What's Up?

I've been falling behind on blogging and barely being able to keep up with reading some of the blogs as work as been very busy.  Since the Victoria Day Weekend (May 23rd), the work volume dropped off a cliff.  I could leave the office for several hours and come back with no phone messages and only one or two emails.  I could waste hours reading Slowtwitch or blogs but all of a sudden, work has been so busy, and not necessilary "good busy".

Tuesday's workout was great.  I started with a 6 km run and moved the run\walk from 5 min run x 1 min walks to 10 x 1s and ran five minutes longer than the previous week.  The only thing was the humidity at 5 am in the morning.  You could cut it with a knife it was so thick.  I finished the run completely dripping wet, jumped in the car and drove off to swimming where the nice cool water was so refreshing (I took a shower before getting in the pool in case you were wondering).  I brought a 2,600 meter workout fully expecting not to finish it because of time or I'd be too tired but to my surprise, we finished the entire workout!  I was pretty happy about it.

Because of some stuff in the family life, I moved my long bike from Saturday morning (today) to Wednesday morning so that meant getting up at 4 am to eat and be out the door before 5 am and still get into work before 9:30 am.  One thing I love about June 21st is that it is the longest day of the year (around here) and it begins to get light before 5 am.  The one thing I hate about June 21st, is its all down hill after that day.  It starts to get light later and later so when I headed out the door at 4:50 am, it was pitch black.  I decided to play it smart and ride along Major Mackenzie road which has street lights instead of just heading north of it where there are no lights and there could be a body lying across the road and I wouldn't see it.  It must be because of the new bike.  I went west on Major Mac for about 20 minutes and then headed north up to Bayview by that time, there was some daylight but still could barely see the road as there were no streetlights.  The ride as uneventful and boring.  I mixed the Perpetuem so that each bottle had about 250 calories.  I ended up drinking two bottles, one gel and 3 salt tablets and felt fine but I think part of the problem is that when I ride this early in the morning, the weather is nice and cool so I'm not sweating as much but during the race at Peterborough a couple of weeks ago, it was hot and I was running into hydration and electrolyte problems.  Oddly enough, with the Perpetuem, I felt full all day and didn't eat very much at lunch or dinner.  Maybe this could be the new diet drink although I don't think I could handle drinking that stuff all day.  I have mixed feelings about the Perpetuem as it does the job for calories but it taste ok but nothing great.  I think I need to keep experimenting what works

I emailed coach the powertap file for the long ride and told him I wanted to increase my ride time up to five hours by extending each ride by 15 minutes.  I feel my bike is probably the weakest and needs the most help. He must have been in a pissy mood as when he called me at work later that day as he laid into me as a dumb idea as it is unnecessarily and increases the possibility of injury.  The key to getting stronger on the bike, is not extending the long ride but increasing the number of rides per week.  He rambled on for half an hour before I had to cut him off and head into a meeting.

I'm still miffed at missing Calgary 70.3 which is tomorrow.  If I could have started running three weeks earlier, I would have raced it.

Morphing

One of the things I've begun to figure out for a 13 hour Ironman finish, about 40-50% of that time would be spent on the bike.  I remember talking to Scobie about how my two hour bike rides would morph into four hour rides and then six hour rides.  Not a chance I told him.  I'm perfectly fine riding for two hours but as my races have moved from Olympic distance to 70.3 to Ironman next year, I'm a woefully weak rider.  With that in mind, as I head into the last (and my first), triathlon of the year, Muskoka 70.3, I need to build up my bike.  I thought with my new bike, I'd be faster but at Peterborough, my bike time was almost the same as last year Muksoka (minus the flat).  Well, at least I look faster on the new bike.

So on Saturday, with the humidity lower than the last couple of days, I decided to move my ride from a 3.5 to a four hour ride, with the intention of getting up to five hour rides by the end of August.  One of the biggest problem I've had is the nutrition so I took coach's advice and tried some Hammer Perpetuem. I mixed two bottles with two scoops each for 200 calories per bottle.  I also brought some GU Chomps and GU Gels and three salt pills in a salt stick.  The weather was about 22 degrees but the humidity made if feel like 29 degrees Celsius when I left the house at 5:45 am.  It was nice and cool but warmed up with sunrise.  All in all, there is nothing to write about other than:
a)  my nutrition was better but still needs adjusting.  I need about 300 calories per hour.  Today was about 200 calories per hour
b)  three salt pills are not enough for a four hour ride even though it wasn't hot.  I need to figure out how to carry more
c)  it sure is boring riding by yourself for four hours.  I can't wait for those seven hour rides
         
This morning, the weatherman was actually right and I woke up for thunder and lightening so I rode inside on the trainer for 65 minutes.  It was dreadful and I struggled to finish.  I compared the power tap numbers with an outdoor ride and what a difference.  All the numbers from riding indoors were lower by about 30%.  What a difference

Finally, congrats to all those who raced IMLP yesterday.  Looks like it turned out to a nice day. 

So How Hot Was It Today?

Current WeatherThurs. Jul 21, 2011, 19:00 EDT Pearson Airport

36

°C

• °C
• °F

A few clouds

• Feels Like : 46
• Wind : W 37km/h
• Wind gusts : 46km/h
• Sunrise : 5:56
• Sunset : 20:53

• Relative Humidity : 45%
• Pressure : 100.48 kPa
• Visibility : 24.0 km
• Ceiling : unlimited

I ran at 5:15 am this morning but it was only for 5.5 km.  I was dripping wet after I finished and then I went for a nice cool 2,000 meter swim.


FYI:  46 Celsius = 118 Fahrenheit 

Speed Wobble

Summer has finally arrived as it has been smoking hot on the weekend.  Last week was a recovery week from the Peterborough Half Agua\Bike.  I went to the sports doctor to check out why my left foot had swollen so much after the race that I could barely walk.  Dr Stoddard suggested my foot has widen (as in got fatter?) and the riding shoes I've been using the last three years are too narrow.  Okay.  He suggested I get the shoes widen by a shoe store.  We also chatted about the Peterborough race which he did as well.  I talked to him a lot about nutrition and cramping as he is a sports doctor and the inventor of e-load and a fellow triathlete as well.  Bottom line, for Peterborough, given how hot it was, I just simply went too low on sodium and water.  If the race was another 15-20 km, I would have bonked.  After I talked to coach about widening my riding shoes and he suggested I wear riding socks instead of running socks which are a little thicker.  Once the shoe is widen, there is no going back so I'll try riding socks first but I really really have to figure out this nutrition as on several races I started to cramp up badly.

On Thursday, I did a short 30 minute test run to see how my leg felt and it felt GREAT!!  I couldn't believe what a difference another 1 1/2 weeks made!!  The last time I ran, my leg felt stiff and not flexible as I shuffled along but on Thursday it almost felt normal.  I ran 5 minutes and walked one minute and was pretty happy.  After the run, I jumped in my car and drove to the pool and swam 2000 meters.  My swimming buddy was away so it was a pretty boring swim plus it was a little more challenging after the run.  So the plan is to run twice a week and slowly ramp up the run by increasing the time by five minutes per week.  On that note, I asked coach again about racing Cobourg Olympic distance on Aug 13th for a nice tune up for Muskoka 70.3 but coach said forget it as I probably hammer it on the run.  I didn't respond to his statement, nuff said as  yea I would have hammered the 10 km run.  Nothing to gain by racing Cobourg.

Saturday's ride was only two hours as there was no one around to ride with.  Everyone was away on holidays so I rode by myself.  I did the good old route of going up Kennedy Road north of Aurora Road to the Twin Hills and did four hill repeats on the twin hills before heading home.  A pretty uneventful boring ride.

Today's ride, on the other hand was interesting.  I waffled about riding outside as the forecast called for 60% chance of thunderstorms and something about riding a bike outside during lightening strikes.  I headed out at 5:15 am and took the chance.  I was dehydrated from the previous day of being at a picnic and it was smoking hot.  I drank half a bottle before I got three kilometers so I swung by Angus Glen community center which is always open and refilled one of my bottles.  It was really humid and windy.  Riding north into the 30 km\hr wind was tough and I was glad to have aero bars as it made a huge difference.  I reached the turn around point and headed east (perpendicular to the wind) and was almost blown off the bike by the 45 km\hr gusts of wind.  It was quite scary as three times the front wheel lifted up and moved a couple of inches to the right.  If I was riding with Zipp wheels I would have ended up into the farmer's field.  I headed down south with the wind at my back and hammered it down my favorite hill.  I didn't bother going into the aero position as I hit 65 km\hr.  I made it home in record time.  What a difference the wind makes.  I wonder what coach will say when he looks at the Power Tap file?

Oh yea, after a birthday party on Saturday and a family picnic on Sunday, I managed to gain five pounds in two days.

Repo Games

This is a new show on Spike TV.  If you have nothing to do (like me), this eposide is hilarious

Redneck Rampage
Get More: Redneck Rampage

Training wise-its a recovery week after Peterborough so nothing to write about.

Tempting Fate - Home Run Derby

And this is just after someone died at a Texas Rangers baseball game trying to catch a baseball.  He already caught three balls and wanted the fourth to complete the cycle

Post Peterborough

Today I feel like crap.  I'm constantly thirsty, have a wicked headache and very tired.  I suppose waking up at 4:00 am doesn't help.  I don't remember feeling this bad after Muskoka 70.3 last year.  I wonder if I got too dehdrated on the bike yesterday given how hot it was.  Coach called to discuss the information from the Powertap and he was quite pleased with the results (even if I wasn't).  According to the numbers, I was riding in zone 5 (highest heart rate zone) for about 75% of the race.  This was the type of information he was looking for to build my future workouts.

The good news is the swelling in my left foot is going down and I can walk without limping. Sports doctor appointment on Wednesday



In case you missed it yesterday, one of the many Tour De France crash.  How's that for support?

Peterborough Race Report

Wow, what a race.  Just look at that smoking swim time!!  It doesn't get much better than that.

Name

Time

2000m SWIM Cat Ovr Time /100m

90 km BIKE Cat Ovr Time km/h

Tr1

Peter TAKEDA

4:22:45.6

27 46 67:30 3:23

21 27 3:12:34 28.0

2:44

So we left the house about 5:45 am and Peterborough is only about a 90 minute drive.  The race is supposed to start at 8:24 am so we had loads of time.  We stopped off at a Tim Hortons (famous Canadian donut store) before driving into the park.  I went to registration and then went into transition to get ready.  I checked my watch and saw I had tons of time but had trouble finding space for my bike as all the racks were full so I racked my bike under the Duathlon bikes.  I couldn't find my race kit so I started to panic but saw that I dropped it a couple of yards away.  After I was finished, I thought I forgot my strap for the Power Tap but found it in my bag.  Not off to a good start so far.  I walked down to the beach to where Tammy and the kids were playing.  I checked my watch and still had a good 10 minutes to get ready so I started to put my wet suit on.  I looked over to the water and saw a whole bunch of athletes in the water swimming.  The course is a two loop swim so I watched for a couple of minutes and then I noticed that there were a lot of people with the same color swim cap that I had.  I checked my watch again and had about three minutes to race time but there were people running along the beach and heading back into the water for their second lap.  I started to get a little concerned and ran down to the beach.  I ran into Jen, Scobie's wife and asked if he was already in the water and she said yes.  I thought the Aqua\bike started at 8:24 am while the regular group started at 8:00 am.  Jen told me to check with the announcer on the beach and he cheerfully told me that everybody started at 8:00 am but not to worry as I had plenty of time to make the swim cutoff.  He zipped me up and I ran back up the beach to the park where Tammy was playing and I yelled to her that I was supposed to have already started.  I then ran down to the water and jumped in.  The slower swimmers were starting their second lap and it was a horror show as they kept crashing into me.  It was impossible to draft off anyone and I finished the first loop with a ton of people behind me.  I was wearing my Road ID bracelet but if fell off during the swim so I had to carry it for the last 300 meters.  I ran up the beach and Cathy S yelled at me so I tossed her the bracelet and headed out for my second lap.  This time I was completely by myself.  I tried to hold a steady pace and if I didn't know better, I could have sworn they moved the buoys out further for the next race.  According to my watch I swam somewhere between 41 and 42 minutes and as I ran out, Cathy was there yelling.  I asked her if I was winning and she gave me the thumbs up. 

Running to T1 was brutal as it was at least 300 meters and my shin was aching.  I finally made it to the entrance and did my usual horrible transition time.  I headed out when a race volunteer yelled I had racked my bike in the wrong spot.  I should have been on the left side with the Half Iron instead of the right side with the sprint.  I asked if it made a difference and he said I would get crowed out.  Whatever that means.  

I was so far behind everyone, I was riding by myself.  I took off and tried not to hammer it.  The sprint had gone off at 9:00 am and the first riders caught me around the 7 km mark.  One of the guys that passed me was Derek who swims at Centennial.  He very fast and has a whole bunch of tattoos on his arm.  I recognized the tats and yelled at him as he blew by me.  At the 10 km turnaround point for the sprint, I saw one girl slow and turned around while another lady behind her plow into her.  They both went down hard and when I passed, one was calling for an ambulance.  I kept riding as there was nothing I could do but there was a race official about one kilometer down the road so I slowed down to tell her there was a crash and to call an ambulance.  I rode through a small town and the roads were open to traffic.  There was a tractor pulling a wagon of hay chugging along and five cars behind it when I came flying up.  I passed the cars on the right but there was no room to pass the tractor so I swung to the left and blew by the tractor except I crossed the center line and probably got DQ'd.  Doh

I was bagged and began to slow down but then realized that its an out and back so the turn around point was at the 45 km mark.  This part of the course was all down hill and it was great but it would be trouble coming back in.  I saw Lisa around the 40 km mark and if I wanted to catch her before the end of the bike, I would have to boogie.  As soon as I hit the turn around point, I ran into some strong headwind and I had to ride mostly uphill.  This wasn't going to be fun.

I was able to pass more riders on the hills as I worked my gears and was in the easiest gear quite a bit.  The goal was to keep the cadence about 80 rpm on the hills.  The heat, hills and wind began to take its toll as I started to crap up in my legs, my boys were killing me and my back was sore.  I had trouble holding the aero position for long periods of time.  Traffic wasn't too bad but one one climb, a pick up truck with wide mirrors wouldn't pass some riders going up a hill.  There were 6 cars behind him when I came up.  I was passing the cars until I came up behind the pick up truck.  There was no room for me to pass him so I yelled at the driver to pass the bikers through his open window.  He gunned the engine and blew by the bikers and the other cars followed.

As I got closer to town, the cramping was bad and I ran out of salt pills.  I was also in danger of running out of water.  I came up to the bottle exchange and was unsuccessful in grabbing a bottle on the way out as it just bounced out of my hands but this time the guy handing the bottle out was good and he moved forward to make it easier for me to grab the bottle.  I emptied the water bottle as well as my other two water bottles and the two bottles of Amino Vital and was still thirsty.  If the race was any longer, I would have had serious problems.

As I got closer to the park, there already were runners on the course.  At one point, I could not even see any other bikers behind or in front of me.  I slowed down and asked a volunteer if I was even going the right way.  She said yes and just follow the road in to the park.  I saw some riders ahead of me and burned it in.  I was totally bagged and thankful I didn't have to run a half marathon.  Lisa came in just ahead of me so I made pretty good time on the bike.  However, when I saw my time on the bike, I was pretty disappointed.  I thought I would be faster on the new bike but that was basically my Muskoka 70.3 time for the bike (minus the flat).

Much work to be done.  Also Calgary 70.3 is out.  The side and bottom of my left foot is all swollen and I could barely walk after I came in from the bike.  Wonderful.  More injuries.

So lessons to be learned from this race?
1.  double check the start times
2.  work on the nutrition -  need to figure out how to take more calories on the bike and salt pills
3.  work on the water situation.  I had two bottles of water and two bottles of Amino Vital and it wasn't enough
4.  start taking the B and C races a little more seriously. Drinking beers Friday and Saturday night before the race probably didn't help
5.  Don't leave the suntan lotion in the car.  It doesn't help when you're in the sun for four hours

Oh and in case no one knew the song of my last post

And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away

Anyone recognize who sang that song and what year?

I went to the sports doctor yesterday and got the medical clearance to start some LIGHT running.  I was kind of surprised because I didn't think my shin felt any different than last week.  The other day, I was meeting a client downtown so I took the subway.  He told me what stop to get off but for whatever reason I took the wrong subway line and got off the wrong station but right street.  I started walking looking for the address when I realized I was one kilometer away but it was such a nice day and the sights were ummm "interesting" (I don't go downtown much) so I decided to walk the distance, in my suit and dress shoes.  That wasn't such a great idea because I was hot and my shin was a little sore afterwards.  But the doctor said I could start running.

The plan is to run for 30 minutes but break the run into blocks of five minutes.  I would run for three and walk for two minutes.  That sounds exactly like my Ironman pace for next year.  So after dinner, I went for my first run in about two months and it felt weird.  My leg felt stiff and running in my new shoes, felt well, different.  I think part of the problem that contributed to my stress fracture was that my running gait had changed and my shoes were no longer appropriate.  The new shoes were totally different and it felt like I was scuffling my right foot on every step.  In terms of timing and pacing, the run was horrible as at one point, I was running at 8 minutes per KILOMETER.  At that pace, I don't think I can call it running, more like shuffling.

Calgary 70.3 is seeming like a distance pipe dream.  If my shin holds up, I think I need to do this "shuffling" three times a week and my long runs on an elliptical trainer otherwise on July 31st I'll be in Calgary but not at the race.

Riding Backwards

This guy probably rides faster than me

Canada Day Weekend

This weekend we were invited to a friend's cottage northeast of Peterborough.  With Canada Day being on a Friday, I wanted to leave early Friday morning to avoid the traffic heading out of the city as well I wanted to ride part of the way.  The cottage is over 200 km away and that's too far to ride so the plan was for Tammy to let me off about 100 km away and I would ride the rest of the way.  I wanted to be on the highway by 8:00 am but as usual, it took us forever to get out the door and then after driving for 10 minutes, I forgot my water bottles in the fridge so I had to turn around.  So we didn't get going until close to 10:00 am by which time the highway heading east of the city was just brutal.  Within 15 minutes of getting on the highway, we were crawling along at 40 km\hr as traffic was bad.  I was so annoyed by the late start I drove right by the place where I wanted to be dropped off. I was just on the outside of Peterborough before I realized I drove too far.  In hind sight, it turned out to be a good thing. 

Here's the route I took.  Ride to Kassahabog Lake (the link might not work so you have to refresh your browser).  If you look on the left hand side of the page, there are a bunch of options including to turn on elevation for the route.  Starting along Division Road which runs parallel to Highway 7, there were a lot of rolling hills but not as bad as Muskoka.  The weather was pretty warm but traffic was very light or non existence on this secondary road but at one point it turned into a packed hard crushed gravel road.  I didn't really like riding my new bike on that road but after checking my map, I didn't have much of a choice but it only lasted a couple of kilometers.  I eventually headed south (even though the cottage is north) simply to avoid riding on Highway 7 as its a two lane highway with minimal shoulder and very heavily travelled.  I rode through a couple of small towns before heading east and then finally north.  I reached Havelock which is famous for their country music Havelock Jamboree.  This small town of five thousand will get over 100,000 people in August.

The town was pretty busy for Canada Day but I didn't hang around. I started heading north on Route 46 to Kassahabog lake and while the road didn't have any shoulder, it wasn't too busy.  I just hoped I didn't get smoked by some drunkin' cottager.  The road had lots of false flats and I was constantly gearing down.  On the outside skirts of Havelock, I realized I wasn't going to make it with the amount of water I had left.  I probably had less than one bottle of Amino Vital and a little bit of water so I stopped off at a locals house and begged for a two bottle refill.  The lady was kind enough to add some ice cubes but in this heat, they didn't last long.  The turn off to my friend's cottage was Fire Route 75 and by Fire Route 65, I was barely hanging on.  There was a tough double hill climb around the 65 km mark and I stopped at the top of the hill where I promptly got bit by massive horse flies.  Talk about an incentive to keep riding!  I counted down the Fire Routes until I hit Fire Route 75.  Thank god!!!!  I was cramping pretty bad in both calves as the sun and heat were taking its toll pretty quickly.  The Fire Route is nothing more than a gravel road carved out of the woods and my friend suggested I call him for a pick up but the horse flies had other ideas so I rode my bike down the final 2.5 km.  Bad idea.  The flies were even worse as the road cut through the forest and there was no wind and I didn't want to go fast because I thought I would either get hit by a car flying around the blind corners or run over a rock and crash in the gravel.  Somewhere along the way, I lost my rear light as it must have jarred loose.  I almost wiped out when a car passed me and I pulled over to the side where the gravel was deeper.  I felt my rear tire sliding out and I knew if I went down, the gravel would cause a lot of damage to me and my new bike but I was able to peddle my way out of danger.  Whew.  I finally made it to the cottage!  It was only 75 km but I was wiped out.  The hills and sun took its toll and its a good thing I missed the earlier starting point and eliminated the extra 30 kilometers!  I don't think I would have made it.  All throughout the day I was constantly thirsty and drank a ton of water.  I only had about six beers for all of Saturday.  I woke up at least three times to pee during the night and on Sunday morning I was so thirsty. 

I also brought up my wet suit to do an open water swim and so on Sunday, with my friend in the canoe beside me, I swam down the lake.  This is my first OW swim and I remembered last year's first swim was at Guelph Olympic and I died.  Its a completely different feel and effort between swimming in a pool and OW with a wetsuit.  Within 10 minutes I was exhausted and had to rest a couple of minutes.  I started out way too fast and paid for it.  I kept having to stop and rest for a couple of minutes while my friend looked on with amusement.  He's a non athlete and just shakes his head at some of the things I do.  So all in all, the OW swim was a disaster as it took me about 43 minutes to swim 2.1 km with a least 5-6 stops where I treaded water or did breast stroke. 

Needless to say, this Sunday's Peterborough Aqua/Bike Half Iron might be more like a disaster as this weekend's workout showed that I wasn't a fit as I thought I was.





  

First Run

This morning's swim workout was a little better than Tuesday's unstructured mess.  Masters swimming ended for the summer break this week but I missed the newsflash and showed up anyways on Tuesday.  Serge gave me a lane to swim on my own but offered no workout so I just goofed around and did a pathetic 1,500 meters as I got bored.  Masters swam at 5:30 am but regular lane swimming starts at 6:00 am in the summertime.  Not quite as good but will have to do.  I don't think many people realized as the pool wasn't that busy and there were only three swimmers for two fast lanes.  Bonus!  I printed off some of the workouts I downloaded from Slowtwitch last year and knocked off around 2,200 meters.  Not bad as the different drills helps breaks up the boredom of pounding out lap after lap.

I went to the sports doctor on Tuesday to get an update on my stress fracture and unfortunately it is still a little tender.  He advise no running for another 1-2 weeks but I can pool run or run on an elliptical trainer.  Both wonderful choices.  They rank right up there with watching glaciers melt or paint dry.  He still believes I'll be able to race Calgary 70.3 on July 31st with only two weeks of running outside given the base I've built up (coach said he was on crack).  Later on Tuesday, I went to my podiatrist to get new orthotics for my dress shoes.  He informed me that the ones I am wearing, he made in 2004.  Seriously???  I believe these might have contributed to my stress fracture although the ones in my running shoes were made last year.  As a former marathon runner and a podiatrist, I asked him if it would be possible to race on July 31st given my stress fracture and my target date of running outside of July 15th and he concurred with the sports doctor that given my base I "should" be able to run and I |might| do better than I think.

My friend lives in a  condo and in the past I've used his very small pool to water run.  The condo also has a small gym with an elliptical trainer so I left work a little early but not early enough.  My errands for preparation for the long weekend took me way longer than I anticipated so I didn't get to his condo and started running until 3:30 pm.  I've never run on an elliptical but heard its basically a waste of time.  The plan was to go for an hour run and see how I felt.  I started running and within five minutes had a good sweat going.  The sports doc was correct in saying that there would be minimal impact on my legs and I managed to keep running without going crazy.  I had my ipod and was watching the Prince William and Kate do the tour in Ottawa on the overhead TV.  One might have thought that everything else in the world has grounded to a halt given the coverage of them.

The run itself was tougher than I thought it would have been but the numbers on the trainer seemed a little dubious.  Towards the end, my cardio was fine but my legs were getting tired and I wondered how long I could actually run on this contraption but it did the job.  It is a lot harder than pool running and if I can run a couple of times doing the week, it would help significantly when I get back to running outside.   I must admit the elliptical trainer was a lot tougher than I had expected and am bagged from it.  Of course, I haven't run since mid May so going out and running a full 60 minutes probably isn't the brightest thing but than I've never been acccused of being too bright.

Obviously, I'm still clinging to the fact that I "might" be able to race Calgary 70.3 despite the overwhelming (non medical) advice not to race which I greatly appreciate your input.  Don't worry, I do have a backup plan if I get hurt and can't race Muskoka 70.3 on September 11th.

I have planned two interesting bike rides this long weekend.  That is, if I don't get smoked during the heavy holiday traffic.  I'll tell you about it if I survive

Happy Canada Day (July 1st) and Happy Fourth of July for our American friends.  Drink lots of beer or something.  I know I will.

More Decisions - Calgary 70.3

I just came back from the sports doctor and he said it will be another 1-2 weeks before I can start running again.  The stress fracture isn't fully healed and Calgary 70.3 is on July 31st.   That would be around July 15th that I could start running outside.  I have a fairly good base built up as I've done the Chilly Half Marathon, Around The Bay (30 km) and the Toronto Marathon in the last three months but have not run since the marathon (May 15th).

So the question is, can I run a half marathon on two weeks of training?  If I plan to run it, I would need to ramp up the water running or elliptical trainer to match my outdoor training.  For example, if I need to do two hours of running that would mean two hours of water running or two hours on an elliptical trainer (which I don't have one nor do I belong to a gym).  UGH!!  If I bail from this race, we could shorten our trip out west and come home earlier.  This would save about $1,500 from paying race fees, van rental, hotels, food etc.

What should I do?  What would you do?

Obviously I missed last week's announcement that there was no more Masters swimming for the summer.  I showed up at the usual 5:30 am and it was just the kids swimming.  Serge was kind enough to give me my own lane and so I just swam aimlessly with no structure workout.  I figured I banged out somewhere around 1,500 meters.  Going forward, I'll just have to swim by myself, lap after lap after lap...............And worse, it will be public lane swimming where I'll have to dodge the breast strokers and other ahem, swimmers.

Making Cookies

And I wonder why I can't lose weight.........

Awesome ride on the weekend with Doru and Lisa.  Rode up to Zehpyr and back for a short 63 miles or 101 km but got soaked one kilometer from home.

Now to ice the cookies and crack open a beer.  Oh wait, its only Monday night.  Doh!

And my wife thinks all I do is yell at the kids every time she goes out.  Hah!

2011 Triathlon Race Season Over

Or is it?

We'll find out next week...........

A Canadian Century - 100 Kilometers

I picked up the new bike as an early Father's Day present on Friday afternoon.  Coach fitted me to the bike and we were good to go.  I went out early Saturday morning leaving at 5:15 am and wanted to ride hard for an hour by myself before meeting up with Lisa.  I love this time of year as it is so bright at 5 am but the sun literally begins to rise later on June 22nd.  I headed over to Kennedy Road and went north until I hit Stoufville Road.  I tried to get used to riding in aero position but it felt weird and I assumed that it was because I was used to a road bike.  Then I realized the handle bars were slipping down and I had to keep pulling them up.  I was supposed to meet Lisa at 6:15 am so I didn't want to stop and tighten them so and went east until I reached York Durham road and went south.  This road is nice and smooth so it was a great place to test the bike and Powertap...drooping handle bars and all.  I passed a guy on a road bike and said hi as I cranked it up.  I hit 55 km\hr generating some 550 watts of power.  I held this for a couple of kilometers and then backed off.  I looked behind me and the guy I passed was about five meters behind me so I cranked it up again and after one kilometer he was only five feet behind me!!  I couldn't drop him as he easily kept pace with me.  He caught up with me and we chatted for a couple of minutes before he met up with his ride.  My legs were fried after those two long blasts and after getting mixed up I finally got to the spot where I was supposed to meet Lisa.  The handle bars were moving around so much that I had to stop and tighten them as now it was becoming dangerous.  I tightened them at the wrong height and could not ride in aero position for the rest of the ride.  That really didn't matter as my legs were fried and I was wiped out.  We rode for an hour but I was done like dinner.  According to the Powertap, my top speed was 55 km\hr and I generated an average of 175 watts for the ride which is not bad but needs to be around 225 watts.  Lots of work to do.

When I got back, it was time to head out to Guelph for Tammy to enter her first sprint Duathlon.  We left a little behind schedule and I was worried about getting in there in time as last year I entered the Aqua Bike and because it was so busy getting into the park, I barely made it.  The Try-A-Tri, Sprint and Sprint Du were sold out but luckily they were at different times so getting in the park was a breeze compared to last year.  It was a great day to be racing but I got to watch from the sidelines and play with the kids.  Tammy did great and finished 1:40 good for 13/23 for her age group.  \

While we were still in Guelph, Paul S called me and wanted to know if I wanted to join him for a ride Sunday morning.  I initially declined as I needed to be refitted on my bike and Sundays are an off day.  I was still a little tired from Saturday's ride.  Later I called Coach and mentioned the troubles and he said to bring the bike up when we got back into town and he would fix the problem.  After getting refitted, I called Paul back and told him I couldn't ride the entire five hours with him but I would go out for two hours to keep him company.  Paul is a very strong rider and is training for IMC so this would be a great opportunity to ride with someone who is much more experienced.  We agreed to meet at 7:00 am (holy that's late).

Paul showed up at 6:30 am Sunday morning and I was a little unprepared.  I rushed around to get ready and headed out.  I fully intended to only ride for 1.5 to 2 hours with him and only had one bag of GU Chomps, one gel and two bottles of water.  It was a great day to ride and we headed west and then doubled back to head north.  Paul gave me a lot of tips especially about the importance of holding a steady cadence of 85 revolutions per minute.  This allows for easier peddling and as we went up hills, I had to gear down in order to maintain the cadence at an even 85.  It was an awesome day to ride as we headed out west and then double backed to go east and then straight up York Durham line where we eventually hit the small town called
Zephyr which was about 40 km from Markham.  Normally there is a store that is open on Sunday mornings as I was running low on water and needed to refuel but for whatever reason, it was closed.  This was going to be a serious problem.  I had ridden a lot longer than I antipicated and did not have was getting tired and hungry.  We made the decision to turn around and head back home despite that Paul had originally planned to ride for another hour before heading back.  We rode for about five minutes when I told Paul I would ride back by myself and he should continue his planned ride.  Why should he screw up his ride becuase of my lack of preparation?

The ride back was tough as the countryside was pretty hilly.  Not as bad as Muskoka but still pretty tough.  I ran out of water and stopped at a house to reload.  Paul gave me one of his gel and I used it up as I was heading into a slight headwind.  My legs were burning and on some hills I had to shift into the easiest gear in order to make it up some of the hills.  I was pretty happy when I hit familiar roads and turned down my street.
All in all, it was a pretty good unexpected ride.  The roads were much hillier furthur north and that's somewhere I'll have to ride more often if I want to improve my bike time.  Total distance was 100 km and I burned over 2,000 calories.

So my triathlon season is pretty much over.  The plan is now to do a couple of Aqua Bike events like Peterborough half iron next month and maybe Calgary 70.3 but it will be tough to bail on the run.  There is a slight chance of doing Muskoka 70.3 in September.

2011 Triathlon Race Season Over

The Toronto Marathon has taken its toll.  A stress fracture has ended my season but Father's Day came early...........

With Powertap

I'm In! - WTF Did I Just Sign Up For?

 Only for a  mere $774.  What a bargain !

Suck It Up Buttercup

As so quaintly put by Scobie in reference to my "fretting" of which IM course to get killed on.   And he's right.  At the end of the day, 140.6 miles is 140.6 miles.  There is no hiding that there is going to be a lot of suffering regardless of which course I do.

Right now, although Coach is saying to do IMLP, but I think IMMT might be a better venue as it would be more family friendly (in case you don't know, I have a 7.5 year old, 5.5 year old and an almost 4 year old). 

Also it appears that several fellow bloggers are thinking about IMMT.  Misery loves company as I always say.  Most of them have young families around the same age so they could hang out together for the day. 

On the injury front, my shin splints have almost healed but I can still barely walk as there is another problem with the bottom of my foot

Metatarsalgia

With this common foot condition, one or more of the metatarsal heads become painful and/or inflamed, usually due to excessive pressure over a long period of time. It is common to experience acute, recurrent, or chronic pain with metatarsalgia. Ball-of-foot pain is often caused from improper fitting footwear, most frequently by dress shoes and other restrictive footwear. Footwear with a narrow toe box (toe area) forces the ball-of-foot area to be forced into a minimal amount of space. This can inhibit the walking process and lead to extreme discomfort in the forefoot.



Marathon training sure takes a toll on the body.

Muskoka Long Course (June 26th) is highly doubtful.

Decisions, Decisions

A lot has been going on in the Triathlon world over the last couple of days.  One of the biggest complaints, as Ironman goes mainstream, is that its so hard to get into a race.  In order to guarantee your race spot, you have to sign up at the venue one year in advance.  You could try registering on line but that's totally hit or miss.  Or you could *cough* up $1,100 US (good thing the Canadian dollar is stronger than the US dollar) for a community foundation spot of which you would receive a tax deduction for about $550 except as Canadians, that deduction is worthless.  Popular races like Lake Placid, Canada and Wisconsin typically sell out within days if not the same day they open registration.

Rumours have been flying around on Slowtwitch that the WTC is going to open more races in the northeastern part of the US/Canada as it has a combined population of over 50 million people and having only a handful of races available and it finally happened.  On Monday, WTC announced that there would be an Ironman race in Mount Tremblant, north of Montreal, Quebec and if that wasn't enough, a couple of days later, the WTC announced that New York City would host an Ironman as well all in the month of August starting next year.  Online registration starts on June 15th so it should be interesting to see which races sell out (if any).  Like everything in life, there are pros and cons for these races.

Ironman Mount Tremblant. 
Pros
*Absolutely stunning scenery with tons of accommodations as its awesome skiing in the winter time (I don't ski). 
* Family Friendly - I think this place would be similar to Muskoka 70.3 where the race start/finish is well within walking distance of your accommodations and Tammy could take the kids back to the hotel and play around all day while I flounder on the course.   
* Reasonably priced - given all the accommodations, the prices would be reasonable as opposed to Lake Placid where the rates double or triple during race week.
* Driveable - Mount Tremblant is probably about a six hour drive from Toronto

Cons
* MOUNT Tremblant
* Tough tough tough course

Ironman NYC
Pros
* Probably "easiest" of all three races
*  Its in New York City - do I need to say more?
*  Driveable - NYC is about 11 hour drive from Toronto or less than a 60 minute flight

Cons
* Probably will sell out immediately
* Smoking hot
* Smoking expensive.  Rumours of entry fee somewhere between $700-$1,000
* Staying in NYC for a week will be very expensive.  I can see dropping $10,000
* Logistics of the course seem to be a disaster
* Not very spectator friendly
* The thought of Tammy trying to keep track of three kids in New York City doesn't sit well

Ironman Lake Placid
Pros
* Probably won't sell out given the two new races
* Driveable as its only six hours away
* Well known course - both my brothers have done it

Cons
* Tough course
* Accommodations are expensive due to the large demand on a small town
* Race is in July which will make for tough training in April and May - busy time of year for me

So there you have it.  What to do?

I've only run once since the Marathon and gone to see Kevin (chiropractor) a couple of times to fix my shin splints and its definitely working.  I'm almost ready to start running.  I'll probably try tomorrow morning for a short 5 km run and see how they hold up but I'm having other issues with the bottom of my foot near the toes.  Its a little sore when I walk but Kevin said not to worry about it.  I froze a water bottle and rolled with it last night and that seemed to help.

On Saturday I rode 70 km and Sunday I rode another 45 km.  Sunday's ride was crappy as I was pretty tired from the hill repeats on Saturday.  This Saturday, we are going to a friend's cottage and I was thinking of riding the 150 km but I'm not ready to ride that kind of distance.  Maybe I'll ride part of the way except its supposed to pour.

This morning I headed out at 5:15 am and put in a 55 km bike ride before work.  It turned out a little longer than I expected as while I was doing hill repeats, a biker passed me and seeing that I was finished the repeats, I went to chase him down (hmmm a little competitive?). 

That's pretty much it.  Not much else going on

First Run....Uh Oh

It seems like last year when I last ran when actually its only been 26 days since the Toronto Marathon.  My shin splint was feeling better as I've been icing, stretching (sort of) and massaging.  I haven't done any of the runs on my schedule but they were only 30 minutes so no big deal.  This morning I felt I could run so I ran the Rammerville loop which is normally a 34 minute run which is about 6 km.


I started off as a slow jog and my shins were sore but I kept running as I hoped the pain would go away....it didn't.  Next, according to my Polar, my heart rate was 165 beats per minute, even though I was running at a 7:00 km\min pace (very slow).  Stupid Polar.  I stopped running and my heart rate dropped to 16 beats per minute.  Eventually I turned off my watch.  Do I really need to monitor my 6 km run?  This was a tough run and I couldn't believe how hard it was to run.  How long ago did I run a marathon?


I got home and used the roller on my shin.....PAIN!!!  I emailed Kevin (chiropractor) to see if he had any appointments this morning.  He responded 30 minutes later saying that he had time at 9:20 am.  Not bad considering it was 7:00 am when I emailed him.  What service!!  Anyways, he proceeded to kill me as he worked on my shins.  I brought my ice pack with me so I could throw it in the freezer at work and ice throughout the day.  I knew it was going to be painful and it was!


Tonight I talked to coach to give him an update on my status and looks like Muskoka Long Course (June 26th) is out as I can barely run.  My next race is Calgary 70.3 and is about six weeks out and that could be in jeopardy if I don't heal in time.  I also talked about Ironman Mont-Tremblant to be announced on Monday.  He thought it would be a very tough race as it would be similar to IM St George (Utah). Very hilly on the ride and run so that would change my thinking back to IM Lake Placid or IM Canada for 2012.  Part of the problem is finding the hours to dedicate to training.  According to Coach, in February, I would be logging about 15 hours a week.  Given my occupation, there is no way I can log those hours in at that time of the year as it is the busiest time of year for me.  


What to do?  

Hot Wheels - Adult Version

Too Cool!




This morning's workout was a 90 minute ride for 44 km.  I was on the road at 5:25 am.  Totally awesome to be that much daylight so early in the morning. Unfortunately, it won't last as June 21st is the longest day of the year.  After that, the days get shorter and shorter.

Long Ride

A friend invited us up to their cottage in Minden which is about 150 km away.  Naturally the thought of riding up to his cottage would be a great way to test my endurance.  One small trouble.  My longest ride has been 36 km and I've only been riding outdoors for one week and we were invited up in two weeks.  So for Saturday's ride, I decided to ramp it up by going a little further than the normal 36 km loop but it started out as a disaster.

Normally before any workout, I have everything arranged the night before so I don't waste time fumbling around in the morning.  I been riding outside with my trainer tire (last year's tire that the tread has worn down) and have been too lazy to switch over.  Saturday morning forecast was rain so I wasn't sure if I was going to ride outside or on the trainer (for two hours? Ugh) so I didn't switch the tires over rather I would wait until I got up Saturday morning.  I got up around 5:30 am and checked the weather.  The roads were wet but it wasn't raining so I decided to ride outside so I  had to change the rear tire.  If you recall from last summer, I had about eight flats so changing a tire should be fairly simple right?  Nope.  I fumbled around for about 15 minutes and then took the bike outside.  I rode about 15 feet when the rear wheel kept rubbing against the break pads.  Upon closer inspection, there was the inner tube bulging out of the tire.  I didn't push the value up to ensure that of the inner tube was inside the tire.  I'm lucking it didn't blow when I pumped it up.  So back into the house to fix the problem.  Another 15 minutes later, I was back riding and about 400 meters, I came to a stop light.  I stood up to start riding when the back wheel locked up and I almost went over the handle bars.  Looks like I didn't tighten the fly nut tight enough and the wheel popped out of the brackets.  I guess it was better to find out when I was stopped as opposed to be flying down a hill doing 50 km\hr.

Finally I got riding and headed north up Warden Ave.  I hit my normal turnaround point at Bloomington Road but kept going.  I was flying along thanks to a nice tailwind.  I hit Davis Drive and was going to turn around when I saw another rider about 500 meters ahead.  I decided to chase the rider down and it took me about 5 km until I finally caught up to her.  Small victory but it would come with a price.  I was bagged and I was far from home.  I turned east to head home and then south.  I forgot about the tailwind and now had a slight head wind.  I had one gross tasting Power Gel (from the Marathon) and that helped but I was a little shaky as I had burned a lot of energy chasing the rider down.  I was averaging about 38 km\hr as Warden is flat as a pancake.

I forgot that Mccowan Ave isn't a continuous road this far north so I had to detour further east to Highway 48
By the time I hit Aurora Road, I had to get something else to eat.  Thankfully I had five dollars so I stopped at a gas station and got a bagel plastered in butter.  It tasted sooooo gooooood!!  I was about two hours into my ride so I called Tammy and let her know that I would be about 20 minutes and she reminded me that she wanted to go for her ride.  On the ride home, I passed about 200 riders training for Ride To Conquer Cancer.  There were some people riding mountain bikes.  Oh that was going to be a painful 200 km ride!  Naturally with that many riders, traffic would be backed up but at least there weren't many cars on the road. But there was one idiot who tried to pass the riders by driving in north in the southbound lane....the lane I was riding in.  I got out of the aero position and stood on my pedals to make myself as visible as possible.

I boogied home with doubts about riding to my friend's cottage as my back was killing me.  The ride was about 69 km and took me about 2:20 or so.  Not bad but 69 km is way short of 150 km.

On another note, Tammy has a friend whose husband had a stroke a couple of days ago and is in the hospital.  The thing that's most bizarre is that Tom is only 40 years old and is in better shape than I am and probably has half the body fat I do.  He is totally ripped and in good shape.  There is no history of strokes in his family.  Hopefully everything will work out.

P90X And Update

Not much going on as the recovery process dips into the second week.  I thought I'd be good to go by now but I have nasty shin splints that aren't going away.  I've had this problem a couple of weeks before the race but looks like the Marathon did some damage as they are still sore.  The usual icing, massaging and stretching doesn't seem to be working but looks like the cause of the shin splints has been solved.  Coach had dropped off Tammy's new bike on the weekend (more on that in a minute) and I mentioned my shin splints.  I ran up and down the sidewalk for about 10 feet as Coach watched me.  Actually, it was quite painful running that short distance!  He quickly concluded that my gait had changed quite significantly as I've grown stronger and the current shoes that I was wearing, no longer properly fit.  Even though I just purchased the shoes in February, all the marathon training had changed my mechanical significantly.  Great, there goes more dollars!!  That said, I probably had only two or three months left on those shoes.  Last night we met Coach at Running Free and both Tammy and I got new shoes as she has Plantar fasciitis.  So that cost only $400 but it was worth it.  I could immediately feel the difference and it wasn't as painful to run.

A while ago, Tammy had decided she didn't want to train\run any half marathons this year and next year and....well forever but did still wanted to do some running.  She thought about doing Duathlons and has been riding only on bike at the gym on a stationary bike.  I was reluctant to go out and spend thousands of dollars on a bike only to have it gathering dust, so a couple of weeks ago we went to a bike swap.  There was a bike that seemed to be the right size for Tammy but it was for $600.  With the kids running around it was hard to concentrate so we ended up getting the bike figured that Tammy would need a fit from Coach.  Turns out that it needed more than a "fit" as it was slightly too big and needed a new seat and post and several other adjustments including a safety kit, water bottle cage and speedomoter.  So another $600 later, we would have been better off buying a brand new $1100 bike from Coach....doh.

So with my shin splints, I've ditched all my runs for the next week or two and concentrated on riding, swimming, yoga, strength training and abs.  This morning I did the P90X yoga workout for the first time in about two months and it showed.  Not only did I work up a sweat, I can't believe how hard some of the poses were even though I could do them two months ago!  Lots of shaking and falling over!  I definitely need to work on the strength training and stretching as we roll into triathlon season.  The next race is Muskoka Long Course (2 km swim, 55 km ride and 13 km run).  The goal is to beat last year's time of 3:55

Tomorrow I'll ride for about two hours as my biking really sucks.  Oh and I just found out that the loop I've been doing is shorter than I thought so therefore I'm not riding as fast as posted a couple of days ago.

First Ride Outside

How pathetic.  Its the third week of May and I rode outside this morning for the first time this year.  So much for being a hard core roadie.  Reality is, marathon training got in the way and the days I was supposed to ride, it was either pouring rain/cold or its was too early to be riding at 5 am outside (ie not light enough).

Today was perfect as I headed out about 6:15 am.  The sun was already up and a slight breeze.  The temperature was a little chilly at 15 degrees Celsius but I figured it would warm up.  The plan was a light easy ride for about one hour as I'm still tired from the Marathon.  Oh speaking of which, the shin splints have almost gone away but I'm still limping as under my right foot behind the big toe, its all swollen and painful to walk on.  I'm not sure where this injury came from as it didn't start hurting until a couple of days after the race.  In fact last night, I woke up around 3 am (courtesy of Jake) and it was throbbing.  I couldn't get back to sleep so I came downstairs and iced it.  I'll get Kevin (chiropractor) to look at it tomorrow.  The clinic is closed but he'll open it for me.  How awesome service is that?

I rode my usual my usual loop with no real intentions of anything but taking it easy.  I rode along Warden Ave where there is a nice 6 km straight away and I usually tried to keep my speed at 30 km\hr.  The first time I rode outside a couple of years ago with my brother, we averaged about 22 km\hr.  There were a couple of riders ahead of me so I used that as an incentive to chase them down.  Once I caught up to them I kept at 30 km\hr and decided to take the longer route up to Bloomington Road.  On Warden there is a gradual hill but the hill on the next road over is twice as steep.  I love bombing down this hill and this morning I hit about 63 km\hr in areo position of course.  I boogied home at a pretty good clip (for me at least).  I was kind of surprised that I was riding at this speed but I did take the easier route.  Kennedy Ave is easier to ride southbound than ride northbound.

I did the 41 km route in 1:13 for an average 34 km\hr which includes getting caught at two stoplights.  Maybe all those stupid one-legged drills are paying off.  That said, I'd be hard pressed to go out for a longer ride.  A friend invited me out for a 100 km ride.....ummm not a chance.

Recovery

This week and next week are recovery weeks and that's not a bad thing.  I'm still limping because of my shin splints.  My manager just shakes his head and asks "why I do it?"

I got an useless massage on Monday afternoon.  One of the advantages of my work is I can come and go as I please.  The massage did help somewhat but wasn't worth the $85.  The place is close to one of my offices and usually I can get an appointment within a couple of hours.  I've been there three or four times and gotten a different person each time.  The quality of therapist is hit or miss at best

Thanks to those who posted comments from the race report.  Matty O posted a great article on recovering from a Marathon.  He and his wife ran the Cleveland Marathon on the same day and got pretty much the same weather.

I had lunch yesterday with a work colleague who gushed over my time.  He just did 3:19 at Boston and did the Sporting Life 10k in 39 minutes so I'm not so sure why he was so impressed with my time.  He was absolutely insistent that I could qualify for Boston in a couple of years.  I told him he was nuts as I need to knock off 24 minutes which is around one minute per mile or roughly 45 seconds per kilometer.  And that's before the new rules for next year.  I think it adds about 5 minutes and then its based on the fastest time for the age category.  To be honest, I'm not sure how "accurate" my actual time is as we had the wind at our back all the way down Yonge Street (17 km) and for mostly running west to the turn around point at the 30 km mark.  Only running west back to the city did we run into the wind and north up University Ave for about 4 km.  So, if there was no wind, would I have been able to knock out the same time?  I doubt it.

Other people that ran on Sunday, Doru and his wife ran the Mississauga Half Marathon.  Great time Doru although your "worst hangover race time" is about my fastest time. And Daryl who ran the Mississauga Marathon in a smoking 3:01.  Holy crap!!  Still waiting for your race report.

Today is supposed to be 30 minutes of spinning but I'm so far behind in work, I'll use this time as another rest day.  Tomorrow is swimming and its probably one of the best ways to recovery from a hard race but I died on the kicking drills yesterday.  Serge just looked at me and shook his head.