Greg's blog to Lake Placid Ironman USA July 26 2009

March 28 Update

2010-03-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

Nadia and the boys are here this week and we're having a blast. Her boys are great . . . well . . . . as great as kids can be anyway!!

Truthfully, they are so well behaved it's unbelievable! They are a pleasure to have around. We've done the Wednesday market and the Tonala visit. We watched glass bowls being blown yesterday and picked up tons of Pewter stuff while we were there. The boys are having a great time in the pool.

It's springtime here as it is back in the 'old country'. I think we talked about the purple Jacaranda trees the other day. I took some pictures (for a change) of them and the strangest looking pink feather like flowers I've ever seen. I haven't found out what they're called yet.

Here's the pictures of them.

I weighed Lucky today. She's up to 28.5 pounds already. I don't know if that's a lot for a 4 month old German Sheppard or not. We're just all happy as hell she's doing so well.

Most of the other folks who spend the winter on the ranch are leaving next week. It'll be a mixed blessing being here alone. It should be interesting.

Nadia is doing the next update.

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2010-03-27T00:07:00.001-04:00

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Getting Used to Life In Ajijic

2009-11-14T20:36:00.002-05:00

It's been a few days since I've written. I guess we're getting used to life here on the ranch in Ajjic. We seem to be getting up at around 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. I'm starting to get a bit of exercise in first thing. I managed to get my ass into a gym bike yesterday for a half hour and went out for a half hour run this morning. Running is really tough here. They call the roads "cobblestone". I think it's more like 1700th century earthquake! Huge stones, smoothed off on the top, with massive spaces between them. It's going to be really easy to twist an ankle!

I managed to find pieces of reasonable level sidewalks along with bits of road where the cement curb turned back into the road for a foot or so in width. When I got out to the town square, there we're paving stones laid along the tire tracks in the road. They were fairly safe to run on. I ran at a 6:30 pace this morning. It was a far cry from the 5:45 - 5:50 that I was running at back at home, but, I guess it's OK for somewhat starting over again!

I got on the scale today and found that my weight was only up about 8 pounds from since I left home. After 5 weeks in the car eating . . . . whatever, I think that's OK. I'm starting to run 30 minutes for 30 days starting on Monday. I'm guessing that will get me going again and knock a few of those extra pounds off.

We went to a "Bull Fight" yesterday. Apparently, "Bull Fight" translates to from Spanish to English to mean "Rodeo". I've never been to a rodeo before. I guess you have to be into that for it to appear interesting!

Today we managed to get cell phones. It took about 6 hours, but, luckily for us, the store is right at the top of our street, less than 5 minutes away. I've put the phone number on the contact page.

Here's some pictures of our place and the grounds.

2009-11-12T10:01:00.001-05:00

Another beautiful morning!

2009-09-25T11:24:00.001-04:00

Ping Test 4

Sunday Sept 20 Weekly Update

2009-09-25T10:50:00.002-04:00

I'm beginning to see what people mean when they say they retired, but they are busier than ever! What a week this has been. Great, but busy!

Tuesday is turning out to be "Aurora" day. Up to check on mail, put stuff into storage, look for other stuff already in storage that we need, pick up mail, visit with folks. This week we added in 'Tattoo Day' at Fatcats!

Bryan had gone ahead and got his tat a couple of weeks earlier, but Willem and I got ours together, under the watchful eye of most of our tri and training buddies before heading over to Jersey Joe's for a few drinks. I was shocked to see so many of the gang there. Simon had sent out a note to the gang I found out later. A bunch of the gang drove up from the city as well. What a great surprise and a fun night. (Tattoo Night pictures)

On Wednesday morning I drove to St Catharines to see Jordan and to drop off Puppy at her new home with Mike Chiliak.

Mike does all of the photography for Multi Sport Canada. Lynne and I met Mike when we were race announcing at Wasaga Beach on the 16th & 17th (last weekend)

Mike has two dogs just like puppy. Rocky and Moose. He sent us this picture a couple of days later.

Rocky, Moose and Pupy Puppy

I'm not sure that Puppy looks totally comfortable yet, but I know she will be. Mike and his wife Rose and the kids are going to give Puppy a GREAT home!

Wednesday afternoon Thursday and Friday I worked on the Broadway Kitchen and Bath web site. I hope to re-launch that early next week.

We met with Kevin and Joan on Thursday night and listened to their adventures driving to Costa Rica. It's looking like it's going to be very expensive to ship the car, so it's looking like we're going to drive all the way though!

Saturday I had great time race announcing at Lakeside II. I had a few friends racing in the morning. My pal Allen celebrated his 60th birthday by racing. He got his first podium finish coming in 3rd. We figure that if he didn't fall off the bike he would have 1. Maybe got a first and 2. might not of broken his arm. We're not sure about that arm yet. We'll know tomorrow.

In the afternoon I had a blast announcing the 'Kids of Steel" races in the afternoon. It was just way too much fun watching the 3 - 5 year olds racing. They start out in about 3' of water. They work their way in through about 15 meters of water, head out for a 200 meter bike and then back for a 50 meter run. i had the best time cheering these kids on yelling "You are a Tri athlete" as they crossed the line.

Saturday night, my sailing buddy Paul had a good-bye party for Lynne and I. There were sailing friends, Canac friends and Aurora friends there. We had a super time and finally left about 2:30 - 3:00 in the morning. We hadn't seen that side of 3:00am in years!

The final countdown is on.

Sept 14 Update

2009-09-14T09:17:00.001-04:00

Monday Sept 14 Weekly Update

I can't believe how quickly time passes here as we prepare for our trip. We sold the house a few weeks ago and are living in an apartment at Yonge and St Clair. Lynne loves it here. Me, not sos much.

Lynne is meeting tons of folks for lunch or dinner and shopping around the neighborhood. I've got some web work to do so I seem to either be at this little desk working, or driving back up to York Region for one reason or another, cursing traffic all the way there and back!

I suffered a little culture shock when we first moved in here. I guess after 20+ years in our house in Aurora, I got pretty used to everyone around and pretty much said "Hi" to everyone waling down the street. People aren't like that here in 'rental hell'. I thought at first that they were unfriendly, but soon realize that they are just scared. No one looks you in the eye on the sidewalk, but the look to either side of you, or down at the ground. A friendly "Hello" or "Good Morning" scares the crap out of them.

It's been a lot of years since Lynne or I have lived in an apartment. We forgot about how nosy people are and overly protective of their simple rented positions.

This little apartment is on the ground floor of an old 3 story walkup brown stone building on a beautiful tree lined street. There is even a kitchen door that leads out past the back of another apartment in front of us, and into a beautiful garden. It's great to be able to come in and out without having to go through the hallways with loud doors crashing closed automatically behind us.

Word came from the landlord last week that the front neighbor was 'traumatized' by someone who lived here before us who used that door and, would we stop using it right away. We were also told that Puppy whines a bit when were both out, (which happens very rarely) and we need to get rid of the dog immediately.

After calming down a bit I took a lesson from my son and smiled, agreed and then went on and did whatever I wanted.

Another women in the building the other morning came out and told me to NOT put the plastic doggy poop bag in the garbage cans outside against the fence, but to keep them in our apartment until garbage day.

Yup - Loving downtown living? Not so much for me!

Lynne and I did have a fun time this weekend though being the race announcers at the HSBC races in Wasaga Beach though. We're off to do it again at Lakeside next Saturday. Sorry we missed everyone at the Musk 70.3 this weekend though. Almost everyone I trained with, and my kids, were there. They all did great and from what I'm hearing so far, the course didn't get any easier this year!

Wed Aug 12 - Out for a Run

2009-08-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

I finally got my butt out of bed and got out for a run this morning. I zigged and zagged around the neighborhood down here (See route here). I haven't found my Garmin or anything so I had no idea of pace or distance.

It felt kind of freeing to just go run like tat, but I'm still really used to clocking all the data, so I missed that at the same time. I came back and tracked it on MapMyRun.com I did about 5.5k in 35 - 40 minutes. Certainly not any break neck speed, but nice to get moving again.

It's getting close to Tattoo time again. Bryan and I are waiting to see if Willem chickens out again.(Come on Willem - Claudia has been mad at you before and you've survived!)

I'm looking forward top re-designing this web site. I thought I'd do it as soon as we got moved down here to Yonge and St Clair, but I've got a bunch of work lately that I need to get moving on. Hopefully, I can get it started before we head out of here in a couple of months.

Monday Aug 10 Update

2009-08-12T09:00:00.001-04:00

Monday August 10 - Update

It's been on heck of a week since the last time I updated the site here. We finished packing the house and putting most of our stuff in storage in Newmarket. We moved the rest of our stuff to a small one bedroom furnished apartment on Lawton Blvd., near Yonge and St. Clair. We moved Jordan and his stuff down to his apartment in St. Catherines.

Other than lifting and moving boxes and furniture, I didn't work out at all last week. I did make it to NYAC this morning for a swim. We haven't got the shopping thing worked out here properly yet. When I got up I discovered that we were out of milk. I found a gas station open on the way up Yonge to the pool and grabbed a Red Bull for breakfast. I'm not sure if it was breakfast, or just the fact that I've taken 2 weeks off, but I had tons of energy in the pool this morning. It felt great to be back at it a bit. It was even nicer to see some of the gang again. I felt like I'd seen my long lost brother when I saw Willem. He took off early though so I didn't get a chance to razz him at all after the swim!

I did see a number of runners on the street at 5:15 this morning. I might get out there for a run myself in the morning.

I'm going to re-design this site and start adding stuff about this wild trip we're on. I'll incorporate the stuff we'd written at panama.gregcollett.com I need a bit more time though to finish getting set up her in the new apartment.

Ironman USA July 26, 2009

2009-07-31T15:57:00.001-04:00

Bryan, Willem and I arranged for a condo in town last year when we all signed up for Ironman. Lynne and I arrived in Lake Placid on Tuesday. Bryan and Willem on Wednesday. Kathryn and Steve joined us on Wednesday also, but they didn’t arrive until late in the evening. We all had a blast!

We’d joined up with Linda, Kathie, Miles and John for dinner at their cottage on Wednesday night. Swam Thursday morning (and collected our free Gatorade water bottles). We pretty much hung out checking the weather every 10 minutes until race day morning.

We’d all taken our bikes over and checked them in on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night, Bryan, Willem and I sat around the dining room table trying to figure out how to repair a broken chain. (apparently, it can’t be done!) Sunday morning we were up at 4:00, eat breakfast, checked the bags one more time and headed over to body marking at 5:00. We got split up at that point. Everyone was nervous, tired and excited. I walked my special needs bags up to the drop off, came back and got my wetsuit on and headed over to the water. I found David and his wife and Steven under a tree trying to stay dry. It had started raining about 6:30. I saw Simon, Bern Steve and Sid on my way to the water. I saw Gavin for a minute and then finally found Michelle and Lynne just before I got into the water.

I warmed up for a little bit just after the pro’s left at 6:50 and then found Bryan about 6:57. We got ourselves lined up right behind the line of buoys, about 25 feet back from the front of the line. The cannon went and we were off. I think we crossed the line within 20 – 30 seconds. It was a huge fight all the way to the far buoy, about 900 meters I think. I kept looking up for clear water, dodging behind folks to try to get to it, but it would be packed each time I got there. Yup – like swimming in a washing machine. Kicked, punched, rolled over, dragged down, did I mention punched? I got hit in the head so many times I thought I was going to look like Rocky when I finished. Someone almost knocked my goggles off. I’m glad I had the strap under my swim cap. By the first turn things had started to clear up a bit, but of course everyone converges at that corner so, the fight was back on. The 100 – 150 meters or so at the turn around at the far end of the lake was still a fight, but not too bad. At the next turn, now heading back to the beach again, I went inside the line and found clear water there. The swim back to the line from there on went pretty smoothly. I’d swam that course in 37 minutes a few times in training, but the clock showed 39:46 when I hit the shore and started the 2nd loop. I figured I’d lost time fighting the crowd and the slow start, so I wasn’t too worried. I was hoping to knock some time off of my last race, but, overall, a few minutes in the lake doesn’t make that much difference by the end of the day! The second loop went better. I felt more relaxed and for the most part, was able to follow that line 5 feet below the water that stretches from buoy to buoy around the course. I finished that lap in 39:14 – a 32 second negative split. I think that’s my first negative split ever! My final swim time was 1:19:00 – 2:08 better than last time!

I tore up and out of the water, over to the peelers who ripped my wetsuit off for me and headed up and around over to the transition area. I saw Mike Dunbar on the rail at one point cheering for me, and then Lynne, Michelle and Gavin a little further along. I was confused when I got into T1 where I was to pickup my bike bag. I grabbed the bag and continued on and into the far end of the men’s change tent. I found a chair and sat down a took a breath for a5-6 seconds before I started on opening the bag. There was a knot in the strings. I struggled with that for a bit then decided to rip the bag open. As soon as I started to do that, and saw the bike helmet inside, and realized “that’s not my helmet”., I figured out that I’d grabbed the wrong bag. I had to run back to change it. Luckily the guy who owned that bag wasn’t there yet. All I could think of was what it would have been like for this poor guy to finish his swim and then find his bike stuff missing!

I grabbed my bag, got back to the tent, got dried off, changed and ran out as quickly as I could. So much for the time I’d saved in the swim! T1 took me 12:19. Not a good time, but better than the 13:16 I’d done a couple of years earlier!

One of the fabulous volunteers passed my bike to me as I got to the bike racks. I ran up to the mount line and headed out. I didn’t see anyone I knew as I headed out on the bike course. I tore down those first few blocks and headed out of town. The first 10k or so seem to be a slight uphill grind. I watched my powertap and didn’t worry about all the folks passing me. I finally got to that hill into the town of Keene. 9k of downhill sweeping though the woods. I love that hill. It makes all the pain from the rest of the day, and the years of training before that, worthwhile. There ended up being four of us in a group blasting down that hill. I had to feather the break a couple of times for fear of hitting one or another of them It’d great when you pass about the 50 kph mark and there is no point in peddling anymore. I put my head down so that it was just a touch off the bike stem, blinked hard to try to push the tears out of my eyes that the wind was causing and hung on for dear life as the bike shakes to the point I worry that it’s just going to break apart. Down and around all the curves in the road, flying through the forest on either side, streaking past some poor sap who is doing this for the first time and has braked for fear of dying by skidding off the road. The four of us, whoever they were, stuck pretty close all the way down, hooting and hollering like drunken cowboys. It was GREAT. I think I cruised most of that ride at about 67 – 68 kph. For me, that ride is always the same at the bottom. A smile from ear to ear, ears full of water that the wind pushed around your head, and then finally relaxing my butt, being somewhat surprised at how hard I’d squeezed my ass cheeks together, happy to find that I am able to get the bike seat back out of there!

The four of us that had gone down together were cheering and yelling still as we turned the corner out of Keen and on our way to Jay. I guess we absentmindedly had grouped ourselves together and were blocking the road. Someone passed and yelled over that we shouldn’t be blocking. I looked over to yell back, and saw that it was Simon. I sped away from the gang I was with to catch up to him. When I got to him I called over and said if you’re going to yell at me, you could at least use my name. We both laughed and rode off together for a bit. Luckily for me, Simon was sticking to a lower zone than usual, so I was able to keep up for a bit. We chatted a bit. He told me he’d finished his second bottle of water already. I was only half way through my first bottle. I knew I’d blown the nutrition stuff on the bike 2 years earlier doing this race, so I picked up the drinking pace from that point on. 2 years ago I think I only drank 2 bottle on each loop on the bike. I got all 4 back each loop this time. Eventually I dropped back and watched Simon head out over the horizon. I can’t remember the order in which everyone passed me, but slowly but surely, Sid, Steve, Bern and Kathie all passed me. I saw Bryan and then Willem heading out from the out and back as I was heading in. It was nice now that I had a perspective on where just about everyone was on the course. The out and back, just like the hill into Keene had been freshly paved a few weeks before the race. We flew through there. I was a bit disappointed to see that the folks in Hazelton hadn’t decorated the town the way they had before when we turned, but they were out cheering in full force, which was the most important thing.

Out of the Out and Back, past the gorge, up the 2 Cherry’s and the 3 Bear hills and I was back in town again. I stopped at special needs and swapped out my 4 empty bottles of E-Load and Fly for 4 new ones and headed on out again. I saw Michele and Gavin and then Lynne John and Joni in front of our condo just past Station Street. I stopped to hug Lynne and say a quick hello of Joni and John. My foot hit a water bottle as I got off the bike but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I was off again quickly and heading out of town again for the second 90k loop. I’d done the first loop in 3:29:00 – 1 minute quicker than I was shooting for.

The second loop on the bike is the worst part of the race for me. It’s noon. The rain had poured down during the swim, but stopped when we got out. The clouds blocked the sun for most of the morning but by noon the sun was beating down. I knew my shoulders, neck and back were getting burned. Another grind out of town and then a great run down into Keene. I was on my own this time and I peddled as quickly as I could for as long as it did any good and then hunched down as low as I could get. I was on my own, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone else on the road. 73.3 turned out to be my high speed going down this time. Gosh I LOVE that hill!! Most of the rest of ride was uneventful. I got to the out and back with is about half way around the course and reached back for my third water bottle only to find it wasn’t there. I had no idea until after the race that I’d knocked it off the bike when I stopped to see Lynne. Someone gave it to Lynne after I’d headed out and said they saw me knock it off. It would have been nice if they’d have hollered at the time. I was now 2 hours out and had enough water for 1 hour. I picked up water at the next station and switched to one swallow of regular water and then a swig from my remaining E-Load / Fly mix. It got me through OK. The out and back went quickly and it was around there that I realized I’d slowed down. Linda passed me. I caught up for a bit, but didn’t have the energy to keep with her. She pulled away oh so slowly, but very steadily! I was tired of doing this. I was hot and my legs, feet and back were hurting. I was cognizant that this would be the last time I’d ever be on these roads. That thought allowed me to pick it up a bit anyway. The hills into town felt longer and steeper again, but I was used to that feeling. Riding through town is great because of the cheering crowds, but looking at all the runners who were finishing their first loop was a bit of a downer for me.

I blasted through town and into T2. My total bike time was 7:19:43. I’d been hoping for 7:00:00. I was 9 minutes quicker than in 2007. Someone took my bike. I grabbed my bag, the right one this time, and headed into the tent to get changed again. I took a couple of minutes to cool down. I know I hadn’t wanted to do that from the onset, but at this point in the day, I didn’t care anymore. I got changed slowly and checked on the guy in the chair beside me. He hadn’t moved a muscle all the time I’d been there. When I spoke to him, he started to tell me that he’d be throwing up for a while, but jumped up and just got out of the door at the other side of me as he tossed his cookies again! I felt bad for him, but realized although I was tired and a bit unmotivated to get going, I could have been in a lot worse shape!

As I headed out to start the 26.2 mile marathon, I heard the announcer talking about Tereza and the fact that she was down to the last could of k of the run and she was the first place women. Tereza is our assistant swim coach. I’ve gone to a few of her 3 on one training classes also. She’s an amazing swimmer, a great coach, and a ton of fun.

I saw Lynne, Joni and John again on my way out on the run. I was carrying my Nathan belt with 4 bottles of E-Load and Fly mix along with a half dozen or so Gu gels. I ran all of the first loop except for the three hills coming back into town. I kept wanting to stop and walk, but I kept repeating to myself that my’ slowest run is quicker than my fastest walk” . I also pretended that I wasn’t running a marathon after a 180k bike ride after a 3.8k swim, I was just out running a long slow run like Nadia and I did so often on a Sunday morning. We’d go out for hours at a nice slow pace, just filling in the time, not worrying about speed, or pace or anything. Somehow, those two thought made the run easier. Manageable anyway! I finished the first half in 2:43:07.

When I headed out for the second half, Lynne told me that Derek was just a bit ahead and he was walking. He’d blasted past me on the bike. At this point in the day, I thought I’d just keep joggling slowly until I caught him and then walk in to the finish with him. I wasn’t going to get my sub 14 hours (I never really thought I would, but it made for a good goal!) . Away I went again. I found myself walking on most of the up hills, regardless of size on this leg. I’d catch myself and push on through, but I knew I was losing time and ground from my first loop. It was late. The sun was going down. I didn’t really care. I fought to care, but it felt like I was losing the fight. I couldn’t find Derek. I thought that Lynne isn’t very experienced and when she told me he was just a ‘little’ ahead, she may not have realized that 15minutes or so isn’t a ‘little’! Our I went past the out and back turn. I saw Kathryn, Derek’s wife. She came over to me all sort of bent, but I thought she was fooling around. I gave her a quick hug and away we went. I didn’t know that she was moments away from being pulled off the course and rushed to the medical tent because of nausea and dehydration. Poor Kathryn was sick, and I was stupid!

A few minutes later I saw Derek, running towards the turn I was at about 10 minutes earlier. We figured later that he must have been in a port-a-potty when I passed him. I stuck two those two thoughts and played a bit with catching up to some guys who were walking, walking with them for a minute and then switching to slow and easy jog and was always amazed at how quickly I’d pull away from them. Back into town I was getting encouraged by the number of folks who leaned over to tell me they thought I had a great pace. I started to think maybe I did have a good pace. I was passing a lot of walkers anyway. Into the center of town, around the corner to the final out and back. One more Gu, one more bit of water and I could feel myself pick up the pace all the way out and still all the way back in. Finally I was back in the oval. I saw Michelle as I rounded the last corner and could see the finish line. I could see the time was just a few seconds past 14:29:00. The thought of breaking 14:30 gave me an extra little boost in speed. I tossed my hat high in the air and ran with all I had left. I heard my name called again. I think we’ll all remember the sound of hearing your name and “You are an Ironman” until the day we die. I’d finished the second loop of the run in 2:43:16 – only 9 seconds longer than the first loop. My total time was 14:29:46 – 38 minutes quicker than 2007.

Sunday - Final Big Workout

2009-07-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

So, that’s it. A 50k bike out and around Muscleman Lake, back along Vivian Sideroad and then a 45 minute run. I did my usual 5k run from the house and then looped around and did that 2.5 k loop.

I’d stayed in bed longer than usual this morning before heading out though. I woke at 4:00 and though about how in 7 days I’d be eating breakfast. I fell asleep again for a bit and woke at 5:00 and though - we’ll be getting our numbers written non our arms and legs this time next week. I woke again about 6:55 and thought the pros will be leaving now, and then I watched the clock countdown to 7:00 and thought about treading water, looking for friends, picking my starting spot and then finally starting. I’ve been looking at the clock all day imagining where I’ll be ‘this tem next week’! Right about now I hope to be near Upper Jay for the second time. That wonderful 9k downhill into Keene will be history!

Eventually I got my butt out of bed and got going. Cold and overcast, looking like it’s going to rain again. What a familiar sight that is!
I did a lot of reminiscing today while I was out. I did a lot of thinking about the first time I biked to such and such a spot, or the first time we ran in the dead of winter along Vandorf to Hwy 48 and back. The first trip around Muscleman Lake. Stopping at the top of that hill expecting my heart to jump out of my chest onto the ground! Lots of great memories. The run was fun doing my usual 5k and then the 2.5 loop right afterwards. I thought of stopping at Vicki’s along the way, but God forbid I would ever stop during a run. I was sorry I hadn’t thought ahead and asked Vicki to come do this last workout with me. We’d done a lot together in that first year.

And so it ends. No more big training days. Off tomorrow. Drive to Lake Placid Tuesday. A bit of light workouts I guess every day that we’re there, but really just to keep limber I guess. I feel like I’m in a good head space for the race. I’d like to finish as close to 14 hours as I can, but who knows how the day will unfold. If I take a bit longer, but have a great time, that’s just fine too! It’s going to be fun with Lynne, Bryan and Willem at our condo. I don’t know Steve and Kathryn very much, but I’m looking forward to getting to know them. Almost every other athlete I know is racing Lake Placid this year. The days before the race are going to be a blast!

Saturday 1 Hour Easy Brick

2009-07-18T09:23:00.000-04:00

Today called for a nice simple workout. A 45 minute easy bike and a 15 minute easy run. The weather forecast was calling for rain when I went to bed last night and it was pouring out then. This morning it was beautiful outside.

I went down Yonge Street, past Bob and Nancy’s place then around the lake. There were only a couple of people swimming, but the south parking lot was pretty full of cars and a good number of cyclists. I cycled back around the club and out Industrial Parkway. Some old drunk in a truck took offense to the fact that I didn’t stop at a stop sign but cut around the corner behind him quickly. We exchanged greetings and admiration for each other. I suggested a few way that he could have sex with himself. I don’t really think he’ll run me over the next time he sees me!

A quick 15 minute run around the short block at home and it’s over for another day. Back to packing I guess!

Friday - 4k Swim

2009-07-17T09:18:00.003-04:00

Another beautiful swim this morning in Lake Wilcox. I don’t know why folks don’t like that lake. If you get a shower quickly enough after you get out, the water doesn’t have time to dry on your body and turn all crusty!

I got there a little before 5:00 and made it out and about half way back before the sun was up. It’s so easy sighting that early in the morning. Once the sun comes up, it’s light trying to sight when there’s a 150 watt light bulb hanging before your eyes!

I got back to the dock at about 5:45. No sign of Willem or Bryan. I got out and went to the parking lot to see if they were there. I’d parked at the canoe club so I wanted to make sure they didn’t see my car, decide I wasn’t there, and left. No sign of them. I got back into the water. It was cold in the early morning air. Willem drove up just as I was getting back in. We headed off to the far end. He was out of my sight in no time. I was about ¾ of the way to the far end when he passed me going the other way! We wanted to do more than the 2k. I turned at the far end without stopping and swam back to the dock. Willem passed me again before I got back. I’d timed myself. This was my 3rd and 4th k of the morning. I’d done it in 43:21 – which I think is just about bang on my time for the second loop of Placid a couple of years ago. I wonder if I can break 1:15 this year? We’ll see. I really don’t care too much. If I do the same swim time as before, I’ll still be happy! I’m looking forward to getting going with this!

I phoned Bryan when I got back home and out of the shower. He was still in bed!

Thursday Brick

2009-07-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

And so, it slowly winds down. I’m still working out. I’m too scared at this point to miss anything on my training plan! The email flying around between everyone who is doing Lake Placid is great. Firstly, there’s tons of it. Some is thoughtful, some is excited, some is just nits, but all of it is adding to the buildup of excitement. With all of the other stuff going on around this house these days, Ironman was just one more of those things we had to get through, but as the days get closer, it’s starting to be really fun.

Today was probably the last Computrainer ride. 75 minutes of mixed cadence speeds and wattages. I blew it with a couple for 1 minute drills though. I was supposed to be in low zone 4 (180 watts) at 60 rpm. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I dialed up low zone 5 (235 watts) by mistake. It was impossible for me to finish the minute, but when I figured out my mistake, I felt a little better about it.

I went for a quick 15 minute run off the bike. 5 minutes easy, 5 medium and 5 hard. I usually blow it with how I’m supposed to run. I seem to look at the details after I finished. Good thing there is a week and a half left and NOW I finally get it right!

I’m heading to the lake in the morning. If I hear from anyone joining in, I’ll go at 6:00, if not, I think I’ll go do that 4:45 thing again . . . or . . . better still, if anyone wants to join me, bend my way this time and meet me at the canoe club dock at 4:40!

Wednesday Tri

2009-07-15T10:36:00.000-04:00

It feels like it’s been months since I made it for a swim at the pool. I guess this was an non-swim day for most. The pool was practically empty. It was a pleasure to get into clean water for a change! As usual it’s imposable for me to catch Kathie except with paddle and pull. There’s a line to be had there, but it’s too easy!

I enjoyed the swim. We did a couple of 500m sets that we were supposed to time. I screwed up the time of the first one. The second one was 13:22. I guess with all the turns at each end that’s about on par with my 1:21 in Lake Placid a couple of years ago.

Home again and out for a 40 minute bike and a 20 minute run. Both were supposed to just be easy. I kind of enjoyed both. Taking it easy, enjoying the scenery, not big push anywhere. I got back from the bike and my average speed was 26.2 – my quickest ride this year. Go figure!

Monday & Tuesday Taper

2009-07-14T00:36:00.001-04:00

It's midnight on Monday night. I can't sleep. Too much going on these days I guess with getting ready to move Jordan off to university, Ironman in 12 days, the house closing 10 days after that and the eventual move to Panama. Humm, now that I've written that, I can see why I'm having trouble sleeping!

It's great to ahve a couple of 'off' days from training. It looks like I only have one more big training day coming up this weekend with a 50k bike an d 45 minute run. I guess that should sound like a lot, but at this point and time, it doesn't seem like all that much.

Sunday - Last Huge Brick

2009-07-12T16:09:00.001-04:00

Willem and I are the luckiest guys. We rode together this morning and it was the nicest weather so far this year. Sunny, but still cool with very little wind. Perfect . . . for a change!

We met up at Bayview and Vandorf and headed out around Muscleman Lake then back to Aurora via Aurora Road. Over to Bathurst, up and through Kettleby and over to Weston Road. We then went south on Weston to King Road, over to Jane, north to 17th, over to Keele, south again to 15th Sideroad , over to Dufferin and north again. Got to LOVE those hills. (I think it’s a rule someone wrote. I’m not sure why we love them and, to be honest, they aren’t my favorite!) Willem was great company and he stuck with me for most of the ride, even though when he felt the need for speed, he left me like I was sitting still! He cut off at Aurora Road, but I still had to put in another 15k to make up the 100. I went back up to Lloydtown/Aurora and looped around Keele before heading back to town. I ended up doing 100.5 in 4:08. That’s an average speed of 24.3kph. Slow for an average ride, but I think that was OK considering we did a total ascent of 991m on those hills! One other nice thing about a ride like that is the fact that I burned a bit over 3800 calories. That means I can eat EVERYTHING I can see for the rest of the day!

I got back home and headed out for my 2 hour run. I ran my usual 5k route from the house, but did it 4 times. That let me check my time for a negative split, and gave me the opportunity to not carry water, but grab a quick drink at the house every time I went by. Being able to wipe my face with a cool facecloth was an extra bonus for sure. 29:22, 29:51, 28:46 and 28:21 were my splits. I was pretty happy with that.

I tried eating bits of Power Bar along with the 4 bottles of water I drank on the bike and the bottle of water and a Red Bull I had on the run along with the 5 gel’s I eat. I was really tired at the end of it all, but, all things considered, I didn’t feel a beat up as I expected to feel. I think I’ll take some Power Bars along for the ride in Placid in . . . . less than2 weeks!

Saturday Easy Brick

2009-07-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

That was a nice easy workout. A quick 45 minute bike ride from the house to the club, around Lake Wilcox and back home again. Then an easy 15’ run from the house. I wonder hopw long after Ironman, an hour is going to feel like a good workout as opposed to a simple little nothing workout?

I’ve got a killer 100k bike ride around Muscleman Lake and back and then 4 trips up and down Weston Road, Jane, Keele and Dufferin Street, and then a 2 hour run Sunday for what I expect will be my last big workout.

Friday Swim

2009-07-10T07:14:00.000-04:00

That was one of the nicest swims I’ve done in a long, long time. The air temperature was about 14 degrees. I don’t know water temperature, but the lake was warmer than the pool usually is. I got into the late at 4:45. The moon was full a couple of days ago, but it was still pretty full. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the moonlight was bright. There was absolutely no wind. The surface of the lake was just like glass, from one end to the other. The far end is often like that, but it’s very unusual to see the entire lake that way. There wasn’t a soul around. The only thing breaking the silence was the occasional duck quacking.

I started off slowly towards the far (west) end of the lake. I stopped a few times as I was getting warmed up. At one point I realized I woke the birds up that sleep n the lake. I flipped over on my back at watched what looked like a thousand birds circling overhead against the dark grey sky. It was beautiful. I was able to sight off of the moon, catching it just ahead when I was pushing my head back in the water after taking a breath to the left. As long as I just caught a glimmer of it as my head went in the water again, I was on course. It was pretty interesting having something in the sky to sight off of for a change.

I took my usual 26 – 27 minutes to get to the far end of the lake. I couldn’t tell for sure. It was too dark for me to read my watch clearly! I stopped for a minute and then headed back. The sun had not broken the horizon yet. The lights on the side of the canoe club were very easy to see all the way back. As the sun started to come up, a whisper of a cloud steak turned bright red. It ended just over the canoe club, almost like an arrow pointing the way. Amazing!

I got back in my usual 1300 stroke in 22 minutes! I drove over to Timberlane to get a steam and a shower there for a change. I found it amusing that when I was driving back from my swim, the rest of the NYAC gang still had 5 minutes before their swim started. I saw a few of the old gang at Timberlane, but I guess Christine and Nadia were out running somewhere. I couldn’t find them before or after my shower.

I’ve got a pretty easy 45 minute bike and a lazy 15 minute run tomorrow morning. Resting up for the 100k of hills followed by a 2 hour run Sunday. I’m guessing that will be the last big workout before the 26th.

Thursday Bike and Run

2009-07-09T11:42:00.000-04:00

I started the day with a 90 minute Computrainer ride. I usually start with a bowl of cereal, a glass of mild and some Yogurt, but we were out of mild. I decided to just get at it. I had a gel and a bottle of E-Load and Fly. I listened to the Stones in Twickenham Stadium, London and went about the workout. It was a great mix of high and low wattage, some sitting and some standing. It made for a good, interesting ride. I got to a point where I had to go aero for 5 minutes in zone 4. I don’t have aero bars, so I went into the drops and bent as far as I could. It killed me. I had to do it three times, but couldn’t do it. I passed on aero for the third set and got through it. I guess this old back still doesn’t want to bend too much!

I dried off and went out for my 5k run. I took my time and ended up taking a couple of minutes more time than I usually do. I got a great surprise when I got home and weighed myself. I haven’t seen 163 lbs in many years. The bad news was, I was passing out from lack of energy. A quick E-Mend, before my shower. Lynne went and got milk. Two bowls of cereal later I felt OK. I checked again. I was hoping to run Ironman this year at about 167. I’m good with the 165 post cereal weight! Now I have to put a bit more energy into eating properly for the next couple of weeks for sure. If I can get energy levels up and keep the weight at 165. I’ll be a pretty happy guy!

Wednesday Training Tri

2009-07-08T12:39:00.001-04:00

It was back to training business as usual today. I got to Lake Wilcox for a 2k swim at 6:00. I wished I’d gone earlier to have been in the water with the full moon, but I’ll try to catch that again on Friday. I took 27 minutes going out and my standard 22 coming back. I saw two other folks heading out from the far shore when I was finishing, but other than that, the lake was empty. No wind or rain so the surface was like glass again.

I came home and changed into some bike clothes and went out for 45 minutes at Zone 2. I did a loop from home to Bathurst to Bloomington to Bayview and then cut past the club and through the neighborhood to get home again. I guess the new chain is OK. It popped off once, but slid back on again when I changed the gear.

Back to the house again for a slow 15 minute run and today’s tri is over. The rest of the week looks pretty easy also until Sunday. 100k bike and a 2 hour run. I’m sure that’ll be the end of the big workouts.

Sunday - Peterborough Half - That Sucked!

2009-07-06T07:42:00.001-04:00

I was looking forward to the race in Peterborough yesterday. When I’d done it a couple of years ago, and Adam had me not finish the run (too close to the upcoming Ironman race) I ended up with a DNF for the race. I don’t DNF, so that always drove me crazy. This year, I had it beat though. I’d have a friend run. We’d do it as a relay.

Nadia and I headed off to Peterborough at about 5:00 in the morning. We got to there about 6:20. Lots of time to park, fill up water bottles, rack the bike and lay everything out, and still have time to find friends and chat a bit. I guess I chatted a bit too much. I ended up with only about a 5 minute warm up before the swim. I needed about 10 or 15 minutes!

The swim was . . . . interesting. Adam told me to ‘mix it up a bit’ with the other swimmers in the beginning so I charged on ahead into the middle of the pack. I got the crap kicked, punched and slapped out of me of course. I did remember to put an extra set of goggles inside my wetsuit, just in case I lost my good set, but I didn’t need them.

The water was warm enough, but the weeds for the first 200 meters of so were incredible. I felt like I was harvesting crops a lot of the way. I had seaweed tangled in my goggles, around my hands and feet. Crazy!

For some reason, I couldn’t get my breath properly and my heart was racing. I stopped a few times trying to get relaxed. I was on my way back to shore before I got comfortable at all. I’d glanced back and realized there weren’t too many people behind me.

I thought “Oh well. It is what it is. I’ll just settle into a grove and see what happens”. That thought seems to work for me. I concentrated on long easy full strokes and soon was catching up to folks ahead of me. I wish I had time splits for each of the loops. I’m sure I was 5 minutes quicker on the second loop than the first. A two and a half minute transition and I was off on the bike. This was going to be a once in a lifetime bike ride for me. Because I wasn’t doing the run, I was going to be able to give it my all. I was really hoping to get as close to an overall average speed of 30kph for the first time.

Oh well. “Best made plans . . . . “ The first hill was at the 5k mark. I’d gone into it in a little heavier gear than I should have, but I wanted to stretch my legs a bit, so I stood and peddled a few times. I say back down, eased up on the peddles as I geared up a bit. I felt the gears change, but the second I put more pressure on the peddles, BANG, and the chain was gone! I’m glad I was sitting at the time. The boys and I were fine!

I looked around a bit for my chain and thought about what to do. I’d actually had my chain tool in my hand earlier in the week but I’d thought that, well, I haven’t used it since that one lesson about 4 years ago, and it’s heavy, so . . . I didn’t bring it. I found the chin, walked over to the other side of the road and started to walk back. Simon, Cathie and a few others asked if I was OK. I was shocked that apparently, at that point anyway, I’d been a bit ahead of them. That was unusual to say the least!

A farmer eventually picked me up and gave me a ride back to town. I handed in my chip and went to meet Nadia who was sleeping in he sunshine at the bike rack. I’ve never been the first guy in from the bike! It sure is easy to rack the bike when the racks are empty like that :-) .

Nadia and I found my buddy Allan finishing his bike ride. He was doing the Sprint Duathlon. We ran a bit with him and cheered him on to the finish line then headed back to the bike finish to watch for the rest of the gang. I’m useless at picking out friends on the bike. We saw Cathie and Linda finish. I talked to John for a bit. He was waiting for Cathie and Linda too to go out and bike a second loop.

I never found anyone else. We left the part about 12:30 or so.

I’ll be interested in seeing what Bike Sports in Newmarket do about the chain. I think I may pick up a spare link and carry that tool in Lake Placid also!

Saturday - Bike and Run

2009-07-04T11:08:00.000-04:00

We get spoiled in this sport. Maybe the correct word it twisted, or deranged. I’m not sure! Anyway. It struck me as odd this morning when I got up and checked my training schedule and saw that today called for a 45 minute easy bike and a 45 minute easy run. My immediate thought was, “Is that it? It’s hardly worth getting the clothes all sweaty for just those times. It wasn’t that long ago that the thought of an hour and a half of training seemed daunting.

I didn’t feel like unhooking the bike from the Computrainer and doing ‘all that’ this morning so, the bike consisted of another Rolling Stones concert on the computer and 45 minutes of easy spinning. A quick towel down and change of clothes and out I went for my run. I did my usual 5k route out along Wellington to Bathurst and back on Kennedy but kept going across Yonge to the next street that ran parallel to Yonge. North to Wellington and back home again. Darn, home too early. Another loop around my block, then back out to Kennedy and back. I must look like an idiot to any of the neighbors looking out their windows when I’m filling in time with these silly little loops and add on bits. What am I thinking. I forget how silly we must look to everyone outside of this sport as we charge off around our neighborhoods in spandex everything!

Peterborough is going to be a blast tomorrow. The weather forecast looks good. 17 degrees, sunny and 10k of wind out of the west. Yup – It’s going to be a good one!

Friday Swim and Bike

2009-07-03T11:13:00.001-04:00

WOW – Is that it? IS today the final day of the final two week build before the final Ironman? I think it is. We’re racing Peterborough this weekend and then I’m guessing I’ll have a couple of good workouts maybe next weekend, but that’s probably it. I’m undecided if I’m happy about that or not. I’ve found it a bit of a struggle this year getting ready for Ironman. There’s way too much going on in our lives right now so, although I’ve done about 98% of all my workouts for the last year, I don’t feel the excitement that I did the first time. Maybe it’s like getting laid. The first time is amazing, although it sure didn’t take 15 hours, the rest are trying to get back to that excitement! I expect the excitement will grow again with we get to Lake Placid again in a couple of weeks.

It was a bit cool outside this morning when Willem, Sid and I met at Lake Wilcox. It was a nice surprise to see Sid. I didn’t know he was coming. He also didn’t swim as quickly as Willem, so I had someone sort of close . . . well . . . . within sight anyway for the trip across the lake and back! The cooler air temperature just made the water feel that much warmer. It was a good swim. I managed about 22 minutes each way. I’m usually considerably slower heading out than coming back. I think early morning swims in that lake will stay with me for years as one of the really enjoyable parts of Ironman training. I hope the memory of the smell though disappears fairly quickly. That lake is just a bit too ‘ripe’ this year!

We did one out and back and then headed for the cars. I got home, changed into bike clothes and headed down to the Computrainer for a one hour workout. It was pretty much all zone 2 except for 3 x 5 minutes at 170 watts, which is in between zone 2 and 3 for me.

I’m looking forward to not training so much when this is all over. It will be great to watch late night television again. I hear David Letterman is still on TV! This last 4 years though has been a great experience. I’ve met and trained with some really interesting, fine folks. I’m going to have to figure out a way to convince them that training in Panama in the winter is a GREAT idea!

The Peterborough race is this weekend. I’ll swim and bike. Nadia is going to do the run. Alan is there doing the sprint. A few of the gang are doing various parts of the ½. It should be a fun weekend. This will be the only time that I can peddle my ass off, not worrying about keeping anything for the run. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been a bit slower on the bike this year, but I’m going to try my best to break an average speed of 30kph this weekend. The section between Millbrook and Pontypool is pretty hilly, but the rest s pretty level and the roads for the most part are in good condition.

Wednesday - Canada Day Brick

2009-07-01T12:05:00.001-04:00

I got up and did the one hour bike ride on the Computrainer. I could have unhooked it all and dragged it outside, but I was too lazy. It had been a while since I watched that Rolling Stones concert anyway! The hour went by quickly. It was nice to just relax, set it for mid zone 2 and go until the time was up.

I toweled down , changed and got out the door pretty quickly. The sky looked pretty ominous but the weather forecast read that it shouldn’t start raining until this afternoon. Nadia told me that she and Christine, Jen and a few others were going to be at the G.W. Williams track doing speed work so I headed over that way. I had 3 hours to do and couldn’t really decide where I wanted to head to.
Nobody at the school. So I guess they were at the club. I ran over there but didn’t see the cars. Vandorf to Leslie is pretty hilly, so I headed out that way. I was thinking of doing the Kennedy Wellington loop again, but past Leslie it’s relatively flat. I headed south on Leslie to Stouffville Sideroad and then north on Bayview. There were some good hills along that stretch of road. I looped up to the lake to see if anyone was swimming. There was one person way out and a couple of other folks getting out at the south east corner of the lake. I can’t figure out why they do that. It’s so difficult to get in there as opposed to going in from the canoe club. I ran back down along the south end of the lake and out to Yonge Street. I took King out to Bathurst up to Kennedy and back to my house.

The run ended up being 31k in 3:11, a 6:11 pace. My average heart rate was 121, just about smack on mid zone 2, and . . . . the rainy weather held off for me. A Canada present from God to me I guess!

Tuesday Tri

2009-06-30T12:44:00.000-04:00

Up early and off to the lake for a swim this morning. I swam alone again. The lake is so beautiful at first light. There was just a bit of mist floating over the water. Not enough to block sight of the far shore, but just enough to give the lake a touch of an eerie feeling. There was barely a ripple on the water. I LOVE IT like that.

I took my time, about 32 minutes, getting to the far side of the lake. I’d looked back a few times expecting I’d see someone else come out, but I didn’t. I kept swam back in my usual 22 minutes. Sighting off of the light on the canoe club was easier today because of all the cloud cover. No big bright sun shining in my face today!

I got out and got dried off and looked back to see that there were three people swimming about ½ down the lake towards me. I don’t know when they got out there. It would have been hysterical to have bumped into one of them!

I got back home and grabbed a quick shower then jumped on the bike/Computrainer for 50 minutes as per plan. A few sets of zone 3 and zone 4 work mixed in with easy zone 1 an 2 stuff. I worked hard to make sure my cadence didn’t drop below 90 on the tougher sets. Interesting that it was easier to keep cadence up at the end of the sets than at the beginning.

I toweled off, switched shoes and headed out for a quick 15 minute brick run, then back for a nice relaxing hot shower.

It’s looking like the rain isn’t supposed to start tomorrow morning until about 9:00 – I guess I’m getting up early to get in that one hour bike and 3 hour run tomorrow!

Monday Swim

2009-06-29T09:57:00.001-04:00

I had a great “Off” day yesterday because I’d skipped my Thursday off day. I was watching the weather forecasts and, I’m really tired of wet weather training. It’s nice to do nothing.

Today was a scheduled off day as well, but two days off in a row just doesn’t make sense . . . . yet! :-)

I drove down to Glendon and did the one hour swim there. It was a treat to be in clean water again for a change after all of those Lake Wilcox swims. Gee, maybe another reason I like being in the water at 5:00 there is because I can’t see how green that water really is when it’s still dark out!

Saturday 180k Bike and Short Run

2009-06-27T19:39:00.002-04:00

I drove up to Peterborough and rode the new half Ironman bike course, twice. My plan called for a 180k bike this weekend and I figured the best thing I could do was to go out by myself and train exactly as the coach suggested. Next weekend’s new bike course seemed like a good idea.

I managed the first loop in 3:21 and the second in 3:31. No negative split, but a lot closer than I’ve managed in the past.

The bike course is great. I think I like this course better than any I’ve raced on so far. Here’s a link to the route for anyone that wants it. http://www.mapmyride.com/view_route?r=628124604331726039

The ride starts the same as it always has, South out of the park and along Baseline road, but this year it continues to the end with a quick right and left turn, putting us on RR 21 through Millbrook and then on to Pontypool. There are a couple of hills on Baseline, but they aren’t huge. For the most part, the ride is pretty flat until we reach Millbrook. From Millbrook, a really cute little town, to Pontypool there are a number of good long hills mixed in with some flats that are great for getting some speed. The hills though are a reminiscent of the Keele, Jane Hills just to the west of Aurora. The route seems to be short by about 4k also.

So – about 25k relatively flat to Millbrook, then about 35k round trip from Millbrook to Pontypool and back, and then finish off the last 25 or so, fairly smooth riding. The roads are in great shape for most of the ride. There are a couple of spots near Millbrook that need to be watched on the return trip. They’ve patched some potholes, but the patches are pretty rough.

I got back to the park, changed quickly and ran the beginning of the run for about 20 minutes and then headed home. It was really hot out there today. I thought about the gang in Lake Placid this weekend I the rain. I’m hoping it was just light showers for them. I drank 7 bottle with E-Load and Fly, I stopped in Millbrook on the return of the second loop for two minutes to grab a quick chocolate milk. I eat on Power bar and 7 gels. I weighed the same when I got home as when I left, so I guess I’ve got the hydrating thing down about right.

I’m looking forward to an “Off” day tomorrow!

Friday Tri

2009-06-26T12:22:00.000-04:00

I guess it had to happen one day. Apparently, today was my day.

I’ve been out with the gang a bit more than usually lately. I love hanging with them, but one of two things always happens. Either: 1. I train in my proper zones and I hold them back, or 2. I keep up to them, which puts me in zone 7 and then the coach yells at me.
Anyway – I’ve noticed how many flat tires folks get. We had a big talk about that in Lake Placid a few weeks back when Bern got 3 flats and Willem blew both of his tires out at once.(She was cute, but you really have to keep your eyes on the road there buddy!). I kept my mouth shut. Id’ never had a flat and I figured the moment I’d say it out loud, I’d jinx myself.

I took my bike into the shop two weeks ago and got 2 new tires and tubes, new chain and rear chain rings. All set for Ironman, with a month to work with them and make sure they were good.

I met Willem at the Lake at 6:00 again this morning. I got there about 10 minutes earlier so that I could get warmed up a bit. Willem is the fastest swimmer I know. I thought I’d give trying to stay close to him a shot. (What was I thinking?) There was an exercise in futility. It’s absolutely amazing to watch who quickly, quietly and apparently effortlessly he just slipped on ahead of me. I often race with whoever is around me in the water. Often it takes 20 – 30 strokes or more for one or the other to pull away. I think it was about 6 strokes and he was gone! Amazing.

We had a great swim none the less. The water was warm with not a ripple on the surface except for us. Down to the far end of the lake. Stop for a minute or two and then back again. It’s a little over 1k each way. I didn’t race back but kept a steady stroke. It took me 21.5 minutes to hit shore. We walked back to the cars and I took off home to start my 2 hour bike ride.

I thought I’d go around Muscleman Lake and turn north on 48 to Vivian Road and come home again. I figure that’s about a 2 hour ride. I got to Woodbine on Vandorf Sideroad and decided to stop for a moment to change the views on my GPS to something else that I wanted to see. I pulled over near some landscaping stones just past Woodbine and “BANG”. I’d run over a piece of steel strapping and it had sliced through my new tire and tube. I don’t think they had 200k on them yet.

And so it was over. My ‘never get a flat’ luck had run its course. Oh well, it had to happen sometime. Better on a training ride by myself that with the gang, or during a race. I had tools , tubes and air cylinders with me. I changed the tube, put the tire back on, blew air into the tube and . . . . . the slice in the tire was too long. The tube blew right away. I was about 10k from home and had made a conscious decision on my way out not to carry my cell phone with me. I thought it would get all sweaty and I might wreck it. Bad decision. I stated to walk home pushing my bike, but within 5 minutes, Bill from Timberlane drove past, waved, turned around and came back and gave me a ride home. I’d run out of ‘no flat tire’ luck, but generally, my luck was still pretty good. It would have taken me forever to walk home, and I probably would have broken those bike shoes too!.

I put back on one of my old tires and headed out again. Around Muscleman Lake again, back along Aurora Road and home. Total riding time for both rides was just over 2 hours!

I changed shoes quickly had did my old standby 5k run from the house out to Bathurst and home again along Kennedy. I felt like I was running slowly, but I finished in 28 minutes. My 3.5 hour workout was over, in almost 5 hours!

I’m heading up to Peterborough tomorrow to ride the new half Ironman bike course a couple of times. I’d like to get that 180k done in less that 7.5 hours tomorrow, and then enjoy Sunday off again!

Thursday Brick

2009-06-25T10:40:00.001-04:00

I met Bryan and Willem at the lake at 6:00 this morning. Actually, I got there about 20 minutes early so I had a nice warm up and was part way down the lake when they came. Nice to finally figure out how to get to the other end of the lake before them. I just need a 250 meter head start, that’s all!

It was pretty cool actually. I was watching down the lake, looking into the sun, to see when they started to swim. The sun had risen above the trees and was really bright. All I could see was the light shine through the splashing that their arms made. It looked like silver splashes of fish jumping or something. The lake was beautiful. Well, as beautiful as that thing gets anyway. Nice and warm, not a ripple on the water. Very serine!

I saw more arms cutting through the water behind the guys. It turned out to be Cindy ad Allan and some of their gang coming out too. It was cool being at the other end chatting with all these folks for a bit.

The swim back took 19.5 minutes for me. I was pretty happy with that time. Most of the rest of the gang beat me, but not by a all that much.

Bryan headed back out with Cindy and a couple of their gang. Allan, Willem and I got out, chatted for a bit and then headed away.

I came home, got my bike from the Computrainer and headed out for a nice 1 hour ride. Out along Aurora Road, south on McGowan and back along Vandorf Sideroad. No wind, not too hot, an absolutely gorgeous day for a ride. I was disappointed when I got back home to see I’d averaged 25 kph. I was watching my power zone, but I’m not too excited about my average speed being down by 2 – 2.5 kph this year.

The bike feels brand new again though after getting it back from Bike Sports in Newmarket with new tires and tubes, chain and rear chain rings. Whoever ends up buying this bike is getting one hell of a deal on a great ride!

Wednesday Bike and Run

2009-06-25T05:04:00.000-04:00

Holy cow – I forgot to update this thing yesterday!

I’d started off with a nice easy 30 minute zone 2 spin on the bike, then headed out about 7:30 for a 2.5 hour run. Over to the club – out Vandorf to Kennedy, north to Aurora Road and back. It ended up being 26k and took me about 2:45 – many that was hot! 40oz of E-load and Fly, 4 Gels, and a couple of cups of water at Crestline on my way back into town. I was REALLY glad I didn’t wait for much later in the day. It was 20 degrees when I started but 28 when I finished. The humidex was 32.

The weather for Sunday is looking bad, so I’m not going to take Thursday off. I’m going to push the next three days of training ahead so I don’t get all rained on and take Sunday off instead.

Tuesday Bike

2009-06-23T07:51:00.002-04:00

Today's workout was a computrainer workout for sure. It was another 90 minutes broken into small increments of different wattage zones. I thought a number of 7 minutes at zone 4 (190 watts) was tough, but the following minute and a half at zone 5 (245) were next to impossible!

I've got a 2.5 hour run tomorrow and it's going to be HOT outside. I think I may still do this in the morning around 8:00 - 10:30. The weather report is calling for sunshine and 21 - 25 degree temperatures. I'm thinking that's hot enough for a long run!

Monday Swim and Run

2009-06-22T08:35:00.001-04:00

Because those useless, no brains, no balls, good for nothing, lazy piece of crap Unionized Toronto garbage men went on strike last night, the Douglas Snow pool was closed today. It was great that Adam was able to secure the pool at Glendon Collage for us. That pool, although short, is a great pool. Swimming with the sunlight beaming in through the glass side of the pool was beautiful. Another nice mix of 400 meter drills mixed in with lots of free style made the one hour go by pretty quickly.

I usually get home ASAP and head out for my run, but I think for the next while, I’m going to try to do my outdoor training later in the day when it’s hotter outside. It could be hot on Ironman day. God knows we’ve had enough cold, wet weather training to last a lifetime! I’ll do my 45 minute run at noon today.

Afternoon Run
oh yea - great idea running in the afternoon. Humidex reads 32 degrees - I ran out to Sonowball and back in exactly 45 minutes. Got a shower, still sweating for another half hour. Average Heartrate was 136 - mid to high zone 3 - I'll have to dial that back a bit I guess!

Sunday Brick

2009-06-21T11:34:00.002-04:00

Mike Dunbar met me at the house this morning and we biked out Vandorf Sideroad, around Muscleman Lake, and back along Wellington. I had a great ride. We bike at about the same speed. The weather was OK when we left at 7:30 but just got warmer and sunnier as we rode. 1:33 later we were back at the house with an average speed of 25.5 – Cadence was still a bit low at 81, but wattage average was 152 – just about dead on the mark.

Mike has some problems running right now, so he kept going back home. I wheeled into the driveway, changed shoes quickly and was out for my run in a minute or two. A quick 5k out along Wellington to Bathurst and back along Kennedy and George. 27 minutes later I was home and finished again. I wish I’d felt that fresh last week in Muskoka. Oh well-I feel good going into this last big two week build.

Friday Swim

2009-06-19T09:46:00.001-04:00

I got a bit of a surprise when I got to the pool this morning. I’d arrived about 5 minutes earlier than usual, so I wasn’t surprised when the parking lot was empty. When I got to the front doors of Douglas Snow and saw all the signs that read “Pool closed until June 22” and the doors were locked, I figured I’d misread Adams note and had gone to the wrong pool. A quick call to Simon straightened that out though. I walked around to the other side of the building and saw the custodian opening the doors I’d just walked away from! Today’s swim started at 6:00, not 5:45.

My schedule called for a nice easy 1 hour swim today. We had a choice on the board if a 3800 meter swim, or a regular workout. I went for the 3800, or whatever I could get done in an hour.

It was actually a pretty nice swim. I knew I wouldn’t get the distance all in within the one hour, so I put on a pull-buoy and just swam back and forth for an hour. Nice, easy, peaceful. It was odd getting out of the pool early. I’m pretty much always the last guy out of the water. I love those long easy uninterrupted swims!

Wednesday Swim

2009-06-17T09:59:00.001-04:00

It was nice having a couple of days off after the race on the weekend, but it was good to be getting back at it again too. With 38 days to Ironman, there’s not much time left to get some serious training in.

Bryan and I met at Lake Wilcox this morning at 6:00. I like to be there about an hour earlier myself, but I was OK with grabbing a bit more sleep and having company in the water.

Willem drove up just as we were about to find a place without dead fish that we could enter from. We talked for a bit, and headed out. The water temperature was considerably warmer than it was last week. Much warmer than the water in Muskoka on the weekend.

I usually go in straight off the ramp from the canoe club, but this morning we went in over to the north a bit at the bit of the beach. The weeds were thicker there though. They seem to be growing tall and fast this year.

I watched Bryan take off like a bullet. I need to stop a few times in the first 10 -15 minutes in the water as I get myself warmed up. He doesn’t do that. I asked and Bryan just swims much easier at the beginning. I’ll try that next time and see what happens.

Bryan got to the far end before me, waited a bit and then came out to meet me about 100 meters from the end. I turned at that point and headed back with him. We sighted off the sun over the club house all the way back. I’m not sure which one of us was swimming a curve, but boy we got misaligned a lot on the way back, but 25 minutes later I was at the ramp again.

Willem was gone. We watched some other folks entering the water from the south end of where the beach used to be. Willem tells us that the town wants the canoe club out of there, so there will not be any race lines in the water this year. Is it just me, or is it totally nuts that the town is closing the beach and the lake so that they can spend millions of dollars on building a pool? I’d like to meet the person who came up with that idea. I want to see if we hung out together doing the same stuff in the 60’s!

Muskoka Chase

2009-06-15T11:02:00.002-04:00

Bryan and I drove up to Muskoka together on Saturday afternoon. We picked up our kits, talked to Simon, Jean and Steve for a bit. Wandered around looking at stuff to buy, but refrained! Talked to Lisa and David and then headed over to the water to get a bit of a taste of how cold it was. One arm, up to the elbow was enough to see it was about the same as Lake Wilcox, or so I thought. We watched Lisa get into the water and head out for a swim. I’m guessing that, because she swims so fast, the friction from her body against eh water keeps her warm. The three swim caps probably helped a bit too. Man oh man she’s quick!

We drove back down to Gravenhurst to Bryans’ cottage. Sandra and the kids were there. We had a nice dinner, played with the kids a bit and headed to bed. I got a great sleep. It’s so nice to walk up and look out over the lake. The moon shining down and not a ripple on the water. It was beautiful. We got up about 5:00, eat some breakfast and headed back to Huntsville.

We lucked out with a parking spot close to the venue, got set up, talked to everyone and eventually started to make our way (about 800 meters) down to the start. The exit was moved further up the river, so the buoys on the lake were closer in, but I’d never remembered them that far out when I’d done this race a couple of years ago.

Bryan was In wave 3, so he started about 8:10 or so. I think Bernadette went in wave 8. Simon, Sid Steve and I were in the final wave. I really don’t like these wave starts. It’s bad enough that I’m old a slow, but when they make me start at the end, it just adds to disappointment of seeing how many folks are ahead of me!

We warmed up before the swim for about 10 minutes and then headed over to the start line. I picked a spot almost at the front. Getting beat up at the start line was good practice for Placid! I took it easy a bit at the start. I slowed down and did the breast stroke a bit now and then up until I got to about the first buoy, about 200 meters from the start line I think. I settled in and concentrated on long strokes with full finishes. When I watched Lisa swim the day before I noticed her feet came out of the water. I played with shifting my body so that my feet were higher than usual. I felt like I was moving a bit quicker. It was interesting swimming in and out of warm areas and then back into really cold areas as we worked our way around the lake and up the river. I found it odd that people didn’t stick to the right side of the buoys in the river. I was chasing someone with a blue patch on the back of their wet suit. They seemed to be just out of reach. Id’ catch them and then lose them a number of times heading up the river. When I realized we were almost at the exit, I put on a final push and came up beside him and saw it was Steve B. I hollered over, slapped him in the shoulder saying “Great Swim”. I think he tried to do the same and slipped. The net result was that he punched me in the mouth! That took away from the thoughts of a ouch swim!

I got up and into transition, got out of the wet suit and into socks shoes glasses and helmet and got out in 3:43. A bit slow, but I was having some trouble with the wet suit.

I started the bike. I had my gloves and arm warmers in my vest, but I didn’t bother putting them on. About 1 k along though, I went off the road and the bike stopped dead in the sand. I fell over, cut my calf on the chain ring, and felt like an idiot laying on the road. I got going quickly, but had to stop to twist my bike seat back into position. The ride was very hilly. I could feel that my quads were burning within a couple of minutes of starting to ride. Not a good sign! I watched the watt meter a lot. This was my first race using it. I took it easy on the up hills and pushed on the flats and downhills. I was only at about the 7 – 8 k mark when the first rider was heading back the other way! I told myself he had a 32 minute head start on me, but I could see he was just flying UP the hill we were on.

There were a lot of folks with broken bikes along the way. A lot of flat tires. I called out to just about everyone asking if they needed anything. One guy said he needs tire removal tools. I stopped and lent him mine, and gave him an air cartridge. I wondered later: 1. Who does out on a long race without tools and 2. If he didn’t have tire tools, what were the chances he had a valve to put on the cartridge either. He wasn’t there when I came back, so I guess he got it somehow.

The turnaround was at the bottom of a fairly steep hill. I’m sure the race course planners had a good laugh when they made that one up. I usually have good luck chasing people down at the end of a bike ride, but I just didn’t have the power that day.

Into transition and out for the run and my legs were baked! I kept telling myself it’s only a 15k run. I do that all the time training and it’s not all that big a deal. The start of the run is all uphill though in Huntsville. As I got up to the finish line, I heard them call out Cindy Lewis finishing. I laughed and told myself I’m doing great, when only beat me but, well about 14.5 k!

Adam ran over and talked to me as I made my way up the hill. I was glad when he told me this hill was the toughest one, but laughed to myself when he told me I was looking good. I sure didn’t feel like I was looking good, but I guess you don’t want your coach telling you that you look like crap as you’re heading out of town!

The run took forever. There is very little shade and the sun was beating down hard. I think the temperature was about 22. I haven’t seen 22 degrees yet and I sure haven’t’ run in it this year! I’m going to have to plan a few noon time runs over the next few weeks. The run was an out and back also, split almost in half by the bridge over Hwy 11. The next section past the 11 to the turnaround seemed to take forever, I kept looking for it at every turn, but it was just never there. My left knee started to pop a bit. It felt like it was going to pop out of the joint or something. I’d hobble for a couple of steps, and then it was OK. There were a few kids along the way with water hoses. Getting sprayed down sure helped for a bit, but it was amazing how quickly that coolness disappeared. I finally got to the turn around and headed back. It felt a bit shorter getting to the highway again, and then shorter again coming back into town. I caught myself walking a bit in that last few kilometers.

I had a great surprise at the finish. Simon, Bern Sid, Steve and Steve where there cheering me on as I crossed the line. I’m always so far behind them that they are always gone when I come in. It was the thrill of the day for me that they hung in for me. They are a great, fun, supportive gang to folks. I’m really glad I’ve met them all and had the opportunity to hang and train with them some.

I was hoping to come in between 4:15 and 4:30. I ended up crossing the line at 4:38. I’m chocking this race down to ‘just not a great day’ If I have to have a tougher than usual race, I’d rather it be there than in Lake Placid in about 6 weeks. A couple of late nights and a few drinks late last week I’m sure counted for some of it too.

Friday Swim

2009-06-12T06:58:00.002-04:00

I don't care what everyone says about it. I LOVE swimming in the lake, by myself, while the sun comes up.

I can't think of a more peaceful place to be. Well, maybe still being asleep in bed would be better, but the lake at sunrise is a very close second!

It was about 5:10 when I got to the lake this morning. We had company at the house last night so I got to bed a couple of hours later than usual. First light had broken already, but the moon was still huge and bright in the sky. I got into the water and, I just didn't fell like doing that trek to the other end again. The water felt a bit warmer than it did a couple of days ago. I guess it doesn't take long to warm up with a bit of sun on it.

I swam over to the far buoy, then headed over to Willems father-in-laws place. I contemplated moving the boat on them, but then thought better of it. I swam up a bit further and checked out the airplane. One day I've got to get a ride on one of those and land on the lake. I'd really like to see how big, or small, swimmers look from a landing plane.

I headed across to the other side of the lake, then back out to the middle and back to the canoe club where I'd started.

It was kind of fun just shooting from here to there and back as opposed to just the old out and back that I always do. I was out of the water in just under an hour, so I guess I got in the time that I was scheduled to do at the pool.

Next stop - Muskoka. I'm looking forward to seeing how I do there this year.

Thursday Brick

2009-06-11T09:28:00.000-04:00

It was a nice and easy workout this morning. A 45 minute bike, various times, various wattages, and then a simple 15 minute brick run. The bike had a few minute repeats for some zone 3 and then some zone 4 stuff, but all in all, an easy workout.

I’ll see what the weather is looking like for tomorrow morning. I think I may go do that Lake Wilcox swim at 5:00 again tomorrow

Wednesday - Lake Wilcox Swim

2009-06-10T07:57:00.000-04:00

I headed over to Lake Wilcox at 5:00am this morning for a swim. A bunch of the gang were going to come at one point, but everyone slowly dropped out. Bryan slept in. Although it’s not the safest way to swim, I have to admit I really like swimming the length of that lake and back, starting off in the dark by myself.

The moon must have been full just a few days ago. It was pretty full and bright in the sky. I swam ‘head-up’ for a while. That water felt really cold on my face. I sighted off the moon for a while, then at first light, about half way down the lake, I sighted off a couple of lights at the other end of the lake. I think that was the first time I’ve swam the lake without the buoys being in the water. I stopped a few times on the way down the lake getting myself warmed up and breathing properly. I was fine at about the half way point. It sure seemed to take forever to get to a point where I could stand at the far end. With all the stops along the way, I’d taken about 32 minutes.

When I turned at the far end, I counted strokes, and concentrated on sighting. About 1350 strokes and 22 minutes later, I was back at the canoe club dock. The temperate was still only 10 degrees, so I dried off my hands and face and drove home in my wet suit. I’d worn my diving booties for eh swim. Partly to keep my feet warm, but mostly so that I didn’t have to feel the slimy bottom of the lake getting in and out and at the other end. I should have taken them off before driving home. The water in them got real cold, real fast!

I’m glad I’ve done that swim. I’d forgotten about sighting and getting the rhythm going for that. Here’s hoping it all stays with me for Muskoka this weekend.

Tuesday Brick

2009-06-09T08:52:00.002-04:00

It was a pretty easy workout today. a 45 minute zone 1 - 2 bike and a 15 minute run. I was thinking of going over to the club and doing the spin class and running from there, but I know me. As much as I'd say that I'm just going to spin easy, I'd get into whatever the class was doing and push like mad. Better to take it easy so that I can be in the best shape possible for the race this weekend. With less than 7 weeks to Ironman, I guess I should start listening to the coach for the final stretch anyway!

Monday Swim

2009-06-08T09:14:00.001-04:00

The pool was a bit light of people this morning. A lot of the gang had done the Lakeside race yesterday. A race is an automatic pass from the Monday morning swim!

I brought my wetsuit and did the first 2400 meters with it on. It was fun being the fast guy in the lane for a change! It sure got hot quickly though. I took it off and did the rest of the workout without it. Today must have been lazy day. By 7:00am almost everyone was gone. I finished off the last 100meter blast and even the coach was walking away!

Panic just set in for a second as I wrote this when I thought maybe I was supposed to run or something this morning too, but, I checked. Taper week – nothing but a swim this morning. Got to LOVE taper week!

So far there are 4 of us heading to Lake Wilcox at 5:00am on Wednesday. Come on Willem – you’ll make it 5!

Saturday - Long Brick

2009-06-06T14:52:00.001-04:00

Today started out at 7:00 meeting up with Frank ( for the first time in forever!) and cycling up to Lake Simcoe. I had a very detailed workout to do. In hindsight, it might have been better to do it on the Computrainer, but, I loved getting outside. It was great catching up with Frank. He’s an amazing cyclist. I think I got enough hard peddling into the ride to be pretty close to what I was supposed to do.

Bernadette, Sid and Steve V were at the lake when we got there. They’d finished their swim, a bit quicker I think than they had planned because of how cold the water was. I wonder if we can use dry suits in Muskoka next weekend? They were heading out on their bikes, and looking for Steve B at the same time. About half way back they got Steve on the phone. They headed back to the lake, Frank and I headed home. Finishing the ride along St Johns Sideroad was a killer. Those hills, at the 85k mark were steep!

I rode over to Franks again before heading home. I thought I was going to be short a few k, but I ended up doing 93.25k in 3:34 at an average speed of 26.1 kph. Average cadence was down at 81. I was surprised to see that Average Watts was 154, just breaking into zone 3.

Frank got changed and started running towards my place. We live 2k apart. I got changed an ran out to meet him. We had a 60 minute run to do. We did the 5k loop from my place twice. Frank headed home when we passed his place. Something wasn’t right with his knee. It was a lot smarter to get off it early than to keep pushing and hurting it worse. I stopped at the house for a gel and some water and headed back out for the second 5k. I was supposed to be pushing mid and then high zone 3, which I did. I finished that loop in 27:31. I was amazed to get it done that quickly after all the other mileage of the day.
I’m a happy, but tired, no pony tail guy today!

Friday Swim and Run

2009-06-05T11:03:00.000-04:00

My wetsuit is in the truck of my car. I thought of bringing it to the pool this morning, but didn’t bother. I’ve got notes to bring it a few times over the next couple of weeks, so I figured I’d just bring it on those days. As soon as I saw the workout board I knew I’d made a mistake!

We had a choice today of a regular varied workout, or a straight 3800 meter swim. There was no question for me. 3800 it is! I slapped on the pull-buoy and away I went. I counted 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 in my head, down and back for the first hundred meters. 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, for the next and kept that up until I finished 38, about an hour and 25 – 30 minutes later.

The time went by pretty quickly actually. It’s funny, the games one comes up while putting in the time. I’ve learned not to let my mind wander far, or think of much else while doing a big swim. Any time I do that, I totally lose count. There’s nothing worse than finishing and the person at your heals yells “3 more!” I managed to not lose count today.

I LOVE swimming with that pull-buoy. For some reason, I feel like I fly through the water with it on. It seems to work the opposite for Lynda. She swims faster than me most of the time, but not with the pull-buoy. For a while, I played with seeing if I could lap Lynda. About half way through the swim, I realized that Simon and Kathie were slowly catching up to me. I seemed to pull ahead on the way back, but they caught up by about a foot at the far end of the pool every time. Simon was just a couple of feet back at about the 3200 meter mark. I was bound and determined not to let him catch me. I picked up my pace a bit, and again, I could pull away in one direction, but I’d lose it o the other. I’m not sure why that happens. There sure isn’t a current in the pool!

All of a sudden, Simon was gone when I turned. For a second I wondered if he’d caught me and was at my side, but, no. I’d lost him somehow. It looked like Kathie was drafting off of Simon too because she was falling back. Either that of the panic that he’d caught me gave me another little boost of energy! It ended up Simon caught a cramp and had to sit out a lap stretching it back out.

I finished the 3800 in a little under the hour and a half class. I grabbed a quick shower, drove home and changed into shorts and headed out for a 5k run. Felt really tired when I started. I was a bit surprised by that. I’d had a bottle of E-Mend and finished a bottle of E-Load and eaten a gel on the drive home. That tiredness sort of went away after about 5 minutes or so. I stuck to my zone 2 for the run, but was shocked to see I’d made it back in just under 29 minutes. I’d figured I would have been 31 – 32 for sure.

It’s going to be interesting to see how my time works out for the Muskoka Chase in a couple of weeks.

Thursday Bike

2009-06-04T10:33:00.000-04:00

I never ceases to amaze me how I can do a long run, limp around for a day or two, then jump on the bike for a good ride and my legs feel great afterwards. I’d done a long run Tuesday (30k) and swam yesterday, and my legs were still stiff with burning quads when I climbed the stairs last night. They were stiff this morning. I was dreading the 90 minute Computrainer workout this morning.

Today started with 15 minutes nice and easy, then 15 minutes low zone 2 then 6 x 1.5 @ zone 5, 1.5 @ zone 1, 2 minutes low zone 2 and 5 minutes high zone 2. Those minute and a half zone 5’s got to be a killer. If I kept my cadence up around 90 – 95, other than my heart rate, it wasn’t too bad. Any time I let it slip into the 80’s it dropped like a stone from there and it was almost impossible to keep peddling. I made got through 4 of the 6 with high cadence.

I tried to drink more water than I usually do too. I think I’ll be able to get up to 750ml per hour on the bike, running is going to be another story though I think.

Wednesday Swim

2009-06-03T13:54:00.002-04:00

I was tired today going into that swim. I felt pretty good out on that 30k run yesterday, but within a couple of hours of finishing, my legs were burning up!

My lane was packed today and there was almost no one in the slower lane, so I moved over there. I did all the drills, but took my time. I was good with getting it done, but not killing myself at the same time. I want to be in great shape for the Brick on Saturday. Who knows, we might even get good weather!

Tuesday – Tiny Bike and 30k Run

2009-06-02T11:44:00.001-04:00

It felt really good not working out yesterday at all. I stayed up a little later than usual last night and then allowed myself to sleep in as late as I wanted this morning. I’d thought of booting it over to the club for 5:00, but crawling out of bed at 6:15 was every bit as nice.

I got into running clothes and headed down to the Computrainer for a quick 15 minute easy spin. Just enough to get the leg muscles going again after that killer weekend of riding around the Ironman course.

I got out the door at about 7:15 or so. The training schedule (yes Willem, by Adam) called for a 3 hour run. Mostly zone 2, but 3 x 10 minute zone 3 bit’s tossed in periodically, just to break it up a bit. I mapped out a 25k route Wellington to Leslie to Mulock to Bathurst, down to Henderson, up Yonge to Murray and then loop back to the house. I watched my heart rate pretty much as it was called. The zone 3 periods got placed wherever the hills happened to be. As I was running along Henderson I realized I was covering more ground than I had expected to. I looped over towards the club a bit and zig zagged around to add on another 5k. I ended up with an average heart rate of 125 (mid high zone 2). A pace of 6:02 and covered 29.5k in 2:58. I’m tired, but not feeling terrible. That’s a better pace and a much lower heart rate than my first run at Around the Bay a couple of years ago. Who knows for sure, but I really feel like, barring any unexpected difficulties, I’ve got a good shot at breaking that 14 hour mark for Lake Placid this year. If I don’t break it, I should be close to it anyway!

Lake Placid Training Weekend

2009-06-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

That was a fun, albeit tough training weekend. Simon, Bernadette, Sid and Steve V. and Steve B. drove to Lake Placid on Thursday. David, Bryan Willem and I drove down in David’s van on Friday. We all stayed at Swiss Acres. I’d stayed in one of the cabins there before with Michelle, Gavin, Kathryn and Derek a couple of years ago. I remembered the cabins bigger than they were but, they worked out. David’s a bit sad about having to sleep in a cupboard, but he wasn’t too vocal about it.

We got to LP at about noon. Check in wasn’t until 3:00 so we drove into town and drove the bike route so that everyone knew what it was. We got back to town, had pizza for lunch, checked into our room and headed off to the lake for a swim. The fact that there was no one else in the lake should have been a hint to us. The water was ice cold. We got into wet suits and neoprene caps. I put on my diving booties too. We dashed in and out of the water a bit trying to decide if we were going to die attempting to swim to the other side of the lake or not, then Bryan went for it. David was right behind him. I really didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t wimp out, so I swam, head up for a bit and about two buoys out decided to finally stick my head in the water. I glanced at a my watch when the water finally started to not feel so cold. It was 16 minutes into the swim! The lines were in the water, but we think they were canoe race lines or something. There were three of them, and they were over to the far side of the lake, not down the middle and across. The went to within about 100 meters of the other end of the lake also. I kept looking ahead to see where Bryan was turning, but he never turned! We came back along the same line we’d swam out on. When we met up, Bryan came back out with me to the end again. We ended up swimming for about an hour. I could feel my body temperature starting to drop about 10 minutes before we got back to shore. I wore my wetsuit back to the hotel!

We all met up at the A teams room before heading out for dinner at Charlie’s. There room was HUGE – I think it could have slept 11 people, and still had empty space in the middle where the couches were, in front of the fireplace!

Michele and Gavin came and met us at the restaurant as we were finishing dinner. We did a little grocery shopping after dinner and were in bed by about 9:30 – 10:00 I think.

I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Some of the gang went for the free breakfast at 8:00 in the hotel restaurant. By the sounds of things, it was run by the breakfast Nazi (Seinfeld’s soup Nazi sister I guess), and wasn’t too tasty.

We headed out for our 180k bike ride about 9:00. I found the first loop of the bike seemed to go by fairly quickly. Even the out and back didn’t seem as far as I had remembered it, or as long as it felt driving in the car the day before. The climb from the gorge back into town was a bit tougher than I’d remembered though. We met up at David’s van that we’d left by the lake and refilled water bottles, loaded up on Gel’s and Power Bars and were on our way again, this time doing the route in reverse. Simon and his gang had done that last year and all I remembered were stories of how hard it was. I wasn’t looking forward to this loop at all.

The first half of the loop went pretty well actually. Riding down all the hills out of town was a blast. Not as steep or as fast as that 10k drop into Keene where I’d hit 72.6 kph on the first loop, but I was zipping long a lot of that at 50 – 55k. I guess the wind was too our back going out on the out and back. The 11k heading out went pretty quickly, after we turned though, with wind in our face, it felt like it was twice as far to get back to the main road. We stopped at the corner store to re-fuel a bit. Chocolate mild tasted great! I drafted off Steve’s back wheel for most of the ride from there to Jay, and hung on for about half the way to Upper Jay, but I was fading quickly. I was paying tons of attention to staying in zone 2 as much as possible. I decided to drop back. I really wanted to see how long a zone 2 180k ride was going to take, and I wanted to be as fresh as I could be going up out of Keene. The gang just flew ahead of me!

I got to Keene. We’d ridden about 155k so far, and the climb started. Amazing how quickly that 10k hill goes when you’re headed the other way. I dropped into granny gear immediately and crawled all the way up. Wind in my face, cursing a bit. I was glad for all the curves in the road. I always had a little hope that the road would level out just around the next bend. Most of the time I looked down at the speedometer it read about 8kph. Eventually I got to the top. It took me just about exactly one hour to get there. My bike needed a tune up. I couldn’t use 2nd or 3rd gear all day. As soon as I went to try to use one of those, the bike would slip in and out of gear. I had to stay in 1sit until I could push 4th. Eventually though, I got to a downhill and some flat land. It felt GREAT!

Bernadette got her second flat of the day just before the horse grounds on the outskirts of town. Sid was with her, but I stopped anyway. I’m not sure if my real motive was to be of help if I could be, or if it was just a great reason to stand still for a bit. She got the tire changed and I gave her a cylinder to blow it back up with, but mine were for 700 tires. Hers was a 650 and it blew it up. I was amazed at how easy Bern was about having to change it again. I would have been tossing my bike half way up the mountain if it had happened to me!

We got back to town, back to our rooms and headed out for dinner. Michelle, Gavin, Derek and Kathryn met us at Malone’s. I had a big pasta dinner. It felt great.

We got up at about 7:30 Sunday morning. It looked miserable outside. The weather report on the TV was calling for thundershowers and huge winds. It was cold. I decided I’d be pretty happy with getting home early and doing my last loop on the Computrainer. For a few minute, it looked like that was what we were going to do, but Willem headed out with David close behind catching up to the other team. Not wanting to wimp out got me out the door again. One more loop, in the right direction though this time. That was a long hard ride. When we got to the out and back, Simon, Bern and team were just coming out of it. I figured that was an omen from God that he wanted me to come back with them and pass on the out and back. So that’s what I did. David was sticking with me. I think we were both glad to skip that bit.

The wind picked up a lot when we got to that last 10k – 15k uphill back into town. At times it almost stopped us dead in our tracks. We were pretty happy to finish that ride. We caught up to Willem in town by the lake. He’d hit a pothole in town and blown both tires and tubes. Bryan had run rather than ride so someone got him to drive back to pick up Willem. We biked back out to the hotel.

We showered, packed up and headed back. It was a little sad when we got lost in the car and ended up at the Quebec border, but we eventually got back on track and were home by about 8:00.

Nice to sleep in this morning!

Wednesday – Another Brick!

2009-05-27T10:56:00.001-04:00

I’ve been thinking more and more lately that I’d rather be outside on my bike than riding inside on the Computrainer now that the weather is getting nicer. Today was not one of those days. I woke up to the cool rainy weather and was happy to head for the basement!

Today consisted of an hour and a half, broken into groups of zone 4 and zone 5 work with zone 1 & 2 recovery times in between. It was touch keeping that cadence up over the last few 1:15 Zone 5 bits, but I did it.

I headed over to the club straight off the bike. I know it’s important to be able to run in the rain but, I think I’ve got enough practice in over the last few years! Most of my brick runs lately have just been 30 minutes or so. The hour seemed long from the 20 to 40 minute mark.

I was too late at the club to see any of the gang. It was a bit sad too that the steam room wasn’t working ‘AGAIN’. I was dreaming of a nice long steam during that run.

Oh, well, the showers were good. There’s another 2:30 workout out of the way. Next workout is a 3.8k swim in Mirror Lake in Lake Placid this Friday! The weathers not looking great, but, it’s not looking terrible either!

Tuesday - "Just like the old days" - Brick

2009-05-26T08:25:00.003-04:00

That was a fun workout this morning. The plan called for a 30 minute bike and a 30 minute run. I decided to go over to the club, for the first time in what feels like forever, and do the spin class. My bike plan was for an easy ride, so I didn't push as much as Christine had everyone going. It was fun to be back in with the old gang again.

Right after the spin class, Nadia, Christine, Jen and I headed out for a short run. We did the old Hartwell 5k route, without the bit around the park. It was good to see that Nadia was able to run again. She's been off for a few weeks with that bad ankle from her trail run accident. Christine had suggested a trail run this morning, but there was no way I was heading into the trails with only a couple of months until Ironman. Tree limbs and such make me nervous. I know I'll twist an ankle too!

Monday Swim - 2k Time Trial

2009-05-25T15:26:00.001-04:00

That was a great swim in the morning. Great to see Bryan back out one more time. I’m not sure where Simon and Kim were, but otherwise it seemed like all the gang was out. We did the 2k time trial swim today. It’s amazing how hard it is to keep track of a count from 1 to 20 while swimming for a while. I thought we were at 16 when someone told me it was only 13. That was an unpleasant surprise!

I managed to get though it today though in 47:18. Bryan was a lot quicker, but he cheated by suing a pull-buoy!

I took left early, right after the time trial to get home to meet our agent to get the house listed.

Exciting times!

Saturday Brick

2009-05-23T15:24:00.004-04:00

The plan called for a 2:15 bike followed by a 1:15 run.

The bike was tough. I guess two Rum and Cokes and a chocolate bar for supper really didn't help me out with stored carbs very well. The workout was 3 times 15 minute zone 2 and 30 minute zone 3. I punched in my new and improved zones, and I always punch in the top figure for whatever zone I'm supposed to be in. Those zone 3's got tough. I really wish I'd done that ride outside too. I'd had lost of opportunity, but opted for the Computrainer. I got them done though, with buckets of sweat under the bike when I was done! The bike stats were an average wattage of 139, 27.3kph and a low cadence of 78.

The run went OK - I did a 12k loop from the house around town. It wasn't particularly hilly. I really didn't push a lot. 20 minutes zone 2, 25 minutes low zone 3, 20 minutes high zone 3. The 12.25k took exactly 1:15. I averaged a 6:15 pace at a 131 heart rate. 128 is the top of zone 2, 138 is top of zone 3.

It was nice to be done. I guess I blew it a bit with hydration though. My weight was 169.9 when I started and 168.4 when I was all done, even after the bottle of E-Mend!
Great to see the scales down where I want to be , for the first time in 2 years. I think was 168 when I did Ironman 2 years ago. I'd like to be there again for this years race. I'd been pushing the mid 180's for a while not so long ago.

Friday Bike Test and Run

2009-05-22T10:32:00.002-04:00

I'm really happy with the results from this mornings bike test. Wattage's in each zone are up about 10. The last test, I'd dropped 5 so I'm much happier with these results. Zone 20 is now 120 - 150, Zone 3 is 155-165, so, there are my markers for the race.

I'm going to try to stick to exactly those zones during the training weekend in Lake Placid next weekend. With 270k to do on the bike over the weekend, these zones better work or I'm not going to be able to walk for a week!

A quick 15 minute run straight off the bike was fine. No 'dead brick legs' at all.

Wednesday Swim and Nothing

2009-05-20T08:18:00.004-04:00

I went down to Havergal for the swim this morning. Our lane was packed so I moved over and swam with John in my old lane. I was tired today. I seemed to wake up a lot last night, and I've been working hard physically on this bathroom reno. Hopefully, it will be done today.

I have a scheduled bike ride and a short run to do this morning also. I'm going to pass on them both. I almost never do that. I have a bike test on Friday that I want to be in perfect shape for,and I also want to be totally rested before we head down to Lake Placid next weekend too.

Tuesday Baby Brick

2009-05-19T08:29:00.002-04:00

I really like this recovery week stuff. Other than power washing the 3 decks around the house and finishing the drywall in the kitchen, I didn't do anything. NO workout at all.

Today was a nice easy baby brick. 20 minutes on the bike at zone 1 and a slow 20 minute run over to Murray and Kennedy and back.

It's pretty nice sleeping in until 6:30 before starting this stuff too!

Sunday Brick - What else!

2009-05-17T16:46:00.002-04:00

And so, another two week build draws to an end! Lynne has been away for a couple of days and I'm too lazy to make myself proper food. I sure feel it when I'm training. That old energy level is so low it's unbelievable.

I had to play all those stupid games in my head for the 2:15 bike today. Getting through the 25 minute warm up was ok (note small case!). The next 35 minutes of zone 3 got pretty tiring. I told myself I'd probably just do it, and the 20 minute zone 2 recovery and call it quits. When I finished that, I told myself I'd just do 15 minute of the next 35 minute zone 3, and then just kept playing with 5 or 10 minute increments until I go it done and the next 20 minute zone 2 thing. It's just too close to race time to start letting myself take shortcuts with the workouts.

I headed over to the club and did the 45 minute run on the treadmill. I played the same 5 - 10 minute games with myself to get through the 30 minute zone 3 again.

The steam and the shower felt great when I finished. The only thing that felt better was knowing that I'm on an easy recovery next week. I think I'll do "EXACTLY" what's on the schedule for next week. I want to do well at the bike text on Friday and I want to be in the best shape possible for the upcoming Lake Placid training weekend.

Saturday - Easy Spin

2009-05-16T08:52:00.001-04:00

I was really stiff on Saturday when I got up. I did the easy 30 minute spin that had been schedueled for after my swim yesterday. As tough as it was to get started, I feel great now! I’m going to take full advantage of this easy recovery week coming up!

Friday Swim and Bike

2009-05-16T08:51:00.000-04:00

Friday Swim & Bike
A few of us showed up with wetsuits today. It’s been a long time since I had that on. I forgot how easy it is to swim in it. I feel like a cork floating on oil in that thing. I only kept it on for about 20 minutes of so, not much more than the warm up. It was great to be swimming past all the fast swimmers who didn’t have one on. I don’t often get to see people drop back behind me in the water!

I did the breast stroke for a couple of lengths of the pool. The wet suit holds me so high in the water that when I do that frog kick thing, my feet were out of the water. Funny, but not too helpful for propulsion!

We did the 400 meter time trial. Simon was behind me. I knew he was enjoying the draft. He softly, accidentally I’m sure, touched my feet. That’s the signal for ‘let me pass’. I don’t think he was very happy when I stopped at the wall and then drafted off him for a couple of laps. It sure was a lot easier swim though with him a few feet in front of me! My time was 8:34. I don’t know what last years’ time was, but I’m sure this was a good bit quicker.

The weather report for Saturday was calling for rain again. I didn’t want to play out last weekend’s ride again, so I went out and did my 160k ride after I got home from swimming. Karen Bonham picked me up at about 9:15 and we headed out and up to Lake Simcoe. We had guessed that we both biked at about the same speed. We were wrong! I average about 26 – 27 kph, I think she’s more like 30 – 32. I got to practice drafting a bit on the bike today too.

We cycled up to the Lake and then back to Aurora. Karen had something to do in the afternoon. We split off at St. Johns and Bayview. I carried on over to Dufferin, down to King City and dropped in on a friend for 10 minutes. I left and went over to Jane, north to Hwy 9 and into Holland Marsh. I circled the march around Bradford and came back out of Dufferin again, back over the Bathurst to Mulock, over to Bayview, down to Wellington and home. When I got to the house I was short by 5.5 k, so I headed out again to Bathurst and Kennedy, circled a bit in the neighborhood and ended up at 160.3 in 6:20. I’d been averaging 27+ kph riding with Karen, but the hills slowed me down, (plus I guess I was pretty tired) so that my ending average speed was 25.3. Average wattage was 142 with a 78 cadence. By those numbers I guess I should has gone one gear lighter for most of the day.

Wednesday Brick / Long Run

2009-05-13T10:46:00.002-04:00

I guess it's still a brick. The bike ride was only 20 minutes at zone 1, really just to get warmed up and flush the legs out a bit I think. It's a nice easy way to get started at the day regardless.

I'd had a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk before getting on the bike. I changed quickly and got out on my run. I'd thought of the usual Hwy 48 from Timberlane, or from my house, but I opted for heading the other direction for a change. The hills a bigger west than they are to the east.

Over to Snowball, along 16 to Jane, north to the Kettleby / 400 corner and east through Kettleby. I've bike through there a bunch, but this was my first run through. Very pretty. Very hilly! Out of town south on Keel to Aurora Road to Dufferin, along Wellington to Bathurst to Kennedy out to Yonge, back up to Wellington and home . . . but I was home 5 minutes early. I jogged back out George to Kennedy and back. When I hit stop on the Garmin, I was 8 seconds early!

26.26k at a 6.05 pace with a 128 bpm (top of Zone 2) heart rate. My max heart rate was only 142. I think I'm starting to get this pacing stuff down fairly well.

I sort of wish I'd started this sport about 10 years earlier. I'm just starting to pick up some speed and getting the hang of pacing etc, and I'm done in a few short months. I wonder if I would have just gotten bored at an earlier age?

Tuesday Brick

2009-05-12T09:33:00.002-04:00

Today was a 90 minute bike, progressively higher wattages followed by a quick cool down and a couple of minutes zone 2, and then a 5k run.

The bike was touch. Holding a 90 cadence at zone 5, even for a minute was almost impossible the first time, by the sixth time, I just barreled through it. I found keeping cadence up above 95 made it a bit easier, but a thoughtless moment dropped it to 85 or less which was a killer to keep going at.

My buddy Willem suggested the other day that I roll my hips forward a bit on the bike to straighten out my back a bit. I was thinking of that today and tried it. Peddling did seem easier, but it took a lot of concentration to keep doing it. I wonder if I have time over the next few weeks to get into the habit before Ironman?

I thought the run was going to be slow. I only checked the time at a couple of spots and was pleasantly surprised that I finished the 5k this morning in 26:30. I was tired, but not totally bushed.

Monday Swim

2009-05-11T17:01:00.002-04:00

We did 3100 metres today including the warm up. A couple of 200 meter 'blasts' Interesting that the first one took me 4:20 - 4:25. The second on was 4:10 because I was drafting behind Anthony all the way.

Theres a decision made. I'm swimming the line in the middle of the pack at Ironman!

Sunday Brick . . . . Again!

2009-05-10T11:42:00.002-04:00

I slept in this morning for a while. I'm not even sure what time it was that I got up. I just know it was nice to get out of bed because I felt like it, not because I had too.

I was scheduled for a 2 hour bike and a 30 minute run. It was cold and windy outside, so I dialed up the Computrainer, and tuned it up and down for the appropriate zone 2 and zone 3 times, and watched my cadence as best I could. Watching the Sopranos on DVD wasn't as stimulating as the Stones concerts, but it was entertaining! The Power tape reads 123 av watts, 32 av kph and an 85 cadence. It would be great if once I could actually ride outside and hit that mileage!

I went out for m y 30 minute run. I'd overdressed. I was sweating even running into the wind on the way west towards Bathurst. I had to drop the jacket on the way back. I was soaking in sweat . . . . again.

What a wet weekend this has turned out to be!

Saturday Never Ending Brick

2009-05-09T16:16:00.003-04:00

When I looked at the weather first thing this morning, it's looked like we had a choice of doing the 140k bike through some "Light Showers' today, or cold and windy tomorrow. The gang were meeting in Sharon at 8:00. I left about 6:45, headed south and around Lake Wilcox, and then circled back to Sharon. Willem caught me just as I was getting into town.

We had a good sized gang heading out. Simon, Bernadette, Sid, Steve and Steve, Willem and myself. I was counting on getting left behind, but I was able to keep up OK today.

We headed out and around Muscleman Lake, but the sky's opened up even before we got there. I hadn't bothered with a jacket. I had a vest over my bike shirt with arm warmers, but I was soaked and cold in no time. Around the lake, back up to Aurora Road and out east we headed. A huge group including Lynda were heading north as we'd been heading south. We found another group east of the lake, all huddled at the side of the road, deciding what to do also I assume. We headed out about 3 concessions I think though the pouring rain. The 'fun factor' was dipping into the negative zone for a lot of that. Willem, Steve and I abandoned Steve, Sid, Simon and Bern and turned back towards Aurora.

We thought it had been raining hard before, but God proved us wrong. The sky opened up and it absolutely teamed down with rain and some hail. We pushed like mad to get back. Steve headed back north at Leslie, Willem south at Bayview. I kept going to get home as quick as possible.

I'd ridden 82k when I got home. I dried off a bit, put on some warm clothes and headed out for my 20 minute run. A car plowed through a huge puddle that crashed over top of me within three minutes of leaving my house. I was drenched thorough again. I run went quickly. I got back home and changed again into clothes so that I could jump back on the trainer and finish the last 58k I needed for the 140 I was supposed to do.

I rode 20 on a Computrainer course that turned out to be very hilly. When I finished that, I put on that 200k totally flat ride and rode for another 28k. I was dragging it by the time I got that done. I was short 10k for the day, but, I'll save it for tomorrow! I'd started at 6:45 and it was pushing 1:30 by this point.

The hot shower felt extra good after today’s workout!

Friday Swim and Bike

2009-05-08T09:28:00.002-04:00

That was a great swim today. I love it when I'm in the pool and just plain feeling good. The group warm-up was fun. Everyone swimming together around the perimeter of the pool for 15 minutes. We put in the lines and then did a 800 meter set and then a 1500 meter set. I felt pretty good al the way though. I'm finding it easier to swim and breath every 4th stroke to the right. I mix it up, but I think with this nerve thing in my neck, it's easier somehow.

Back home and on the bike for an easy 30 minute spin. I set Ergo mode to 105 watts and then kept my cadence at 90 - actually averaged 91 at the end. According to the Power tap, that averaged out to a 38kph speed. Don't I wish that were true!

Off to the Running Free booth this morning with Nadia and Karen for the Mississauga Marathon Expo.

I sure hope the rain holds off tomorrow for that long ride!

Wednesday Brick

2009-05-06T14:47:00.002-04:00

I started out with a 30 minute easy spin on the Computrainer. I picked a relatively flat course. I’ve only ridden in Ergo mode for a while. It was interesting to see that power was at about 65% but my left leg was a bit stronger than my right. It’s usually the other way around, although, most of the time the readings were about 52 – 48, so it’s not a really big deal either way I guess.

I got nice and warmed up, which is another way to say hot and sweaty over the 30 minutes. I dried myself off, got changed and headed out the door for a 2:20 run. I threaded through town, over to the club on Vandorf and out past Warden. I turned around at the 70 minute mark and headed back. I tuck exactly to my zone 2 heart rate, and made it back a minute and a half quicker than the run out took me. I lost a minute or so fighting with a couple3 of idiot kids in an SUV on the way back that seemed to be trying to push me off the road. There really are idiots out there. I’m glad they backed off. I was pretty tired at that point.

My average heart rate was 125 on a 6:13 pace.

I think I have tomorrow off. It’s going to be nice to just sleep in for a change.

Tuesday Brick

2009-05-05T08:42:00.002-04:00

Today called for a 90 minute bike and a 30 minute run. The bike was on the Computrainer, listening to music with a series of progressively higher zones followed by zone 1 and zone 2 recovery times. The last 5 zone 5's at 90 rpm were tough. The first, almost impossible, but it got better. Finishing the last one was heaven!

I took a bit of time drying off and getting changed into dry clothes before heading out on my 5k route. I'd decided that I wasn't going to really push it, but when I got to Bathurst and saw I was about 30 seconds ahead of my usual time, it made me push just a bit more, and more until I ended up pretty much sprinting the last 200 meters. I finished in 27:00.91, just missing that sub 27 minute by a second! Oh well. I was tired, but I felt pretty good that I was able to push that time, without blowing a gasket through most of the run. I guess I'm starting to figure out this pacing thing.

Monday Swim

2009-05-04T08:51:00.004-04:00

Yup, I swam. Those 600 meters with paddles but no pull have played a little havoc with my shoulders, but, we finished the routine with a few minutes to spare today. Kathie and Andrea were way out in front (as usual) Lynda and I were pretty well matched today.

It's too bad it takes me that best part of an hour to get totally warmed up though!

Sunday Easy 2 Hour Bike

2009-05-04T04:38:00.003-04:00

I went out with a couple of friends for a really easy zone 1 ride out around Muscleman Lake. I think this was Kim's firsts or second outdoor ride this year and Christine's longest ride so far was 12k. We did the usual Vandorf, 48 Muscleman loop and Aurora road back. 2:20 with a 85 average wattage. Not the great training ride, but a nice ride with some Friends and a gentle workout. I'm saving it up for the coming couple of weekends!

Saturday Brick

2009-05-04T04:31:00.004-04:00

I was expecting Saturday to be a breeze on the bike. I'd taken Friday off, but the 2 hours on the trainer were a bit harder than I expected. Maybe it was watching "Goodfellows" instead of the Stones, but those 30 minute bits at zone 3 were a bit tougher than I expected.

I headed out for the 1 hour run straight off the bike. I did a double loop from home to Wellington, Bathurst, Kennedy, George and back. There was a fairly strong wind out of the west that made the first leg cold. but with the wind to my back for the second half, it was hot. I managed a bit of a negative split even though I'd slowed down on the second loop to get my jacket off and tied around my waste. I must admit I was getting close to zone 6 for the last 250 meters!

I walked it off to cool down and then took my time stretching afterwards.

Friday - Unscheduled Day Off

2009-05-01T08:20:00.013-04:00

Friday - Unscheduled Day Off

Adam updated my training schedule for the next couple of weeks yesterday and noted back to me that those “Core & Stretch” notes on my “Off” days were just supposed to be a few minutes at home, not an hour and change at the club. He then suggested that if I was tired, I should take today off and catch up on some missing rest. Not a bad idea I thought after I looked at the amount of training I’ve got over the next couple of weeks!

I went to bed at the usual time and watched TV for a while, but I didn’t set my alarm. I figured if I woke up in time to go swimming, I’d get up and go, if not, I’d enjoy the sleep-in. To be honest, I woke up at 4:00 and could have gone swimming, but I just didn’t feel like it. I opted for rolling over and going back to sleep.

I feel like I wimped out, which isn’t something I do a lot, but I did enjoy that extra sleep.

I’ve got about 4.5 hours of training to do this weekend. Looking ahead, this is going to be a very light training weekend!

Thursday - Off at the Gym

2009-04-30T07:33:00.002-04:00

The schedule says this is an "Off" day from training, but I was to go to the gym and my weights and stretching stuff. I guess compared to what is usually on the schedule, this is off.

Oh well, It's kind of nice whatever it is. I go up a little bit later (4:30) and went over to Timberlane. Took my time with weights and stretching and then took a nice long steam bath and shower. Back home by 7:00 with my bagel and ready to start the rest of the day.

Wednesday Tri

2009-04-29T14:50:00.003-04:00

We got in a good swim at Glendon this morning. Lots of variety and my energy level was OK. I'm looking forward to some of those 3800 meter straight swims next month, but not overly excited about the 4 x 500 meter time trials this Friday :-)

I rushed home and did the 45 minutes on the bike. Those minute and a half zone 5 repeats broken by one minute zone 1 and two and a half at zone 2 were a killer. I had to stand to get through most of the 5th repeat, but was bound and determined to sit through the last one. I manged it, even if my cadence did reduce to 38!

A quick change into dry clothes at the end of that and I was out for a 15 minute run right afterwards. I could have had a gel at about the 30 minute mark of the bike, but I was OK on the run. Again I didn't bother with the heart rate monitor. I had to get back home, get a shower and out to the dentist by 9:30 so I ran a bit quicker than I probably should have, but I felt good. Those 'dead brick legs' seem to have disappeared and I'm noticing I seem to be able to just push through the tired feeling when I'm running up some of those hills . . . . as long as they aren't too long!

Tuesday Early Little Brick

2009-04-28T04:28:00.002-04:00

I couldn't sleep so, rather than just tossing and turning, I got up at 3:00 and did my 20 minute bike and 20 minute run early. At this point of training I almost question the reason for these little workouts. I set up the Computrainer at 130 watts and kept mu cadence at 90 - 92. I guess that's good use of the time.

I loved the little run. The weather is supposed to get colder and wetter all day long, but it was still 16 - 17 degrees at 3:45 when I got out. As sick as it sounds, there's something nice about being the only person up and about, out in the neighbourhood. It was pretty humid. I did the short loop from the house and then did one run down and back up the Tyler Street hill. That rounded out the full 20 minute perfectly.

4:30am . . . . . . maybe I'll go back to bed now!

Monday Weights and Stretch :-)

2009-04-27T08:48:00.003-04:00

Now that's a nice leisurely way to start the day. No alarm clock. No rush. Just wake up whenever and meander over to the club. It would have been nicer if it hadn't been 5:15, but at least it wasn't 4:00!

My weight stuff takes about 30 minutes. Stretching about 15, then a great 10 minute steam before the shower. Out the door and home before 7:00.

Life is good!

Sunday - 3 hour bike and 5k run

2009-04-26T14:54:00.004-04:00

And so, another long weekend of training comes to an end, as does a 2 week build.

Today I went and helped out a bit at the Hartwell Challenge for a few hours. I got to be the parking lot Nazi keeping everyone out who wasn't supposed to be there. Difficult job because I wasn't supposed to use the "F" word which, for anyone who knows me, is a very difficult thing!

I got back home at about 9:00 and decided that I'd do my ride inside on the computrainer. The plan called for a 2 or 3 hour ride. At about the hour and half mark I was thinking maybe I'd just do the 2. At 2 I thought 2.5 and then ended up by doing the full 3.

I was paying lots of attention to cadence and wanting to see how keeping in my zone with high cadence felt on the run afterwards. I rode the Lake Placid real video route. The tape reads 3:00:00 - Average wattage very low at 112, speed 21km/h and an average cadence 84.

I went out for my run right afterwards and did my old 5k route out to Bathurst and back on Kennedy and George. I didn't other with a heart rate monitor, but ran by feel. I felt like I was dragging a bit after I started. My legs felt OK, but I just felt like I was running slowly. I felt faster near the end and finished the 5k in 27.5 minutes. I think that's fairly respectable time. Now I need to work on bringing up the wattage a bit, which should increase the speed, but if I keep the cadence the same, it should leave my legs in great shape for the run.

I'm starting to get a bit excited about the Ironman race coming up. 90 days will go by very quickly I know!

Saturday Bike

2009-04-25T18:52:00.003-04:00

Oh yes - Training season is here for sure. 120k bike ride. What a fabulous way to kill a Saturday!

In actual fact, I had a great, albeit exhausting time. Bernadette, David, Bryan and I met here at the house at 8:00 am and headed out on Karen Bonham's route out to Hockley Valley. I've always done my long rides east towards Peterborough, and most of the gang have been heading out to the valley for a while. I was excited to finally find out where this route was and to ride it.

There is no way in God's green earth that I can keep up with the gang I was with, but that was fine. We were all figuring out the route as we went, and seeing as I had the map, everyone waited for me at the different corners. I got to ride with everyone for a few minutes here and there, Bern in particular. It's great getting to know folks that I see all the time but rarely actually talk to about anything.

The route was amazing. Hilly, tough, but wonderful. We meandered out through Snowball, up to and through Kettleby and over to downtown Schomberg. (Who knew there was a downtown!) We turned west on the 5th line north of Schomberg and then apparently were pretty much on the route that Bern knew from the Sharon to Hockley route. It was great to be in totally unfamiliar territory.

The weather was overcast all the way out and just a touch cool. It warmed up the closer we got to Hockley Valley. We stopped in town for a bit of break at the corner store where apparently EVERY cyclist and motorcyclist stops, and then headed out towards Orangeville to get to the 60k turn around point.

The gang got to the point before me and waited. I went past because my GPS read that I needed another 300 meters. Heaven forbid I would be short on a 120k bike ride by a few feet!

When I turned around, I could see the gang. It may have been bad biking edict for me to have gone out. I'm not sure, but I think everyone was OK with it. I'd said a number of times for everyone to go on without me. I didn't want to be breaking out of my zones by much, and I didn't want them slowing for me either.

The guys overshot one of the turns. Bern was waiting at the corner. I was glad, because I would have missed it too. It was around then that I remembered that the GPS track was available in my GPS. The guys came back, we all left again for what seemed like a very mountainous ride out of the valley. The SW wind was getting stronger too, so having that in my face going up these huge hills slowed me down even more. I played with trying to keep in zone 3 on the hills, but that was imposable.

The gang were waiting near just past Corbin, about 30k from home. I gave them the map, showed them that I had the track and convinced them to not worry about me.

They were gone in a flash. I played with watching the GPS mileage and guesstimating how far in front of me they were, but it wasn't long before they disappeared, never to be seen again.

I didn't care. It was great heading out and chatting here and there. I was pretty comfortable with 'riding my own ride' for the remainder of the trip.

The last 15k or the ride was killer for me. From about Pottageville to the house just felt like it would never end. I wonder if I would have felt that way if I had taken another new route home, or was I feeling more tired because I knew what hills were ahead? I'm guessing the later is true.

I saw Bernadette and Bryan driving away from my house when I got back in Aurora. I assume they beat me back by 20 minutes or so.

I was exhausted. I was surprised I was as tired as I was. A quick shower and a 2 hour nap cured that though. Out for dinner for some salad. I haven't had anything green to eat since Lynne left for Florid with the girl on Tuesday. Nadia joined me so we could trade the days adventure stories. I can't stand eating alone, and there was no way I was going to buy green stuff myself.

One a 3 hour ride and a 30 minute run left for tomorrow and then I get Monday off! YEA!!!!!

Oh yea - 'Tale of the Tape' 120k - 4:43 25km/h out and 25.8 coming back. Average cadence 78 (bad) Average watts 150.

Friday Swim and Bike

2009-04-24T11:06:00.002-04:00

And so starts another great training weekend! The swim was good this morning. I don't know what distance we did, but the quickest swimmers in our lane were not there, so I wasn't busting a lung trying to keep up.I swam hard, but just a touch more comfortably than usual. Great to see Tereza back from her trip and hanging by the pool again.

Home for a one hour bike. I like those computrainer rides. 1 hour is a long enough stretch of time. Today was a series of 1:15' @ Z5, 1:00' @Z1, 1:45' @ Z2. Great workout. My quads are burning a bit, but not too badly. It'll be interesting to see how they feel after 5 hours tomorrow and 3 hours, plus a run on Sunday.

If I could only get the pinched nerve freed up in my neck, life would be wonderful!

Thursday Weights

2009-04-23T09:56:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure why I got up early to go do that little workout. I really didn't need too. I got tot the club by 5:10, did weights and stretched for about an hour, had a great long steam and a shower and came home.

That pinched nerve in my neck is about 80% back to normal. I've got calls outside of the office today. Hopefully being away from my desk will help some.

Everyday should be so easy!

I played with MapMyRide this morning and linked this weekends ride from my home page. That app looks pretty cool other than I can't seem to edit my ride after I finished it. It's VERY COOL to click on the View in Google Earth link and see the image zoom in from outer space to road level.

Wednesday Brick

2009-04-22T14:00:00.002-04:00

My training life seems to be all brick workouts these days. Today was a short easy 30 minute bike in the basement and then a 2 hour run. I headed out from the house and ran a totally different course today. I headed out through the neighbourhood to the club, out Vandorf to Bayview south to Lake Wilcox.

I dropped inn at Nadia's house to say hi for 30 seconds then headed out to Yonge and over to Doris's house. I dropped off her ATB race kit that I'd picked up for her and ran back home along Yonge.

I probably should have added one more loop around my block to add in those last 8 minutes, but I figure I'm even now with the extra bike miles we put on last weekend.

Tuesday LIttle Brick

2009-04-21T11:03:00.002-04:00

I didn't have to drive to the club or the pool this morning so I slept in until 7:00. How nice is that!!!!

Back in the basement on the bike and listening to the Stones one more time. I'm sure glad there are 4 CD's to that set. As it is I've almost got them all memorized.

The one hour bike went OK. 15 minute warm up, 4 sets of (3'- @50 rpm - z3, 1' - 80rpm z1, 1.5'- 90rpm z 2) then 4 sets of the same except the 3 minute 50rpm were at zone 4.

Pushing those higher zones for 3 minutes was tough. I think the pain from this pinched nerve in my neck helped disguise the burning quads! The hour went by pretty quickly.

I got out and started on my run in a minute or so. a quick 20 minute zone 2 run. I may have pushed higher than zone 2. I didn't feel like putting on all the electronic crap today, so I just sent out and pushed by feel.

Monday Swim, Weights and Stretching

2009-04-20T10:25:00.005-04:00

Swimming was tough today. My neck was killing me and I didn't have as much energy as I usually have. I didn't eat properly yesterday. I guess that, combined with all the riding on the weekend left me a bit tired.

I bounced around a bit from one lane up and then one lane down. I did manage to get through everything. I really need to get this neck cracked soon though. I'm going to try Advil for Arthritis and see if that makes any difference.

I went over to Timberlane after the swim and somewhat quickly did my wieghts and then took my time stretching. I think stretching is going to be key in getting through these next few months and then doing well at Ironman.

I'm looking forward to quiting this training stuff, but that hasn't changed the way I feel about shooting for a sub 14 hour Ironman this summer if possible.

Sunday Bike

2009-04-20T10:18:00.002-04:00

Today's ride was indoor. 1 hour on the Computrainer in Ergometer mode. 15 minute warm up the 10x 1 minute zone 5, 1 minute zone 1, and then 2 minutes zone 2. Those 1 minute zone 5 intervals got tougher and tougher as the time went on. I blew it in the end though, I was paying too much attention to each 1 or 2 minute interval and I ended up doing one extra set when I was supposed to be cooling down.

My legs felt surprisingly well after this weekend of about 180k on the bike. My neck though is a different matter. I must have pinched a nerve or something in it. I've got pain on one side through from the top of my neck down through my upper back. I guess it's back to the chiropractor again on Monday.

Saturday Brick

2009-04-18T17:23:00.002-04:00

I should have done my 1 hour ergo mode bike ride today on the Computrainer, but the weather again looked like it was going to be OK in the morning, but get windy and wet in the afternoon and through Sunday, so I headed out for my 2.5 hour brick at 9:00 this morning.

Down to Vandorf, out to 48, up and around Muscleman Lake, back to 48, north to Vivian, across to Bayview and home again. 49k , 83 cadence, 152 average wattage, 24.7 kph. Not great stats. I was actually trying to pay lots of attention to cadence, but I didn't get them going until after Muscleman, so I may have blown it before that. I’ll have to wait for my next ride to get that figured out.

The 5k run was broken into 2 sets of 5’ Z2 and 10’ Z3. I Ended up finished in 29:45 at an average heart rate of . . . . Oh, my Garmin has decided not to turn on, so I can’t check right now. Soooo, I guess we’ll go with my heart rate was exactly where it was supposed to be!

Friday Swim and Bike

2009-04-17T08:53:00.002-04:00

I changed the workout plan a bit for the weekend. The weather is going to be GREAT today, so I swam at 5:45 for an hour and a half. I think we did about 3000 meters (My arms are dying!).

Bryan is leaving his house at 10:00 which should get him to my house by 10:30. We're going to do the 100k loop from here to Willow Beach, down and around Muscleman's Lake and back. Simon is going to try to make it also. It looks like it's going to be a great day for a long ride!

5:00pm addition

We're back from our ride. Simon, Bryan and I headed out from here at about 10:00 and biked over to Warden and up to Willow Beach. We stopped for a hot dog at the variety store and then headed back down to Aurora Road. Simon turned right to head back to his car. Bryan and I headed east, biked around Musclemans Lake and then back along Aurora Road home again.

We ended up doing 105k in just a few minutes over 4 hours. My average speed was 26kph with an average heart rate of 149. A touch high, but not bad I think.

I felt good when we were done except for the ache in my neck. Simon suggested Arthritis pills. I think I'll give them a whirl on my next ride.

Thursday - Weights and Stretch

2009-04-16T10:02:00.002-04:00

It was nice to be able to sleep in again today. I got up about 6:00, was at the club by 6:30 and finished up my weight stuff and stretching in about 45 minutes.

Back to the long stuff again tomorrow. Only 100 days left!

Wednesday Swim and Run

2009-04-15T12:49:00.000-04:00

I felt like I hadn’t been in the pool for months when I got to the Havergal College pool this morning. Amazing how a couple of weeks away makes me feel. I felt panicked a bit trying to keep up with my lane mates. It was OK though. I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath, but I guess that’s OK seeing as we were doing 600 then 500 then 400 meter drills with 4 x 25 meter sprints in between.

My shoulders were killing me half way through though. I think that was partially because I wasn’t bending my elbows during the stroke though. Whenever I did, the pain decreased . . .. . a bit!

I was pretty happy to see 7:00 am on the clock at the end of the swim!

I showered quickly. It was disappointing to be in the co-op showers just with Miles though. 

I drove straight to Timberlane, got changed and headed out on my run. I’d remembered to have a gel and some e-Load and a protein bar in the car on my drive, but they sure didn’t seem to kick in for me. I headed out Vandorf – that’s my usual hilly run route, but it was really hard not to turn around at Leslie. I just didn’t have any energy. I’d put a new battery in my heart rate monitor before heading out. It was nice to have that working properly again. I was sticking to Zone 2, as per plan, but I was really dragging it!

I kept going. I figured it would be a really slow run, but I’d feel good again for finishing it. I got to Woodbine and headed south. The south hill seems a bit bigger than the north one, and east was dead flat for a while from that point on. I figured I’d just run until I hit 45 minutes and then turn back. I was almost at Bloomington when the time came. I’d picked up a bit of energy along the way somehow. Maybe it was that extra gel at 40 minutes. 45 minutes out and 40 minutes back. A 6:30 pace but my heart rate was about 132. I was surprised by that. I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard. Maybe it’s time for a new run test!

It sure did feel good to be done today, even if it was 10:00 am already!

Tuesday Brick

2009-04-14T09:20:00.001-04:00

That feels more like I’m back training for an Ironman again! I had a good 1 hour Computrainer ride this morning followed by a relatively quick 15 minute brick run.

The ride consisted of a 15 minute warm up, and then a series of 4.5 minute sets as: 2 minutes hard, 1 minute easy and 1.5 medium, all repeated 10 times. The 2 minute hard was zone 3 for the first 5 then zone 4 for last 5. Ergometer mode on the Computrainer sure is boring, but I’m able to set the zone levels exactly, so it makes for a good workout.

I took 1:15 minutes to get dried off and changed and get out the door for the little brick run. I think the batteries in my heart rate strap may be dying. I pushed a 5:36 pace, but my heart rate average was 42! I think I have to head down to MEC for new batteries. I don’t think anyone carries them around here at all.

It’s going to be interesting swimming tomorrow. First of all, getting up at 4:00 am for the first time in a couple of weeks is going to be tough. I haven’t swam in two weeks either other than a few minutes in that little pool.

The fun never ends!

Monday Bike

2009-04-13T17:07:00.004-04:00

I think I'm all caught up in my exercise plan now! I was supposed to bike for a couple of hours yesterday and a couple of hours today. Both at Zone 2. I ran for an hour yesterday because it was too cold, and I wanted to talk to Nadia anyway.

Today I rode my bike to Nad's and went for a ride out around Muscleman's Lake with her. It was her first bike ride. She was so excited. I told her what I could. I don't know if it was any help. I'm not that sure of what I'm doing anyway!

We had a nice ride. I ended up doing 60k over just under 3 hours. It was supposed to be a 2 hour ride. I'll count myself even over the last couple of days. I'm going to just stick to the plan from now until Ironman.

The coach wants me to send the Power Tap data from each ride. I'm not sure how to do that. I guess I'm back playing with technology again!

Sunday Bike - Oops - Run

2009-04-12T15:45:00.002-04:00

I was scheduled to bike for 2:00 hours today, but I gave myself an Easter present that included permission to change that into a a run instead.

I know, I know! Why bother paying the coach if I'm not going to follow the the advice? I've got 104 days left until Ironman. I've screwed up most of the training that I was supposed to do last week. and I missed my buddy! I figure 1 more slightly messed up day isn't going to make that much difference.

I am going to stsrt doing exactly as per plan again after today. Those 104 days are going to go by quickly!

Thursday Run

2009-04-09T17:02:00.002-04:00

I didn't even look at my training schedule today. There were no training facilities in Boquete other than the road to run on. We'd spent a couple of days traveling and hadn't worked out at all. I'm sure taking a couple of days off isn't going to hurt much at this point.

We woke up back in this condo in Panama City this morning. we both headed straight up to the gym and on the treadmills. I've got to say that I've always found it a bit boring at the club at home running and watching TV of listening to music on the MP3 thing, but watching the sun come up for an hour over the construction all over town takes the cake. BORING just doesn't cover it! Luckily I thought I only had to do an hour. When we finished and came back to the room I saw that it was only supposed to be 45 minutes, but I feel like I've got some 'make up" workouts to do!

1 hour - 6mpk pace and a perfect zone 2 heart rate. Physically it was a good workout. I felt a lot better too after the boredom disappeared!

Monday Run

2009-04-06T08:46:00.002-04:00

The temperature is about 65 degrees first thing in the morning here in Boquete. The sun rises about 6:15 and there is a nice breeze. It's the perfect running weather.

I got up and got dressed quietly so as not to wake up Lynne. I strapped on the GPS and started out. We're about half way up a mountain here. I figured I'd rather finish my run heading down, but I must admit, the steady 15 minute run starting up the mountain wasn't that quick!

The Garmin isn't reading my heart rate properly here for some reason. I didn't really mind though. I ran by feel. I was more interested in distance really anyway. There were a few folks out on the street, walking towards the couple of coffee plantations on the outskirts of town where we were. I saw one other fellow running. He was a young big Spanish guy who looked very surprised to see anyone else out running on the road. I get the impression that running isn’t a big sport around here. We sure haven’t seen any Running Rooms around!

I ran out for 28 minutes and turned around to head back. I was thinking about how we’re supposed to find long hills at home for hill training and it’s not that easy to find a good 10 – 15 minute hill. We sure don’t have that problem here. It’s all hills. The flats only seem to stretch a few meters!

I met Lynne running towards me just before I got back. I stayed with her for a minute and then took off again. 52 minute and a total of 8k and I was back at our hotel. I turned around and jogged back to meet Lynne and jogged back again to the hotel.

One more workout out of the way!

Friday Run and Swim

2009-04-03T09:00:00.002-04:00

Now that's a nice way to start the day. We slept in until 6:00, took our time getting up and dressed and went up to the 28th floor where the gym overlooks the bay and the city. There are three treadmills and there was already someone on one of them, but Lynne and I grabbed the other two. About 10 minutes later, at exactly 7:00, the place got busy with another 4-5 people.

I only had an easy 30 minute run to do. We'd walked a bunch yesterday so my back was pretty stiff. These treadmills have two fans on them so you can cool yourself of while you run!

I finished my 30 minutes and then screwed around with the weight machine trying to figure it out. I didn't have much success. I adjusted the spin bike and did 5 minutes on that.

I figured it was time for a swim. Down 1 floor and out to the rooftop pool. The water and the air temperature were pretty much the same. It's a small pool. 9 strokes from corner to corner, but good enough for a bit of a workout and a great cool down.

Now it's breakfast time then off to meet the real estate agent for the day.

Wednesday Travel

2009-04-02T08:37:00.002-04:00

The only workout Wednesday was airport travel. We left the house at 9:00am and arrived at our condo in Panama at 11:00 pm.

I've got a 30 minute run scheduled for today. We just may turn that into a 3 hour walk instead!

I'm going to update the Panama site with our daily adventures and keep this blog just for workout stuff.

Tuesday Spin Class

2009-03-31T08:43:00.002-04:00

I was still walking like a stroke victim this morning when I woke up. My legs were still very tight. I went and joined into Christine's spin class. I cheated a bit by taking it easy. I kept looking over at Nadia who was peddling along at the speed of sound. I thought of catching up a couple of times but thought better of it quickly as my quads started to burn up.

It's funny how often that 45 minute class seems to be over in a few moments. Today seemed to take a little longer. I noticed Christine turning the tension knob on her bike this morning too. She didn't seem to be twisting that quite as far as she usually does.

I must admit though that my legs feel a lot better now than they did earlier this morning. They are going to burn a bit today, but they'll be back to normal tomorrow I'm sure.

I should probably start another "Panama" blog for the next couple of weeks. Maybe I'll keep two of them going.

Sunday - Around the Bay - 2:51:12

2009-03-30T07:29:00.005-04:00

What a great day that turned out to be in the end. Nadia, Bryan, Steve, Lynne and I drove down together. Steve had to go somewhere after the race so he and Lynne drove down in Steve's car. We saw John getting ready to start the walk, but we were cold and wet so we chatted for a bit, but didn't wait for the start before heading inside. We met up with Samantha and John at Copps and saw Shannon, Christine and Fred before we headed out.

The weather was crappy and wet, but the big winds they were talking about never really materialized. We saw Bernadette, Sid and Simon at the start line, and then again part way through the race as they passed us.

Samantha, my niece, who was running her third ever race (http://www.sportstats.ca/find-an-athlete-find-a-race-search.php?lang=eng&first=samantha&last=green&city=&month=&year=) a 5k, the Toronto Half and now this) said she wanted to stick with me for as long as she could. We all took off together. It took us two and a half minutes to make it to the start line. Steve and John pulled out ahead of us pretty quickly. Sam and I stuck together bobbing, weaving and dancing around people in front of us for about the first 6 or 7k.

When we got down the left turn that had us heading north to Burlington, I saw John off at the side of the road eating a gel. We yelled over and he said he was fine. It was his 45 minute Gu break. We kept pushing on through the rain that kept coming and going. John passed us again a few minutes after that.

We got to the 10k mark where all the relay folks were waiting and fought our way through the somewhat narrow path between them. I always hate passing the relay spots. For the next couple of k I'm always passed by these folks who are nice and fresh, just starting their leg of the race. By the 10k mark I'm pretty much in a groove, and fell like I'll be running with this group for a while. Having all these fresh starters blow past always sets me back a bit.

We past the 10k mark at 55:18. I was pretty happy with that. Sam and I were still side by side. Conversation had pretty much stopped by that point though! A fire truck pulled onto the road beside us just past that point. It was weird to see this thing go flying up the road and all the runners moving off to one side.

By the time we got to the 15k mark, two things happened. I was eating a gel every 30 minutes, but this was the first of the "Roctane" ones that I tried. It is stalked about as Gu x 2 as far as energy goes. Within 5 minutes I felt all energized (the Advil I too had kicked in too so my legs quit hurting) . I don't know if I was picking up speed or if Sam was slowing down, but we said our goodbyes and good lucks and I started to pull ahead a bit. I was amazed at how well she was doing so far into the race.

I caught up to John a few minutes later. He was dragging it a bit. John is usually much faster than I so I figured maybe he was having problems. I pulled ahead of John, made it up to the turn into Burlington, eat my last Advil and another gel and took off again. John called out to me in Burlington hills so I circled back for a second and talked to him for a minute. I was actually thinking this was a good excuse for me to walk for a minute, but John started to jog. I could see Steve up ahead at that point so it was 'Goodbye" to John and then the long slow stalking of Steve. I almost caught him, but I dropped one of my water bottles. I turned and picked it up and he was off ahead again.

It took me a good 10 minutes to catch him. We were just at about the 21k mark then. We stuck together until just about the 25l mark. He dropped a bottle just as we were heading into the area where the "Queen - We Will Rock You" dwarf was. I didn't wait. A quick high 5 to the dwarf, over the bridge and started to walk at the base of the mountain. I walked quickly, but I was bound and determined that I didn't want to burn up an unnecessary energy getting up the hill.

At the top, 4 minutes later, I had another gel, a sip of water and I was off. I put my head down bit, pulled my cap down to block the wind and just kept looking at the next set of feet in front of me, and ran past them. I thought of running with Val a couple of years earlier and how I knew I was running as quickly as I could, but she picked up the pace a few times and I was able to also. I refused to give in to the tired legs and aching knees. I was really wishing I'd had one more Advil though!

Past the graveyard, high 5 to the Grim Reaper, and his son I guess?? and I was finally into that last stretch. I just kept looking at the next pair of feet and doing whatever to get past them. I saw Bev just before the entrance to the arena and leaned over to the right to give her a high . . . well, a 5 anyway. As soon as I moved my body off center to the right, my right calf went into spasm. I thought I was screwed. It tightened up like crazy, but luckily loosened as son as I got back on center. Down the ramp, down the shoot, I heard my name called and blasted past the finish line. I haven't hooked up my GPS to check the data yet, but I'm sure I picked up speed all along that last 3.5 k. I had absolutely nothing left at the end. I ran straight into the barrier at the far end and hung on for a few minutes trying to get my heart rate down and my breath back. It took a while. One of the volunteers stuck with my for a while to make sure I was OK. I'm sure I'd finished at the very last possible moment that I could hold a zone 5 heart rate.

I got back to the section where we were all meeting. Bryan was there already of course. He'd done a 2:42. I'd forgotten to hit stop on my watch so I didn't know how I'd done until I got home.

Michael Pengally was sitting all rested already after finishing early. Neil came in moments later as did everyone else.

It ends up I got my time and then some. 2:51:12 I'm glad to have finally broken that elusive 3:00:00 mark. It's Monday morning now as I'm writing this. Now I'll be glad when my toes quit hurting, my headache goes away and if these quads ever loosen up again, I'll be one happy guy!

Saturday Taper - Run and Bike

2009-03-28T11:09:00.002-04:00

I got to bed extra early last night and got a GREAT sleep. Nadia had dropped off more chocolate so I had my chocolate fix before I fell asleep. I really do know why I'll never get rid of this 'Buddha Belly' of mine!

I went straight over to the club at 7:00 and did my nice and easy 15 minute run, then I headed to the spin class. I asked Gabby if she minded me coming in late and doing my own thing and she was fine with it. There were only a couple of other folks in the class, so I wasn't really disturbing anyone too much.

It's kind of fun doing a spin class, but taking it very easy at the same time. I didn't care that there was a puddle of sweat beside everyone else except me!

I was pushing Frank to come and run tomorrow, but he promised his sweetie that he'd go to Sarnia with her tomorrow. I, of course because I'm so understanding and supportive of everyone, pushed like crazy that he forgot about that and came raced tomorrow, but he was stronger minded!

I would have liked to have had a nice steam this morning, but they are still renovating the steam room. Apparently now it will be ready next week . . . when we're away.

Maybe that's better. If it's doing to fall apart again, it can fall when I'm not there.

I feel great, rested, energetic and am ready to go knock the hell out of that elusive sub 3:00 hour 30k race time tomorrow!

Friday Swim and Race Kit Pickup!

2009-03-27T08:25:00.002-04:00

The plan looked good on paper. Sleep in for an extra half hour then head out to the pool and join in for the last hour of the swim. Good idea. Get a little extra rest before going into the big 30k 'Around the Bay' race weekend.

It didn't work exactly as planned. I woke up at the usual time and thought, "This is usually when I have to get up, but I don't have to." Back to sleep for a half hour and thought, "This is when I'm usually finishing breakfast", and then rushed to eat breakfast. It just went on like that. I got to the pool 15 minutes later than usual.

That didn't work out all so well because basically, I missed 400 meters of the 600 meter warm up and went straight into a 400 meter time trial. The good new is, I have a good reason for finishing slowly! I think I did 8:58 or something like that.

Oh well, most of the rest of the swim was with the pull buoy, or with pull-buoy and paddles. It sure was odd when Bern swam under the lane marker up behind and tickled my feet for a while. At first I thought it was the guy behind me catching up, but when I couldn't get ahead, and then both feet were being tickled . . . . . !

We're off to pick up race kits this morning. YEA - The season begins! It feels like it's been a really long time since we raced. Missing that early half marathon in Peterborough made the winter feel like it went on forever!

Thursday Run

2009-03-26T08:00:00.004-04:00

Karen , Bryan, Nadia and I, along with about 50 other sponsored athletes (gosh it's cool to be able to say that!) we're at the season kick off meeting at Running Free last night. This years team consists of 115 people. That team just gets bigger and bigger every year. This is my third year to be on the team. Folks who don't apply don't know what they are missing. It's a great family and a great store. Running Free - Team Running Free.

It was a fun night, but getting to bed at 10:00 almost killed me. I wonder if I was the only guy who did a Red Bull so that I could stay awake for the meeting last night? :-)

Nadia and I met at 6:00 am, a much more civilized hour) to run for 45 minutes this morning. We did a loop out along Industrial to Welling to Bayview and back to the club. We had to go in by the furthest entrance, but the run ended up being exactly 45 minutes, as per plan.

We ran a series of Zone 2 - to progressively higher zone 3 intervals. The GPS missed about .2k at eh start, but we were both surprised to see that we'd run a 6:25 pace for 7k. We both felt like we'd run faster. Maybe staying up a bit later made the run harder. I'm not sure.

I do know I'll be in bed by 7:00pm on Saturday night before the 30k Around the Bay race Sunday though!

Back at the club I did my usual stretching and a bit of my core stuff. I think I can get a half check mark from yesterdays core routine!

Wednesday Swim

2009-03-25T10:13:00.002-04:00

Today - I swam. One hour at the Glendon pool. Our lane was a bit crowded, and the lanes either side we almost empty. I moved over to the faster lane. It took me 4 years to get moved up one lane, I'm not moving back for anything!!

One of the sets of drills was some sprint work. I was told I should kick, so kick I did! It almost killed me!! I was trying to just breath every eighth or tenth stroke. That makes me faster in that I'm not turning to breath, but I do notice that I screw up the length of my stroke when I sprint. I'm trying really hard to be fast, but it shortens my stroke. I guess I have to work on that too!

I'm supposed to do core work today, but I had to get the car home for Lynne so that Jordan had the other one. I'll probably do the core stuff tomorrow after the run.

Tuesday - Easy Brick

2009-03-24T08:31:00.003-04:00

Tapering before a race always feels weird. I get used to pushing and pushing, often feeling just a bit tired, but feeling good because I've pushed hard. Taper week is just odd that all! I had yesterday off from training. I got lots done in the office though!

Today I headed over to the club for the 5:45 spin class. I got there a bit early and rode really, really easy for an extra 15 minutes before the class. (Zone .2 Adam!)

All through the class I kept dialing it back a bit, giving Nadia a hard time about how hard she was pushing and how sad she would be to not keep up at ATB.

Watch, now she'll kick my ass! If she come in under 3:00 and I'm over, I'm going to kill myself :-)

I ran on the treadmill for 15 minutes straight off the bike, Again, nice and easy. A low zone 2 for sure.

I feel like I'm slacking if I don't have that mild exhausted feeling going on most of the time, but I also remember how great it feels when this little extra burst of energy shows up on race day. It's always a nice surprise!