Hard Swim

Swam this am as:

400 mix w/u
3 times 2 by 50 as scull with bouys, without bouys and band
400 swim free DPS
2 by 4 x 100 kick
2 by 4 x 100 band with paddles (oh my shoulders were done in here)
2 by 4 x 100 swim all out first 10 meters, then DPS on 1:40
400 w/d

good efforts, hard swim, tired body, exhausted mind.

School is winding down, or up... anyway you look at it stress levels are at max right now. Any workouts longer than an hour are starting to be impossible. Gotta study.

Crazy Week

I feel like a chicken with its head cut off. Well maybe not. But I feel like I'been running around getting nothing done anyway.

Swim is great, run feels good. Can't find more than an hour and a half to cycle. It sucks, cause after trans rockies I was GOOD to go. Never better on the bike. I hate to think I'm giving that fitness back. But work and school hafta take priority.

Got to see myself in an actual triathlon magazine. Uber cool. Article was real well written, unlike this blogpost tonight. I'm up way too late, MEGA lost points, but had to work, and now felt like I should write something after the day I had.

4K swim this am. Too easy almost. Technique is bang on, right where I left off prior to February surgery. Glad to have it back two months into training. Still scheming as to what races to do next year. Definitely want to do IMC, but it may take a miracle to get me in. Otherwise, I hear Ottawa calling my name. Also going to go to Canadian Long Course Championships in Osoyoos. Tough bike, which may or may not be to my liking.

ITU changed their long course standards though. I can't speak from experience but I kinda think that the switch from 4K swim - 120K bike - 30K run to 3-80-20 is kinda bunk. It changes the format so much that the fast-twitch boys will be able to rip it up too quick for the slowtwitch guys like me. It's bad enough at the half-iron distance.

Oh well, I guess I just hafta go faster.

Thanks Brian for writing that awesome article. Guys like me, we admire people like you who have the full-time jobs, full-time families and still manage to squeeze in the training to finish the tri's. So anyone reading who thinks they don't have time to train and workout regularly. You do. Brian does. And he's got 4 kids.

Jasper Blake is racing in Aus tomorrow, or the day after if you are in my timezone. Go Jazz go... I'm calling something special. Check back soon for results.

Maybe too much swimming?

What do you think, maybe I need to do some running and work off some of the bulk I've built up, eh?

Nother TT

This time running. Was supposed to be 10K at 75% heartrate. I think I got a bit ahead of myself, heartrate averaged closer to 180 bpm. Should have been down around the 170 mark. Pace was ok, averaging 4:20s. I would race a true 10K around the 190 bpm mark, and that would give me closer to 4:00 pace. I still don't have my run legs completely back, so the whole thing is really skewed and I don't know what to make of it. So coachie can do it for me.

Been raining like heck here for days. Gave up looking for dry places to put my feet down in the lap of the lakes this morning. Kinda fun anyway, like being a kid and puddle jumping. It'll be cool to see the graph of heartrate, spikes every 30sec or so where I leapt the puddles.

Swam this morning too. Was pretty hard, did a stroke count/threshold set of 50s and also did 1600 as 4 by 400 descending. Feels early to be working so hard, but the hard work feeling is only cause its so early. I was tired today. Swam 3500m total.

Bean and I have had the neices for 48 hours - straight. She is a rock, I can't deal so I get to go for exercise breaks. Took the monkeys to the hockey game last night. It was their first time to a game like that. It was a fight fest, which I find entertaining, and they were entertained by the mascots. We had seats right down against the boards, and the look on the little one's faces as the first body check happened in our corner was priceless.

TT this am

Did an 18K cycling time-trial this morning. Wasn't really for time, more for heart rate. Idea was to get a baseline on about 75-80% of max HR. Went out, weather was ok, roads a bit wet, but able to ride the TT bike anyway. Managed to maintain HR of 160ish average, for 18K and 30.5 minutes. Not bad, not great, but I'll take it. Haven't really lost too much fitness on the bike from the summer despite not logging big volume in the last month. If I can hold that for 180K and still run 3:30 at IMC, I'll be ok.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Been raining her for a while, almost a week. News full of flood reports all over the province. Tons of new building going on, I guess we'll see if its of good quality or not this year. Coach's house has issues, sorry coach.

Swam this morning. 3500 meters, feels like real training again. Though the training partners are starting to disappear. It is way more difficult to suffer through hard sessions on your own. Actually had some efforts in this am's swim. I'm happy with where I'm at in the water, makes it easy to go to the pool 5 days a week. Swam 400 metres for time in the middle of a 1k block. Hit 6:03, which isn't partcularly fast. Effort was supposed to be aerobic, I think I went about 85%... I'm pretty sure I've hit 5:45 before. Not too far to go to get back there. Technique is good, and focus is too.

I've been up to my eyeballs in schoolwork, my brain hurts. Sun comes out for all of two hours this afternoon, windy, but sunny. I look outside, rush to change into shorts (yes, shorts in November), plug into my iPod and throw on my shoes, out I go.

Nice and easy, just average around 4:30/kilometre over a hilly xcountry route around my part of town. Run for fifty minutes, felt great. Love these moments, where running felt like a break in my day rather than another 'thing' I have to do. Remind me to do this more. This is why I run. Yah, felt good.

It's been a while...

since I posted. Sorry. I am having trouble maintaining forward momentum in life. I had forgotten just how difficult it can be to attempt to do three things too much: full-time university studies, full-time training, and part-time work. Thank goodness for Christine being so understanding.

Exciting news: a feature article on me is published in Triathlon Magazine Canada. Hopefully this will help bring some more awareness in for the cause... thank you Brian for writing this article, I'm touched that you felt motivated to do so.

Incidently, I met Brian at a local tri gear swap yesterday on campus. We had a quick chat about race plans for next season, both of us wanting to do Ironman distance races and the possibility of us both racing The Canadian in Ottawa. Gotta say: it'd be pretty cool.

On a more training note: went and swam yesterday am, did 4 by 500 for 2K total. this past week was a down week volume wise. Anyway, the swim has really come back for me. Hitting pace times, feeling good and streamlined, keeping up with Trav when we swim together, all great indicators.

The November Rain has started here, so biking has moved inside on the trainer. Not my favourite activity, and tough sometimes to get motivated. But we soldier on eh?

Running in the rain is one of my favourite things, so I think for November I will get some good miles in. Maybe even race a 10K at the end of the month.