Guelph Sprint... 2 days out.

Yup, Guelph is this Saturday... and the weather is looking quite poor. Or pour might be a better word to use... as in, it will be pouring all day. Good times. At least the temperature will get up into the teens, not like Muskoka last September when it rained and the temp was single digits.

But - the distance is quite short, so I hope to just power through everything and get some dry clothes on for the trip home.

I don't have a detailed plan for this one, maybe other than to try to enjoy every minute of it, rain or not. I guess I am thinking/planning a little bit about a few things... like, I want to swim the shortest distance possible. That is, I want my sighting to be perfect. I always seem to defer to others when it comes to position in the water... jogging in when everyone else takes off, or staying off the buoy line so that the fastest swimmers from the wave after can easily pass. This usually results in me taking the turns very wide and swimming a longer distance than I'm supposed to. Well you know what? Screw that. Although I will not take off from the front, I am going to start right on the inside... if any fasties from the wave after want to swim over me, they had better be prepared to receive an all-out under water assault. Oh, that's right - I'm no one's whipping boy.

One other thing I've been thinking about is the transitions. I am really, really slow, especially in T1. In the past I've always taken a extra time to try to catch my breath after arriving at my bike, because my heart rate always feels like it is somewhere in the 2750 bpm range. But using the theory of "always moving forward," this time I'm going to keep moving, moving, moving. Once I'm on the bike and away, I can always coast if I need to. I'll still be rolling forward instead of standing still in T1. Also... I've never done it in a race, but I was thinking about starting with my shoes already on the bike. But, with crappy weather here this week, I wasn't able to practice any bike mounts outside at all... so I'll have to see about that one. I mean, rolling forward (even slowly) and doing up your shoes has got to be faster than standing there and doing them up, right?

Mainly I'm just trying to worry about the things that are within my control. The weather is not one of those things, so I'll deal with whatever is thrown my way.

As usual, time will tell.

A lack of consistency.

Ever since the Mother's Day half-marathon, my training has been less than enthusiastic. I guess I could be much more specific by saying my bike training has been less than enthusiastic. This was brought very clearly into focus during the recent Milton Triathlon. The bike course is quite a challenge, with some steep rollers and one massive hill to tackle. It was the biggest hill I'd ever seen, including Muskoka 70.3. I didn't see it at the time, but checking my computer later, I hit more than 74 kph (>46mph) on the way down... and that was not in the aerobars. I was scared shitless. Anyway, I had never seen the course before, and it wrecked me. It was only 30k, but it chewed me up and spit me out, and then kicked me a few times when I was down. I'm pretty sure I also heard it laughing as I was packing my car for the trip home.

Obviously I would have been better off not entering the race, and of course, the responsibility lies with me. I let my bike fitness drop off while training for the half marathon. I had a great race on Mother's Day, but now I'm suffering the consequences. Training-wise, I'm back on track, and I'm hoping that I can build back up to the level I should be at. I'm going to enter a Sprint on June 20 (750m, 20k, 5k) to assess where I'm at, so I'm hoping to hit all my workouts until then and have a solid effort, especially on the bike. I'm already feeling better and more comfortable in the saddle compared to the race, so it seems like things are moving in the right direction.

As usual, time will tell.

I have blog? Really??

Okay, so it's been a while. Like 5 months. The same thing happened last year... no posts for the first few months of the year. Not really sure why... I think when it's straight training and no racing, I don't really have much to say (kind of like this post, for example). I have a separate place where I record and analyze all my workouts, so it kind of feels redundant to talk about it here. So I spend most of my blogger-related time lurking on and reading the blogs of other people. Sometimes I don't just lurk... I super-lurk.

Lately I've been reading about the adventures of Eric, Jody, Phil, Danny, and Rachel to name but a few. I've never met any of them and likely never will, but here I am calling them by their first names like we all go waaaay back (sometimes I feel like such a tool). Anyway, the latest addition to my blog-lurking world is Simon Whitfield. Seems like a funny guy, in addition to being an athletic champion. He's recently been hanging out with Jim Cuddy. Jim Cuddy! Actually, that connection would be a great way to get my wife more interested in triathlon, since she's been in love with old Jim for about 20 years... actually proposed to her after a Blue Rodeo concert. Surprised she even remembered who I was after watching him on stage.

Oh yeah, I got married in Mexico a couple months back. So now I have a wife, not a girlfriend. Still feels strange to say it (but in a good way, of course!).

So I'll be back soon with a trio of race reports -- so far a 5k, 10k, and a half marathon. There was supposed to be a duathlon this weekend, but I feel my bike fitness just isn't there, after focusing on training for the half, which was just last weekend. So I might have to go golfing instead. Later!

2008 -- the good, the bad, the craptacular

Event	2008 Goals	2008 Results	2007 Best
Half Marathon	Under 2 hours	1:56:47	First time in '08
10k	Under 50:00	49:47	53:24
5k	Under 22:30	22:07	24:55
Swim (tri)	2:00/100m	2:03/100m	2:09/100m
Bike (tri)	Avg 30km/h	Avg 32 km/h	Avg 28.5 km/h
Run (tri)	Under 5:00/km	5:08/km	5:24/km
Sprint	1:25:00	1:23:57	1:32:58
Olympic	Under 3 hours	2:52:53	First time in '08

I've been going back and looking over my 2008 season a little bit... results, training logs, nutrition journals, stuff like that. The table above is a summary of my '08 results.

Safe to say that 2008 was definitely the biggest step forward in my fitness so far... ironically enough, it also contained my biggest disappointment & moment of pain so far (both physical and mental). I specifically used the two words "so far" twice, and that is because of two reasons: 1) I plan on kicking more ass in 2009, so I know my fitness will continue to improve as I put in the work, and 2) As my goals and aspirations grow, there is no doubt that sometime down the road I will look back on 2008 and feel like the disappointment at that time was nothing compared to whatever I'm going through at that moment. I tend to be an optimist when it comes to triathlons, but let's face it -- you don't set a personal record every time you lace 'em up (or zip it up, or clip in). And of course, knowing and admiting that little fact will do nothing to dimish any such disappointment in the future. But at least I know it's out there. So, yeah, I've got that going for me.

Much like my overall season, my reaction to my '08 results (when they're all right there in one place) is a series of ups and downs. For example: Up = hitting my goals in the open runs... Down = missing it in the triathlon run.

Up = improving my best bike average by 3.5 km/h (same course, same distance)... Down = getting passed like a salt shaker during the run in that same race.

Up = making my Sprint overall goal... Down = feeling like I had something left in the tank at the end.

Up = making my Olympic overall goal... Down = knowing a faster time was there for the taking but missing out because of cramping during the run (which I believe was a result of wandering away from my nutrition plan and drinking too much, too soon on the run... idiot!).

Okay, that's enough of that. I definitely learned a lot about myself in 2008, and I look forward to learning even more in 2009 (and of course, lowering those times and increasing those speeds).

No coach? No problem!

Sometimes it feels as though I'm making things up as I go along... with respect to training, that is. I've never had a coach, so I don't have anyone in my ear telling me why this workout is better than that one, or that I need a rest day tomorrow. I'd love to have one, but the wedding is only about 2 months away now, and getting married is more expensive than anyone told me. The latest expenditures include wedding bands, new appliances, and the final payment on our Mexican wedding vacation (which is supposedly going to be cheaper than a "real" wedding). Right now, I don't have a lot of cash left over for a monthly coaching fee. That's usually when I turn to my good friend, the internet. Now, of course we all know that everything on the internet is 100% true. Wait... it isn't? Right. So then I guess I have to use the odd bit of common sense. Truth is, most of my information comes from the internet. Given my relatively rookie-ish triathlete status, it isn't hard to find people with more experience (and therefore hopefully more knowledge) than me. I read as much as I can on everything from training programs to rest and recovery to nutrition to equipment and so on. There is sooo much information out there... it can be a little overwhelming. I just try to sort through it, determine what may or may not apply to me and my goals, and see how I might be able to use it in the triathlon portion of my life. I visit many blogs, and usually a few times a week I stop by trifuel and slowtwitch to see what's going on. The forums that let people "speak" to each other makes them a golden source of information. There are stories directly from other people - with both happy and sad endings - plus advice on just about anything. It's nice to get more than one viewpoint about a piece of equipment, for example, from someone other than the dude who is trying to sell it to you. A lot of the articles I read suggest getting a coach... saying it is one of the best ways to advance your abilities. Believe me, I would if I could. But for now, my computer and I are doing just fine.

The lunch-time treadmill

I managed to get a run in at lunch today at the gym. Scheduling conflicts in both the morning and evening meant that either today's workout was going to be skipped, or it was going to be during my lunch hour. I haven't used the treadmill for running since last winter, and it didn't take me long to remember now much I dislike it. Also not a big fan of the lunch-hour workout thing. You could say I'm a bit of a heavy sweating guy, and trying to get back to work on time by trying to get showered and cooled off as quickly as possible just leads to more sweating for me. Outdoor running will always be the way to go.

Update... about nothing very important

And who doesn't like to read about that? Off-season update: I'm starting to become more emotionally involved in the workouts. That kind of sounds weird, but it's the only way I could think to describe it. I remember this time last year I was just kind of going through the motions of each workout, whether it was treadmill, trainer, or pool. It took me some time to get into it and start doing it with a purpose. It probably wasn't until January that I started looking at it differently... instead of just looking at the upcoming workout and then doing it, I would think about why I was doing it, especially right as it was happening -- if I work the big chainring hard on these intervals, then that hill in the Owen Sound Olympic will seem a lot smaller next August -- that kind of thing. I did my first triathlon in 2005, but 2007/08 was really the first off-season I did any kind of regular workouts. Before that I just kind of assumed that playing hockey a few times a week would keep me in shape. Yeah... how'd that work out, big fella? So, it's really only my second off-season, and I'm taking it as a good sign that I'm already approaching the workouts this way now, several months ahead of last year. I have no doubt that more experienced triathletes are pretty much always focused that way, but at least I'm going in the right direction. I think. Of course, even though it's only November, I find myself wishing it was next May and that the spring races were already here. And yes, if it was suddenly May and not November, then it goes without saying that I would have put in all the work over the off-season and have made massive fitness gains since last year. Ah, yes. The dream never dies, just the dreamer. On another note, I would like to say thank-you to Eric for leaving the words of encouragement on my Muskoka 70.3 race report (and mentioning this blog in a post!). My frame of mind when writing this stuff is basically that no one will ever read it. That someone actually did (and took the time to comment) is in itself very encouraging.