May Looooong weekend
Saturday
Awesome temperature in the Edmonton area... 31C! No wind! Perfect day for a long ride. Left Naomi's and headed south to Beaumont to start. I guessed at the direction and managed to take all the right grid roads, woo! Nice little town... will have to ride there again. Headed back to Naomi's to make a few tweaks and adjustments on the bike, refilled my bottles, and headed out east past Ardrossan for the second half. Legs were feeling good so I wound it up a bit towards the end coming back on Wye Road. Slipped on the running shoes and headed out for the t-run. My foot is feeling great again! My injury seems to have healed, I was a bit worried it was going to take longer.
A quick shower, grabbed some food and headed down to Element to get my race package for the duathlon. Roy the RD had already left, so I just picked up my new race kit for the season instead.. a two piece 2XU race suit. Amazing fit and material... very comfortable... probably the nicest tri gear I have worn! The clothing from Zoot, Craft and Orca was also on the rack for a good comparison of fit and comfort.
Left Element, and down to the pool for my recovery swim. The cold water felt so good after riding in the hot sun all day.. I actually wanted to swim some more!
Sunday
5:50am wakeup.. uggh. My least favorite part of racing.... especially on a long weekend where I want to sleep in. Packed the car with my gear and headed out to Sandy Beach. It was rainy and cool in Sherwood Park... but I was hoping the weather would be better by race time... I wasn't going to race in cold rain again!
Sandy Beach is a tiny little community on a shallow lake... not much going on. Apparently they used to hold triathlons there.. but the lake is dirty and shallow. The roads were nice and quiet as I did my warmup... most of the locals were probably sleeping off the booze from the night before. It seems like they forgot most of their empties at the beach area.
The clouds threatened, and the roads were still wet, but it was nice enough and I had enough clothes so I wouldn't freeze like Lethbridge. Although my bike was going to get covered in road grime again... not happy with that!! Legs were complaining during my warmuup from the previous three days of training, but I was determined to push them as hard as they would go.
A dozen of us headed to the start line and we were off. My legs responded surprisingly well and I was only 20 seconds down after T1. I was able to hold a fairly decent pace on the hilly and windy bike course... but lost almost three minutes to the leader. My legs were just too tired.. I couldn't get that extra gear. Second run was not as hard as they say... but about 2mins slower than the first. A good workout.
Duathlon is a lot of fun! I will definitely be seeking out more duathlons in the future. I hope Roy gets more people out to the September version of this race. They reminded everyone that there is another sprint du at the Sylvan sprint tri in two weeks. If I wasn't doing Oliver, I'd be there.
After some food, a good nap, I went down to the gym and did a shortened brutality session to completely finish off my legs! FUN!
That night Naomi and I went over to her parents for a visit for a couple hours, then home for a much needed sleep.....zzz..
Monday
Got up and took the bike to the car wash... AGAIN. Uggh... am I going to have to wash it weekly?? Naomi and I then rode out to meet her friend Tim. We went for a nice cruisy spin out to near Fort Sask and back. A perfect day for a social ride in the county. Finished it off with a 10min hard t-run for good measure.
Looking forward to racing Oliver in two weeks!
Finally,,, nice weather!
Took my beautiful Felt out tonight for my first REAL ride with it. Out to Parkland County to scout out the condition of some range roads to do some time trialing on. I'm glad to say they are in better condition than the city roads. When I finalize my loop course, I'll post it to
mapmyride.com for anyone to view. The drivers in the county seem to be polite to cyclists... although they all drive way too fast.
I booked my accommodations for Ironman Canada today! Found a beautiful log cabin up near Twin Lakes (technically Kaleden). Secluded and quiet, but close enough to Penticton for all the Ironman festivities. Waiting on confirmation of our wedding venue now. I'm still not sure about this whole Ironman thing. I swore I'd never do another, but Marc has somehow convinced me that it's a good idea!
With the nice weather I've been bike commuting to work every day. Driving just isn't my thing! I love the feel of the cool morning air as I propel my 30lb steel commuter bike towards downtown. The only tough thing is getting the nutrition right in the morning to fuel the commute as well as a 90min swim. I was delirious with hunger at the end of the swim the last time I tried it. Will mix some maltodextrin and fruit juice for tomorrow.... hopefully that keeps the stomach satisfied until breakie.
Still time left to sign up for the Sandy Beach Duathlon... if you're in Edmonton this weekend!
Focusing on the Now
Well.. the bike is clean again. I took it down to the car wash and used the spot-free rinse mode to get caked on mud off. Worked quite well! I dried everything with my car chamois. Still a few places I'll have to get in with a q-tip.. or take things apart, neither which I have time for. The chain still sounds like the links are full of sand. Uggh. I ran it through my chain cleaner brushes, but didn't seem to help much. The only thing I know that strips a chain clean of gunk is WD40. Might have to pick some up tomorrow. Anyone else have a good chain cleaning tip?
I've been perusing more than a few of my fellow triathlon bloggers lately and keep seeing a too common theme: daily training logs, and weekly total hours. I know, I know.. at one time I did the same thing on this blog. However, I shut that down about two years ago. I couldn't tell you how many hours I trained since, or what workouts I did on any day since then, or at what intensity, or what my weekly hours were. These statistics are meaningless to me.
I've learned the most important thing to my performance as an athlete is what I'm doing RIGHT NOW. Looking over old training logs serves no purpose but to cause me to not pay attention to my current fitness.
"oh look, i missed x hours in February, no wonder I'm not as fit"
"I put in x hours per week average, so I should be this fast/slow"
I only care about how my body feels today, which dictates how fast/slow I should train. If I get TODAY right... I'll be fitter tomorrow... and race faster in the future.
Another way to lose focus on the now is TIME GOALS.
"I want to do a x:xx swim split, a x:xx bike split, and a x:xx run split, for a x:xx total split, adding in transitions"
How fast you want to race in the future does not dictate how you should be training right now. How fit you are right now dictates how fast you train. Any fans of Jack Daniels Running Formula will know his philosophy of race faster to train faster. And when your not racing, you listen to your body to dictate how fast you should train.
Speaking of which, I need to get to bed NOW. Hard bike session tomorrow... hopefully my chain is clean enough to ride.
Splash, Pedal, Shiver
Just sent this report to the coach:
The weather was cool and rainy.. but was looking to clear by race time. So I made the call on what I was going to wear over my kit on the bike and went in to the pool for race meeting and warmup.
Got a solid warmup, felt REALLY GOOD in the water. Looked at the lane sheet.... I was in the lane with all the fastest swimmers... seeded 10 of 12. The 1500m (LCM) went effortlessly. Exited in 22:49?. I think I could have pushed a bit more... the swim felt just too easy!
Ran out to transition and the dark clouds had returned with some light rain. I left transition with another guy who was going at a good clip, so I settled in behind him and waited for my legs to warm up before I wound it up a bit faster. As I approached the turnaround at 20km I was VERY cold, and getting colder. I was in 9th place. Hard to tell if I was making time on the leaders.. but we we're all bunched within 3min of each other. I hit the turn-around and it was full on into a headwind and driving rain... I went completely numb. I found a car at 25km and pulled the plug. I was hypothermic, and uncontrollably shivering for about 15mins.
I think I was so keen on racing fast... that I forgot to race for the conditions. 40 seconds extra in transition putting on warm clothing would have saved my day. Damnit.
Well, will have to wait til Oliver now to truly test the fitness. Watch out. ;-)
Thanks to Naomi for being my tri sherpa today and fetching my clothes as I sat shivering back at transition.
And a big thanks to the guy who gave me a lift off the course, I think he said he was the president of the local road racing club?
On the plus side... we skipped the awards to make haste back to Edmonton and arrive here at a reasonable hour. We were hoping to get a run in at Red Deer too, but the road fatigue had set in and we just wanted to get home, unpack, and prepare for the work week.
Now to clean the mud off my new bike. Joy.
Ready to race
Tomorrow is the first real race of the season for me.... the Splash, Pedal, Gasp triathlon in Lethbridge. It's an Olympic distance race with a 50m pool swim, screaming fast and flat out n' back bike, and a run that has a steep descent into the valley, and a climb out of the valley to finish. If I recall... this was the first triathlon I ever did.
Since the Police 1/2 marathon I've been nursing a foot injury, and have had to back off my run sessions a bit. On my short run today, my foot was still a bit sore.. so I'm hoping I don't injure it further on the race tomorrow. Regardless, I'm feeling pretty good, have the new bike setup and ready to go... and am going to give it my all.
At the moment, I'm in Calgary at Tanya and Ryan's place. Naomi and them all rode out to Bragg Creek today... and I wish I could have gone with. The riding in Calgary is so outstanding, I miss it a lot. I drove out to Bragg for fun... since I didn't feel like sitting around all day. Ran into Carson and Mike at the coffee shop out there and sat around for 30mins and chatted.
Well... will post a race report tomorrow if I find the time...
My new ride
I ended up taking an extra long lunch hour today to head down to
Element to pick up my brand new Felt B2! Cam dialed it in almost exactly to the position on my old P3. It's setuup a tiny bit steeper (a tad over 82 degrees), and I'll probably tweak the position just slightly in the next couple of weeks.
I opted to replace the default Vision bars and crappy brake levers, with the Easton Attack TT bars, and the high end Vision brake levers. The only other mod from the original spec was the aero Q-rings. The big ring is in position 5 and the small ring in position 3. Cam had to shave a wee bit off the dérailleur mount to get the ring to fit! Unfortunately, due to the length of the chainstays, I'll also not be able to run my two easiest gears while in the big ring... but that's not necessary for TT'ing anyways.
A fine weekend
A great weekend here in Edmonton, some good training and some entertainment watching the Velocity stage cycling race. Congrats to the Speed Theory guys who seemed to be having a good weekend... and to Frank... the TT specialist? I better watch out as he's taken up triathlon this year! You can read the fine details of our weekend on Naomi's blog...
On Friday I dropped in to Element to check out my new bike. I have a bit of mixed emotions.. I can't wait to try out the new machine.. but I've put so many miles on my P3.. I'm going to miss it. I just couldn't find time to get it fitted up and out of the shop this weekend... so hopefully Tuesday I'll pick it up. I should be able to get it all dialed in and ready for the Lethbridge race this weekend. It's hard to believe triathlon season is here already!
Notice the new date for the Sandy Beach Duathlon in myraces. I'll keep that one on the schedule too. Marc advised me to go and complete my 2 hour brutality session later that race day... that will be interesting.... but a good prep for Oliver 1/2 in 4 weeks time.
No news on the wedding yet. We're so busy with a million other things. I don't want to hear any complaining about the Wednesday date! It's the only day that works for Naomi and I so we're not changing it!
QOTD
From Marc (da coach):
"Keeping it simple means less bullshit. Less bullshit in Triathlon means we've made a difference."
WOO!
