Keeping Busy

Training Today:

• Morning Run: Hills! 1 mile warmup, 1x30 sec hill interval(is it really an interval if i do only one?), 1 mile cooldown
• Evening Swim: 600m warmup, 1km various drills, 1x1km, 6x200m pull, 200m cooldown (total = 4km)

This week, besides starting training seriously again, I'm trying to get stuff done around the house, while my wife is off in Kitchener/Waterloo for work. The two projects I want to get done are paint the stairs (which really need it... they're an eyesore) and build a linen closet (which we really need so that we can put our linens somewhere)

This will be my first attempt at framing and actually building some sort of solid structure, so we'll see how it goes. It seems fairly straight forward. The only thing that could pose a problem for me is the precise measuring... I'm generally an approximating kind of guy, which I hear doesn't work well for building. We'll see if I can adjust.

Lastly, I will be continuing my quest for homemade bread. I was raised on homemade bread, and am determined to make my own. Unfortunately, every attempt at this sourdough recipe has resulted in a very foul tasting brick.

I'm hoping this book, which should be waiting for me at home will help.

Marathon training has begun

Today's Training: 5km @ Base pace

Not to be discouraged, or slowed down by a summer of being lazy, I have begun training for a marathon this winter. The event I'm training for is the Winterman on Feb 21, 2010. Now, you're probably asking yourself, why anyone would want to run a marathon in the middle of a Canadian winter, but really, it looks like fun. I hate running in the heat anyway, so this should be pretty good for me.

As per usual, I've pulled out my trusty Brain Training for Runners book, and am using an appropriate training plan from there (for the most part). I'm going to keep up with swimming on my non-running days, and try to get some cycling in as well, just to keep my fitness in all three sports relatively high for the winter.

Groin is good, groin is great

My groin seems to be healing well. I got the go ahead to start running again from my physiotherapist last week, and I've been slowly testing it out.

I managed a decent 5k this morning, with only a little irritation. Not pain, just the feeling that something isn't right. I dropped my pace a bit, and focused on my cadence and form, and it went away (mostly).

So now it's time to slowly build back up to the running fitness I had prior to this season ending injury and focus on next season.

Hitting Reset

I've decided to start all over. not from scratch, that would be unnecessary, but I'm going to forget the first half of this season, and start again.

Since the Meech lake triathlon July 4th, I've basically been off training. I swam a few times last week, but this week has been pure laziness. I've even caught up on some videogames and staying up much later than I usually do when I roll out of bed at 5:30 to go train.

So now I need a new goal for this summer. Since I have no clue when my running fitness is going to come back, and I still want to do a longer event, my goal for this summer is the Iron 113 swimcycle @ the Canadian on September 5th. Following that I will try for the Fall colours duathlon on October 10th. The final planned event I've got planned will be to run the 10km at the toronto marathon to help pace a friend of mine who has just started running.

This should give me a fairly good idea what how i'll be spending my winter months, and weather or not I'll be able to work back up to running a half or full marathon.

Meech Lake Race Report

I wasn't quite fit going in to this race (nagging groin and IT band problems) , but I figured I could survive. So while I hadn't been running as much as I should have been, my bike and swim fitness was pretty good. My game plan going in was hammer it in the swim and on the bike, and hope for the best on the run.

As per usual, I finished my warmup and felt horrible. I'm always nervous waiting around for a race to start. I was in heat 2, so at least I didn't have to wait around too long.

The swim went well. I got into a good rhythm fairly quickly despite it being a little choppier than I was expecting. I managed to keep a pretty good line, and stayed relaxed throughout. I managed to exit the water, and actually found my shoes, which was an improvement from last year. I was out through the gate in 18:09, which was pretty close to what I was expecting.

The run to T1 went well, and I was in and out fairly quickly, I think. I spend a lot of time riding the bike route in training, and I managed to finish about 5 minutes faster than I had done it earlier in the week finishing in 52:23. I still lots of room for improvement, looking at the other bike times.

On to the run, which I knew was going to be a problem. About 1km in, the groin pain started (as expected). IT band started hurting around 2km. Prior to this, i was on pace to finish the run under 30 minutes, but I had to run the rest in intervals, and finished with a time of 37:02.

So considering everything, a time of 1:47:34 isn't too bad, and it's about 8 minutes faster than last year, so I can't complain too much. Time to rest and recover and finish stronger next time.

Time to rest

My groin injury is worse than I thought, and according to my physiotherapist, I'm going to have to take it easy if I don't want it to develop into a chronic problem.

Does this mean I won't race on Saturday? No way. I'm going to take a few days easy, race hard this weekend, and then rest.

Epicman? I don't think so...

There is going to be an unofficial epicman in Gatineau park tomorrow. While I'm no where near ready to complete this sort of competition, I'm going to show up, swim and bike a few loops.

For anyone reading this (I doubt it... I mostly blog to myself, I know) here are the basics

• Swim 7 am from O'Brian: 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back. Everyone ends at 8 am.
• T1: make your way over to you car at O'Brian that has your bike and your partner's bike in it
• Bike ~100miles: Start at O'Brian and then do 6 loops with detours to Champlain on Loop 2 and loop 4 for your nutritional support. On the 6th loop you will go down to the bottom of Pinks Lake and come back up to complete the course at O'Brian
• T2: At O'Brian, put bikes in car and change to running gear
• Run ~ 9K: Run out on Meech Lake Road to bottom of Fortune. Run up Fortune Lake Parkway to Champlain Parkway, turn right and run all the way to Champlain Lookout finish line
  

I wish I had it in me to do the full thing, but I really don't think I do. There is always next year.

First tri of the season coming up...

The Meech Lake triathlon is coming up this weekend, and while I'm looking forward to it, I can't say i'm prepared.

I've been suffering through a groin and a lower leg problem for the past few weeks, which means my run on Saturday will be pretty weak. Thankfully, it's only 6.4km which I should be able to get through without too many problems.

Still, I'm setting some high expectations for myself. I finished last year with a time of 1:55 (ish... my finish didn't get recorded) and even with my injuries, I want to take 15 minutes off that time. Here's how I expect to do it:

• Swim faster: I finished the swim in 21 minutes last year and this year I think I can get that down to somewhere between 16 and 18
• Don't lose shoe location after swim: there's a .5km run from the beach to T1 along the road, so they recommend leaving shoes on the beach for the run. I couldn't find mine last year.
• Power up the first hill: The course is damn hilly, and since I know I can't run, I'm going to gun it on the hills. I tried it this weekend and managed to finish the course 10 mins faster than last year, after cycling 30km.
• Do the run in 1km intervals: I found I can still run intervals fairly well, even though I can't run 3km straight. I figure 6 intervals at about 5 min/km should get me through the run in about 35 mins, which is about 5 mins faster than last year

Sounds easy, but we'll see how it goes. Either way, it's such a beautiful course, and the post race food is fantastic, so I'll have a good time.

Setbacks

So much for keeping my blog up to date... almost three weeks since my last post, and lots has happened.

Training is not going as well as I would have liked. My swimming is the only thing that has been fairly consistant, which is surprising, because I've decided not to join masters for the summer, and just swim on my own.

I haven't been able to run since the Ottawa Race weekend, which is partly to do with a mix of groin and IT Band pain, but also because I've been pretty lazy over the past few weeks. I'm 13 weeks out from my peak event of the season, and I'm starting to get a little concerned.

Lastly, I crashed my bike last Thursday, so that's out too. I need a new wheel, tire, and front derailer, but at least I didn't get run over, while laying on the road during rush hour.

So it's time to get serious. To help fight my laziness, I've joined a weekly indoor brick workout, at my local tri club. I also took my wetsuit out of storage and have left it out for me to look at so that I'm tempted to finally get outside to swim. Meech Lake is only 3 weeks away, and I really want to improve on my time from last year.

First Brick of the season

I'm going to be heading out for my first brick of the season today after many hours of soul crushing work. The planned workout is 1 hr cyling @ moderate pace followed by 20 mins running @ moderate pace, but I'm going to meet up with my friend Phil for the run, who is a new runner, I'll I'll probably tack on another 30 mins at recovery pace at the end, just for fun.

My right IT band has been a little tender since running the half, so hopefully it won't get agrivated. If it does, I have my stick (www.thestick.ca) and my foam roller.

I will then celebrate this first brick with a slice of key lime pie

Not a good start, but a start...

Yestesday, was to be the start of my training plan for the Montreal half ironman, but it wasn't meant to be. I ended up still being a little sore from the half marathon on sunday, which kept me in bed after my alarm went off, and the Leonard Cohen concert last night occupied my evening.

Side note: if you can get tickets, Leonard Cohen is amazing in concert. 3 hours and 3 encores later, we left incredibly happy.

So after missing both my swim and bike yesterday, I decided to throw in a swim this morning, to complement the brick I planned on doing after work. It didn't go very well. The main set was 4x200 (on 3:20), 4 x 150 (on 2:30) and 3x100 (on 1:40) with each one per distance being 3 seconds faster than the previous. That didn't happen. I managed to stay at about a 1:30/100m pace, but couldn't go any faster. Felt really sluggish, and slow.

I'm not too concerned... I have 17 more weeks of training, and really, swimming is the least of my worries

Ottawa Half Marathon 2009 Race Report

I completed my first half marathon yesterday. In fact, it was my first running event ever. I came in feeling pretty prepared, but not really that excited. I have a small competitive problem with times. For some reason, a 2:00:05 would be completely unacceptable to me, but a 1:59:59 would be just fine. I'm not sure when it started, but it seems to be working for me.

I ended up finishing with a time of 1:58:50, about 6 to 10 minutes faster than I was expecting to finish. I contribute this to my complete abandonment of my game plan, and going out way too fast. This wasn't all bad in the beginning, since I ran a PB in the first 5k and 10k, which I found pretty exciting during the race.

All and all, it was a pretty poor run. I was happy with my time, but I didn't run smart. The training went well, with the exception of a peroneal injury about 4 weeks out, which sidelined me for a few days. I should have had faith in my training and gone with my game plan. I ended up finishing well, but I didn't finish strong, and it could have been a lot worse.

I think it was mostly the atmosphere which caused me to leave my plan at the starting line. I wasn't prepared to be packed in like a sardine, or have to "salmon" past slower runners for the first 40 minutes or so. I hope next time it will be different. I hope I'll be more prepared, and will forget what's going on around me and just run.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with the race, I guess I just like being critical. A lot of good things came out of the race. I found out that I can make it through 21k, which is good to know, now that I'm starting to train for a half ironman. I was able to keep my cadence up, even though I was suffering from heat exhaustion. Despite some pain in my right hip, I think my hip extension was pretty good (i have a tendency to bend at the waist a little).

Some details I remember from the race:

• I was planning on following the 2:00 pace bunny, but started minutes behind the 2:15 pace bunny.
• Took me 7 minutes from the time the gun went off to get to the starting line.
• Started running around 5:00/km, weaving left and right, trying to pass the slower runners to catch up with my pace bunny
• about 2km in, I started to feel that I had worn the wrong socks. Even though I had tested them in longer runs during training, something was up, and I could feel the blisters coming
• spotted my track coach about 3km in, who reminded me about my cadence. I didn't need the reminder (apparently I don't mind counting steps for 2 hours straight) but I appreciated the advice
• I felt really strong. Much better than I was expecting.
• at the 6km water station, I decided to fight the masses and get some water. Until this point I found it bizarre that people would wear fuel belts or carry water when it was available every 3km. The chaos of the water tables, made me thankful that lots of people had brought their own water.
• there were a few hills between 6km and 9km, but they were short, and the rest of the course was pretty much flat.
• spent from about 10km to 12km looking for my wife, who was there to cheer me on. I didn't see her, but she tells me she was there
• By the time I hit 14km, I was feeling a little rough. Blisters were in full force, and my right hip was hurting to the point, where my movement was a little restricted. This is where my performance really started to drop.
• Until this point, I was running between a 5:00/km and 5:30/km pace. The last 7km where between 5:45/km and 6:00/km. I was happy that I didn't fall below 6:00 at all though.
• It was this point where I was starting to get concerned I wasn't going to make it in under 2 hours. My pace was slowing every km or so, and i was really starting to feel the heat.
• With 3km to go, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I had been running for 1:40, and was starting to get chills. I think I was starting to suffer from heat exhaustion. It also didn't help that I kept passing by people who were running marathon, collapsed on the side of the road, receiving aid. That was starting to look like a pretty good idea.
• The last km was pretty rough. I had slowed to 6:00/km, and was running on empty. I just kept thinking about the finish line, and my celebratory poutine (which I didn't end up getting this year, unfortunately).
• Getting closer to the finish line, I saw my good friends Dave and Natasha cheering me on. It's nice to have supporters.
• I crossed the finish line in 1:58:50, and wobbled to the recovery area.
  

Blog goals

The main purpose of this blog is to document my quest to an Ironman triathlon. Last year, a few months before i turned 30, I decided it was time to commit to something substantial. With the exception of a few years in university where I ballooned to about 210 lbs, I've always been in pretty good shape. I swam, and played soccer competitively when I was young. I did a fair amount of weight training, worked as a personal trainer with mostly sport conditioning, or functional training clients (I've let all that stuff expire after I started concentration more on myself).

Since I was young, though, I have never had any fitness goals, other than just staying competitive when it came to sports, and keeping in reasonable shape. This led to a lack of motivation, and desire to train. Enter the triathlon.

In 2000 when Simon Whitfield won gold at the Olympics, was the moment I started thinking about triathlons. It took me 8 years to finally get around to it though (I was serious when i said i lacked motivation) When the company I was working for got gobbled up by a bigger company, they paid me for the 8 weeks of vacation I had accumulated over the years. Though I would have rather had the two months off work, I decided I would actually do something with the cash, rather than, pay off student loans, or put it into savings.

So I bought a Felt F85 (and a big screen TV)

Armed with a bike and a sprint triathlon training plan downloaded from the internet, I was ready to go. 12 weeks later I completed the Meech Lake Triathlon in July 2008 (1200m swim, 25km bike, 7km run) in just under 2 hours. Sitting on my ass at the finishline was the moment I was hooked, and would continue to race for as long as my body would hold up. I completed an olympic distance tri later in the summer, and that was the end my first season.

I managed to damage my meniscus during training, and took the fall and most of the winter off running and cycling. This gave me time to focus on swimming, which I didn't really feel the need to focus on, since I was already finishing close to the top of the pack, but I didn't have much choice. I joined a masters club and where I learned a valuable lesson.

I was lazy. Even with my new found motivation, I had been limiting my swim workouts to somewhere between 1000m and 1500m. Masters taught me that I was capable of doing twice that, but on my own I would get tired and figured it was enough.

Long story short, I worked my ass off in the pool, got an MRI on my knee after 10 weeks of waiting, started running again with no pain, and started training for a half-marathon; my first step towards a half-ironman.

Yesterday I ran the Ottawa half Marathon in a time of 1:59:50 (ranked 3484 out of 9105). Tomorrow the fun begins, when I start training for the Demi-Esprit (half-ironman) in Montreal on September 12. It's only 17 weeks away.

New to this

This is a new experience for me. I've never been a blogger, and for the most part have just "existed" on the internet, without contributing too much. Not that I would consider a blog, that will probably never get many followers to be a contribution, but at least it's a start. Who knows... maybe I'll be a hit.