Its Been 2 Weeks since I........

Two weeks have past since my last entry, I have thought about writing a few times but seem to get distracted. What I should be doing is writing things down during the week and then compiling them at the end, but I haven't seemed to get that far yet. I'll put that on my list of things to do.

On to my training

I had a great week the second week in January, the weather turned nice with above average temps. I was running in just a long sleeve shirt and no hat! That is fantastic for us Canucks. I'm up to 1 1/2 hour runs on my long days and a nice day makes all the difference. A good exercise was to do a hill workout on the treadmill, take it up to 5-6% grade and crank up the speed for 4 minutes. I did this 8x and it really worked the legs. I would rather be outdoors but the conditions were still a little slippery so its hard to go full out. We are back to our regular cold weather (-5 to -20C) so I really have to psych myself up to get outside.

My highlight on the bike for the last 2 weeks was a 2 1/2 ride followed by a 40 min run. I actually enjoy the ride on the trainer if there are drills involved. A straight ride gets kinda boring but mixing it up with one leg drills and some tempo work then a good ride makes the time fly. I did have a couple funny moments while riding in the basement, yesterday was just a light recovery ride and it was poorly timed. I was about 30 min in and my wife had to get our oldest son (Alexander) from the bus and at the same time our youngest decide he had to go to the washroom. My wife couldn't wait for Caleb to finish so I had to get off the bike to help him while she went to the bus stop. I went upstairs and Caleb is singing the alphabet while on the toilet, in French, but he only knows a couple of the letters correct pronunciation but tries anyways. My heart rate was dropping while I was waiting so I was doing some jumping jacks to keep it up and then it hit me, if someone came in and saw me doing jumping jacks to the tune of the French alphabet they would think we were crazy. I had a good little laugh to myself. My other funny moment came one Saturday morning while doing a long ride, usually the kids will come downstairs and play in the basement. They are pretty good to leave me alone but they were a little restless so during my cool down we played football. I was up in the saddle throwing the football to them while they ran around scoring touchdowns. I don't think I could have done this in my lactate threshold ride, but I'm sure I will find out.

My swimming is still a work in progress. I feel like I am making small strides so that helps. I am doing mostly drills during the week with not a lot metres covered and then a longer swim at the end of the week. I still have a long way to go but I am comforted in the fact that I still have a lot of time to practice.

I have also incorporated Yoga and Pilates into my schedule and am humbled each time I do them. My body doesn't mind a 3 hour brick, but 30 min of what can only be described as circus- like body contortions is a trial. I still giggle everytime they say to go into the downward facing dog.

My low light of the last 2 weeks was a real BONK! (if you read James Pearson's blog, this does not refer to sex either! Ironman training and "bonking" don't go together, in either sense! ) I had a busy day at work, then struggled to get my workout in and was unprepared for it. It was an 1 hour 15 min ride that had 2-20 min lactate threshold segments. The first went well but the second one killed me. I was in the aero bars and my HR was all over the place. After the bike I headed out for a 30 min run and it started off OK but by the 15 min mark my legs felt like Jello. There are time when you don't feel that great but you keep going but this wasn't one of them. I couldn't run. The only other time I remember feeling this was my very first brick workout. I realize that I hadn't eaten properly and rest probably played into it as well. The next day I hit the treadmill and felt fine.

Keep warm and happy training,
Scott

Something about the New Year

Last wednesday morning I sat in my Doctors office with my two boys who were getting their flu shots and my Doctor turned and said to me "are you getting one today as well?" Flu shots are complicated with my medication, there are only certain times that I can get them and I haven't in the past. My reply to my doctor was "No, I can't right now but its not a big deal, I rarely get sick". That was at 10:30am. By midnight I was starting to feel a little dizzy. I had planned to get up at 4:30am to do a 1 1/2 hour ride on the trainer but when the time came I couldn't get out of bed without feeling queasy. So I laid there for about 2 hours before I resigned myself to the fact that I was not only not doing a workout, I was not going in to work as well.

This lead to to some self reflection, last year after New Years, I had strepthroat, the year before that I had a sinus infection. Strange, very strange!

Nothing bothers me more than having to use a sick day in the first couple of days in the new year! The next 3 days were a write off, I thought I could do a bit of a ride on saturday but when I got on the bike I felt crappy and didn't actually start. Sunday I went for a swim and did my prescribed workout which only had 1600m in total so it was a nice workout, but was not up to my long run (1:15) in the afternoon. I did about 25 minutes and probably only covered 3km. That was enough!

I felt like I haven't trained for months, my breathing was off, my legs felt like bricks, and my arms were sore. I had sent a note to my coach, Dianna, and her reply was to not do anything, recover completly then get back to it. I had this overwhelming sense of guilt which is strange, usually if I don't have to do something...I don't! But for 2 days I tried to get back to it, but she was probably right, it didn't do me any good.

That's the lesson for the week!

My highlight of the week was getting our travel arrangements for the Florida 1/2 Ironman at Disney completed! This has been a 2 week process with lots of fact finding. We are taking my wife's parents who have never flown before so it should be interesting. Also, I signed up for the Muskoka long course tri in June, this is a qualifier for Ironman Canada, Lake Placid, and Florida. I have driven through Muskoka quite a few times and the area is beautiful so it should make for a nice day. I'm also doing the inaugural Muskoka 1/2 Ironman in september.

When I finish this, I'm going to raise a glass and start my New Year all over.