NYC Triathlon 2014

Race Report

FAT OR CARBS?

A l(not so short) look at the two main options for fueling in endurance sports

My Famous Fails

A little recap of my accidents

Race Recap of the Demi-Marathon des Microbrasseries

Race report for this new race, complete with multiple distances, and BEER!!!

Tuesday 27 December 2011

Winter Running

So just a quick followup on my last post about how treadmills are (potentially) bad...

I decided to give running outside a chance after much criticism from my team and coach about all my treadmill running.
Apparently triathletes aren't afraid of a little inclement weather, and it was suggested that I just put on some layers and head out the door.


The rest of my team has been running outside every Saturday, and obviously I cant admit that they are tougher than me, so I really had no other choice but to start getting ready for a little cold-weather treading. I headed over to The Running Room, suited up, and was all set.

The important thing to keep in mind when running outside is to wear many layers.
My personal preference so far has been;
- Under Armour base layer compression top
- Champion quick-dry half-turtleneck top
- Running Room Jacket
- Ronhill Vision Winter Tights

As winter gets colder I might have to switch to a warmer option for my legs, but for now I seem to be ok. I tend to get quite hot when I run, so I'm perfectly content.

I went on one quick run just as a test, and then I also had the opportunity to run with my coach on the beautiful Mount Royal on Xmas morning. Below is the map and my watch data for that run. Im not sure whats up with the pacing, its kind of all over the place, but while running we were generally just above 10 minute mile.


That's all for now,
Keep Tri-ing!

Are treadmills bad?



Ever since I started running at all, I had a pretty simple seasonal running plan; If it was spring/summer/fall and not too bad weather, I would train outside. Otherwise, the treadmill was my best friend. I’ve never been shy about this. I don’t enjoy being uncomfortable, and running while wet/cold just never appealed to me. Now theoretically, running on a treadmill versus outdoors is not entirely bad. If you aren’t going to be physically active at all, then using a treadmill is a great option.

The major argument against using treadmills for training is that the muscles used when treadmill running is different than outdoor running, because of the benefit of having the belt move. This affects your form, and can actually cause injury over time because of the difference in biomechanics. This doesn’t mean that there are no benefits to running on treadmills. For example, they can often be much easier on bones and joints, because they tend to have built in impact compression (at least the better models). Obviously the convenience and enjoyment factor is also a bit up, because it easy to keep running while watching a show or movie on TV.

If you do choose to run on a treadmill, it is often advised that you put set the incline grade to at least 1%. This will help in part to minimize the effect of the moving belt, and better simulate real life conditions.

In the end, the choice is yours, but once you get into it, running outside in the winter really isn't that bad at all.
Take care, and keep tr-ing!

Sunday 25 December 2011

Ironman Hawaii 2011

Hey I just wanted to add the full version of the Hawaii Ironman 2011 World Championship NBC coverage video. Enjoy and be inspired!

Monday 12 December 2011

My first Triathlon


Most people ending up having some sort of story for their first Triathlon, and I thought I would share mine (at the time of writing, also my only Tri).

At the beginning of this past summer, I ran the Ottawa Half-Marathon, which made it my second Half. I had been casually running for a few years and had done a handful of 10Ks as well.
After doing the Ottawa, I realized that although running 21.1K is never easy, it was something that I already knew I could do, so I needed to add on another challenge. I had heard about Triathlon and wanted to eventually steer myself in that direction. Swimming was definitely not a strong point, so I decided to start with biking.
I went out and bought my bike and all the basic required gear for a serious cyclist. I began looking for duathlon to compete in near the area and found the Cornwall Triathlon, which had a duathlon component. So that summer I started cycling a fair bit more, and trying to get ready for it, though to be honest I could have done a lot more training. About a month away from the race, my cousin told me that he was planning on competing in the Montreal Esprit Triathlon. Obviously I took this as a challenge, and decided that if he could do a Tri, so could I. I decided to start getting ready for the Cornwall Tri-a-Tri. Unfortunately, I clearly hate myself, because I figured if my cousin was doing the Olympic distance, I could at the very least do the Sprint instead.
I had not really swam in at least a dozen years. I took some swimming lessons to get an idea of proper form and prepared to rent a wetsuit for the extra buoyancy.

So ya, a month away from the race, I decided to do my first ever Triathlon.

Race day came around, I went to the race, set up my transition area, put on my wetsuit, and went down to the water to wait for the start.
The whistle blew and I WAS OFF!!! I powered strong, passing people quickly right away.
That lasted about 50 meters before my arms got tired.
I got passed by everyone and their mother. I tried front-crawl, breast-stroke, back-stroke, floating backwards. I was wiped out. I finally came out of the water after about a half hour exhausted and I believe third to last out of the water.

I got my wetsuit stripped, waddled my way to my bike and got started the second phase of the race.
I biked through the circuit , finally getting my wind back, and thinking that everything was going to be OK maybe. As I reached the end of the circuit, volunteers saw me and wave me back into transition. I ran the last phase of the race tired but uneventfully. When I got to the finish line I got my medal, and saw that I had placed 9th / 11 for my age group. Not bad for my first race right?
I ate some food and for while walking around the finish area, decided to see how other racers had done. This was when I realized that my name was now near the bottom of the page, with a DQ next to it.

It turns out that in my exhaustion, I had missed a second lap on my bike. I had taken so long in the water that the volunteers waving me into transition must have thought I had already done both laps.
Worst part is, the speedometer that I ordered off of Amazon came in the mail the next day, which would have let me realize I had only bike half the distance.

So there it is, my first Triathlon story. Ill be registering for the Sprint again for next year, and taking my revenge on the course.
I’m also not ready to give up on Tri. I know I can do better and am obviously already training for an Olympic distance with Team in Training.

Lesson learned: Know the course, and give yourself time to train!

Thanks for reading!

Keep Tri-ing!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

5/12/2011




So this post is coming in a little late, I would have posted yesterday but I decided to reserve Monday nights my long-run training sessions.  
The rest of the week was actually pretty decent as well. On Sunday I really pushed myself in the pool, and a the end I finally found a pace that I think I can hold for a decent amount of time. Its not exactly lightning speed, but I can keep doing it longer than when I'm really pulling my strokes in. Also later in the week I met up with my TNT team for swimming at the Olympic Stadium! It's a little far of a drive, but it was really cool to be swimming in an Olympic pool. 
Biking has also been going pretty decently, with learning a good number of drills that I can practice on the bike. I'm realizing that I really need to buy a bike trainer, because going for spinning classes is getting pricey, and the old stationary bike that I have at home just isn't the right fit for me.
Running has also been going well. I've been splitting up my training because long, speed, and interval sessions. I know it might be too soon to tell, but I think it's been paying off already. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Monday nights are now my long sessions. Last night I ran for about an hour and a half at a fair 10min/mile with a 1% incline on the treadmill. While that speed isn't so fast, I'm glad that I was able to keep it up for the entire time, without my heart-rate spiking up too high (see data below). Small incident though last night, I was about a half hour into the run when a fuse popped. That explains the little dip (the others were probably me replugging in my headphones).

That's it for now. Tomorrow I start sending out as many facebook messages as I can to fund-raise for St. Anthony's with TNT.
Keep on Tri-ing!






Sunday 4 December 2011

NBC Ironman 2011

Oh man quick post...I've been looking all over the web trying to find coverage from this years' Kona Ironman World Championship, and it is apparently gonna be released this Saturday! Now I just gotta find a PVR.
Here the apparent preview;

Monday 28 November 2011

28/11/2011

Last week...last week...what happened last week...
Actually last week was a fairly decent week in terms of workouts. Last Sunday I did some spinning with TNT, and WOULD have span again on Thursday night, but I kinda got my location mixed up and ended up at the wrong Gold's Gym. I ended up doing some spinning on my own, but I was using a Startrac eSpinner, which is hands-down the best stationary bike I've ever been on. The seat post post and bike stem are fully adjustable, it has a built-in fan, a cadence meter, Ipod dock, and best of all....a VIDEO SCREEN! The screen lets you follow a virtual coach on a number of workouts. All I had to do was choose one, and then follow along, keeping my cadence within certain zones.

I managed to squeeze in a couple runs during lunch (graphs posted below), but time is a little tight because I do want to get in some cross-training also, for which I take a Yoga class once a week and also do some weight-lifting. I think that going forward I might do my cross-training at lunch, and do my runs as soon as I get home from work.  I didn't make it into the pool unfortunately, due to other commitments.

Movember is coming to end, which means that pretty soon I'm going to start bothering everyone I know to make donations to Team in Training in my name. Raising almost $5K isn't gonna be easy, so I had better get started.

That's all for now.

Keep Tri-ing!

Monday 21 November 2011

21/11/2011


Weekly Recap:

So this week was fairly good, and I’m managing to start to ramp up my training sessions. I began the week with an hour-long bike ride with TNT. Oh, and that was outside... In November... In Canada. Ok fine it was a fairly warm day, but still at 9AM its not exactly sizzling regardless. This ride focused on some basic drills , like biking one-handed and bike control, and our coach tried to make sure we kept up a good cadence.

We also had our first swim training, which involved some solid drills. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get the lanes opened up at the pool, so we were stick swimming the width (only about 12M), so it was hard to really get a good rhythm going. Nonetheless it’s good to get in the water as often as possible, especially considering that swimming is definitely my weakness in the Tri.

Of course I kept running this week, including a solid outdoor run, where I tried to focus on cadence, as our TNT coach instructed. Whadaya know it actually helps, and I found that the run went a lot easier than usual! My time wasn’t anything fantastic (around 58 mins for 10K), but I found that I was a lot less tired than I usually am at that distance. I found it a little hard to keep track though and count my cadence, but lo and behold on Wednesday I finally got my Garmin SDM4 foot pod!
This little gadget syncs up with my Global Trainer via ANT+ and can keep track of my speed, distance, and cadence whether or not I have a GPS signal. This means that I can better track my workouts digitally during the winter, as well as now being able to make sure I stay as close as possible to the suggested 90RPM running cadence.

Last note, my TNT group did some SPINNING for the first time. Unfortunately it’s getting too cold to bike outdoors, so spinning is the only option left to train our biking legs. Thanks to Gold’s Gym for giving us a discount on entrance. Most spinning sessions going forward are going to be early Sunday morning. As in 7AM early. Oh well that’s the life of a triathlete, right?

That’s all for now,
Keep Tri-ing!



PS. Simply because I can, I will sometimes post statistics from my workouts, obtained from my watch.

Monday 14 November 2011

14/11/2011

Ok so just a quick weekly post since I just made one a few days though. Yesterday was my second group ride with my Team in Training group (I'll be posting the stats on the Training page soon). We did a nice 27K though, and it was good to get back into exercise after a week on the road. This week is going to be the start of swim training for me with the coach and next week we will probably start indoor spinning due to it being so damn cold outside.

Don't forget to donate to my Team in Training page here.

Thanks, and keep Tri-ing!

Wednesday 9 November 2011

09/11/2011

Weekly update
Ok so I think the format that will work best is a weekly update on the past weeks training overall, and maybe a look at the upcoming week. Of course, my detailed training results will be posted on the “Training” page of this blog. Going forward, I will do my best to post these weekly updates on either Sunday afternoon or Monday at the latest. This week unfortunately my training is non-existent as I am travelling for seminars and have absolutely no spare time to even go for a run. Excuses, Excuses, I know, but there’s not much I can do.

I do have some big news though…Last week I went to an information seminar for Team in Training (TNT) Canada, and it looks like I will be training with them for the St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg, Florida at the end of April 2012. For those of you who aren’t familiar with TNT, it is a division of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada, and its participants fundraise to find a cure or treatment for various cancers. While fundraising, participants simultaneously train to compete in various endurance sporting events. Triathlon is relatively new to TNT, but seems like a great fit for me! I get some hands-on training and support an amazing cause.

In order to participate though, I will need to raise at least $5,000. Not easy to say the least but I think it’s doable. If you want to donate through me, I will be posting a link to my individual TNT website. All donations over $20 are issued tax receipts.



For more information check out

Thanks, and keep Tri-ing!








Thursday 27 October 2011

First!

Hi Everyone, this is really more of a test run. This blog will be all about the great sport of Triathlon! You might be thinking, isn't triathlon really three sports (swimming, biking, and running)? Technically you're right, but the combination of all three really creates an entirely unique sport.

So...why am I writing this blog?