Snowbanks, Grey Skies, Cold Weather....AAAHHHH Its Good to Be Home!

Batman, Spiderman and ....I'm not really sure who I am!

I spent the better part of three days in New York this week doing some training at Cadence and it was a welcome break from our cold dreary weather. The temperature was in the mid 40's and the sun was mostly out. As we drove into New York we rolled down the windows and it felt like Spring. However, I can't recall how many times I heard someone say that it was cold and that they couldn't wait for Spring to come. You people have NO IDEA!

A little info on my trip. About an hour and a half into the drive I got pulled over for speeding and was subsequently given a ticket...great way to start off. An hour after that I took a wrong turn and had to go about 30 min out of our way. We finally got on track and were heading into New York and made a little turn off into a pretty rough part of New Jersey, but was able to turn it around OK. Then everything was fine until we left and then I made another wrong turn onto the NJ turnpike and did a U-turn after the Toll Booth and they still charged me $7. Heading home we missed the turn onto the I81 North and found ourselves back on the road we had been wrongly on during the trip down. The only bright side of the drive was not getting searched at Customs. I was bringing home the rest of my gear and the car was packed full of stuff and they only charged me $20 for the wetsuit as it was over $400 retail. Cadence had kindly itemized everything for me and they took my word for it which was nice. Other than those mishaps, the trip was really enjoyable. I could get used to New York as I really enjoy just wandering around and there is no shortage of great restaurants to choose from.

On to my training;

After arriving at Cadence I went right to work in the pool. Dianna watched my form for a little bit and then we hit some drills to help me with my body rotation. I have yet to master bi-lateral breathing and this could be due to my rotation on my right side. I practised moving my hips before my arm began its pull and this seemed to help me get on my side longer to give me a better inhale. Next was lung capacity drills. Another reason I don't bi-lateral breath well is I haven't spent enough time increasing my lung capacity. I believe this will help me get more relaxed in the water as well. It is hard to get a good rhythm going in the Endless Pool when you're not used to it. After about an hour it was time to get on the bike.

It was great to hook the bike up to the CompuTrainer again and see some numbers. Wattage really is the best way to train and I really need to get it at home. Dianna was pleased with my progression from October and I put in a good 2 hour ride on Wednesday afternoon after my swim workout. This was more of a "Lets see where you are ride" and it gave me a good workout.

Next morning I was back in at 5:30am for a 6am spin class. This was the real test. I went for 60min ride that had 6-4 min stretches that worked the hell out of my legs. Luckily Elizabeth was beside me and was yelling at me to keep going or I probably would have stopped. My HR hit 178 at its peak and was in the 170's on each set. Even in the recovery zones my HR was still in the 140's. After that hour, Elizabeth and I kept going and did a simulated 20 mile ride of the Kona course.

After the ride I jumped onto the treadmill and ran for 20 min and then did a 5 min cool down walk. I had no problems with my calf or hamstring so this was nice to put in a good brick. I did some good stretching and that was it for Thursday. I was going to come back in on Friday and do another spin class but I decided that since the weather was nice I really wanted to run in Central Park. We were up late the night before and wanted to get going the next day so I had to get out early and it was well worth it. Lots of people were out either running, cycling or walking dogs and the city was still pretty quiet. I decided to give my new ZOOT racing shoes their inaugural run that day and they felt great. They really make you run properly, which in turn gives you a little more speed and they didn't take any getting used to. Just slip on and run. I had a lot of people checking them out as I ran by them. Going back into the hotel I was stopped by a young woman who asked me how I ran in the cold weather, it was 40 F, to which I replied "Its OK, I'm Canadian". That made perfect sense to her.

I really wish that I could make it down to NYC more often as the training is invaluable. Its just not the same being alone in your basement when you could have someone screaming at you as they are going just as hard as you are. Little tweaks here and there can make big differences and not recognizing bad habits can be counter productive.

But when I arrived home on Friday night and had my 2 little boys jumping all over me, I was glad to be home.

Take Care,

Scott

Global Warming my @$$!!

I always do my part to help reduce waste, conserve energy and recycle whenever possible. This is in an attempt to help offset the effects of global warming. If everyone does their part we could have a huge impact on our warming trends. That being said...I'm sick of this friggin' winter! We haven't had this much snow in 15 years, look at the picture above and add more to it. This weekend we had a snow/ice storm that dumped about 40cm on my driveway. Thankfully I have a neighbour who lets me use his snowblower so I was able to clean it up without breaking my back. I, like Mary Lou, will now stop talking about the weather, unless it gets worse!

On to my updates...

Well I'm back running again and am virtually pain free. I put in a few runs this week and have been fine during and after them. The hard part was getting back into it. My endurance seems to have fallen a bit and my HR seemed a little high while I was running. I did a brick on Saturday with a 2:50 bike and a 50 min run, bike was hard with some 85% intervals, but I felt good, then came the run. I actually had to go to a neighbours house to use their treadmill as it was in the middle of the snowstorm and could not run outside, and it was to crazy out to drive to the gym, so they were kind enough to let me run in their basement. My goal was to get into a 75% run and hold for 40 min then taper down to 50-60% for the last 10min. I did the 40 min OK but then slowed the treadmill down to get a drink and could not get started again, my legs just died! So I walked the last 10 min at a fast pace. The next day I had an hour run and made it through alright but my legs were still a little sore from the previous day.

Not much change on the bike and the swim, still plugging away on the trainer with some good drills in the Sub-LT zone and LT zones. I always feel like I'm not going to make it through in the LT zone but when you finish it always feels great. Most of my swims feel that way as well, not being that great of a swimmer, every drill seems daunting. When I finish a workout I'm always surprised that I swam that far. It was only a year ago that my swim workouts amounted to about 400-500m, now I'm at 3000m. Still trying to get faster, but it is coming very slowly.

I'm off to New York this week for some training at Cadence with Dianna. She put in my calendar that I was to have an easy day on Tuesday as it was going to be a tough couple of days in NY. That scares me a little. My last trip really wiped me out and I know she will be expecting more. Since I am only about 8 weeks away from Florida 70.3, I really need to get going so this week should be good. I am really hoping the weather is nice also so I can get in an outdoor ride and run. I also get to pick up the rest of my prizes which include 2 helmets, bike shoes, a wetsuit, nutritional supplements and a pair of the new ZOOT running shoes. I tried them on in October and they are super light, so I'm excited about running with them.

Well that's it for now,
Stay warm and keep training, spring is just around the corner,

Scott