Ironman Mont Tremblant

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Long Weekend In Review

Happy Belated Canada Day (July 1st)

Last week was a recovery week so not much to report other than my running is slowing ramping up (30 minute runs, whaahooo). Saturday was a boring two hour recovery ride but Sunday was a little interesting. I went to Lake Wilcox in Richmond Hill (about 20 minute drive). I know of many triathletes who train in the lake but I've never swam in it. I swam with three other people who I usually swim with at Centennial Pool during the summer. All three of them are twice as fast as me. We got to the lake nice and early at 7:00 am and it was actually a little chilly. It must have been around 7:30 by the time we got in the water and it didn't look to clear. In fact, after jumping in, I couldn't see much past the length of my arm.  This was gross.  It didn't take long for Derek and Mike to pull ahead while Jade and I swam sort of together.  She is way faster than me but hung back.  It took a while to find my rhythm and I noticed my heart rate was soaring around 165 bps.  I was a little freaked out by the restrictiveness of the wetsuit and the fact I couldn't see very far.  I found I ran out of gas fairly quickly and had to take short rests.  The lake is almost exactly one kilometer (0.6 miles) across so we swam to the other end and back.  I figured it took me about 40 minutes.  Not great and I'd be hard pressed to swim another lap.  I definitely need more open water swims but due to obvious safety reasons of not swimming alone (not that it would matter in that lake once you went under) and the fact that my kids have soccer Monday to Thursday nights, there aren't much opportunities.  I need to get used to my wetsuit and drop five pounds.

After the swim, I ran for an hour around the lake.  It wasn't quite what I expected as there is only one road that actually follows the shoreline for a short distance and the rest of the route is running through subdivisions with some really nice houses.  I was happy to be able to run that distance with minimal foot pain. 

Holiday Monday's ride was a last minute update from coach as I had nothing on my schedule.  I was expecting something like an one hour ride followed by a 30 minute run but when I looked at my schedule, it was a four hour ride and a 30 minute run (taking advantage of the holiday).  That did not go down well with Tammy even though two of the kids started all morning swimming classes.  She wanted to go to the gym and someone had to watch Jake.  That turned out to be her. 

I rode with Peter A, who pulled off a smoking 5:17 at Mont Tremblant 70.3 with a 2:32 bike split.  He was doing a 6 hour ride and set off at a brisk pace.  It didn't take long for my heart rate to get up to 150 bps and I knew I couldn't hold this pace for the entire ride.  We rode up to Lake Simcoe which took us two hours before heading back.  One thing about Peter A is, he's all business.  There was no rest breaks except when I had to pee or refill my water bottles.  Even at the stop lights, he would only slow down before blowing through.  By the time we got back home (4 hours), I was done.  Peter A tried to convince me to ride another two hours with him (riding alone sucks) but I thought it would be better to stick to my schedule rather than stay out longer and come home to more trouble.  The 30 minute run was slow and painful as my quads were burning.  My neck was burning as I didn't put enough body glide on during yesterday's swim and the wet suit rubbed my neck raw.  After I got home, we picked up the girls from swimming and everyone watched a movie upstairs while I fell asleep on the couch downstairs.  I later fell asleep on the patio for a couple of minutes while waiting for everyone to get ready to head out to a nearby park. 

Looking at the forecast for later tonight, it looks like thunderstorms so I decided to do a 45 minute run before I went swimming.  I left the house around 4:50 am and had a little run.  It was uneventful other than seeing all the rabbits, raccoons and a coyote run past me only four feet away.  It was young but scared easy when I yelled at it.  I'm sure one day he won't be scared so easily as he chases me down the street.  After running, I headed to the pool for 6:00 am and looked at the workout coach gave me.  Turns out to be a 3,100 meter workout.  I found my arms were a little sore from the wet suit swim but I liked the workout.  After swimming I chatted to Paul S who is doing IMLP.  Turns out that was a mistake as Tammy wanted to go running before she took the kids to swimming.  She had told me she wanted to run every morning  and I forgot.  Doh! 

The R word is beginning to appear in our conversations.  Resentment.  Not good as I have 19 hours of training this week.

As my running picks up, I have 6 runs on my schedule this week but they are all short 30-45 minutes, I've noticed my lower back is killing me.  I need to do more start doing core

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