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