.
Recover this week.
Bike outside tomorrow.
Hop on the bike for an easy ride after this post.

Each year I learn a little more, train a little more and more importantly train a little smarter. (hopefully). Lastly, goals can be revised and should be revisited regularly, but it's really all about the journey!

Last week's numbers:
Swim:10.8k
Bike: 98k
Spin: 4hrs
Run: 60k

Swim: is feeling downright great. 'nuff said.
Bike: can you ever bike enough? Did a solid 98k ride followed by a 35 min run on Tuesday. Thursday featured a 2 hour trainer effort with 4X9 min at just below threshold intervals, plus a 11.5k run.
Run: highpoint was yesterday, did Misissauga half marry.

Mississauga Half Marathon Report:
Goal: sub 1:24
Actual: 1:24:45

Negative splitting is #$%^! hard. I did run a very evenly paced race, but wasn't quite able to negative split. Having raced 31 k's in the last 8 days and putting in a solid week of training, I knew the legs were going to get cranky.
The good: pretty even splitting from start to finish. Heart and lungs have more to give, legs need some additional speedwork and some extra rest certainly would hurt either. Oh yea, PB'd by...
6 sec.
Hey! it counts! I don't care if it's only 6 sec, it's still a PB. :)
The bad: The PB's are getting harder to come by now. I think, gone are the days of massive time drops. Still almost 5 minutes away from my lifetime goal of sub 1:20.. maybe in 2 years? Possible.

Enough rambling, gotta go spin the legs out.
Cheers!

Welcome to the brotherhood of dorks.

2008-05-05T15:57:00.004-04:00

Both birthday wishes came true! I'm now a proud member of the brotherhood of dorks and a I scored a PR on Sunday.

So that's my opening teaser, let's start off with something a little more mundane and build to an exciting finish. (can't you feel the excitement??)

Weekly total:

Swim:7.2k

Bike: 7 hrs (trainer)

Run:37.5k

I pulled my stitches out, so I'm back in the pool on a semi regular basis. The weather was crap last week, so I trained inside. On Saturday, the day before my 10k race, I did the Ergvideo of the Lake Placid loop and cranked that sucker to '11'. Actually went to muscle failure. I gave myself an 'F' anytime I couldn't sustain big watts and have a cadence > 60. Muscle failure occured 4 times, typically in the last 5 to 10 sec of a 130% of threshold hill climb. Threshold was set to 295 watts and I averaged 248 for the ride, a season high, but the goal was to average 250. So I have to find a bit more power to light up a couple more of L.E.D.'s. Something to shoot for.

Needless to say this put my legs in a bit of a funk on Sunday morning. (hey, it's a C priority race, so I wasn't worried)

Quick and dirty Sporting Life 10k race report:

Ok, I'll let the cat out of the bag. This was my first 10k, so basically I could have walked it backwards and still have PR'd. But a PR is a PR and I'll take one anyway I can get it!

This 10k is a total cheater 10k, meaning it is almost ALL downhill. A great venue to go for a PR, but in truth, any PR on this course deserve a big fast asterix*.

For every meter of the race there was 1 person. Nearly 10 thousand people took part, by far the biggest race I've ever been in! Anyway let's get to the meat and potatoes...

Goal time: <36m

Actual: 38:XX

I'm not much for excuses...

But..

At the 8k mark I got a wicked stitch, the kind of stitch that had me doubled over and walking. Had to stop, stretch it out and walk it off. That kind of bummed me out, was totally on track for my goal, but that stitch really took the wind of my sail. C'est la vie. But hey! It's a still PR! :))

So afer the race....

My birthday present was to go to Enduro Sports .... danger! danger! The goal being was to get an aero helmet and offically become a member of the brotherhood of dorks. So without further adieu...

On top of the hill..

2008-05-02T14:56:00.002-04:00

I think this is the only day when you can officially say you are on TOP of the hill. I'm not going up the hill, nor down. I'm TDC. (top dead centre) Got it figured out yet? It has to do with aging up...
BINGO!
Turned the big 4-0 today.

So besides peace, harmony and respect for all living things, what do I want? Ug, hate the word want. Nevermind, topic for another day... what would like?
I'd like a PB..
and to officially belong to the brotherhood of dorks.
This weekend, ONE of these is all but gauranteed. Go ahead, guess which one!

In other news..
Just got back from a great set at the pool, which is sort of amazing because my Wednesday's swim was pretty poopy. Today was a 1k warmup, 10X100m FR on 1:30 and 10X100IM on 1:45. At the end of 3k+ swimming I had the bright idea to swim a flat-out 100m just for the hell of it. It's been 20 years, so why not? I was the only one in the pool, the lifeguard timed me and I limped in on a 1:04. Lost pretty much .5 of a second every year for 20 years. On the other hand, if I was rested and not too pooched from the previous work out, I might have been able to get that sucker under a minute.
Now I just have to find a triathlon with a 100m swim....

Cheers!

Are you ready?

2008-04-27T12:11:00.008-04:00

Tiger asked me if I was ready for an upcoming race. I know it's really a rhetorical question because ultimately you are only as ready as your training allows you to be. Think about that for a second. You may have re-think your training if you aren't meeting your capabilities and/or goals. Haha, or even easier, redefine your goals to meet your training, I guess that would sort of be cheating though, wouldn't it? Anyway...

The time has come..

For speedwork. A synopis of the season so far: Nov/Dec: do 'whatever' training, hike, bike, run a bit, rest, just do whatever. Jan/Feb: structured base training. Acclimitize and adapt to the rigours of real training. Mar/Apr: similar to Jan/Feb but with a strength focus. Build strength through lots of hill repeats on both run and bike. May/June: maintain strength through occasional hillwork, add speedwork.

My thinking behind this year's philosophy is that every 8 weeks, I'm slightly changing the stimulas in an effort to achieve a higher degree of fitness.

Recap of the week:

Swim: 2k (!) there is a story here.
Bike: 2 hrs on the trainer + 167k
Run: 76k
Mon: easy 2k swim
Tues: a tough day. 2 hours outside doing hill repeats on the bike, followed by an hour run doing yet more hill repeats.

Wednesday, I rush through work to make it the pool on time, I have a 10X 400m set planned and just want to 'get er done'. Pull into the parking lot, turn off car, go to grab swim gear... doh, forgot it at home. Doh doh doh. Missed swim workout #1. Ran and biked instead.

Thur: midweek 17k run with 4X6min hard with 2 min rest. Easy bike spin for an hour. Hacked finger preparing dinner had to go to hospital to get stitched up. Nasty, gross picture at end of post. Tough workout followed by less than optimal sleep left me bagged on Friday...

Fri: missed swim workout #2 due to stitched up finger. Did an easy 9.5k run on trails. Bailed on bike workout.

Sat: ride with Cliff. Did 113k ride that featured some time trialling. The first one was a short 10k with a very nice tailwind. Totally smoked it in 13:15 for an average speed of 45.1 kph. The second TT was 13k, against a semi ridiculas headwind, on a crappy road with the added bonus of driving rain. Wheeeee! Time to HTFU. 23min, avg speed 35 kph. Owie.
Later, ran an easy 7.5k

Sun: ran 22k in 1:45. First half zone 1, second half zone 2.

Ok, here's the pic I promised. Be warned it's a tad on the gross side. Scroll down if you really must see it.

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Looks like I get a few more days off swimming..

A week of firsts

2008-04-21T19:16:00.003-04:00

AND a week of seconds.

Being as we are enjoying some rather bad-ass weather for mid April, actually dare I say perfect weather? I dare! 25C and sunny with no rain in the forecast is pretty much perfect in my books. It was under this guise that I finally took the bike off the trainer and went for the season's first and second outdoor rides.

You are saying 'what? why haven't you been out earlier? - what a wuss!' Guilty as charged. But hear out my excuse! I play a bit of mental game with the trainer (110hrs logged this season and counting..), the longer I wait until riding outdoors the bigger the perceived reward. I frequently play the game "if I do X, then I'll get Y", where 'X' is the task and 'Y' is the reward. The reward might be anything, but typically involves food. (it really doesn't take alot to keep me happy)

But I digress.. the weather was perfect and the first outdoor ride went well. The second outdoor ride went better as I hooked up with Aaron and Stu and hammered the hills. QOTD was from Stu "I knew I was in trouble with you when I agreed to this ride, then I saw Aaron's quads and knew I was in deep." The guy is quadzilla. I think he's doing shh! secrit! training. Both Stu and Aaron did awesome, no matter what I dished out, they ate it up. Going to really enjoy riding with them this year. (just wait until they find out about my next ride... muahahaha)
Later that day...
I thought it would be a good idea to get 1 hr trail run in. The legs had other ideas. Mo Lasses and Leth Argy bitched and complained the whole way. Sucked it up and got her done, so no complaints.
The weekly total:
Swim: 7.4k
Spin : 3 hrs (trainer)
Bike: 190k
Run: 50.5k

I'm still pretty much in the hillacious phase of training. This week will mark the last of the intense hill training, I'll soon be working a bit more on speed work and a bit less on hill repeats.
Cheers!

Food!

2008-04-15T14:40:00.002-04:00

A quick and simple obligatory post about food.

Triathletes are passionate about their sport. Which, in my opinion, is all due to endorphins, but that's a whole different post. Because most of us train ALOT, triathletes generally like to eat. ALOT. We are constantly fueling the engine and most of us are pretty aware of the stuff we're eating.

Here's a quick and dirty guide on my personal approach:
1) Avoid anything that has to do with the word 'diet'. Throw out that word and adopt 'lifestyle' instead. The entire diet industry (yes, it's an industry) only becomes more prosperous when YOU FAIL.
2) Common sense. Haha. As they say, the problem with common sense is that it's not so common. If I have to tell you to avoid (avoid, not completely forgo) doughnuts, processed food, simple sugars, pop etc... You need more help than I can provide.
3) Veggies. Take 20 minutes once a week and make a LARGE salad. If you make enough, it will last 4 days in the fridge. Bam, you now have a fresh salad four days in a row. Use a homemade olive oil vinagarette for dressing.
4) Again on veggies. Cut up a bunch veggies, throw them in a tupperware and you have plenty of easily accessible snacks anytime. Prepare time: 15 min
5) Fruit. Do the same thing with fruit! Make a huge fruit salad - berries, pineapple, oranges etc.. will all keep for at least 4 days. Prepare time: 20 min.
6) Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Why? That's where all the fresh stuff is!

Done. Not so hard. I could certainly expand and talk about buying locally, watch pesticide use, organics, vitamins, red wine etc.. but honestly, if you can follow the very simple above outline, you've already adopted 90% of a healthy 'lifestyle'. Add some exercise, some quality protein, the odd treat and your set. It's not so hard. Really.

Standard disclaimer. I am not dietician. I'm only sharing what works for me. Ok, all this talk about food has me hungry....

Cheers!

New sheriff in town..

2008-04-07T14:15:00.003-04:00

and her name is Chrissie Wellington. Three Ironman starts, 3 wins (!) including a little thing called the World Championships in Kona. (!!) Any doubters that thought she was just a flash in the pan, put those thoughts aside.. this is the real McCoy. Just check her splits from Sunday's Ironman Australia race:
swim: 53:27
bike: 5:08:34
run: 3:01:53
Beautiful. There is no weakness. Total race time was 9:03:55 (!!) and obviously won the woman's side of things, but get this, she was also 9th overall, just 8 pro men could beat her. Incredible.

Back to reality..

Last week was my 4th consecutive week of good training and thus my reward for the coming days could be defined as 'slacker'. Yup, gonna just focus on slacking, resting and catching up on other stuff. A week off now, will defineately help keep me fresh for later and help avoid any burn out. I don't want to slack, but I know it's for the best and so it shall be.
Some numbers for last week:
swim: 9.5k
bike: 6 hrs
run: 62k

A couple of highlights: 1) my swim feels great! It's finally back, took almost 3 months, but it finally feels 'right'. My workout last Wed was:
2(400fr, 100bk)
10X100m fr, on 1:30. (1:19's and 1:20's)
100 easy
10X100IM on 1:45 (1:30's)
100 easy
2(3X100 pull, kick, swim drills)
Total:3.8k
The workout was so good, I repeated it again on Friday and dropped my 10X100m free another second. Yay. Still operating above threshold, but didn't care, it just felt good.

Highlight number 2! Saturday, averaged 247w for the Ergvideo Lake Placid loop. Later Cliff came over and wanted to do an LT test on the Computrainer. I think he experienced a new level of pain. Put it to you this way, his *new* LT is almost 10 beats higher than his old level and I even saw his heartrate hit 190(!) towards the end of the test.. yea, the guy is apparently part humming bird or something.
Clearly, that wasn't enough for 1 day, so we went and did some run hill repeats afterwards. I wonder if I'll ever see him again..

Have a great week!

Solid work

2008-03-30T17:01:00.004-04:00

Phew.

What a week! Some solid training done and I even managed to fart around the house and get some things accomplished in that department too! Everytime I 'attempt' a home improvement project it always gives me so much more respect for the pro, something that would take them 30 minutes to do takes me 2 days and 6 hours of labour! As with training, I guess every so often one must suck it up and get 'er done.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had the week off, so the whole week was pretty much dedicated to plumbing and training. Plumbing is boring, let's talk training!

Monday: easy day, 1 hr spin and a 8k run

Tues: hard day. swim 3.5k. 2(10X100m free on 1:30. 1:22-1:25 avg lap) Aerobically, swimming feels good, it's just my spindly weak ass arms that are holding me back. Run: 11k (hill repeats). Bike: 1.5 hrs. 3X15 min climbs. 1st at 280w, 2nd at 290w and last one at 300w. A good day.

Wed: easy. spin 1 hr and a 8k run

Thurs: hard day. swim 3.5k same main set as above. Run 17k. Bike 1.5 'steady' @ 250w. A tough day.

Fri: easy. spin 1 hour.

Saturday. The Alton 'Leg Frier'. Stuart came up and we did an easy swim, followed by a bike LT test on the computrainer and afterwards did some run hill repeats. An excellent day!

Sunday: Legs weren't that cranky, ran 22k in 1:48. A good way to cap off the week.

Totals:

Swim: 8.8k

Bike: 7 hrs

Run: 76k

Saturday revisted:

Stu arrived at precisely on time and in short order we unloaded his car and were soon on the way to the pool. I'm always amazed at how easy it is to get along with a fellow tri-nerd. Oh sure, most of the talk is triathlon related, but really what shines through is passion. That's just one of the thing that makes our little niche so appealing, the people and the passion. I guess that's 2 things. Oops sorry for the tanget.. back on topic.

The swim had two goals. 1) log some easy mileage and 2) give any 'helpful' critique to Stu. The critique business was my job, now whether or not it was 'helpful', well that's another story.

On to the bike:

A standard CP30 test. (20 min warmup, 30 min TT, cooldown) I know, I know, doing a time trial test on the tail end of a big week may have not been my smartest move and by the 12 minute mark I almost bailed! The legs were complaing ... loud. The only things that kept me going was 1) I put this training day togethor and would have been so embarrassed if I quit and 2) just knowing Stu was nearby kept those dark thoughts at bay. So I soldiered on. The results:

308 watts, approx avgerage heartate 162. A FULL 10 beats below my usual LT!! This tells me that yes, my legs were pooched from the week's work. I just could not get the HR up any higher. I would hazard a guess I might be able to add 10w or so on fresh legs. Perhaps a retest is in order...

After Stu finished up his test, which I might add, he did very smartly, we hit the local hill, ran some repeats and capped of the day with a 10k'er. Actually, we capped off the day with a pint, which in case you didn't know, is a fantastic recovery drink!

Here's a pic of Stu about to begin his LT test. Don't tell him, but I'm going to steal his bike.

Cheers!

Wanna bet?

2008-03-24T19:19:00.003-04:00

So I bet a guy work 100 bucks that he couldn't quit smoking. He looked me in eye, took up the challenge and shook my hand. I figure it's a win a win, if he successfully quits he wins large, society wins (perhaps one less future cancer patient), and I win because sometimes I just liking sticking it to the man. Actually, not bad value for 100 bucks.
Unfortuneately, I 'won'. A sour victory. Maybe he'll go double or nothing..

Training wise, things are going well. Here's the breakdown from last week:
Swim 5.8k
Bike: 7 hrs
Run: 55k

The swim story for the week occured on Wednesday. I was mixing it up a bit with a 2(3X300 IM) set. For the butterfly portion, I'd do 3 left arm strokes, 3 right arm and 3 full strokes. Actually my butterfly is pretty decent, for about 25m. Anything more than that, well let's just say it isn't pretty. Anyway, the curious thing about doing IM sets, at least for me, is that my freestyle always feels amazing and I'm not entirely sure why. Must have to do with muscle firing patterns and the such, try it out sometime and let me know if you experience the same thing.

Also swim related. Here's a Youtube video of the Men's 100m freestyle world record being broken - all I'll say, I never heard of the guy and he's huge. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. I think that WR beats my 20 year old PR by about 7 seconds, which may not sound like much, but trust me - it's huge!

Bike story for the week. Pretty uneventful, not even close to getting the bike outside yet. Averaged 243 watts for an IMLP bike loop.

Run story. Umm, kinda boring here too. Did some travelling to visit Mrs. Inlaw, so a had a bit of difficulty getting the extra K's that I wanted. Made up for it a bit by logging back to back 17k'ers on Sat and Sun.

Looking forward. A heavy week is planned, I have some time off work, just gonna put around the house and train. Stu and Aaron are coming up next Saturday for the Alton leg frier. An a.m. swim following by a bike LT test and then we'll do some run hill repeats just for the heck of it.

Cheers!

The magic number, Etta James

2008-03-17T15:08:00.003-04:00

But first the stats:
Swim: 5.2k
Bike: 6 hrs
Run: 58k

Fairly standard build week. The plan is too increase volume this week and further increase the week after. As mentioned in my last post, I'm in a 'hill phase' of my training, yup Tuesdays and Thursday are hillacious. Aaron and Cliff know what I'm talking about as they ran down the sucker during The Alton HalfIron extravaganza back in January. Here's how I do hills: run steady and evenly paced up, bringing HR to 20 beats less than LT, picking pace up at the crest of the hill focusing on a fast turnover. Easy run down, again picking up cadence in the last third.. rinse, repeat. No stopping.

The second part of hillacious Tuesdays and Thursdays are bike hill repeats. Bring the cadence down to low 70's rpm, crank up the tension and peddle away at 20 beats below LT. Just keep in mind this is strength work, not LT work. LT work is later in the season. Thursdays hill session was awesome, I'm now holding 300w at 20 beats below LT. A substantial increase in power in a fairly short time. Logically this is to be expected. For the last couple of years I was very dedicated in keeping my HR at 40 beats below LT and in the process built a decent base. Now that the shackles are off and I'm routinely training at 30 and 20 beats below LT, subsequent power increases are only logical. Logic be damned, it feels great!

For me, the magic number is 10. Ten is where I can feel the physiological changes kick in. Take the hill training example, after 10 hill sessions ( 1 or 2 sessions per week), the strength component really starts to kick in and you can feel the difference. It might be 10 weeks of base training, 10 long rides, or 10 weeks of Yasso's. Perhaps in tribute to Spinal Tap I should change my magic number to 11..

So Saturday was once again my day to do the Ergvideo Lake Place loop and I'm currently up to averaging 239 watts for the loop. I don't cheat, ie increase target power on the downhills, I just dial in what I want average power at the end to be, knowing full well there are easy parts and hard-as -in-I-don't-wanna-do-this-anymore parts. Coasting down the Keane descent is ummm.. well.. very easy, the bad news is your average power number keeps dropping and you're gonna PAY to get that sucker back up to your target. It was during such time I was 'paying' and I needed a little pick me up from the tuneage department. It was clear that Etta James just wasn't gonna cut it. Time to bring out the heavies.. Sandman by Metallica, and yes in this case the amp did go to 11..

Cheers!

Snotcicles at basecamp

2008-03-10T15:16:00.007-04:00

Yes, I live north of 49th parallel. Feel free to insert snowshoe, igloo or muckluck related joke here. In case you need more ammo for your salvo, this is pic of the front of my house. Yes, that snowdrift is 2.5 feet from the roof. 'nuff said, fire away. I promise to keep the weather bitching to minimum.. I'll only say, that 2 years ago, I was biking outside at this time and I'm a self-proclaimed fair weather biker!

A fair bit of running recovery this week, made up for it by logging some extra bike time. Stats for the week:
Swim: 5.2k
Bike: 9.25 hrs
Run: 18k (season low!)
This weekend turned into a back-to-back-long session on the bike. Sat and Sun were both 2.75 hr affairs featuring the Ergvideo of Lake Placid. Legs were a tad cranky but managed to average 235 watts on both days. Good stuff.

So my season training strategy is looking something like this: 3 months of 'base'. (done!), 2 months of base + mega hill work (starts tomorrow!), now here is where it gets a tad muddled, the original plan was start LT work in May and steadily increase the duration throughout the summer, but after reading Chuckie V's post on Tabata intervals and doing some research, I'm thinking of delaying the LT work and do 6 to 8 weeks of Tabata training.. then moving to the LT work. Luckily I have some time to figure out what I want to do.

Chuckie's theory is build the foundation (base, base and more base. Base building is basically what I've been doing for 2 + years), put the roof on (extending VO2 max by doing Tabata training), THEN do the LT work (ie fill the house).

As usual the more research you do, the less you know. Anyone else feel like a lab rat around here?

All secure at basecamp. Over.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast..

2008-03-03T19:15:00.003-05:00

For a PB !

An-early-season-unscheduled-my-last-race-as-a-39-year-old-34-second-improvement PB. Here's the quick and dirty race report:
Time: 1:24:51
Place: 8th in AG, 40th OA.

After some initial unsucessful attempts of trying to get in contact with Stu to relay a slight change in plans, sand-bagger Aaron and I lined up near the front of the line for the Burlington Chili Half Marathon. Just us and 2000 of our closest friends.

At the gun, we took off, we took off fast. Too fast. But hey, it's a half marry and if you are trained for it, you should be able to redline the sucker the whole way. Well, close to redline. Go check Aaron's report about redlining- hehe. He was going for a massive PB and in the back of my head I was thinking that if he could run with me for the first bit, he may just 'buy' enough time to do it. Did he? Well, you'll have to read his report and find out.

I haven't done any speedwork this year and now I'm telling my legs to run fast. They complained the whole damned time! I mean complained loud.. as in 'hey dude, stop now!!' And this was only at 2km marker! Great, 19k to go with legs that don't feel like cooperating.. gonna be a fun ride.
Split at 5k: 19 flat. Yup too fast. But the back of the mind is saying.. 'hey, if you keep this up......'
Split at 10k: 39 min. Lost a minute, but have a minute in the 'bank'. (I was aiming to run 4min/k for the race)
Split at 15k: 1hr. That minute in the bank is pretty much gone. Legs are really bitching now.
Finish: 1:24:51

Interesting to note the each of the 5k splits is a minute slower than last one. Perhaps not the best thing to do tactically, but in the end I did PB and I'm more than happy to take a PB in the beginning of March!!

Cheers!

Buh-Bye ... February

2008-02-29T15:02:00.002-05:00

So I'm watching the live video of Ironman New Zealand and I figure it's a good time to do a quick update. The live internet coverage is particularly good, lots of helicoptor shots, good tunes and a number of different camera shots. It's getting me pumped. The one thing I find odd is watching the folks in T1 walking their tricked out P3C's to the bike mount line. All the money spent on a tricked out bike and it's being walked.. /boggle.

Fortuitous timing... I just saw the oldest woman in the race RUN her bike through T1. Awesome!

Had a bad ass swim today. Honestly, I don't deserve it, as I'm a swim-slacker, but my stroke hasn't felt this good in a looong time. It would seem the swim gods are smiling on me.

Some Feb stats: (last year in brackets)
Swim: 22.9k (19k)
Bike: 24 hrs (25.5)
Run: 200k (104)

This week has been very light. Just one workout a day, with the longest being a mere 1:15. The previous 3 weeks were pretty good, so it was defineately time for a slacker week. I also like to time my 'easy' weeks with a race, so it sort of turns into a mini taper.
I'm racing on Sunday, that's the good news. The bad news... some plantar faciitis issues on my right foot reared it's head yesterday. I'm pretty sure the culprit is the ice cleats I wear at work. So now the question is do I increase the chance of falling and take off the cleats? For now, the cleats are off, I just can't go around trashing my PF. With March all but here, hopefully this will all be moot in short order. February, you sucked.

The plan for Sunday. Hold 4min/k for as long as possible and eek out a PB. Pretty simple. Have a great weekend!
Cheers

You can't handle the truth!

2008-02-25T16:44:00.002-05:00

Hehe.. a great line. Being a rather self analytical kinda guy, it's clear I'm just not running enough. I put off the big treadmill purchase for a year and in hindsight it was probably a mistake. It's been a real struggle for the last couple of months just to log in 200-230k a month and one thing is for certain, I won't become a runner logging those paltry K's. I thought I was doing OK, considering the retardly crappy winter we've been having, but the log doesn't lie. It will be even more challenging to try increase the running while simutaneously trying to balance the other 2 sports. Such is triathlon.

Le log from last week:
Swim: 5k
Bike: 7hrs
Run: 55k
Notes: My current favorite swim set is 5(400fr, 100bk). It's a pretty easy 2500m, still just concentrating on form and getting into the swim of things.
Bike is coming along awesome. Did the ErgVideo loop of Lake Placid on Saturday and averaged 231 watts - mostly a high Z1 /low Z2 effort with some spikes into Z3.
Did a 5k Z4 effort on Thursdays run. Held my typical 4k/min, but perceived effort was rather high. Should be interesting this Sunday as I'm actually running a race... Yup, the Chilly Half Marathon is this Sunday and it's my last race as a 39 year old. I'd love to PB it, but I think that's asking alot considering I've done zero speedwork and I'm bitchin about my lack of running, but we'll see how it goes.

This sort of drives me nuts. When well intentioned people say they are going to do something, but really it's just talk. Anyone can talk a good game, but the key here is be true to yourself and if you say you're going to do something, then damn well do it!
Be true to your word. Really, it's all you have. (got to give props to my Mom for that.. cheers, Mom :)

El Cheapo, ITB - not!

2008-02-20T14:08:00.003-05:00

Desoto tri short at LBS: 69.99 + tax.
Desoto tri short on Ebay: 28.50 no tax and delivered.

Saucony running shoes, full retail: 130.00 (yea, like I'm going to pay that)
Saucony running shoes on "sale": 99.99 (still too much)
Last years Saucony's: 79.99 (ok, I'll bite, bought 4 pair)
Best price I've paid: ~40.00 delivered and no tax on Ebay - tough to find though.

I like running shoes, but I hate the ridiculas marketing that goes with them. THIS years model is exactly the same as LAST years model, but has new improved shoe laces, or a different colour, maybe they changed a grommet, now because the shoe is sooooo much better, we better charge you extra for it! Yet, Joe Average thinks a $200 shoe is better than last years shoe that can be had for $80. Hey, if Joe Average is dumb enough to buy 200 dollar runners you can sure as hell bet that someone will sell it to him. (even though the labour is farmed out to 3rd world countries and that said company probably doesn't pay more that 6 bucks for them.)

Just like the tri shorts. I support the LBS as much as possible and have thrown a good chunk of change at them over the years, but I will not pay 70 dollars for a hunk of lycra with a pad on the butt - yet I have no problem dropping $$$ on race wheels... go figure. But since, I'm cheap when it comes to some stuff ... I can actually afford race wheels!

I would be the first the champion local business, but if I feel I'm getting ripped off, they won't be getting my money. I say, unite! If you feel you are paying too much - then you are! Do something about it.

A quick word about running shoes. Look for: actual 'running shoes' and buy the cheapest ones on sale in last years model. Trust me, I've run in them all and they all last the same amout of time. Buy, them in pairs of 2 and alternate your runs with your shoes. By doing this, I average ~600k per pair. This is tip number 1 of the week.

Last week's mileage recap:
Swim: 6.3k
Bike: 3.75 hr
Run: 73.5k
Notes: missed a long ride - had company on Sat night and Sunday was a .. umm... 'recovery day'. Good running K's for the week. I mentioned hill repeats last week for the bike - you are doing them - right??? Good. Now add the odd LT workout. Bring your HR to 5-10 beats below LT and hold for 10 min, rest 5 and repeat. Once you are 'comfortable' with that, bring the set to 15 min and finally 20 min. Do the 20 minute sessions closer to peak season. With the added strength from the hill workouts and regular 'LT training' - you'll defineately be zippy. Tip number 2!

So, last week, I had some IT issues. Nothing too bad, but enough to make me worry. Time for immediate and decisive action. The remedy: stretch - alot. I do 3 different IT stretches and was doing them 2 and 3 times a day. Massage - yea, messaging your IT is a painful experience, but it's got to be done. Lastly, bought new shoes. (hence the shoe rant above) Which leads to tip 3. If you have an issue, don't hope it's going to go away, do something about - NOW. I was lucky, addressed the issue and was able to clock some running K's and the IT feels 100%.

Cheers!

"Ya, but you are obviously gifted"..

2008-02-14T11:41:00.003-05:00

HAHA! I almost choked on my own tongue. Let me rewind a bit. Over the last 2 weeks I've been spending some time at the local pool, which has an A.M. swim. So far, I've met 'Bob' a 67 year old triathlete and cross country skier, one of the local 'Iron-Docs' (2 local area doctors that started doing Ironmans a couple of years ago) AND 'Billy' - a '72 Olympian for diving. (Indonesia). Yea, the Mark Spitz Olympics, Billy was not only there he was actually a fellow pool competitor. I consider myself lucky to meet 3 interesting people a year, and here I've met 3 very neat and unique individuals in 1 week!

So I'm talking to Billy after yesterday's workout, picking his brain about the Olympics and acting like a googly eyed teeny bopper, when he says, I see you have done some swimming, you obviously have a gift. I'm sure he was just being nice as I really had no interest in talking about me, I wanted to hear his Olympic stories! But later that day, it got me thinking (ya that happens occasionally).

In VERY rare instances you'll see people who are truely gifted in what they do. However, for the rest of us mere mortals, things aren't that easy. It's takes hour upon hour, week after week, month after month and year after year to realize success. So where does that strength come from? Well, obviously, the mind. I truely believe, that the majority of the population can achieve WAY beyond what they THINK they can achieve. Unfortuneately, their minds have already limited what they can and can not do. So what mental attributes set the people apart who want to achieve their potential? The catch all characteristic is desire. Really, it all comes back to how bad to you want it and what are you willing to do get it? Think about it.

Now here is a guy who obviously has a gift and is skewing the whole bell curve: 5th grader basketball phenom

In other news..
The second week of my training camp is coming along just swell.
Monday: am swim 2k. pm spin 1 hour
Tue: am run 17k. pm spin 1 hour (held 250w @142 hr - 30+ beats below LT - nice)
Wed: am swim 1.6k. lunch run 7.5k. pm spin 45 min.
Thur: am run 17k. pm: 1:15 hill work on the bike. (to do..)

Guys, I'm telling you, do your hill repeats on the bike - it will make you strong like Conan. In very short order, I've noticed a substantial increase in power in the bike - just do it. Once a week. Hold 70 to 80 rpms in a lower gear, climb for 5 min maintaining mid Zone 2 heartrate. Rest 2.5 min. Repeat. Increase the reps over an 8 week period - trust me, you won't regret it.

Enough for today. Happy heart day to everyone!
Cheers,
Darren

Would ya?

2008-02-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

This weeks post ties in nicely with last week's post about sacrifice. You see, I had last week and I have this week off work. When people know you are going on vacation, invariably the question asked is 'where are you going?' This time my answer was 'umm, no where, just gonna hang out and train.' Oh sure, like that doesn't get the odd look or two.

In reality, I'm very content being a homebody, farting around the house, hanging with my pooches and structuring a week around training. OCD, endorphin addicted - whatever. I just plain ol enjoy it. So I guess most would think I'm sacrificing two weeks vacation to train. Personally, I don't think it's a sacrifice at all, you do what you enjoy and I enjoy training. So here's last week log:

Mon: run 8k am, spin 1hr pm.
Tue: swim 2k am, run 10k lunch, spin 1 hr pm

Wed: run 11k am, sp 1 hr pm

Thur: sp 1.25 hr am (hills, hard workout), run 10 pm

Fri: swim 2.1 am, run 8k lunch, spin .75 hr pm

Sat: spin 2.5 hr (Ergvideo Lake Placid loop)

Sun: ditch long run and spin 2.5 hr (Lake Placid loop -again)

Total:

Swim 4.1k

Bike 10+hrs

Run 47k

Not a super epic week by any means.. but a very solid effort that won't leave me so trashed that I can't do something similiar this week. Some notes: swam 2 times! Stroke feels good, probably need about 8 weeks to really get back in the groove. Tues and Fri were three sport days, if I didn't have to work, I'd do these much more often. Sat: averaged 221 watts for the LP bike route. Felt great for 2 hours, but anyone who has done the route, knows it's the last 30 minutes that's tough. Sat in zone 1 for 2 hours, moved to mid Z2 for last 30 min. Sun: crappy weather, so bailed on the run and did Sat's ride - again. Did the exact same ride and felt even better. Going to bump up the wattage next time I do that ride.

In closing..

Must be a triathlete-only church:

Sacrifice

2008-02-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Establish a framework of priorities. I'll share mine:
1) Sally
2) Family and friends
3) Day to day realities. ie work, household stuff, chores etc..
4) Training

Now the trick is squeezing as much of number 4 without sacrificing too much of 1,2 and 3. The very first thing you have to do when 'getting serious' is discuss it with your significant other, family and friends. You WILL need their support. This is super important as it will make or break your future goals. Not having their support means will require a re-thinking of your priorities and goals.
Having their support means they will help you along your journey and on occasion help you with your other responsibilities so that can pursue your goal. Bascially you are clearing blocks of time. Don't worry, you can payback during the off-season.

Now that a framework is established. You have to work on the methodology of attaining what it is you want. I think the keywords here is consistency and have a willingness to learn and adapt. Keep the goals attainable and realisitic. You want to run a sub 3 hour marathon, but if your PB is 4 hours, you will NOT be running a 3 hour marry anytime soon. Get a plan, be consistent and come back in 5 years.

If it's your career, your sport whatever it is your pursue with passion in life. You will have to make sacrifices. Just make sure it's the ones you are willing to make and try not to let your passion cloud your vision and reality too much.

January numbers: (last years in paranthesis)
Swim 4k (15.5k)
Bike 29 hours (31.5)
Run: 258k (255)

Last week was an easy week/recovery week. Which was nice because I managed to catch a cold, so I took a 72 hour layoff of all training and concentrated on getting well. Still not 100%, so slowly easing back into it.

February is 'aerobic' month...

A "dousy" update, Alton Half Iron race report..

2008-01-28T14:55:00.000-05:00

A Half Ironman..
in January..
in Canada.

Gosh, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I think I came up with the idea last October. Back then, Jan 26th seemed like an eternity away. Well Jan 26th is now two days ago...

The inaugural Alton Half Ironman took place on Saturday. The event is currently capped at 5 participants, of which 3 actually took part. Very cosy, and at least this way everyone who participated is gauranteed at the very least a bronze medal. Now if only there was hardware available... Bah! Who needs a medal? Swag .. now that's something I'll have to work on for next year.

Moving right along. Aaron (who is quite the bad ass blogger - go read is his race report!) and hardcore Cliff were the only ones who actually thought this idea merit. Doh, they called my bluff.

The transition zone opened at 7:30am and naturally Aaron arrived exactly on time and Cliff arrived exactly when he was suppose to. (8am). We do a quick setup of the bikes in from the of TV. (HAHA.. you thought we were going to bike outside? -ok we maybe Canadian, but we aren't THAT stupid). We grab our swim gear and head to the pool. (nice deal on the pool, we get our very own swim lane and it only cost us 18 bucks - score!)

The swim.
10X 200 on 5 minutes. Lots of rest.. well cause we need it. This was my first swim since IMLP .. a mere 6 months ago and Cliff and Aaron aren't in any better swim shape. So this was clearly about ' just git er done'.
T1
~35 min. A bit long, I know. But by the time we changed, drove back to my house and got on our bikes, 35 min elapsed. Oh well. I guess no sub 4:30 HIM for me today.
The bike.
3 hours of Coach Troy. We were doing his "Tough Love" video and I had completely forgot how much he likes us out of the saddle. Felt like a bunny rabbit, up out of the saddle, down in the aerobars .. repeat... repeat. Well after two hours quad frying saddle jumping, we toasted Coach Troy and instead watched the 2007 Ironman World Championships, which was, as usual, highly entertaining AND allowed us to do some 'steady' work.
T2
~10 min. The 3 of us, 'dry out', as in towel off the sweat that 3 hours of indoor riding will do to you, eat and get dressed for the run.
The Run.
Muahahaha.. The evil imp that sits on my left shoulder took over and make a 'challenging' run. Challenging as in hilly. It was SO hilly, that Cliff actually got a nosebleed!! (true story!) Luckily, my beautiful wife, Sally, was driving the 'sag' wagon and came to Cliff's rescue. Naturally, he soldiered on.. tough guy.
Aaron was running well. I'd stop for 10 sec to talk to Sally and get a drink and it would take me 15 min to catch him.

In the end, I ground out the required 21+k and the legs are hardly complaining - some residual soreness, but that's OK, because this week is a scheduled EASY week.
Yes!

In other news...
(my God, is this guy going to ever shut up??)
Race Sched is now set.
Sporting Life 10k
Mississauga Half Marathon
Muskoka Long Course Tri
Peterborough Half Ironman
Owen Sound Olympic Tri
Guelph Lake Tri
Musokoka 70.3 Ironman
All registered and ready to go. Yiiihaaa

Last weeks mileage
swim 2k (yes! 1st swim of the year!)
bike 8+ hours
run: 57k.

Ok, I'm done. Cya.

Uncomfortable is only a state of mind.

2008-01-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

Ya, that was my mantra. Anyone who did some sort of extended outdoor activitity on the weekend knows first hand how uncomfortable it was. The temp was on the chilly side, but in truth, it was the wind. I'm guessing with the wind we were flirting with -20 to -25C windchills. Uncomfortable. My long run was in these conditions and I'm sure most people who saw me were shaking their heads.

Being uncomfortable is just a state of mind.

Oh sure, you can resign yourself to grumbling about how bad you got it and woe you are, or how the world owes you and to being miserable. But that's your choice. If you choose that direction, it so shall be.

Being uncomfortable is just a state of mind.

So that obviously ended up being my mantra during my long run. Crazy enough it worked. I ended up having one of my BEST long runs...
ever. (24.5k in <1hr 53min with an avg HR of 146.) The mind is powerful thing.

The rest of the stats for the week:
Swim: goose egg!
Bike: 7 hrs
Run 66.5k

The plan. Basic structure:
Mon: off/or easy swim
Tue: run 1 hr// hard bike. (LT work)
Wed: swim// easy run
Thu: run 1hr (Zone 2) // bike (strength work)
Fri: swim// easy run
Sat: long bike// easy run
Sun: long run.

Currenlty I'm substituting the swimming with extra biking and running. I did this plan last week and it seems to work well. The one major difference of this plan over last year's plan is the extra speed work. I will NOT be afraid to occasionally go into higher heartrate zones. The last couple of years I was primarily concerned with going long as much as I could handle, which meant ALOT of zone 1 work. The foundation has been laid, the cake is baked, going to put some icing at that bad boy this year. Let's see what happens.

FIVE days until the Alton Half Ironman...
Next weeks update should be a dousy.

Cheers,
Darren

Pen to paper

2008-01-14T14:35:00.000-05:00

Weekly recap:
Run: 66.5k
Spin: 6.5 hrs
Yea babay, back in a solid groove and feeling good. Highlights: Tuesday: LT test on the bike. 30 minutes max effort. It really is a hellish experience.. I think the "One more minute" game started at about 4 minutes in. Went out a tad hard and faded at the end - not exactly what your suppose to do. Ended up averaging 291 watts for the duration. Heartrate was 174 from start to finish, so I did get good data there. Completely and totally fried my legs and almost needed a bucket. Haha.

Highlight number 2: Ran with Aaron on Saturday. Anytime you get to train with a partner, it's gravy. Just knowing someone is right there beside you always seems to lift your spirits. Before you know it we banged off 23k. (although I bet if you looked in his log, I bet he wrote down 24k..)

Highlight number 3: Zoinks. Three training highlights in ONE week. Yesterday I did 2.5 hours on the bike. Yup, it's that time of the year.. Lord of the Rings. So I stuck in LOTRO, put the computrainer in Erg mode and pedalled away. I kept going back and forth between 220w and 240w, 15 min in at each wattage. Awesome ride! The really cool thing about putting your Computrainer in erg mode is that no matter what gear you are in or what cadence you pedal, you HAVE to do the watts. There is no cheating. There is no coasting. You always always always gotta push the watts. Defineately a premium work out.

In the vain of Slowtwitch, critique my trainer dungeon!

I've been doing a bit of research on cycling and increasing functional threshold power (FTP). As usual, the more research you do, the more you begin to realize there is no ONE way. However, the one thing you have to do to become a faster cyclist is push the watts. Some do it by the tried and true 2X 20 Zone 4 workout and others do it by low cadence/high watt drills. Personally, I'm thinking of adapting both and alternating each week between the two.

So the plan is starting to come togethor, once I've actually committed pen to paper, you'll be the first to know.

Cheers!

Upside down pyramid.

2008-01-07T14:03:00.001-05:00

I truely think that when you 'seriously' start to pursue triathlon, there is no 'correct' way. Each individual is basically human guinea pig that struggles to find out what works best for them. Some are more successful than others and having a coach to help you navigate those waters would be a big asset. I actually enjoy being self coached, there is a personal satisfaction in researching, following a protocol, laying out and following plan and having a modicum of success in doing so. A couch would tell you "Do this" and you'd do it. Personally, I want to know the why's - it's only through exploring the why we something - is when I believe or not it will work for me.

An example is the pyramid approach to training. Many athletes approach their training in a typical pyramid fashion. Big base building hours in the early season, followed by some shorter more intense session as the season progresses. In my mind, this makes most the sense. The base period helps establish an aerobic engine in which the body has time to adapt and strengthen. This will put in you a much better physical state for when the time comes to do the harder/intense sessions.

The upside pyramid approach basically flips this idea around. ie: Do your more intense/interval training early in the year and your longer type stuff in the mid/late season. From a northern climate perspective this can make alot of sense, the reduced day light hours and dealing with lousy weather can put a damper on the hours one wants to train. However, from a physical stand point, I tend to agree with the standard pyramid approach to training. Always be working on the aerobic engine, but do the fine tuning later in the season. You can always incorporate some 'steady' state stuff to help alleviate the boredom, but save the interval training for racing season.

No one approach is 'best'. It's a matter of figuring what works best for you. The one universal truth that matters is consistency. Be consistent in your training and make sure you get enough rest. Ok, I guess that's two truths.

Last weeks hours:
Run 61k ( must... run... more...)
Bike 7.5 hrs (nice!)
Cap it off with two wieghts/core session and my regular stretching and you have the makings of a decent week.

Cheers!

Hello '08!

2008-01-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

Just like that.. '07 is out the door and big hello goes out to '08! As a bonus, it's an Olympic year, love the Olympics, love the motivation and inspiration it provides.

Lots of catching up, so here the abbreviated version of the last 2 weeks of training.
- injured on Dec 18th. Had a fall work.. (people PLEASE shovel and salt your driveway and walkways!!) Fortuneatly, it wasn't too bad, but just to err on the safe side, I only ran twice for that week.
- mileage total for week of Dec 17-23: run: 23k spin: 4.5 hrs.
- mileage total for week of Dec 24-30: run: 59k spin: 6.25 hrs. The knee is back to 100% and I'm feeling good.
- consistently stretching for 20 minutes a day and doing two sessions of weights and core work every week. Yup, the addiction is back.

Speaking of addictions, I suppose a few of you may have made a New Year's resolution to get fit, lose weight etc.. Here's a little trick that worked for me. Tell yourself you just have to workout for the next 6 weeks. Weeks 1 and 2 are easy, you are all gung-ho and ready to rock. Weeks 3 and 4 are more challenging, the gung-ho-ness is gone and it's much more of a challenge. Weeks 5 and 6 are make or break time, tough it out - it's only 2 weeks. After week 6, things will get alot easier. Why? Because you just made a habit. Go ahead, give it a shot, see what happens, afterall it's only 6 weeks - you can do *anything* for 6 weeks.

The January agenda.
-very similar to my last week of December. Looking to get 12 hours of aerobic activity in each week. Basically half running and half biking. Mondays are still my off day.
-the Alton Half Iron is scheduled for Sat the 26th. Space is limited and is selling it out very fast. I have a feeling the people that have been invited are beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of doing a half ironman in January. To them I say: muaahahahaha... :)

I feel the urge to soemthing sorta epic today... I'm thinking the ErgVideo Lake Placid loop... I guess that means it's time to
HTFU.

Cheers gang and Happy New Year!

2007-12-17T14:03:00.000-05:00

Technique.
Anyone who remotely follows this blog, knows that I always go on about technique. I know first hand how important good technique is. Sometime ago I swam fairly seriously. Occasionally, I'd get my butt kicked in a race by someone who was smaller and not as strong. They simply had better form. I vowed to become better by attaining better technique. I watched videos of Olympians, I practice mental imagery and most importanly I listened to what my coaches told me. It took awhile, but it worked. Today, the muscle memory that I had from 20 years ago is still alive and well and that I'm still a decent swimmer despite hardly training it. It's all due to technique.

I bring this up because I've dedicated all my riding in December to soley focusing on technique. For that I'm using spinscan that comes with Computrainer. See previous post if you're curious about spinscan or click here:
http://www.racermateinc.com/spinscan.asp
Last week my spinscan high for a mere 30 minutes on the bike was 77. This week it's 86! A 9 point improvement! Might not sound like much to you, but I was shocked. If I really concentrate while spinning, I can actually feel how I'm suppose to spin. ie: slightly changing when a muscle fires or changing my maximum torque angle. It takes alot of concentration and when my attention wonders, the numbers go down. I'll be routinely incorporating technique sessions throughout my winter training.

I'm an idiot. Wanted to do the Chili half marathon at the beginning of March. I procrastinated to the point that now the race is sold out. On the waiting list.

Last weeks totals:
Run 5 times: 60.5k
Spin 5 times: 3+ hrs.
The highlight was doing a 20k'er with Cliff on the Trans Canada Trail at 9 am on Saturday morning when it's -15 degrees. Afterwards, I bought myself and Sally snowshoes from Caledon Hills Cycling, who've recently branched out into winter sports. It was good timing as we almost got a foot of snow yesterday. So Sally got an early Christmas present and we snowshoeing in the middle of a blizzard yesterday. Might not be your idea of fun, but we had a blast!

Cheers!

Spinscan numbers

2007-12-10T17:34:00.000-05:00

Ran 6 times this week for a total distance of 73.5k. Ran disciplined, ran smart. Discpline in the sense I kept my heartrate down to the magic number of 145 and smart in the sense that the effort was low intensity followed by excellent stretching afterwards. Paying particular attention to my IT and hip flexors. I'm feeling pretty good and just trying to be hyper aware of any 'bad' pain. Even massaging the IT band is not ringing any warning bells, so I must be doing something right!

Also got in 4 short sessions on the bike for a total of just over 2hours. Really focusing on technique. Computrainer has a program that analyzes your pedal stroke, as it analyzes, it assigns you a number for each leg. The higher the number, the more efficient you are pedaling. A number of 100 is the highest you can go and is really only attainable by a motor. It would signify complete and uniform force through the entire 360 degree pedal stroke. Pro level cyclists routinely hit 80 for their spinscan. It's a tough thing to toy with, you start to play with the numbers as you spin and eventually you start to get 'it'. If I'm not paying attention and just pedaling away, my spinscan number is routinely about 67. I want to get the number up, so I'll sit on the computrainer, run the program and just concentrate on getting high spinscan numbers and pedalling as efficient as possible. I set my new record on Friday with a spinscan of 77!
Now I'm only doing this for 30 minutes at a time, but it's a good start. Got to burn that perfect technique into muscle memory.

Cheers!

Cheater hours

2007-12-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

Wah, wah, wah..
Yes winter is here. Big time. We have snow. We have white-out conditions. We have freezing rain. We have more snow.
Despite the inclimate weather I still squeaked out 4 runs for the week. (3X 60min, 1 X 90min) and actually *doubled* my bike trainer hours to ....
Two!
I'm sort of forcing myself to only workout once a day and keep the weekly training hour to a minimum. Going too hard now will must make me all burnt out by July - not a good thing.
I also managed to do 3 X 15 minutes of weights and core. This got me to thinking, when I think of training hours, I think of 'aerobic' training hours. Stretching (and I stretch alot), core work and weights don't count as part of my training hours. If you include these, you're just padding your hours. Hence, cheater hours. Gosh, I probably could have padded my hours by +20% this week if I included the extra stuff. Aerobic hours - that's where the money is at.

December is here. Just like that. This time last year, I was definately more fit. Just interesting to note that. I'm still hoping to train smarter this year and by the time racing starts - I will be faster. So what's the plan for December? Pretty much more of the same, still keeping the aerobic hours fairly low. I'm offically keeping track of mileage and getting much more disciplined in keeping my heartrate in check. I'll be getting on my bike more frequently. A slow, methodical increase in hours is the plan. The last week of December will be super easy, just in time for Jan '08 - when things start to get interesting.

A broken wing test

2007-11-26T14:14:00.000-05:00

So, I'm out running on Saturday and when I'm not concentrating on form, cadence or breathing, I was trying to come up with something to post this week. Training wise it's been pretty uneventful, so there was nothing of interest to post in that department. So as I'm pondering this, out of the corner of my eye I see movement. It was a morning dove on it's back. Not being a bird expert, I assumed the poor thing had a broken wing. Sigh. What to do, what to do...
This is a test..
Whenever I'm put into a situation that involves some sort of action on my part, I think of it as a test. Not a test from the Almighty (I'm actually quite non-religious, at least in the conventional sense, spiritual - yes, but that's a topic for another day); this test is more like "ok, here is a situation, what's the BEST course of action?"
What to do.. what to do..
Find a rock? Put it out of it's misery? I'm a confessed softie, especially when it comes to animals, I've had to put an animal out of misery and I can't say I pariculary enjoy it. But if it has to be done, it has to be done. So I look for a rock to do the job. Well everything is snow covered and no large rocks are presenting themselves. Hmm...
What to do.. what to do..
Pace. Hmmm.. Ok, let's examine this little guy. So I pick up the bird, I can't tell if it's wing is broken or not, but there is a small and fresh wound on it.
What to do. what to do..
Smash it on the ground? As barbaric as that sounds, it would end its' suffering - quickly. Mercy is a good thing.
What do do.. what to do..
I swear at this point the little guy looked at me and said 'what now boss?" Sigh, in for a penny in for pound. So I run home (about 5k away) with a morning dove in my hand wrapped in kleenex. I get home, put him in a box in a darkened area of the basement. Well, I'm in deep now.
What to do.. what to do..
Google knows all. Look up on Google on how to fix a broken wing and think that I could probably pull it off. Call my vet, who refer me to the Wildlife rescue guys.. who are conviently located a good hour away! No pick up service of course. Ahh crap, I've gone this far, can't turn back now (sort of like an Ironman!). Sally and I were heading in the direction of the Wildlife rescue guys to attend a party, so if we left a little earlier we could drive a little extra and at least give the little guy to the pros, at least that way he'd have a chance. So that's what we ended up doing.
Two FREE lessons learned. 1) *Always* try to do the *best* course of action, regardless whether it's easy or not. 2) Sometimes you just can't go back. Yup, now that I think of it, I got alot more out of trying to save a bird then meets the eye. Life, ya gotta love it.

As for actual training..
Run 5 times. Shortest 52 min. Longest 70min (X2)
Bike 1 time. For an hour. On the trainer. Yes the bike is offically on the trainer.
Weights & core: 3 X 15 min sessions.

Cheers!

Bruce Trail, Wierdness

2007-11-19T15:59:00.000-05:00

Quite often when I think of 'fun' things to do, others think I'm just plain wierd. I look at the Bruce Trail, all 768km of it, and I think it would 'fun' hike the whole thing. I look at a map of this beautiful country that I love so much and I think it would 'fun' to cycle from coast to coast. I look at the epic wilderness of the Arctic and I think it would be 'fun' to go camping on Ellesmere Island. Maybe I am an odd duck, perhaps people do think I'm 'wierd'. Then again, I think many people are wierd for wanting to sit and watch TV for 5 hours a day.

On Saturday, I went for a challenging hike-n-run along the Bruce Trail with Cliff. A fairly rugged 23k looped section of the Bruce with some pretty good elevation gains. It took us 3.5 hours (exactly the same as last year!), so we weren't blazing the trail or anything, but with the all the elevation gains and losses, by the time we got back to the car, we knew we had a great workout.
During the hike-n-run we'd talk tri stuff, training philosophies etc.. At one point I said I'd like to do this loop twice, make a day of it. (ok, THAT would be a tough workout) You know what? Cliff didn't look at me wierd, I could see the glint in his eye - yea I could probably talk him into doing it. Smile.
He mentioned he'd like to do a back to back 200k destination ride. Two words: "I'm in." I guess we are both wierd.
It was a great day and I felt like a million bucks afterwards. We agreed, we would try to do it once more before snowfall. Maybe in a couple of weeks.

Ran 6 times last week. Good stuff. Running legs are at about 80% and climbing steadily. Brought the bike inside, probably for good. Still *thinking* about swimming.

Cheers!

Sick no more

2007-11-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

Been a relatively crappy week. Finally caught that bug that was floating around, pretty much knocked out any will to work-out for a week. Got back up on the horse on Friday and got a decent run in for both Fri and Sat. So this week I'll attempt something a bit more 'normal'.

Next Saturday, I have a planned 25k hike-n-run, which I'm terribly out of shape for. Am I backing out? Hell no. Sorry guys, you don't get off that easy. I have one confirmed buddy joining me, hopefully I can grab a couple more and make a party out of it.

Earlier in the week I was pondering about how triathlon has made such a positive change within me. No one ever asked 'why or what is tri'fusion?' Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. Tri-fusion isn't about triathlon. The title actually means the fusion of mind, body and spirit through triathlon. A bit of a play on words. I experience such a peace within myself when things are going well training wise. I try to share that with others.. I feel it's a positive thing. However, I wasn't able to do this until I made the positive changes from within first.. only then was I able to share with others. It could anything from urging a coworker to quit smoking to picking up a piece of garbage on the street. It's all positive change and if I can be some small part of it - that's a good thing. Hey, we all of that power, might as well use it.

Cheers,
Darren

Holding steady

2007-10-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

As most of you know, October, for me, is pretty much dedicated to slowly acclimatizing my body to the rigours that will applied to it in future training. So to that end, I've very slowly upping my running frequency, doing some weights and the odd bike ride. In a nutshell, that's it.

This week, I'm planning on running 5X, 40min will be the shortest and the longest will 75min. Hopefully get a ride in next weekend and do weights 3 times. I'm not a big fan of weight training, so I only focus on a few exercises (leg extensions for the quads and leg curls for the hammies), core work and pushups. This short session I can bang off in 10 to 15 min. Currently I'm only doing 1 circuit of the above 2 times a week. By the end of the Nov, I'll be doing the circuit twice, 3 times a week. That's it. I think weight training is good tool, but if it cuts into any other swim, bike, run training then it's a no go. That's why the sessions are pretty short.

It's a no go for the masters swim team. Actually, I'm on the list, so the only way I'll get in is if someone drops out. The fact that there is no space available caught me by suprise. I'm thinking about doing a masters swim meet (as an independent) in the spring -just for the heck of it. So for now, I guess when I pick up swimming, I'll be doing it solo again. :/

Went for a ride with Aaron last weekend. We're both in early season, not really caring phase of our training, but before we went, we both agreed that we are not into training if it's crazy cold and raining out. This is a time for fun, not a time for trying to toughen yourself up.
So I setup a ride with half an eye on the weather and things are looking good. Saturday roles around and what do you know, it's cold, it's raining. Damn you Weather Network! The unwritten rule is, if you setup the ride you simply can't not show, that would be very bad form.
Naturally, Aaron shows, remember, this is the guy with who I agreed with NOT to train in cold crappy weather; yet here we are riding in..
cold..
crappy..
weather.
As usual, the tough part was getting going. As usual, I was glad we rode. Typical.

Cheers!

"Darren, we are riding this Sat.. "

2007-10-16T15:51:00.000-04:00

are you in? What the hell, I'm in! Let's not even mention the fact that my bike still had race wheels left on from IMLP - 2.5 months ago! I met up with Aaron and Cliff and rode for 2 hours on Saturday. I'll say two things: 1) I'm glad I left my HRM strap at home (by accident) 2) What is it about group riding that throws every bit of caution out the window? First, we warmed up for about 30 minutes and before you know it I (like an idiot) am out front hammering. (well it felt like I was hammering, average speed says otherwise) I can't shake Aaron, so we mellow the pace for a bit, then what do you know? Aaron is up front hammering - well naturally I must try to keep up - and thus went the ride. Screw heart rate just go out and have FUN. I'm glad I went.

So no Ironman next year. Why? The short answer is: too many eggs in one basket. I tend to be pretty self analytical and pragmatic, so in the end I think it's a case of just not having enough years of training under my belt to effectively do the distance the way I believe I'm capable of. So next year, I'll be racing more often and stick to the half iron distance and under. The juices are already starting to flow and I'm looking forward to next season.

The big show at Kona was last Saturday. Was looking forward to the epic Stadler, Macca showdown in the final few K's, but it didn't happen. Stadler bailed on the bike and in the end Macca won. Props to him. Un-frikin believable how fast/ good these guys are. Kept half an eye on the women's race, but lost interest when hometown favorite Lisa Bentley was having troubles. She's is as tough as they come, but doing IMC and Kona is just too close togethor, in my humble opinion.

Last week mileage: run 4 times, 40-45 minutes each. Bike for 2 hours. :)

Cheers!

2 Month hiatus is over..

2007-10-11T14:36:00.000-04:00

Hard to figure out what to say after 2 months of 'laying low'. Basically, I went through a 'triathlon system purge.' Two months of doing anything BUT triathlon. I used the time to rest, catch up on household chores that I somehow managed to put off over the course of the summer, hike, play videogames and log some quality time with Sally. It was a good rest session and my body and mind needed it.

So now I'm back and I'm sure my readership has dwindled from a mere few people to .. oh I don't know.. maybe 3?? Yes, I did get the odd email wondering where the hell I've been - and I believe I'm caught up in that department. As the mind and body are slowly shifting into gear, I'll be blogging and checking my email much more frequently. Promise!

Shh!! SECRIT TRAINING!
Well not really. But it did begin just over 2 weeks ago. Very light, occasional running. Nothing more than 45 minutes, keeping the HR down (very hard to do!), just slowly and methodically increasing frequency of runs per week, stretching and core work. My mind and body are slowly waking up to the fact that off season is over, easy season is in session and regular training will be starting up soon.

Basic highlights for the '08 season: NO IRONMAN (I'll save the whys for a future post), 'A' races will be the Peterborough half and the Muskoka 70.3 and aging up! Yup, I'm at the top of the hill next year at the ripe age of 40.

Other training stuff. I haven't yet, but I think I'll pull the trigger and train with the local masters swim team. Again, running will be a priority this year. Going to do more 'focused weeks' and will try a few months of 1)bike week 2)easier week working on the all 3 sports, 3)run week, 4) very easy week. Slightly different from the build for 3 weeks and rest for 1 week protocol. I'll be introducing speed training, instead of periodizing, I'll be doing a more consistent (but infrequent) speed training - starting in April. Also, throughout the off season I'll be doing wieghts. Hey, gotta face the facts that at age 40 I'm losing muscle mass.

Alrighty, I'm off. It's good to be back!

Cheers!

2.5 weeks, off season?, ITB, Muskoka

2007-08-08T11:54:00.000-04:00

Ya I know, it's been a long time between posts. I can hardly believe it's been only 2 and half weeks since IMLP. It seems like a lifetime ago. I don't suffer PIDS (a phrase brought to you by Crackhead)- Post Ironman Depression Syndrome. At least I don't think I do. I'm actually relishing my current lazy state -getting fat and playing video games.

I managed 3 runs last week, each of a 40 minute duration. And each run was a short sufferfest due to some crazy tightness in my IT band. So I've backed off on the running. As for swimming and cycling, I currently have no desire to start them back up, especially since the season is almost over. My initial plan was to try to put togethor a decent marathon on October, but with my current IT issues and my dubious mental-end-of-season-state, I'm leaning to taking an early off season and starting back up in the fall. I take the off season very serious - 4 to 8 weeks of chilling out, I relish the thought of it.

It looks like Muskoka is getting an official 70.3 (half Ironman) in September of next year. Tough decision, IMC, or stay local and do Muskoka in '08? Points to ponder..

Ok, you HAVE to see this video. This is the swim start of IMLP '07. My god, if you are a MOP swimmer (middle of the pack), this, is incentive to train your ass off to be a FOP'er! I now get why the swim freaks so many people out! My hats off to you guys.
Video of '07 IMLP swim.

Lastly, just a quick kudos to the guys at the Brampton Post Office. Funds for this years charity drive for POGO now stands at $2625.00. Just awesome.

Cheers!

IMLP'07 Report

2007-07-26T14:16:00.000-04:00

Family, friends, 2200 athletes, 3500+ volunteers(!), countless spectators, beautiful scenery and top notch organization. Just take a sec and try to imagine the type of atmosphere that will generate. It's electric. Even if you have absolutely no desire to do an Ironman, I would highly recommend to spectate one - it really is an experience like no other.

Not much preamble this time, going straight to the main course.
Swim 3.8k:
Estimate: 56 min. Actual: 55:10 Agegroup placing: 7/419. Overall: 35/2208

This is a fast swim course. There is an under water cable that connects the bouys about 5 feet below the water, so everyone tries to get into position so they can see the cable. This saves you from lifting your head and 'sighting'. Basically, just follow the cable and you're set. At the start, I'm positioned very close the front and ask the people around me if they are all around 55 min swimmmers - they are. Cannon goes off and I follow their feet, as it turns out, it's the lead crew. This is just fine with me as I've secured a nice draft within 400m of the start and have settled in really quick. Pretty much a perfect start from my perspective.

The first loop of the swim goes by and as I start the second loop, my goggles literally snapped off. Brand new goggles that I only use for racing - busted. Now I can't see shit. In seconds I lose the draft and lead crew, can't see the cable and start swimming rather crooked. Even though it's fresh water, it's tough to keep my eyes open, so I just shut them and open them to sight and keep on course. I think to myself "if this is the only setback I have today I'll be laughing."

Despite the 2nd loop challenges, I pull off a good swim time. As I exit the water, my vision is very clouded over and I'm blinking alot to try and clear the eyes. My run to the transition tent was at a leisurely pace as my eyes slowly start to refocus.

T1: 5:30 min.
Hehe.. terrible time. Could have gone for a shower and a bite to eat, it was so slow. Cloudy eyes and picking up a bunch of gravel on the bottom of my feet didn't help the situation. But I was on the bike at the 1 hour mark of the race - which was exactly what I wanted. So despite the minor setbacks, I'm happy.

Bike 180k:
Estimate: 5:30 Actual: 5:50 Agegroup placing: 64/415 Overall: 296/2208
This is a tough bike course. 1800 feet of elevation per loop and it's a two loop affair. My bike fitness is better than ever, I train on hills, I've logged many 400+k weeks and even hit a 600k week - so, as usual, I'm expecting alot out of myself. My estimate is sub 5:30 - I did a 5:31 at IMC last year with a 12 minute flat - so taking into consideration my superior bike fitness, plus race wheels and no flat tires, I think doing close to 5:30 is a reasonable /attainable goal.

First loop: ~2:48. Really just concentrated on taking it slow and keeping heartrate down. I knew I was going to get passed alot on the first loop, I wasn't worried. The split was a little slower than I was aiming for as I was looking for a 2:40.

Second loop: ~3:00. Kept effort in check for the first 60min of the 2nd loop and started reeling in guys who went out too fast on the first lap. Perfect. All is going according to plan. With about 90 minutes until the end of the bike, I started to get tummy issues. I have no choice back to back off. I'm bummed beacause I thought I had my nutrition figured out and yet here I was experiencing nausea - again. I'm about halfway through the race and I knew that having stomach issues this early was going to have nasty reprucussions later - and I was right!
I 'slow play', the last 90 min on the bike, losing an additional 12 min over my 1st loop time. I get into T2, happy as clam to be off my bike and knowing all I have to do now is run a marathon. :)

T2: 3:08
Nice T2 time.

Run 42.2k
Estimate: sub 4hrs. Actual: 4:07 Agegroup placing: 76/415 Overall: 354/2208

It's been 2 years since I've last run a standalone marathon. My best guess is that I'm currently about a 3:10 marathoner. (did a 1:25 for a half earlier this year). So I figure add 45 minutes to 3:10 and I'll slide in under the 4hr mark for an IM marathon.

My mantra for the run from the very beginning is simple. "Just run". Do NOT walk, however shitty I feel, just do. not. walk. God I want to walk so bad. My steps are so small, yet I'm still 'running'. The miles go by. I'm half done the marathon with no walking. How the hell am I going to do the last half without walking? I make a deal with myself, run just 3 more miles and walk then. I get to the 15 mile mark without walking. "Ok, run 1 more mile." Still no walking. I play this game to mile 20, when all hell breaks loose. I finally 'lose it' and barf my guts out. See? I told you the nausea I experienced on the bike would have reprucussions later. Hehe - I was right. I walk 100 yards and dry heave for a bit. Brought back memories as this was very near the exact same spot where I barfed on this course 2 years ago. Ahh good times.
After the last round of dry heaves - I run some more. A part of me is happy that I was 'tough' / stupid enough to keep running. I guess that the masochistic part coming out.
So I finish off the last 10k 'running' and as I'm coming into the finishers shoot, I'm sort swearing to myself - mostly because I'm so damned glad to actually have it in sight and be done. Anyway, I think Mr. Announcer guy sees me swearing to myself and says something like: "Give it up for Darren Walton from Alton, it looks like he needs your support!" Then as I cross the line, the 'catchers' grab each side of me and say 'don't worry we got ya'. I say 5 words:
"Thanks guys, med tent please."
Final time: 11 hrs 2 min.

Med Tent
Ahhh, you didn't know of the secret 4th leg of a triathlon. The med tent! Upon entering, they weigh me. I'm down 13 pounds. I say "13?, sheesh that's not so bad, I've been over 20 before!" (The nurse's eyes bug out at this) They hook me up to an IV, I barf, I get some anti nausea meds, blood pressure is low, I fall asleep. About an hour later, I'm good to go. It's like someone flicked a switch, I'm walking, talking, eating and drinking and looking forward to a good nights sleep!

A quick "HI!" to Cliff, Sheila, Shelley, Aaron and Stu - altough our meeting was too short, it was really great meeting with you guys. Please stay in touch!

A BIG congrats to Shelley. Her 7 time Ironman finishers wisdom really shone with her guess of 10:48 for my finishing time. Congrats Shelley! You are now the proud owner of official IMLP running socks! Woo Hoo!!

Tough day at the office..

2007-07-23T21:56:00.000-04:00

Just a quickie!
I'm back. All is good. Here's a really short race report..

swim: highpoint: made goal time. lowpoint: lost my goggles halfway through. Swimming without them was tough on the eyes.
bike: highpoint: 1st loop doing 'Keane descent' at 80kph. lowpoint: really backing off 2nd loop due to nausea.
run: highpoint: I ran the whole thing except for 100 yards.
lowpoint: puking at 20miles, walking 100 yards and puking again.

A great report for those who like em short and sweet, give me a day or two for the full version. Cheers guys!

Lucky Rocketship Underpants

2007-07-17T21:06:00.000-04:00

You got yours? I wish I could say I have mine. Rocketship underpants would be *awesome*. Or even cooler - lucky rocketship cycling shorts! Heck, I'd love a lucky rocketship running hat - that'd be cool. If you can find me either one of those, I'd pay large for it.
So, where does the phrase ' lucky rocketship underpants' come from? It's pretty easy, I'm sure someone will post the answer in the comments section.

Taper has gone well. Since the last update I rode for 2 hrs on Sun, swam 1.7k on Monday and went for a 7.5k run today. It was really difficult keeping my effort in check today - the legs were just begging to go. Tomorrow I'll ride for an hour, pack and other than that just concentrate on staying off my feet. Thursday is up bright and early and is travel day.

It's still early, but the weather is looking..umm.. perfect? Cloudy with a high in the 70's. Dare I hope?

Not sure if I'll get to update between now and post race, if not on Sunday goto Ironmanlive
type in my race number (1006), check my progress and send a positive vibe or two. I know at some point I'll need them!

Don't forget to post a finishing time mentioned in the last post. Hey, who knows? You may just score some unbelievable loot! Official IMLP socks - pretty damned sweet.

Cheers!

Slacker Saturday, 10:06??!! Predict my time and WIN!

2007-07-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

1006
How did they do that? My number is the same as my finishing time! How cool is that?? 10:06! Oh man that would sweet indeed, but realistically it's not going to happen. For fun, let's crunch the numbers to do a 10:06..
Swim: 56
T1: 4
Bike: 5:20
T2: 4
Run: 3:42
You know, when I write it down like that, it actually seems doable. But if you throw in the obligatory +20 min fudge factor, the projected finishing time weighs in at 10:26. So this is what's floating in the back of mind, however time is of less importance than ever this year. This year the mantras are race smart, finish strong. It should be noted that I've yet to come close to a projected finishing time at the IM distance - the classic overestimating fitness applies here, BUT and this is a big but, I've made huge strides in the 4th discipline of triathlon. Nutrition. I'm not saying I have it nailed, but this will a huge test and I think it's dialed in pretty good.

Here is my overall strategy:
Swim: mantras: "long, easy strokes" Grab a set feet from the 2nd lead pack and take it easy. Time: 56 min.
Bike: mantra: "slow down!" Negative split? Get and keep heartrate < 135 for first loop, add 5 beats for 2nd loop. Start fueling @ 20 minutes and on the 10's thereafter. Eat half a power bar on the 30's followed by H2O. Estimated calorie intake: min:2000 max 2600. Time: 5:25
Run: mantra: "just run." Hold heartrate to 140 and see what happens. Nutrition: 800 cals of dextrose based Infinit. Time: 3:50

The good: my training went really well this year. Spent extra time on the bike to help increase overall endurance. Training started last October, with consistent and more structured training beginning in November - it went well.
The bad: nothing really. Caught 2 bugs, one in Feb and another in April. April was a downer month and missed a bike focus week. Other than that, all is/was good.
The "X" factor: weather. Hot, humid conditions will slow me down. Can't control that, so not worried about it.

In the "What the Hell?" category..
There are 488 in my age category. Yes, that's right, 488. What the hell? In a race where there will be between 2000 and 2200 particpants, there are 488 in the M35-39 division. We are clearly a most troubled demographic and undoubtedly need some sort of professional help.

Taper Udpate:
Mon: swim 2k. Tues: 1 hour message, 1:20 on the Computrainer Zone 2 workout. Wed: swim 3.7k (last long swim), run 7.5k. Thurs: Bike 55 (race setup), run 4k. Fri: run 10.5k (last 'long' run). Sat: open water swim 2.4k (done), pm: run and for tomorrow: ride, max 2 hrs.

Heading to the race?
If you want to meet up, drop me an email, we can exchange cell numbers. My schedule looks like this: Thurs: travel and register. Fri: am swim in Mirror Lake, pm: run. Sat am: ride. pm: bike check in, swim. Sun: all booked up. :)

Predict my time and win a..
Predict my time without going over and win a prize! A sock? A pair of socks? A pair of official IMLP socks? Yes, that's right! Predict my time without going over and I'll send you an official pair of IMLP socks! No emails, you have to post here so all can see.

Cheers!

LB, PB1/2IM, Serious TM engaged.

2007-07-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

What an odd title for a post. Starting with LB..

Saturday's workout consisted of: a 3.6k open water swim, 100k bike and a 7.5k run. The highlight: I was out riding on a beautiful day, the kind of day when it's just awesome being out there and riding. I'm passing the cow fields saying Hi to the cows and otherwise just enjoying myself and logging a few K's. Whoa.. what's this? Someone ahead about 700m? Bogey in sight, target aquired. He/she is moving at a decent pace but I'm slowly making gains all the while trying to keep HR in check. It's all a game for me, even though the person ahead has no idea I'm there or that they are even in my little game. For me, it's just fun to try and catch someone ahead of me, hopefully have a little chat and ride some miles togethor.

So I pull within a few meters of the person and say 'hi', just to let them know I'm there. I pull up beside my fellow tri-wienie, do a double take and realize I just reigned in Lisa Bentley. Inside my head I'm going "ohmygodijustreignedinLisaBentely!" On the outside, I'm my usual calm cool collected self. (ya right) Seriously, we just chatted for a bit and soon after went our separate ways, no big deal. But it was damned cool to run a 10X Ironwoman champion a mere 2 weeks away from IMLP!

Fast forward to today. I just got back from an easy 2k swim, (sidebar, I did a couple 'fast' 100m's and was hitting 1:06's -schwing!) and was eating (what else is new) when TSN was showing Ironman Australia 2006. What woman one that race? Yup, you guessed it - Lisa Bentley. Gee, you think I'm in Ironman racing mode yet??

Peterborough 1/2 Ironman was yesterday. I had scheduled to do this race, but backed out, it's just too close too Lake Placid. I probably could have done it and recovered OK, but 'probably' just doesn't cut it, I'm just focusing on the prize and that's a mere 13 days away..
PB1/2IM, gets me nostalgic, three years ago it was my first triathlon, so you know it's a 'must do' for next year!

Taper Mode is pretty much in full swing. Last week I had the luxury of taking 2 days completely off. Pure craziness I know. The mileage looked like this: swim: 7.6k (bailed on a swim) bike 305k and run 35k (bailed on a run). On Friday I wasn't feeling quite 100%, so erred on the side of caution and got some extra zzzz's. All is good now, so no worries.

The plan for this week is to swim ~8k, bike <200k and run about 25k.
Cheers!

Headwinds, finally on the list!

2007-07-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

Went for a fairly flat 100k ride today. It was an out and back affair with the first 50k against the wind. It took me 1:42 to get to the halfway mark for a paltry 29.3kph. Now the way back, that's another story... zoom zoom zoom. The 2nd 50k was done in 1:16, at 39.0 kph, a mere 26(!) minutes faster on the return leg. Amazing the difference a little wind makes.

During my swim yesterday, I was lucky enough to have some kids from the swim team join me for lane swim. I guess I was more grateful then lucky. The vast majority of my swims have been lonely, boring, just-get-it-done affairs and unfortuneately there is no one around to push me, so I just push my self and log the K's. Having the kids there brought back memories and before you know it I was swimming 400's 10 to 15 sec faster then normal. A solid bonus that they knew the 'rules' to lane swimming too.

The fine folks who are reponsible for putting on IMLP, *finally* added me to the particpants list. I was starting to get worried, as I submitted my app 2.5 weeks ago and processing it is suppose to only take 5 days. But apparently someone was on vacation and it didn't get done until now. Another item that is checked off on my 'to do' list. Phew.

Cheers!

Happy Canada Day, Taper, Monthy Totals, WTF are the helmuts?

2007-07-02T19:09:00.000-04:00

Hi Canada, happy belated to ya! You're lookin damn fine for 140 years young! You're the best - cheers!

Even though I'm in taper mode, it's subtle taper mode. Last week, I was still loggin some decent miles, but there were subtle differences; increased swim mileage, 1 less workout then normal and a slight decrease in run mileage. I also inserted some higher intensity sessions on the bike. The engine is built, now I'm just fine tuning it.
This week the plan is basically the same: 11-12k swimming, ~300k bike and ~45 running K's. After that, it hardcore taper time..

Not a bad month for June, the log shows:
swim:43.7k
bike: 1465k
run: 249k
Very similar to May, but May had a bike focus week, so this month had about 250k less biking K's, but a slight increase in swim and run totals. Probably should have tried to bike more, but nothing I can do about that now, you can't cram for an Ironman!

It's been a bad week for 'adult' cyclists not wearing helmuts in these parts. I've seen families out riding around, the kids are wearing helmuts, but older and 'wiser' Mom and Dad are not. Boggle. I've seen 'real' cyclists, commuters and Joe-average all not wearing noggin protection. I don't get it. Don't give me the freedom of choice argument - that's BS. Your personal freedoms stop when your stupidness induced brain injury intrudes on my/the publics tax dollars. So suck it up, be a dork and wear your helmut!

T-Minus 20 days..
Cheers!

T-minus 4 weeks..

2007-06-24T17:31:00.000-04:00

Did I cook myself?
Could I have done more?
Should I have done less?

Ahh the questions are starting already. The four week 'reality check' can be tough because I think more often then not we ignore symptoms even though they are staring us in the face. So, to answer question one:

Q:Did I cook myself?
A: I'm typing this after a heavy weekend. Fri: 5k swim, run 7.5k (an 'easy' day.... cough) Sat: bike 180k @IM effort, 14k run afterwards. Sun: run 26k
I don't feel cooked, I'm eating very well and slept great last night. I'm actually in a very content and happy zone, so no, I don't think I fried myself. Hopefully by the end of my taper I'll be 'strong like bull'.

Q: Could I have done more?
A: Such a fine line between doing more, absorbing it and not self destructing. The vast majority of my workouts have been at a heartrate of 142 or lower. I've been able to stack on more miles and effectively recover just due to the fact I've kept the intensity low. The whole goal for this year was just to build a bigger engine. I think too few of us think short term, how many people are willing to take an entire year or two just to build their endurance base? The odd thing is, I have gotten faster without doing any speed work. Why? 10 months ago, when I set my HR ceiling, there were many times I had to walk up a hill just so I wouldn't go over my HR cap. Now, I'm easily running sub 5min K's on long runs, with the same HR cap. The effort was the same, but yet I'm faster.
Building endurance through more time on the bike. I can't believe the difference this had made over the last 7 months. The body can absorb alot of saddle of time. If I knew just how readily it does this, I probably would have done even more on the bike, or at least threw in more bike focused weeks in.
Bottom line, I feel really good on where I'm at and I've learned much about myself over the last 10 months. So to answer the question, should I have done more? No, because I didn't know then what I know now.

Q: Should I have done less?
A: Reality check. I'm 39, can I absorb vasts amount of training like when I was 19? Doubtful. However, with acception of April (sick), I've been injury and sick free - good signs. Every 4 th week, I'd cut mileage in half or more, just to rest up. I think the strategy worked. I'm sure the odd extra day off wouldn't have hurt, but on the other hand since I don't think I fried myself, my rest strategy seems to have worked.

Saturday was an awesome day. Rich Pady organized a group ride/run to help raise money for POGO. (the charity I'm raising $$ for) A great turn out, no big egos to contend with, just a bunch tri wienies training togethor and raising some extra dough for the kids. It was a 2X 90k loop affair designed to be as hard as the IMLP bike loop or harder. My strategy was simple: first loop keep HR to 135. Second loop, keep HR below 142. Try to negative split. Nutrition: 6X bottles of Infinit and 3 Power Bars.
Result: even split, almost to the second.
Notes: It's unbelievable how ridiculasly 'easy' you have to ride the first loop in order to negative split the 2nd loop. Scary. First loop 2:51. Second loop 2:51. Total: 5:42. Add race wheels, no traffic stops etc.. my estimated bike split at IMLP should be 5:25 ish. If possible consume 1 more litre of water and 1 more power bar at LP.
After the bike, did a 14k run. Felt very good, got the running legs within 2k and found my groove, kept HR @ 140.
Notes: drink more water! How much of a difference will swimming 4k before the bike make? Mental note, swim SLOW at LP!

A quick 'Hi!' to Stu and his sexsy P2C, you may not know it, but you will do IMC again and you will rock the course. Think about it for '08, I need more training partners! :) And of course Cliff was there grinning the whole time while grinding up the hills. Isn't it funny seeing someone grinning while you know they are suffering makes your own suffering seem not so bad??!

Gotta go EAT - again!
Cheers!

"You got beat by a girl??"

2007-06-19T14:27:00.000-04:00

Muskoka Race Report

"You got beat by a girl?" Actually got beat by two of them. Having the likes of Samantha McGlone or Tereza Macel 'beat' me is actually quite an honour. I often use the pro women as a bit of a bench mark for my own performance. I know when my times start to near their times, I've attained a certain level of performance. I'm just happy I'm healthy enough to even consider hanging on their heals because they can certainly lay the smack down and kick a lot of ass!

Goal: Attain an IMLP spot.

Arrival
I'm a keener. Got to the site nice and early. It takes me awhile to feel completely warmed up and I wanted a good spot in the transition area. So I arrived early enough to take the bike for a spin, go through check in procedure, lightly stretch out, go for a jog and finally do a swim warm up. I had some extra time and met up with Cliff , who was so keen on racing, he got a speeding ticket on the way to the race site! Hmm.. racing to get to a race.. ironic?

After talking to a few people the day before the race and in the transition area, I found out that quite a few were looking for Ironman spots. Silly me, not signing up the year before and leaving it to the last minute to qualify. I just find it so difficult to pay a large chunk of change to IMNA a full year before a race. Too much can happen between then and now. So I take my chances and try to qualify. Hey, sometimes life is gamble.

Swim 2k: Time: 29:06 Age group: 4/95 Overall: 41/792
I'm in the 3rd wave. Not a big fan of wave starts, I'd prefer a mass start, but the format for this race is 'chase', so we do waves. The horn blows and we're off, nice clean start. I breath left, I breath right and appear to be leading the crew in the first 200m or so. I relax and think about doing nice long strokes. I'm sighting the bouys really well and put my head down and swim 20 or 25 strokes without sighting, pop my head up and still maintaining course. All good signs. I feel like I'm swimming about a 1:24 pace. I run into a little traffic during the last half of the swim, just due to catching up the previous waves, but navigation is good and had no problems swimming around them. A little dissapointed in my 1:28/100m pace, I know swimming, and I know I was swimming faster than that!
Out of the water in 4th place in my division. I have NO idea how 3 buggers in my age group managed to pass me - totally didn't see them. We exit within 30 seconds of each other - so it's a close race.

T1: I see one of the guys that exited the water me and compliment him on his swim. I get an odd look, which in turn I find odd.

Bike 55k. Time: 1:33:29 Age group: 14/95 Overall: 76/792
I liked the bike course. I think many people would say it's 'challenging', lots of rolling hills and a few good climbs. I even came out of the saddle once or twice and rarely do that on any climb. I was keeping my effort in check during the bike, wanted to get a few calories down and just gauge my overall feel. I was a little scared that I may experience nausea as I have in the past, but I didn't! Phew! In hindsight, I should have put the hammer down more on the bike - but hindsight is 20/20, right?

Run 15k Time: 1:02 Age group 10/92. Overall: 75/792.
A very solid run for me. I'm very happy with it. I can attribute my decent run performance due to my increased bike endurance. I just got off the bike and immediately ran ~4 minute K's for the duration. I used to envy the guys who could run after the bike.. I'm slowly turning into one of those guys! The hard work is starting to pay off.
I got passed by one guy in my age group and asked him if he was going for a IM spot and he said "No". (phew) So I wasn't sure at this point, I thought I was around 4 th in my age group and after I checked the official results I was suprised that 3 more guys managed to get by me. So I finished 7th. Eep, that's enough to make me sweat on whether or not I'll get a IMLP spot!

After the awards ceremony they give out the Ironman spots. There seem to alot of people here and more than once Sally and I saw the odd tear on someone who wasn't able to qualify. My heart goes out to them, to train all those hours and not get a spot. The competition was that intense. So they call the M35-39 division and a BUNCH of us trod up to the desk. Nerve wracking. (what is it with us mid-life-crisis-guys trying to capture the athletisism of our youth??) We are talking amongst ourselves.. 'what spot are you going for?', what's your time?' etc... I know there is at least 2 spots for IMLP, but the bad news FIVE out of the 6 guys that were faster than me showed up to claim a spot! They start the procedure... 1 guys take IM Florida, the next 2 take IM Canada, the next one take IMLP! I'm next, I got the other IMLP spot! PHEW! Didn't have to wait for roll down. But there were many dissapointed guys in my category and I'm kinda bummed for them. I think the level of competition at this race kinda took everyone by suprise.

Well I didn't want this to turn into a long convuluted report but it sort of ended up that way. :)
Cheers!

Scared?

2007-06-12T20:03:00.000-04:00

Nah, not really. More like 'healthy nervous'. Why? Racing this weekend and it's been much too long since I've last raced. I'm ready. I'm fitter. (fitter?). I'm faster (hopefully). I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm a little more experienced and I'm really looking forward to 'test' myself.

Everynight before I goto sleep, I take the opportunity to focus on breathing and goto my 'happy place'. It's a meditation ritual that usually sets up my sleep rather well. Waaaay back when I swam seriously, I used this time of 'twilight sleep' to visualize my swim technique. It was almost like having a DVD of proper swim technique, I'd put it on slow motion and visualize exactly how I wanted to swim. Program the mind and the technique and more importantly the muscle memory will follow. Hey, it worked for me then, so now I still do it. Only this time I'm running over race strategy, transitions etc... you know.. tri stuff.

Last week's numbers:
Swim: 10k
Bike: 425K
Run: 67K
Pretty much exactly what I wanted. The highlight was the weekend, Sat: an open water swim! (3.3k), a 140K bike followed by a 12.5k run. I felt awesome. Capped it off with a long run of 30k on Sun.

This is an easy week. I have Mon, Wed and Fri scheduled as easy days, Saturday is travel and chill with Sally day. Sunday.. it's off to the races!

The economy... of movement.

2007-06-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

Odd, a Saturday blog update. I haven't had the urge to update lately, but tonight I just felt like writing - so here I am. Now the question is what to write about? Lately, my blog has pretty much degenerated to mileage totals etc.. blah blah blah. The main reason is due to lack of time. As regulars know, I try to take training as serious as I can at any given moment, so alot of stuff gets put on the back burner. Can't update, must get to bed. When I focus on training, I train. I use up all my SAPs (spousal approval points) and focus on the task at hand. That means no TV, little internet and I'm usually too tired to read more than a page of my book before off goes the lights. What's even wierder is that I love doing it.

Part of me wonders just how narcissictic a blog is. I guess there is component of that which is bothersome. There is time a factor, I mean I just spent 15 minutes writing a paragraph and half! Even though I don't have many readers, I still feel compelled to update. So why do it? I guess it's sort of like opening a door, take a peak inside and if you like what you see, hang out with me, if not, move along, there's nothing to see here.

So, I was the pool the other day and someome says "how do you make it look so easy?" A simple question that demands a long answer. The easy answer is "practice", which is absolutely true, but it's much more than that. It's about econonmy of movement, being relaxed, thinking about technique, being fluid, looking 'effortless' and of course practice. I'm always thinking of that whenever I swim, bike or run. I'll try to emulate a pro that makes it look 'easy', I'll visualize what he/she does and start to incorporate it into my own technique. When I run, I always try to be fluid, strong, have quick feet, rythmic breathing, good posture, relaxed shoulders, loose fingers etc.. Eventually it becomes habit. Soon everything will 'gel' and you may get that feeling once. Remember it. You'll get it again. Soon enough it will be habit and now you're in the 'zone'. Embrace the zone because that's when the shit really starts to get interesting.

Well it's past my bedtime, so I must be off. Cheers!

Anatomy of a 'big' week, monthly totals etc..

2007-06-03T14:42:00.000-04:00

Just finished a big week of training. I was on vacation and decided to make training the number one priority. Tried to train like a pro, ok well maybe a pro's easy week. :) Here's the low down:
Monday (easy day): swim 3k (a.m.) run 7.5k trails. (p.m.)
Tuesday: bike 129k, run 7.5k trails. (brick)
Wed: bike 108k, run 10k road. (brick)
Thur: swim 4.8k (a.m.) bike 90k (computrainer)
Fri: swim 2.7k (a.m.) run 10.5k (noon), bike 30k(p.m.) on computrainer. (recovery ride)
Sat: bike 208k (!)
Sun: run 30k
Totals for the week: swim 10.5k, bike: 565k run: 65.5k. Exceded all goals for each sport - good stuff. Things to consider when doing a 30 hour training week:
1) Sleep. I made sure to get to bed early and every night I was logging 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep. If I felt I needed a nap midday, I took one.
2) Nutrition. Had to be hyper aware of getting good quality food into me. Between getting lots of zzzz's and eating well, I was able to recover effectively.
3) Massage. Paying attention to the IT bands and the quads. After every leg workout, I'd message my quads for 5 min. I also felt this made a difference in my recovery.
4) Stretch. 20-25min of stretching after every workout.
Highpoints: I'm swimming faster than I should be. Not sure why as swimming is my best sport and hence trained the least - but I'll take it! Mileage PR on the bike. I'm a firm believer in logging lots of miles on the bike as this is a very effective way of increasing overall endurance. Met up with Cliff on Saturday, he was doing '3rd line climb' hill repeats. Hard man stuff. So a salute goes out to him. Lastly, after a tough week, today's 30k run felt good. Hey anytime a 30k run feels good, it's a highlight.

So in the end, my attempt to train like a pro for a week was a success. I enjoyed every minute of it and suprisingly, don't feel beat up at all. Back to work and the real world tomorrow.

Totals for the month of May:
swim: 36.9k
bike: 1706k
run: 237.5k
The goal for the month was to log bike K's and 1700k is a mileage PR. Not bad in the run department either, alot of short runs (7-8k) does start to add up over time. The other bonus for May was my half marry PR.. so yea, May was a good month. Cheers!

Tardy Tuesday update..

2007-05-29T17:21:00.001-04:00

Sorry for my tardy updates lately. I've been focusing on training, sleeping and eating, as a result, my internet time is way down. Less interent = more training! So without further ado, here are the tardy numbers for last week:
Swim: 8k
Bike: 483k
Run: 56.5k
A good week. Only 2 swims, but each one was 4k. I wanted 450k on the bike, flirted with 500, but I'm happy with 483k. As for the run, was aiming for 60k, but I won't beat myself up for missing it by 3.5k.

Swim stuff. Want to swim slower then IM pace? Breath every 5 strokes. Want to swim at IM pace? Breath every 3 strokes. Here's a good set to experiment with: 2(5X200). First one drill, your choice. #2 breath every 5, #3 breath every 3, #4 at half IM pace, #5 at Oly or faster pace. Repeat.

An interesting footnote on how 2 'hard' days can differ. Thursday's plan was to bike 110-120k and run 7.5. It was hot, humid and we were under a smog advisory. I checked the air quality index and it was at 'moderate' (AQI was 40, today was 'good', AQI 17). Basically I was on the cusp of training outside or riding the Computrainer inside. I trained outside. Got lost on my bike, (exploring new territory), ended up bonking and grinding out 160k. Got home late, much to the chagrin of Sally, went fetal, then proceded to cough my lungs out for 40 mintues. Ok, so now I know I can't train long on 'moderate' air quality days.

Fast forward to Saturday. Good air, good temperature and overcast. I biked 192k and felt great, even did a short 5k transition run afterwards. A 7 hour endurance day and it was awesome. I was amazed at the difference between the 2 days. Lessons learned: dial back the intensity even more in the heat and humidity and train indoors during smoggy days.

Vacation this week. :)) Hoping to do some big numbers. It will be my last 'big' week. Here's the plan for the next 4 weeks: this week: 'big' week. (~bike 550k, run 60k) Week 2: 'moderate' (bike 400, run 60) Week 3: easy. (race on the weekend), Week 4 'moderate' (last hard weekend on June 23/24) Taper begins June 25...

Monday weigh in..

2007-05-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ya gotta love the easy weeks that have built in long weekends! Here's the stats for the week:
swim: 10.7k
bike: 130k
run: 42k
weight: 158

Picked up an extra swim session and the high point for the week was on Friday when I logged a 5+k swim. I did my favorite long distance set:
4X400m @ 6min
8X 200m @ 3min
16X 100m @ 1:30
Usually I have low energy stores by the 16X100m set, but I made extra sure to have enough food in me before the swim, so all was good. Held 1:25's for the last set for each one - just slightly faster then IM pace. Throw in a cool down and bada bing - 5k done.
Bike: 130k on the Computrainer.
Run: First run since half marry was on Thursday. Did 7.5k+ on the trails for the Thurs and Fri and a early morning Sat and Sun run of 14k each. I was out of town for the weekend, so had to squeak in a run when I could.
That pretty much caps off the week.

The plan for this week. Swim ~6k, bike 450k, run 60k. I've already had a 'recovery ride' today, so maybe if I'm lucky I'll break 500k on the bike. That would be a record methinks. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, I'm starving, off to make dinner. Hope you have a great week - cheers!

Sunday Synopsis

2007-05-13T20:08:00.000-04:00

By the numbers..
swim: 6.5k
bike: 414k
run: 53k
turtles saved: 1
bike accidents: 1
season high bike mileage: done!
PB's: 1

Wowsers, what a week. Ok, working backwards, starting with the last one. I PB'd at Mississauga half marathon today. I really kinda, sorta have to laugh at this because it was *totally* unexpected. No taper, large time on the bike, including 165 hilly, chilly, windy K's yesterday, I thought running a 'race' today would have basically amounted to a silly experiment. So with my HRM on one wrist and my garmin on the other, my intention was just to gather data, learn and run hard. Basically, I went out at 4:00/k, took note of my heartrate and pace at every kilometer marker. HR was pretty steady @168-170 for the duration, a tad higher towards the end. This is solid 10+ beats below my LT which is ~182. From the 8k mark on, I kept thinking: "ok, the legs are going to give out now" - they didn't. At the 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15k mark, I thought the same thing, but they were still holding up. Very cool, thank you legs. Slowed a bit from 15 to 19 and tried to come in strong for the last 2. Total time: 1:25:24. Solid.

Logged over 400k on the bike, this was actually my primary goal for the week. I'm continually amazed at how much faster my recovery is and I think a large part of this is due to my extra cycling time and fitness level.
Bike schedule looked like this: tues: 123k wed: 36k on the computrainer (recovery ride) thurs: 90k on the CT (road a loop of Lake Placid) and Sat: 164k.

Bike accident. Pretty much covered it in the last post. I'm so grateful nothing got hurt too bad.

Turtles saved. My yearly save the turtles drive is officially underway. This one was a big sucker that bascially parked himself in the middle of the road. Damn thing must have been 40 pounds. Silly turtle. Got him safely to the pond on the other side of the road.

Run. Missed one scheduled run. Was suppose to run on Tuesday after the bike - looked after the road rash instead and called it a day.

Swim. All is good. Technique feels solid, endurance is lacking a bit, but there is still time to get some extra pool work done. Not worried. Actually, this will be a good week to get an extra pool session or two in - let the legs recover a bit.
C'est tout for now - cheers!

Welcome to the club.. a quandry no more.

2007-05-10T20:40:00.000-04:00

There are two types of cyclist, those that have crashed and those that haven't.... yet. I'm now a proud member of the former. :) My induction to the club was so fast, I scarely knew it occured until I was on the pavement. Here's the details: Tuesday I have a long brick scheduled (long ride followed by a run), I'm out on the bike and feeling great, I'm so owning the hills and the wind isn't bothering me at all. Just one of those days everything feels good. So I'm at the 3 hour mark into my ride and figure, damn I feel so good, let's do another hour. An unscheduled extra hour - hell ya!

I'm 10k from home and passing a construction zone where they are doing road work. Guess what they decided to put on the pavement? Some sort of oily petroleum product - nice. My bike slid out from under me so fast and bam I was down. At the time I was only going 20-25kph, so I didn't get too banged up. Just a bit of road rash, some sore wrists and couple of bruises. Perhaps the biggest downer is the SIX cars that zoomed right past me without even asking if I was ok. To them I give a BIG hearty one finger salute. Hehe.. had to get that off my chest. Karma has a way of biting you on the ass and to them I really hope they don't experience that feeling of being totally let down by my fellow man.

Anyway, enough of that. I just know you want to see pics!

Not so bad. The good news is I'm still able to bike and run. (phew)

Earlier this week I had a bit of quandry. I have a half marathon scheduled for this weekend and I was debating about whether to take a couple of easy days and go for a PB or keeping up the volume and just go for a good hard run. Well, between my biking mishap and the fact that I'm pushing pretty good bike/run volume, I've decided to just go for a hard run and see how well the legs hold up. Should be interesting..
Gotta go.. bedtime!

Games, wheels and a great week.

2007-05-06T20:13:00.000-04:00

I frequently play little games with myself in order to get a job done. A work/ reward type thing. For example, sometimes I'll write a workout down on my calender before I actually do it. Then when I have to do the workout a part of me says 'well it's already written down, you can't change it or wimp out now. Another one is I'm only allowed to eat or drink at the top of the hill. This allows me to focus on the task at hand while knowing there is a carrot (however small) that awaits me when I'm done. Some other 'games', counting strides or exhales, crossing the crack in the pavement at the bottom of my driveway and visualizing that as my Ironman finish.. hey whatever keeps you going, right?

I guess the big news is I now have race wheels. :) I ended up getting the H3C's.. actually a fellow tri-wienie had a pair for sale and he lives an hour away. So after Saturday's long and windy ride I went and checked them out and made a deal for them on the spot. He actually bought them from the fellow I mentioned in my previous post - Speedy. So instead of buying a brand new set, which are not cheap, I saved some coin and got a gently used pair.
Just a quick update on the sponsorship news. Speedy, the Canadian distributer for Hed, is also the rep for Blue Competition bikes. As it turns out, he is in fact looking for athletes to represent the Blue line of bikes. Basically, you get a free frame and obviously in return you have some responsibilities and of course the bike still needs all the components; so this isn't in the cards just yet - but maybe in the future. But if you're in the market, I urge you to get in touch with him - you have nothing to lose.

A good workout week. I can't believe IMLP is closing in so fast, I'll be tapering in what? 6 weeks? Damn! I'm so not ready. Though I guess one is never 100% 'ready'. There is always the feeling I should have done more..
Anyway, here's the numbers for the week:
swim: 6.5k
bike: 385k
run: 66k
I guess the highlight was Saturday's long ride. It was a tad windy, a tough effort and an all around solid workout. Total ride was 163k. I've been tweaking nutrition and it pretty much seems that I can eat anything I want as long as I keep my heartrate below 140. For example, at the 90k mark, I stopped at a convience store, ate 500 cals worth of snickers bars, chugged back some Infinit, hopped on the bike and got the HR up to 140 and suffered no ill effects. More experiments to follow, but this is very good news.
Cheers!

Monday weigh in, April's totals, a new chapter..

2007-04-30T19:47:00.000-04:00

Yowie zowie - holy irregular updating of the blog, Batman! A quick recap of last week: jury duty is a drag. This basically sums it up: wait in a large lounge with 150 potential jurors (fortuneately I brought a good book- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini) only to get told that we are not needed today and to come back tomorrow. In the end, I never did get called, but I sure did get some serious reading done!

So between jury duty, work and being away for the weekend, the totals for the week aren't exactly earth shattering. Here the scoop:
swim- 0!
bike: 185k
run: 38k
Hey, sometimes real life messes with my training schedule, just gotta "buck up little soldier" and deal with it.

So April didn't happen exactly as planned. I must remind myself that in the grand scheme of things this isn't a big deal. I'm only in month 8 of a massive 2 year 'base building' phase, so having the odd bad month is not a big deal.
Here's the numbers for April:
swim: 23.9k
spin: 11hr 30min
bike: 300k
run: 173k

May starts a new chapter. Training wise, I'm going to juggle things up a bit, but my basic week will look like this from now until IMLP. Mon- easy swim (2-2.5k), easy run (optional). Tues: long brick (100k ride, 40 min run) Wed: short brick (30-50k ride, 30 min run). Thurs: long brick. Fri:long swim, short run. Sat: long ride/short run. Sun: long run. Once in May and once in June I want to skip Sunday's long run and do another long ride for some tough back to back long ride action. I was thinking of grabbing a couple of fellow tri wienies and ride to Midland (about 190k), stay the night, then ride back the following day. Might be able to talk Cliff into joining me? :)

Last week I promised I'd talk to Hed about race wheels, I talked to "Speedy" the Canadian distributor for Hed and after picking his brain and discussing my needs etc.. I think we/I decided that the Hed 3 carbon would be a good choice. For the record, I'd recommend anyone in the market for wheels to give Paul a call. He spent over an hour with me on the phone discussing my needs, wheels, aerodynamics, racing and sponsorship opportunities. To me, time is a most valuable commodity and anyone who willingly spends an hour with me without having the need or pressure to 'close a sale' is OK in my book. Get in touch with him, through his website here. I'll let you know if/ when I pull the trigger on those bad boys... hmmm... I do have a birthday coming up... :)

Worst inaugural ride ever? Sunday weigh in.

2007-04-22T19:02:00.000-04:00

Ok so the title is misleading, I'm sure it wasn't the worst inagural ride, but is sure as heck wasn't the best. Let me back track a bit... We had a fantastic weekend in southern Ontario, the weather was pretty much perfect, sunny with highs around the 24C mark. Bascially, perfect riding weather. I'm pumped. Friday was nuts. Work, swim 4.8k, eat, do house chores, run 7.5k, eat some more and prep bike. A very full day. Alot had to accomplished to get a clean slate for Saturday's first ride of the season. Fast forward to Saturday:
On the road at 8:40, want to start the season of with a bang and get 150 to 160k in. 10k into the ride, flat tire. Change tire, but now I dont' have a spare. I figure I'm only 10k from home, I'll zip back and get another. So I head home and figure that while I'm here I'll change the rubber in the backwheel to something a little more newer. Pump up the tires and I'm good to go. Ding Ding. Round 2:
8k into ride number 2, ssssssssss... damn, there goes the air - voila flat number 2. Ok, so obviously I'm having an issue. I take the rubber off the wheel and inspect the wheel - can't find a single thing wrong. No nicks, foriegn objects - nothing. A fellow tri-wienie stops and we shoot the breeze while I get back up and running - we end the conversation with maybe we'll meet up later and do some time trialling work. I think 'great!', I just maybe able to salvage this ride yet. Since I'm only 8k from home, I zip back and grab my last spare tube, refill water bottles and eat a banana.
Ding. Ding. Round 3:
I'm on my last spare, so I decided I better swing by the bike shop and grab some more. Better safe than sorry. So as I'm getting ready to leave the, who drops in? My fellow tri-wienie from round number 2. His workout was done and was about to do an easy ride home. I'm not into that. I came out today to log some K's and damnit that's what I'm going to do. I get 90 minutes into round 3, you guessed it, flat numero 3. Ok now I understand the Normann meltdown of Kona '05. Actually, I didn't go balistic at all, just kinda laughed, sat on the country rode and took my tire apart for upteenth time for the day. Flatted in a different part of the tube and still could find NOTHING causing it. That's the only part that cheeses me off - not being able to find the cause.
Ding Ding Round 4
Uneventful. Made it through the rest of the ride without flatting, had at least 150k on the agenda and in the end only manage to scrape togethor 115k.
Ding Ding Round 5
Got home, finished my chores just in time for the arrival of my M.I.L. Hehe, actually my mother in-law and I get along fine, I agree with everything she says and then Sally straightens her out. Hey, it works. :)

So the weekly weigh in is 24 hours ahead of schedule. Why? Tomorrow I must report of jury duty. Hey, I'm all for doing one's civic duty, but deep down I'll breathe a sigh of relief if I don't get picked. I also plan on re-taping the inside of my offending wheel, with the hope of that will solve my flatting problem.

Last week's numbers:
Swim: 6.8k
Spin: 3 hours
Bike: 115k
Run: 64k
Weight: 157

Once or twice this week I had to remind myself that I'm still recovering from being sick. (I can still feel residual crap in the bottom of my lungs) So overall it was pretty good week.
Stuff to think about this week: run 6 times, fix wheel and contact HED in regards to race wheels. I've been putting that last one off, but I promise, promise, promise to do it this week. Oh yea, must finish off taxes too. Oh joy.

The funk is out! The funk is out! Monday weigh in.

2007-04-16T17:51:00.000-04:00

I think the last of this @#%%%^! bug is over with. Three weeks to the day.. zoinks. After my 1.5 hr 'nap' on Fri, I crashed early and got 9.5 hrs of sleep. This put me in good shape for Saturday and I ground out 3:20 on the computrainer. I had 3 hrs on tap, but since I'm in Colorado, I have some good climbs to contend with and I never stop halfway up a climb, so the total time for Saturday spin session was 3:20. I asked myself, 'is the funk out?' I say to myself, 'I think so.'
So I crash on Saturday night and get 10 hours of zzz's. Yea baby! Next on tap, a 2 hour run. This will be the real test, as long runs always leave me feeling a little beat up. The good news is I got er done and it actually felt ok! Woo hoo... the funk is OUT! I'm so frikin happy to be healthy again. :))

So, here's the numbers for last week:
swim: 7k
bike: 4hrs 30min
run: 52k

Training wise, it's been a brutal last 4 weeks. Easy week, followed by a week of crappy-sickness, followed by 2 weeks of slowly-getting-progressively-better-sickness. Not exactly going according to plan, but now that that is all behind me, what now? The one thing I must resist to do is try to 'catch up' on lost training. Oh yea I'll be starting to crank out some good mileage, but I'm not going to jump into right away - so the next 10 days will just be a build period and by May I'll be going full bore.

Sally always asks me 'what do you think about on your long ride/runs?' To which she gets the standard male response ' I dunno.' What do I think about? I had some great topics I was going to bring up on my blog, I mean some good, serious, deep stuff - but that was 24 hours ago and can I remember it now? No. I think I just enter a quasi dreamlike state and just think about stuff. I really should carry a voice recorder so I don't forget all this stuff.

C'est tout for now. Cheers!

Get the funk out!

2007-04-13T19:33:00.000-04:00

I can tell I'm slowly coming out of my 'funk'. Still not 100%, but improving, and that's what is important. The workouts since I've been sick have been rather uninspired, physically I'm probably around 80-85%, mentally, I'm still in a bit of a rut, but it will come around. As an example today, I had a 4k swim planned and physically I felt quite strong in the water but I was feeling tired mentally and doing a workout when you are not 100% into it is rather taxing. I did get the job done, went home, ate and promptly fell asleep - for an hour and half! Needless to say, my 2nd workout, which was to be a short run, promptly got tossed out the window. I hoping by the start of next week I'll be back to 'normal'.

Tomorrow I'm going to grind out 3 hrs on the trainer and Sunday I'll see if I can run for 2 hours. Hopefully all goes well. Have a great weekend!

Monday weigh in..

2007-04-09T19:31:00.000-04:00

I wish I stuff to report, but I don't. I'm still not 100% and am now starting to get a little worried. I know I'm on the mend as I'm sleeping much better, but I'm still have congestion issues, especially at night. Damn, I've been fighting this bug for 15 days now and it appears it's going to be hanging on for a few more yet. I can hear you now: "why don't you go to the doctor??" Ok, got me, I'm guilty. But seriously, what's a doctor going to say? 'Rest, eat well and here take some drugs.' So, I'm batting 2 out 3 - that's not too bad. Joking aside, if I can't clear the last of this bug up in the next few days, I will go - promise.

I did keep last week's promise of only working out for an hour a day, for Monday to Friday. As a result, last week's totals are messed up. Here's the low down:
swim: 7.6k
spin: 4hrs
run: 12k
No, that run total is not a misprint. My whole schedule is messed up due to this damn bug and I've had to take multiple days off during the week to get the extra rest. The long run got moved up a day (which made it today- hence it's not in last week's total - oh and by the way, it was crappy - had 2 hours on the schedule, felt terrible so cut it down to 1.5 hrs).

So that's basically the situation, it looks like this week is going to be yet another easy week and hopefully I can shake the last of this illness. Hopefully the workouts that I do are enough to maintain fitness because I'm sure the heck not gaining any. Gotta run... err make that sleep. Cheers.

Another brick in the wall, monthy totals.

2007-04-01T19:32:00.000-04:00

So my big bike turned out to be a big bust. Hey it happens. Not much I can do except re-examine the coming month, tweak the plan and soldier on. The good news is that I'm slowly winning the battle over the bug that sidelined me. Last week I ended up putting all my efforts into 'getting well.' I like to do that, focus on one thing and do it the best I can, then move on. So how did I focus on getting well? Pretty simple, try to think good thoughts (this can be tough, being sick just makes me feel sorry for myself), eat super-well and get lots of rest. Positive thoughts and meditation looks after my mind and soul, eating well and getting lots of rest looks after my body... 100% health is sure to follow!

Naturally I asked myself if I was over training. It can be hard to be objective about oneself, but after looking at the symptoms and the data I decided that I wasn't. Here is why: I wasn't displaying the usual symptoms of overtraining ie: chronic inflamation, messed up sleep patterns, phsyical injury, GI distress, high resting HR or sugar cravings. Actually this months totals were LESS than last March's totals, so I truely don't believe I was shelling myself. For now, getting sick twice in 8 weeks I'm going to chalk up to 'one of those things.'

I imagine my immune system is like a wall, after it's been compromised I must rebuild it. How? 1) estabish and stick to a regular sleep pattern. Super important for the coming 4 months. 2) I need 8 to 8.5 hour every night. 3) Be hyper aware of the diet. Fruits, veggies, quality protein, whole grains and healthy carbs - my junk food allowances are: pretzels on occasion and a daily handful of chocolate chips.
(and yes the title of the post is a Pink Floyd reference:)

March totals:
Swim:27.3k
Spin: 31:30hrs
Run: 160.5k
I give my current swim fitness a 'B'. Bike fitness a B- and run fitness a C. The goal for April: maintain swim fitness, bring bike fitness to a 'B' and run fitness to a B-.
How?
This week for Monday to Friday, I PROMISE not to work out more than 1 hour a day. I must finish building up my 'immune system wall'. The following weeks will be cycle/run focused, but I'll still be swimming at least twice a week, getting 7+k in. I wanted to start a running 'tempo cycle' and get a weekly tempo run in for the next 6 weeks - that plan is currently on hold.

Lastly, I updated the race schedule, it's on the left. There are a couple of more I've got my eye on, but the important ones are up. Somehow I think this year is going to be dedicated to "building the base"... That's all for now,
Cheers!

Kinda bummed..

2007-03-27T12:33:00.000-04:00

Ever have something you were looking forward to and it turned out not quite like you expected? Yea, I was looking forward to my big bike/training week, it's the end of winter, the weather is great and I've been looking forward to a week where I could just focus on training, sleeping and eating. Saturday starts of rather well, a solid brick workout weighing in at 3.5 hrs. Sunday was similar, but a bit longer - 4 hrs in total. The thing is, I felt awesome, bricks are notorious difficult workouts and I just plain old felt good. What a great start to my little epic week.

Sunday night roles around and I start feeling kind of funny. "oh oh.." It's now Tuesday I'm just coming out of a little 24-48hr bug that reaked havoc with my system. This has me bummed as it was only 6 weeks ago when I was sick, now I've been nailed twice in a short period. Not good. So now the priority is getting back to 'normal', eating well and getting 8+ hrs of zzz's every night.

A hearty thanks to Sally for putting up with me, I'm really a cranky sot when sick. Big hugs to my wife. :)

301W, T-minus 25 minutes.

2007-03-24T08:37:00.000-04:00

Training camp officially begins in 25 minutes, so I figured I would do a quick blog update.
The last 5 days have been very easy, I want to make sure I'm 100% rested for my mini camp because I know I'll be rather shelled by next Sunday. Recap of the week:
Mon: Swim 2.5k
Tues: off
Wed: Swim 4.8k
Thurs: Spin 1hr (LT test!)
Fri: Swim: 3.1k
Even though it was an easy week, I upped the swim mileage. I figure getting the extra swim time still counts as 'easy' since it is time that doesn't involve leg work. Nice endurance set on Wednesday: 4X400, 8X200, 16X100. Booya.

It's been 2 months since my last bike LT test, so Thursday's workout was dedicated to that. What's interesting about doing the test is that it provides concrete data on whether or not your improving. Here is a brief synopsis of my last LT test numbers:
Time: 28:20 Avgerage speed: 38.1 Watts: 283
And the latest numbers are:
Time: 27:40 Average speed: 39.0 Watts:301 (yay!)
Good stuff, fitness level is increasing and I'm getting faster. Whoever said "It doesn't get easier, you just get faster" is so right on the money. It's difficult to describe just how tough a LT test is unless you do one. These are done at 100% effort, all out, leave nothing behind. Its funny though, when your done I always say to myself 'hmm, I bet I could have gone faster...' But during the test you tsay things to yourself 'oh my god, I've got 10 minutes to go... or.. I should do this test on another day.' Time seems to slow down too, in the last couple of minutes the seconds are taking there sweet time. You should try it sometime.

Lastly, here is the plan for the week:
Sat: 3 hr ride, 30 min run
Sun: 3hr ride, 30 min run
Mon: 1 hr ride am, 7.5k run pm
Tues: 2 hr ride am, 2 hr ride. pm
Wed: swim am, 1 hr ride pm
Thur: 2 hr ride am, 2 hr ride pm
Fri: 1 hr ride am, 7.5k run pm
Sat: 3 hr ride, 30 min run
Sun: run 2+ hrs.
Ok, it may not be EPIC, but that will be a solid/tough week.. Every workout will be in primarily mid/high zone 1.
Eep, 2 minutes until the official start, gotta go!
Cheers!

Monday weigh in. Long term planning..

2007-03-19T19:39:00.000-04:00

Last week was the end of a 4 week build and it was a good week. The first 2 weeks were moderate volume of all 3 sports, the 2nd week I cranked it up a notch and last week it was cranked up yet again. Here's the numbers:
Swim: 5.6k
Bike: 8hrs 30min
Run: 67.5k
Weight: 157
Due to March break, I only managed 90 minutes in the pool but still got some quality work in. Fridays main set was a 20X100m on 1:30, alternate one slow and one fast. (1:18-1:20 for the fast ones and 1:26-1:28 for the slow)
The biking is going well. I'm just trying to log as much trainer time as possible without going too crazy. The Computrainer really helps as simulates outdoor riding so well - minus the lousy drivers and crappy weather of course.
Even though I feel like I'm not logging enough running K's, my run feels strong. The Mark Allen low heart rate protocol I've adapted is slowly paying off dividends. Earlier in the week I was noticing I had to put in more effort to reach my desired heartrate training level. More effort = more speed and yet my HR is still in zone 1. Good stuff.

Here's an interesting tidbit about Jasper Blake, Canadian Ironman Champ for '06. His zone 1 heartrate before IMC for running was 3:45/km! Interesting to note that he split a 2:48 marathon for an average of 4:00/km. Even he had trouble maintaining his training zone 1 running heartrate during a race, obviously biking 180k before hand has something to do with it.

Do you have a long term plan? No I don't mean long term as in 6 months from now.. more like what are your goals for next year? The year after? I've been mulling my long term triathlon plan for a few months and here is what I've settled on. Keep in mind this long term and the crystal ball gets murkier the farther I look down the road. This year: IMLP: goal: sub 10:30. Next year: IMC: goal: sub 10hrs. 2009: IMOO or IMFL: goal: qualify for Kona. 2010: Kona. Yea, I've got plans until 2010... go figure.

Next week I'm off work. I've slotted my 2nd BIG BIKE week for it. Yes, I'm taking time off work to train. I don't have a problem with it, neither should you. :) Here's my bike plan: 1st big bike week was end of Jan, where I managed 11hrs on the trainer. 2nd big week is 2 months later, I'm going for 18+ hrs over 8 or 9 days. Two months after this one is my 3rd big bike week and 7 weeks after that is IMLP. Am I training smarter? I think so... am I getting smarter? Hmm.. the jury is out on that one.
Cheers!

Monday weigh in

2007-03-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Last week was my 3rd week of a 4 week build, in which I've been distributing my time more equally among the 3 sports. It was a pretty good week workout wise, although I did miss once scheduled short run. I have to remind myself that's it's OK to miss a workout every so often, especially if I'm feeling tired. Here's the numbers:
Swim: 7.3k
Spin: 8hrs
Run: 51k
Weight: 157
The weeks highlights:
- met up with Cliff, on Friday for a swim session. I haven't seen Cliff since last October and wanted to see his swim progress. The good news is, in my opinion, he's reached the stage that in order to get better, he's going to have to start logging some serious pool time. It's a bit of a milestone of sorts, so a hearty congrats goes out to him.
-also pool related, my main set on Friday was a 10X400m on 6 min. Good set, coming in on 5:45's. My swim is at about 90% already and I'm very happy with that.
-passed the $1,000 mark for my charity fundraiser. Woo hoo 4 digit territory, and yes I do think a 5 digit number is on the horizon. Perhaps in a couple of years. It's all about taking baby steps in the right direction.

Not much else to say, solid spin hours, the running K's are a tad low, but I'll be adding a run or two this week and start building them back up. I have a run build scheduled for April. Actually the plan for the next 7 weeks goes like this: hard week, easy week, bike week, easy week, 3 week run build session.

That's all for now, cheers!

Monday weigh in..

2007-03-05T18:32:00.000-05:00

I'm just thinking on the fly - about inspiration. The reason why I bring it up is because I got an email earlier today from someone who said they thought my blog was inspiring. It sort of makes me feel proud, embarrassed and humble all at the same time. I don't feel I write particularly well, yet I've had comments from people saying otherwise. Usually, I just to write as if I'm talking to you, and it's usually just off the top of my head. Some days it seems to just flow out and on other days I can't string two words togethor for the life of me. So when someone takes the time out of there day and drop me a note - it means something - and that's cool shit.
So I'm pondering about 'inspiration', what inspires you? Who inspires you? Something to think about. I get inspiration from many sources and sometimes don't even know it until I think about it later. Go to an Ironman, jeez if that doesn't inspire you to do something, then I think there is something wrong with ya. The list is long about what/who inspires me, sometimes it's fleeting. I'll see an eldery person who has gone through WWII and I think "I can't imagine what they've seen". There is inspiration there. Back to Ironman, how about the 75 year old nun, Sister Madonna Budder, multiple Ironman finisher and was at IMC and did Kona last year. Inspirational.
It reminds of the quote: "What ever you do, do it well." I'm going to just leave it that - something to think about.

Back to some actual training stuff! Last week numbers:
Swim: 6.6k
Bike: 6:40
Run:: 57.5
Weight: 158
This has been my standard week. I up the time spent in one sport and usually there is time taken away in another area. It's always a combination of balancing the sports and taking the time to focus on one area, then re-balancing. I'm pretty much in a phase of training where I'm balancing the 3 sports. The obvious exception is swimming and that's just because that's the area where I need the least improvement.

This week I'm going to try up the bike time a bit and hopefully the run mileage too. That will be challenge because tomorrow they are talking about MINUS 30C windchills! Those of you that read regularly know that I wimp out when it gets ridiculas outside. The good news is that I have 2 others sports in which to pick up any slack. So instead of run/bike day tomorrow, it's looking like a swim/bike day. See? Having 3 sports to balance can be good thing!
Have a great week.

Monthly mileage, hardest bike workout ever..

2007-03-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Just finished my 80k time trial bike workout about 2 hours ago. It's hard to describe just how much of a sufferfest the last hour was. I wanted to quit, I wanted to cheat (bad thoughts), of course I didn't but I sure wanted to. Having never done a workout of this type before I wasn't quite sure how to pace myself. My strategy was try and hold a mid zone 3 heartrate and see how well I do. I did fine up to about the 1:10 point and from there on it was pretty much a game of counting minutes, breathes - anything to keep my mind off of my obvious discomfort. Final time was 2:14, the first 40k look was just under 1:06 and even though I thought pacing was screwed my 2nd lap was about 2.5 minutes slower than the first. I'm actually kind of pleased because I wasn't pushing the watts and it certainly felt much slower. Methinks the legs are going to be a little cranky tomorrow.
I also did a 10.5k run earlier in the day, so I'm sure that was a factor in my bike workout from hell.

February mileage report:
Swim: 19k
Spin: 25hrs 40min
Run: 103.5k

The number dont' lie, no it wasn't a great training month. Between being sick and the subsequent recovery period, I just wasn't able to log huge numbers. The good news is my swimming feels good and 25+hours on the trainer isnt' too bad.

March 1 is big day for me.. in my mind we're so close to the end of the winter that I can almost taste spring. Oh man that makes me happy - I can't wait. Of course we are getting walloped with snow and freezing rain as I type, but I don't care. Winter's days are numbered...

Ok, I'm off. Must get a well deserved 8+ hours of zzzz's.... hmmmm... sleep.

Monday weigh in

2007-02-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

Not a heck of alot is happening, last week was my first week of getting back to some 'normal' workout and feeling 100 percent healthy. Here's the numbers from build week number 1:
Swim: 7.1k
Spin: 7 hrs
Run: 49k
Two swims, with one of them being a 4k'er. I like the 4k swims because in my mind they are the ones that 'count'. Anything 4k and over counts because an IM swim is 3.8k, so I figure 4k plus is great for building endurance. If I can get 20 or so 4k+ swims between now and IMLP, my swim will be fine.

7 hours on the bike - no complaints there. The highpoint being last Thursday I did a 45 minute zone 3 workout - pushed 268 watts for the duration, felt good. I've come to the conclusion that to get fast on the bike, one really must embrace suffering. I don't know why, but when the legs start to hurt, I think they are fibbing because you can keep pushing at the same effort for a very long time before they truely start to give out. I only bring this up because I have an 80k time trial on the books for this week - and I'm looking forward to it with apprehensive trepidation.

Yay, I'm back running. While 49k isn't alot, it felt good and felt strong. I don't think I lost much run fitness during my sickness. Sunday's run was a 20k'er (hmm, nice -20C windchill) and I held sub 5min/K for the duration while keeping the heartrate in zone 1. A good sign.

So basically the plan for this week is to maintain swimming and biking and up the running K's a bit. Cheers!

Bye-bye California, hello Arizona!

2007-02-20T14:21:00.000-05:00

Egad, it's been awhile. I have not forgotten about you - honest! I was going to do an update on Friday, but got sidetracked by computer issues. Actually, the computer royally ticked me off, so I reformatted. Anyone who has done this before, knows it's a pain in the butt. The good news, I have my most of my old software back up and running and the system is running so much better now.

The last 2 weeks, I've been rather hamstrung by a nasty little bug that is being rather persistent. Last week I was going to 'get back at it' - and to a certain extent I was successful, but I was lacking heart. Things weren't still at 100%, so I kept the intensity down and just concentrated on getting back to being sick-free. Here is what I ended up doing last week:
Swim 5.9k
Spin: 9hr 10min

What? No running??! Yes, the running mileage has taken a severe beating in recent weeks. Sickness, snow storms and minus 25C windchills = no running for me! Decent spin time though and the extra time on the bike should help my muscle endurance. (which, in my opinion is my primary limiter for an Ironman) Which brings me to bye bye California, hello Arizona:
I'm slowly plugging away on the Race Across AMerica (RAAM) on my Computrainer. Curently, I'm on stage 8 out of 57, which puts me pretty much smack in the middle of Arizona. Depending how much RAAM riding I do, I should be in Utah by next week sometime.

So what's the plan? Ahhh, the 'plan', is always dynamic, but here is it's current incarnation. A 3 or 4 week build phase, followed by an easy week, followed by a big bike week, followed by an easy week. That'll put me into the beginning of April. Gotta get the running legs back, that's a priority - just consistent mileage and getting out 5 or 6 times a week. I had a scheduled 'A' race in the beginning of March, which actually sold out before I registered. I'm on the waiting list, if I'm offered a spot I'll take it, but it sure won't be an A race - it'll just be a good hard run.

That's all for now. Cheers!

I've been sponsored and smoted!

2007-02-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

The BIG news first. My employer, Canada Post, has agreed to sponsor me for 2007! I had some wacky promotional ideas, (carrying a letter around during the course of an Ironman was one..), that luckily they aren't going make me do. (I'm still not sure the best place to put the letter during the swim portion...) Bascially it boiled down to this, we like what you did you last year - keep up the good work. Hey! I can live with that. I've provided a nice helpful link to the Canada Post website on the left of your screen, so go click on it and buy a stamp or something!

And now for the 'smoting' part of today's post. It appears that the Super Bowl Gods weren't too fond of last Friday's mini rant against their game, by Monday I was sick as a dog - I've been smoted. I don't get sick often, but when I do, I usually go down for the count. So my workouts for this week look like this:
Monday - OFF
Tuesday - NADA
Wednesday - ZIP
Thursday - Z-E-R-O
Friday- run 7k and hack a lung out. (nah, it wasn't that bad)
So I'm starting to feel better today and did get a short run in. It's funny, being sick makes me depressed in ways like : 'I don't want to workout' or : 'I don't even feel like working out' or 'Bah, I've already lost fitness.. missing another day won't matter'.
That's the bad side...
The good side is: 'ahhh a forced rest, time for some extra muscle repair, so I can really start to rip it up' or 'this rest will make me stronger for later..'
Naturally, I side with the good, a forced rest this early and after some pretty good mileage for Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan is probably good for me. Either way, I'm looking forward to getting back to 100% so I can assauge some of this guilt of missing 4 days in a row! My recipe for getting well: rest, quality food, rest some more, get active when possible and just 'focus on getting well.'

Oh yeah another thing, I'm down to 156 pounds - that's only 5 pounds away from when I used to swim seriously, a mere 20 years ago! I think my new race weight will be 155.
Ok, I must go nap now. Have a great weekend!

SUPER January totals..

2007-02-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

Hi, my name is Darren and and I couldn't care less that this weekend is super bowl Sunday. Can't stand the game. Can't stand the hype. Can't stand the hooplah. You couldn't pay me to watch it. I suppose many would consider that sacrilege and blasphemous, ahh well, to each his own. I do like the junk food though.....

Ok so the January totals aren't SUPER, but they aren't bad either - here ya go:
Run: 255.5k
Spin: 31 hrs 15 min
Swim: 15.65k

Failed to meet my monthly run goal of 300k, but I smashed my projected bike time. That was mostly due to my bike focus week where I did 16 hrs in 8 days. So even though I missed my run goal, the extra time on the bike made up for it.
As for swimming, I'm just getting back into it and progress has been good. Example: when I first got into the pool, I was winded doing a 5X200m on 3:15, coming in on 3:00. Today, I did the same set coming in sub 2:50's and more importantly it felt better. I think by mid March swimming will be back to normal.

I tried to sign up for my early season "A" race - The Chilly Half Marathon and it's SOLD OUT. Doh Doh Doh Doh Doh. I'm on the waiting list, so I'm hoping between that and me begging the race director I'll get in. I can't believe it sold in January - is this running thing catching on or what?

The weekend plan: Sat: spin 3 hrs or so. Not sure if I'm going to do Lake Placid or another leg on the RAAM course. Sunday: run. A cold run according to the forcast - oh joy.

Here's hoping you have a SUPER weekend! :) Cheers!

Monday weigh in..

2007-01-29T17:40:00.000-05:00

Bike focus week is done. From Saturday the 20th to Saturday 27th a total of 16 hours on the trainer, that's the equivalent of 500k -not too shaboo for January! Lesson learned: due to easier/faster recovery the key for building muscular endurance is to log lots of cycling miles. I mean lets face it, you can be great runner but if you don't have the cycling miles in your legs, you will not run well after a 180k bike in an Ironman!

So here are my Monday to Sunday totals:
Swim 5.85k
Spin: 10 hrs
Run: 42k
Weight: 160

Swimming is coming along ok, the stroke is slowly starting to feel better, which is pretty cool because today was only my 6th swim since IMC (Aug /06) - so it's only natural I'm going to be a little rusty in the water. I'm still just focusing on drill work, some pulling and the odd 5 X 200.

The goal for this week is to bring back up running frequency and mileage, log around 5 to 6 hours on the trainer and swim twice and take two easy days. (Monday and Friday).

Still no word on sponsorship, I'm hoping to get news in the next week or two so I can update my '07 race schedule. I'll keep you posted.

The 50/50 draw at work is progressing well - closing in 600 bux for the kids - good stuff.

Must... go.. make... dinner.. hmmmm... foooooooooood.
Cheers!

Focus & Bonking

2007-01-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

Note there is no 'i' in the title.

'Bonking' occurs when you deplete your energy stores, you are basically trying to complete a workout or race with the needle below empty. Generally, it's not a fun experience, power output is minimal and all you really want to do is curl up somewhere, eat some food and grab a nap.

Why am I talking about bonking in January? Usually this only happend during a long bike ride... Well, funny you should mention, but this is a bike focus week. I've been logging some good hours on the Computrainer this week and yesterday's workout was a douzy.
Let me recap the week thus far: Tues: Run 11k (25 min @tempo), 2 hours on the trainer. Wed: Run 9k (trails) 1 hour spinning. Thurs: a 3.5 hour trainer session. (new record!).

The thing about yesterday's workout was not only was it long, it was hard. I downloaded all the RAAM courses for the Computrainer. What is RAAM? Oh, it's a little race where people Ride Across AMerica.... on their bikes. Yea, it's whole new level insanity, which we can discuss at another time. So my thinking is
'hey, over the next little while, I'll plug away on the RAAM courses and eventually I'll be able to say I rode across America in training - so it's virtual riding, but it still counts. So I fire up stage one, (there are 57 in total) and holy crap it's HILLacious. I got more than I bargained for: net elevation was over 1100 meters and that's just net elevation, not even including all the ups and downs on the way. Zoinks. ALOT of hard climbing, I'm talking 15% grades up and out of saddle climbing. Wheeeee!
Average speed for the whole workout was a mere 24kph! Did I bonk? No, but it was close - power output was low and I feeling a little grumpy by the end, but at least I finished that sucker!

So, since Sat, I'm at 12.5 hours of trainer time and I still have 2.5 days to go...

That's all for now. Cheers!

Monday weigh in

2007-01-22T19:25:00.000-05:00

Ok ok.. I admit it. I'm a fair weather runner. My tolerance for cold weather running stops around the -8C degree mark. Throw some wind in the mix and my will to run evaporates. Luckily last week, was a designated easy week, so even though I bailed on a run or two, I won't allow myself to feel too guilty over it. Here's the mileage report:
swim: 5.6k
bike: 8hrs
run: 23.5k
weight: 160 (down another pound)

Only 2 runs for the week. Did I mention I'm a wuss when it's too cold? Here's what actually happened. Saturday woke up, walked the dog with Sally - all the while she got to listen to grumpy Darren cursing the weather the gods. I get backand bailed on my Sat morning run, instead I fire up the spinner and do a Lake Placid loop on my Computrainer. Phew, that makes up for the run I bailed on. Sunday... brrrr too cold. Run for 2 hours with -20C wind chills? Nah. So I did the Lake Placid loop again on Sunday - hence the spike in bike hours for the week.

I guess with the weekend dedicated to spinning, my bike focus week got bumped up a couple of days. So instead of a 6-day bike focus, it'll be a an 8 day focus. I've adjusted my build weeks. I used to do a 3 week build, followed by an easy week. This Jan I've been trying something new - 2 week build, easy week, focus week, easy week. We'll see how it goes..

Sorry for the short post, but Sal and I have a dvd date - we're starting 24 season 3. Cheers!

The Hungry Trout, bike LT test.

2007-01-17T20:30:00.000-05:00

Slowly starting to get things in place for Ironman Lake Placid. After a few days of searching and finding absolutely nothing in the accomodation department, we lucked out and secured a spot at The Hungry Trout Inn. Would I make this stuff up? Actually, the place looks pretty good and it's about 30 minutes outside of Lake Placid located on the bike course. Phew, I can now cross 'find accomodations' off the list.

Yesterday, I did my very first lactate threshold test on the bike. Zoinks, that was fun. If fun means 'sweating profusely while gasping for air and having your legs screaming at you to stop'. Then yes, that was fun. The bike LT test is similar to the run LT test - it's basically a 30 minute all out time trial in which you record your heartrate and determine your 'lactate threshold'. Your LT is then used to establish your training zones. The numbers are: avg watts 283, average HR: 170 - initially I didn't think I could hold this for 30 minutes, but I did - so I think it was a good test. Painful, but good.
So zone 1 (easy) is <139 HR and zone 2 (endurance) is 140-151 HR. Kind of funny as I've been training between 135 and 142 HR on the bike for the last few months.

I also got my 2nd swim of the year in yestereday, 2.6k. Easy sets, drillwork, nothing too hard - slowly getting the arms back in the swing of things.

Today: run 11k plus 1 hr on the bike - more drill work.
Tomorrow: swim & run
Fri: 2nd easy day of the week .. bike 60-90 min.

That's all for now, it's bedtime and I need my 8!

Weekend update

2007-01-14T19:17:00.000-05:00

It's interesting to see how other people approach training. I keep an eye out on follow bloggers, visit many forums, websites and pro's blogs all in effort to garner as much information as possible and make an informed decision on what is good for me. The bottom line is there is no one definite clear answer that works for everyone. Some people speed train all year around, some 'periodize', some do huge amounts of base training and little else. Regardless of what works for you, one thing is clear, you have to log the miles. Which is kind of a nice segui into the this week's mileage report:

Swim: 2.1k
Bike/spin: 6hr 45min
Run: 84.5k
Weight: 161 (dropped 2 pounds!)

I guess the big news is that I went for my first swim - just did some basic drill stuff and took it easy. While at the pool, I was chatting with the lifeguard and as it turns out, Lisa Bentley regularly swims there. Yes, THAT Lisa Bentley. So not oly does the pool have a maximum of 4 swimmers for the entire pool during adult swim, a 10 time IronWoman champion also trains there. -Yup, I'm liking my new pool.

I guess most other news for the week pales in comparison. I ditched one run, so only got 5 runs in on the week, but gained 75 minutes of bike time and a pool workout. Fair trade I'd say.

I'm going to back off a bit this week, cut the running mileage down to ~50k, swim twice and bike maybe 4.5 -5 hrs - depends how I feel. I have TWO very easy days this week. Wacky stuff. The point of this week is rest up for the following week, which will be my first bike focused week.
That's it for now.. Cheers!

Monday weigh in..

2007-01-08T20:09:00.000-05:00

I meant to update on Friday, but got sidetracked. Why you ask? After being ever so patient, my Computrainer finally arrived and like a little kid at Christmas I naturally had to start 'playing' right away! For those that don't know, a Computrainer hooks your bike up to the computer and you can race other opponents, pre-race a course ( or build your own), it simulates hills and grade percentages, provides you with loads of data: speed, rpm, watts, real time 'spin analysis', heart rate and the list goes on.

After I hooked it up, I fired up spinscan and could tell immediately my left leg does more work than my right and that I have a 'dead spot' at top-dead-centre. I have more work to do on the bike than I originally thought!
Anyway, enough of my new toy, if you are interested, go click on the link above or drop me a note. Incidentally, I bought mine through Mike Plumb over at Tripower. He did a group deal that provided a substantial discount. So in addition to being an athlete and a triathlon coach, he's an all around nice guy!

Last week's mileage report:
Run: 91.5k
Spin: 5.5 hrs
Weight: 163
Not too shaboo. I did a 30 minute tempo run on Tuesday which went well, held a heartrate of 175 for the duration. Other than the Computrainer, the only other thing of note was that yesterday I did 25k run in which I acutally had to push myself to maintain a high zone 1 heartrate. ie not over 150 bpm. Held 4:58/k over hilly terrain, in zone 1 for 25k. I'm happy with that because it's tangible evidence my fitness level is increasing.

This week the plan is pretty much the same, maybe add an extra spinning hour and increase the tempo run to 35 minutes.

Oh yeah.. I checked out a new pool today. The problem is my old pool, which is an excellent facility, just can't get their act togethor regarding lane swims. So I go and check out this other pool, which is not as nice as a facility, but .. and this is a big but, it only had ONE swimmer in the whole pool for the adult/lane swim. I think I found a new swim home... :)
Cheers!

I resolve to..

2007-01-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

Stop making resolutions. Not that I ever really did anyway. However, I hope in '07 that I can expand my physical, mental and spiritual horizons, which really is an ongoing process as opposed to any arbitrary 'resolution.'

Last night some good friends came over, including Reddog. Good food, friends, converstion, a beverage or two and a board game. Pretty low key and casual - just the way I like it now. A far cry from my younger days, upon reflection, I have sure done some stupid things. Fortuneately, we kept the festivities to a dull roar and I emerged in '07 relatively unscathed, though perhaps a little sleep deprived. Yes, today is a designated off-day. :)
However, a new phase starts tomorrow. Here's the plan: for January: week 1, 2 run focused. week 3: easy. week 4: bike week. Bring the total spinning hours to ~22-24. Try to maintain 300+ running K's. Do 4 tempo runs and 2 interval sessions. The major change is the addtion of speed work, this period will last for Jan and Feb. The goal for week 4, bike week, is to get 10 hours on the trainer. Oh yea, I may even make it to the pool 2 or 3 times this month... wacky stuff.

Monthly stats:
run: 332k (mileage PR!)
spin: 18.5 hours

Jan 1/06 - Dec 31/06 mileage:
run: 2424k
spin: 131 hours
bike: 3432k
swim: 191k

A good 'build year'. I think if I can build more in '07, I could have a break out year in '08. Hehe, '07 is only 15 hours old and I'm already to starting to think of '08.

This quote seems fitting for Jan 1:
"Never live in the past but always learn from it. " -Unknown

Milestones

2006-12-27T14:46:00.000-05:00

A couple of minor milestones. One is relating to winter. You see, psychologically, I break winter down into two major milestones. The first one is the winter solstice, which just passed on Dec 22. Daylight has been increasing for the last 5 days! The next major winter milestone for me isn't until March 1, when it's so close to the end of the tunnel and you can taste spring. Jan/Feb can be a tough stretch, but once March is here, it's game on!

2006 is winding down real fast. As I reflect on the year, specifically relating to triathlon, I think of the top 3 things I've learned. 1) speed is icing on the cake and I don't have cake yet. Off the top of my head, I can't recall who said that, so I can't give proper credit, but it was someone wiser than me! It really is all about building a bigger engine. 2) It really is all about the run. Which is kind of a trick statement. It should be: it's all about arriving at the run with enough endurance to actually run." I thought I was working on the run in '06, but truthfully I did not end up doing what is required. I believe you have train like a runner to become a better runner. Also, just as importantly, do the bike miles to arrive at the run in reasonable shape. Lastly, nutrition really is king. I've found that 'nailing' my nutritional needs for the longer events quite difficult and even though I've learned alot, I still have a ways to go. Such is life.

Another milestone... 101 running K's last week. Yea! A nice Christmas present to myself - a mileage PR. Here's the belated stats for last week:
run: 101 k
spin 4 hr
Plus the usual 2 hours dedicated to stretching and core work.

Ok, well I was a little reluctant to post this, but I did promise I'd post my new bike position, so here it is. Constructive criticism always welcome.. note, I did stay constructive. :)

The only real adjustments over last year is that now there are no spacers in the stem. I played with angling the aerobars down a bit, but after some research decided against it. I was able to achieve a nice flat scapula area and have so far found this position to be comfortable, so for the time being this is the position I'll go with.

The camera did point out some technical flaws in my pedal stroke, just some minor things to work on while logging the spinning hours.

Speaking of spinning, I better stop typing and start logging some miles in front of the TV. Cheers!

It's crunch time..

2006-12-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

It's crunch time at the North Pole. I'd imagine those poor elves must be 'in the weeds'. <-- bartending lingo for when your busier than hell. I hope Santa is good to everyone.

The week is progressing well, I'm on track for 100 running K's, just have to do a couple 22k runs this weekend. Monday was off, Tuesday: run 17, spin 1hr, Wed: run 12, spin 1hr, Thur: run 17, spin 1 and today was run 9 in the nice cold rain and spin 1. At least the weather looks decent, so I shouldn't have a problem finishing the week out strong.

POGO news:
I finally got the 50/50 off the ground at work- yea 2 weeks later than I orginally thought... office politics, ya gotta love it. The good news is for the inaugural draw $120.00 was collected. Let's just hope it lasts. So current collected total is $220.00, with almost $200.00 in pledges to be collected. Hey, it's a start.

Hmm.. not much else is happening. I'm still waiting on my Computrainer, though with things pretty much shutting down next week, I probably won't receive it until January. Waiting, it's the hardest part.

That's all for now. Don't forget what Christmas is really about, give a loved 0ne a hug and raise a glass for everything we have to be thankful for. Cheers!