Richard Rush's BlaznFast Triathlon Blog

Able to let go of running but maybe not triathlon

2011-08-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

It's been three months since Ironman St George and I have come to pretty good terms about letting go of my road racing / competitive running due to my knee but letting go of my Ironman dream is not so easy I have found.

I continue to bike to and from work each day keeping up a good exercise routine, and have stabilized and started to reduce the post IM weight gain. However, I am pretty sure that if I was not starting a Doctorate come September I would already be registering for Ironman St George again and just dealing with an alternate running training regime.

I guess that is the "push". While my knee is not up to the hard core running training needed for me to be happy with performance in competitive road racing I think I can train around the issue and still race triathlons. Since I know that the knee can't handle too much abuse I don't really have a desire to race the general local triathlon races but am still interested in racing the big events and just being extremely disciplined in training between them.

This week I did a short 5 km run because I was going nuts and did it somewhat up-tempo and wearing the knee brace. No pain during or after but I know that is because I have been nice to the knee since Ironman.

For now, it's biking to work (140km / week), an occasional swim and golf.

However, deep inside the Ironman dream still smolders like a damp campfire that refuses to die. I guess the blog lives on.

Ironman St George Detailed run course data for treadmills

2011-07-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

2011 Ironman St George Run Data for treadmills (in miles) Repeat twice.

.25 @ flat
.25 @ 6%
1 @ 2%
1 @ 3%
.5 @ 6%
.5 @ flat
.5 @ 2%
2.25 @ flat
1 @ 3%
.5 @ flat
1 @ 4%
.5 @ flat
.5 @ 2%
1 @ flat
.25 @ 2%
2 @ flat

Note course is changed for 2012

Also, see my updated page on race preparation with learnings from IMSG.

Light week of workouts for post Ironman recovery

2011-05-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

My plan this week is fairly simple. Relatively easy bike commutes to and from work with easy lunch swim, water run or weights with a longer worst on Saturday. Lunch today was a 2000m swim, my standard 500m technical warm up and cool down with 10 x 100m main set using pull buoy and paddles on a 1:45 cycle and averaging about 1:27 per 100m. Bike was an average 35 to 40 minute commute to and then again from work.

Trying to start focusing on more sleep so after an evening with the family headed for bed before 10:00 and some reading and a quick blog entry so I can be up fresh at 6:00 am. Regardless of my racing plans this feels like a good schedule, perhaps even getting to bed 30 minutes earlier would be good.

One Week after IMSG

2011-05-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since Ironman St George. And it has been a tough week. I had focused so much on the race and while having a pretty good race given the heat it has left me feeling somewhat incomplete and also feeling goal less. After seeing the aerial photos of the race I realize that by swimming the shoreline at St George I added a significant bit of extra distance to the race and that would explain at least 4-5 minutes of my extra time.

My recovery has / is going well as I was hardly sore at all after the race given that I did not go very hard on the run at all from a muscle standpoint. By Monday morning I was doing stairs with luggage without a problem and really the main discomfort was sunburn on the shoulders and back of hands. Using the compression tights most of Sunday and Monday I am sure helped me out a lot.

We made the drive back from St George Monday and Tuesday and I was back working Wednesday. On Thursday night I did a 500m jog and realized the knee was a bit tender so went back to the house and switched to my mountain bike for a very short (15 minute ride). Friday I did a 2km swim workout (500m technical, 1100m moderate interval set, 400m technical).

By the time I got to Friday night I was now seriously considering the Chinook 1/2 Ironman in mid/late June which is Provincial Championships. Time for some serious reflection on what training I should do over the next 5 weeks.

Full Race Report - Ironman St George - No excuses, no regrets

2011-05-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

Anyone that knows me even a little bit knows I love to talk about my races. I will try to get all the detail here so I can share the short version in person and if someone really wants to know they can check here for all the gory details.

From my short race report you know that I didn't qualify for Kona, sad, but I am still happy with the day. First order of business is my lists of thanks.

First, my thanks to God for the strength and ability to have trained as much as I had done with all my other duties as well as for the help on race day. It could have been a catastrophic day and I know the prayers and well wishes of everyone was heard as I was able to get through a really tough situation.

Second, my thanks to my family, it was absolutely thrilling to have my children all there to see me to do an Ironman, as well as my mom and Brien. They had seen other races but not Ironman and I loved having them all there to cheer me on. I also am grateful to Ken for his letter he gave me before I left Calgary. It meant a ton and his advice was really helpful for me on race day.

Third, thanks to my friends and colleagues for their support as I focused and trained for this race, and tolerating my near obsessive focus on Ironman. Without your support it would not have been possible and also in particular my boss, Lee.

Finally, thanks to my wife, Melanie who allowed me to gear up properly and shouldered a much larger burden at home while I trained and being willing to sacrifice the family funds for my preparation and for getting to St George. She knows what it takes for Ironman and she was there for me. Much love.

PS. Thanks to anyone else that I have missed that supported me along the way.

Ok now for the full report. No excuses and No regrets. Given what happened during the day I am totally at peace with how I trained, prepped and raced yesterday. Race morning preparations went off perfectly, I had a good 6 hour sleep and was quite ready the morning of the race, got in the water and did a warm-up and was really optimistic.

Swim started a little off as I went and made a last minute tweak to my goggles and ended up getting them partially on the outside of the cap so the first few hundred meters I needed to adjust them for leaking but I was able to realize what had happened and got it fixed. I thought the swim was going well, I was working it harder than I expected and was pretty satisfied with my pace until I got out and saw the clock. 1:09:42, I was in shock and disbelief as it was my slowest swim at Ironman ever, and well back of what I am capable of. Others around me were all on pace and Bernie was at 1:01 and change. I knew at that moment Kona was a really long shot giving up 8 minutes on my competitors and decided I just needed to keep to my race plan and see how the day panned out.

Transition 1 Swim-to-Bike was better than usual but I had planned it out well, except a needed bathroom break, not usual, and losing a sock from my bag. Kudos to the volunteer near me who offered up his sock so I could get going on the bike, talk about great help. As I got up we saw the other sock behind the chair so I quickly switched back. Even with all that I managed an under 6 minute transition, so was now 10 minutes off pace.

The bike started really well, I was patient and dialed back my heart rate pretty fast to where I needed it to be. I then started getting fluids and gu chew blocks in me for energy. Over the course of the bike leg I averaged about 3/4 a bottle an hour of fluids and 300 calories from gels etc. Bike heart rate by 30 km segments was 130, 130, 137, 124, 130, 138 and 129. The two spikes were the hills from Gunlock, the wall and out of Veyo up the hill. I was completely ok with that and I was willing to ride the top end of my range to keep a pace close to my goal. Passed my good friend Bernie mid way through the second loop just before the big climbs started. The descents into St George were very windy with head wind and cross wind and really buffeted me around. The arm coolers worked very well as I would continually get water on them to keep my temperature down. It was very very hot out there.

For me the real surprise was how many people I passed on the bike, usually on the bike I lose a LOT of places and all my training on the bike paid off as I moved up the field. Overall average of 30.8 km per hour for a 5:50 split. However, another 8 minutes off the pace I needed and I knew Kona was now officially out so just be smart.

Transition 2 Bike to Run went better than T1, another bathroom break (plus one I did on the bike so you could tell I had worked to keep my hydration up) and I was out pretty quick, left my sunglasses in T2 but that didn`t cost me too much. Under 4 minutes which was pretty good I thought.

Then the run, I started the run and legs felt fine but I realized how hot it had become. I shuffled along and couldn`t get the heart rate down and run at any sort of pace. Watched everyone flying by me on the run as I just plodded to keep from a blow up, which later I realized was inevitable. 10 minute mile paces through the heat and hills and the hottest part of the day where it was 33 C (92 ish F) at the finish line but hotter up on the bluffs on the course. On the way out the run I saw Bernie when I was about a mile and a half out and he was returning on the bike. It looked like I had about a 20 minute lead on him.

I ran and drank and used sponges at every station doing everything I could to stay hydrated and cool but it was a losing battle as I couldn`t get enough in. Ice in the cap, cold sponges in the trisuit, I was executing the perfect heat management routine but it wasn`t enough, and salt tabs periodically to help there as well. On the way back from the first turn I saw Bernie again and guestimated my lead to have gone up to about 22 minutes but I knew I was in trouble overall and on pace for about a 4:13 marathon. By 10 miles I realized the heart rate was mid to high 140s on average (almost 10 beats over what it should be off the bike for Ironman pace) and it was now spiking to 160, 170 and over 180. Not good so I decided I better watch health over racing hard since Kona was no longer on the line. I walked very briskly from mile 10 to mile 16, getting more water in me, completely soaking arm coolers, compression socks, trisuit to try and recover, but even walking I was 120 to 180 heart rate.

On the way out my second loop I saw Bernie coming in and he was now only about 9 minutes behind me, 13 minutes gained over 6 miles, I figured he would catch me at about 16 miles and I hoped I would have recovered enough to run or jog with him and finish together. After cresting the hill at 16 miles and not seeing him I decided to run the downhills regardless of the heart rate since it wasn`t controlled anyways and then walk the up hills. I found new life and actually started to feel better as the temperature dropped a bit as the sun started to set and the wind picked up more to cool me. Still dehydrated I was keeping the same management plan in place and returning back on the second loop I was surprised to see I now had a 30+ minute lead on Bernie. Cresting the hill on the way back I ran almost 100% of the final 4.5 miles and ended up with a faster second loop than first loop. Go figure. I had a hoot coming down main street and took my time to enjoy the finish. Final time 11:52, faster than IM Canada and IM California, slower than both Ironman Florida races.

Family were all there to greet me at the finish and cheer me in. My Ironman dream complete, just not quite how I expected. Given the cards I was dealt with I have no places where I can see what I would have done differently. Without knowing what happened on the swim I can`t fix that. An almost perfectly even bike ride at the right heart rate and managing the run the way I did I can`t think of any improvements.

The kids asked me if I would now start eating the off limits foods I had self imposed and if I would try to keep the same fitness levels. I thought a lot about that this morning as I lay in bed thinking about the race and the day and life. I have decided for now that I will probably not race anymore triathlons for a while until I feel the urge and if my knee fully recovers (by the way the knee held out great, used the knee brace for the second loop).

As for the no chocolate and no ice cream (plus other bad foods) thing I will celebrate the event with sharing an Oreo Blizzard from DQ with Aryana and while I might occasionally have some of the |banned| foods on a rare occasion I probably will mostly avoid them. For fitness I have come to really enjoy the bike and will use that as my main exercise and start commuting to and from work again by bike with a good ride on Saturdays and swim about 1 to 2 times a week to keep the swim shape up.

No excuses, No regrets!

St George Race Report (Short)

2011-05-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

I will give a longer race report later but the short report is that I had a brutal swim and no idea why, I thought it was going well but came out and saw 1:09:45. Rode the bike to the planned heart rate and ended up 5:50 on the bike in hot and windy conditions and then on the run ran to heart rate but with the 33 C heat just couldn't keep the heart rate down. Marathon was 4:43. Still broke 12 hours on the toughest course in extremely tough conditions and had my best Ironman finish in placement ever (324 overall and 52 in age bracket).

I want to thank everyone for their support and well wishes and for all my family that came to watch or watched online.

Happy Mother's Day

Final Post before the Race

2011-05-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings from a VERY hot St George Utah, anticipating 92-93F as a high on race day. I was hoping for a bit milder weather but it is what it is. If anyone is interested in following me along in the race I am racing bib number 1406 and you can enter it in the section for athlete tracking (upper right)

This race culminates a 9 month training stint of 530 hours and 1728 km running, 8156 km biking and 259 km swimming.

In order to qualify for world championships I will need to finish in the top 8 in my age bracket and somewhere around 10 hours and 30 minutes. My personal best is 10:48 at 1:04 swim, 5:42 bike and 3:54 run with 8 minutes of transition time. My goal is to go about 1:02 swim, 5:40 bike and 3:42 run with 6 minutes of transition time.

Richard

Ironman St George Bike Loop Video and Pictures

2011-05-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

It was a little late but here is the video of Ironman St George Bike Course with some still pictures of the course.

Video of miles 0 to 18 on the bike

Miles 19 to 22 are already captured as part of the run course

Video of Miles 23 to about 53 of the bike course and since it is a loop this is also miles 67 through 97

Gunlock Reservoir

Just after the Veyo climb

Descending towards St George

IMSG Check-in and Athlete Dinner

2011-05-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

It is starting to get very real now. Wednesday was a rest day and did some stretching to keep myself loose as well. Spent time at the pool teaching Gabby how to swim and then in the late morning the whole family went to the St George LDS Temple. It was quite peaceful and a good place to be before the race and stay calm and relaxed.

Aryana, Frances, Leah and I did check in registration late on Wednesday afternoon and still managed to get a free pair of Tyr swim goggles for being among the first 500 to check-in and also they did body marking early for anyone that wanted so I got that out of the way as well. I picked up some stuff I needed/wanted (compression socks, arm cooler sleeves and anti-fog spray for my goggles). I also picked up the Zipp 808 wheelset with the PowerTap Meter from Race Day Wheels so I can manage to the same wattage I have been training on the computrainer on. At the expo the three older kids made a pair of youtube greeting videos for Bernie and I.

For Richard

For Bernie

Got to bed a bit earlier and started shifting my body clock.

Thursday I got up at 5 am and had breakfast and later Frances and I did the run course video that I posted yesterday. Late morning all the kids came down to the expo and met with Bernie and I. They made the signs at the sign making station. Bernie got interviewed by Ironman Live. I picked up my last two needed pieces of equipment (anti eject water bottle cages and a xlab rear attachment for the CO2 cartridges that went missing. The kids did an updated video to include Gabby and Sierra

All Kids Video

After we got back everyone except me went to the outlet mall and I got the bike ready and numbered along with installing the new equipment and setting up the PowerTap display to the way I wanted.

Late afternoon I went for a test ride of 18km at mostly under IM heart rate pace with a tiny bit of tempo stints up Snow Canyon. No bottles ejected and everything seems solid. Arm coolers and compression socks also feel great. Tested the downhill speed with a bit of the cross winds. Everything seems race ready. Did a short 10 minute run off the bike, 5 minutes easy and 5 minutes at IM heart rate, looks good there as well.

Finished off the day by going to the IM welcome banquet/athletes meeting and Aryana wanted to come and I was glad to have her company. After we got back to the condo it was 9:00 and I was straight to bed for the very important two nights to go sleep.

Ironman St George Run Course Video Preview

2011-05-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Finished off Tuesday with an early evening run with Bernie, Leah, Frances and Aryana. I was kind of sluggish as we jogged along the middle part of the run route and through Pioneer Park but after we finished the 4 km jog I decided to run up the hill as if I was heading back towards transition and did it at Ironman effort and it felt GREAT so after the 1 km up beat was over shut it down and left the rest for race day.

The official run course route information is here but I have added my personal preview of the run course below.

First off the course is incredible in my opinion. A relatively steep incline just a block out of transition as you climb main street for two blocks and then a soft grade up Diagonal St for roughly 1.5 miles. Turning right it then gets steeper as you go up Bluff St and then quite steep up after your right turn on Red Hills Parkway before a long slightly rolling climb above town. Absolutely stunning view up on top.

You start descending at about 4.5 miles and then a short loop in a hilly Pioneer Park. This section concerns me the most because it undulates so frequently I think it may be hard to have any sort of rhythm. After exiting Pioneer you turn left for a little while downhill to the turnaround and then come back the same way you went out including Pioneer Park. As you descend down bluff you take a small loop near the golf course and then return the same way you left transition. Rinse and repeat for a complete second loop.

Here is a 4X speed view of the run course by car. My personal copy of the video was put to the song 3's and 7's but due to copyright you get the one without the soundtrack.

My personal training regime for this course I think will work fabulously as I would train on the following treadmill stats

1 mile at 2%
1 mile at 3%
0.5 miles at 3.5%
0.5 miles at 4%
0.5 miles at 4.5%
3 miles at 0.5%
1.5 miles at 3%
5 miles at 0.5%

Repeat for second loop. As a result I didn't get the advantage of the downhills and was training my body to run hills. Saturday we find out how well it works out for me.

Tomorrow I will post the bike course preview.

Triathlon Wetsuit and Booties

2011-05-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

For most people getting on the triathlon wetsuit is a less than graceful art. At Ironman St George about 4 days before the race a couple of us went to Sand Hollow to get a test swim in. Due to my usual cold extremities and the 62F water temperature I opted to wear aqua sock thermal booties as well.

A short clip of getting on the wetsuit. Notice the use of my jeans to prevent getting too much junk on my feet as I donned the booties and wetsuit. I will comment that it is a LOT easier to get the wetsuit on with booties over bare feet.

Once the booties are on then you can start donning the wetsuit, starting with the lower legs. My preference is to get the lowest part of the wetsuit past the heel and then shimmy up the lower leg a bit, finally with reaching on the inside of the wetsuit and pulling it up from there.

Once I have got that done I then pull it up from side to side until the crotch of the wetsuit is as high as possible and then work on the upper part of the wetsuit. Unfortunately I don't have any video of the rest of the process.

Ironman St George T1 location

2011-05-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Following the swim in the Sand Hollow Reservoir the Ironman St George T1 transition zone is in a very large and quite nice parking lot. In addition to the standard port-a-potties a number of full structure bathrooms are around the parking lot which usually serves as part of the Sand Hollow State Park. The view from just up from the water for the athletes will look something like this, plus a couple of thousand bikes in bike racks.

As you view this video you will move to the right area to get to your bike and then shift left out to the bike course which opens on a downhill grade and gets you some good initial speed.

Official Ironman St George Transition T1 map located here

Four Days to Race Date

2011-05-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

After arriving in St. George mid afternoon on Monday we checked in to our place at the Green Valley Resort. Everyone was happy to leave the snow behind us finally and see this type of vegetation.

For the record, Melanie rocked this booking. Place is a very spacious three bedroom that has a massive living room area with a hide-a-bed and kitchen, dinning, sitting area to top it off.

From our second floor suite we have a decent view of the central courtyard area.

Didn't do a whole lot after arriving except meeting up with Bernie and a drive over the run course. I will do a run course preview later this week. Got to bed a bit earlier than the last few nights and then up at about 6:45 am and met up again with Bernie for breakfast and then went for a swim at Sand Hollow. I will do a separate blog post with my swim course preview. Nice easy 1km swim and then a 25km ride during the afternoon at a easy pace with a few pick-ups on some hills. Spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing.

Ironman St George Swim Course Preview (Video/Photos)

2011-05-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings from a very sunny St. George UT, home of the 2011 Ironman St George course. The next three days I will be doing special course preview blog entries. Today's blog will cover the Ironman St George swim course. The official race website on the swim course is here but I will give a few extra comments and thoughts.

One of my daughters came out with Bernie and I the Tuesday before the race and got a couple of pictures as we started suiting up.

Before Wetsuit

After Wetsuit

First impressions of this swim course in person is the water is average in terms of clarity. Visibility is pretty good for a couple of body lengths but get much beyond that and it starts to get tougher to see the feet in front of you. The lake bottom is visible just beyond standing depth or at about standing depth so if you cant see the bottom, you cant stand on it for sure but if you can see bottom its a maybe about standing. The path down to the water was gravel but the actual entry to the water was mostly sandy with a few rocks to navigate.

The chit chat at water's edge was about temperature which according to Utah State Parks was a balmy 62 degree F last week. I still wore the booties AND the thermal cap. My fingers were cold for the first 5-10 minutes but head was fine and feet a bit cold throughout. With the expected hot temperatures for the next few days it will warm up more but I am hoping for it to be 64.8 degrees come race day and still booties allowed (has to be under 65 F for booties at this race) because my feet always get so cold (plus it will be nice for walking over the rocks).

Once we got swimming Leah snapped a couple of solid pictures of Bernie and I

Bernie "the Burninator"

Richard "aka Statman"

Water was extremely calm and minimal wind at the edge and could be ideal for some fast swim times, check out the draft wake in the calm water.

And finally, for the spectators, a preview of the basin this lake is in. It could be more scenic but it is not bad.

Leah also saw some lizards on the dam and captured a good close up.

Travel Days to St George

2011-05-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

After traveling 14 hours south we still have not yet got rid of snow. Crazy for this time of year. Today we make the final 4.5 hr drive to St George proper after two days of travel. Last night we enjoyed the fine hospitality of Alex Wenzel and one of his sons staying at their place in Sandy, Utah.

Later today once we arrived in St George I plan to get in a workout of some sort. Bernie apparently arrived yesterday and did a 6 mile run on the course. I still have not yet caught up on a good sleep but my legs feel quite rested and the small itchy throat is finally gone this morning.

Aryana has been sick on the way down so I am somewhat concerned she is in a closed car traveling this long with me.

Packing and Gear Checklist for Ironman St George

2011-04-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

Packing for Ironman should be an event. Two hours of sorting, organizing and packing everything up. My IM distance pool swim today in 61:45 (a new PB) seemed much easier by comparison.

Earlier in the week I did a wetsuit test swim with my new blue seventy booties and the thermal hoodie. The 2km swim was at Ironman intensity and I clocked a nice 30:40 which means I am definitely on track for a best time swim. Last night I did a 5km tempo run in 20:44 at above IM threshold just to get a bit of intensity in and then this morning a 20 minute water run.

Finally I am finished packing and can now rest and then get a good sleep before leaving to St George in the morning.

My Ironman Pack list

Pre-race
Bike Pump
Body Glide
Contacts
Pre-race Food
Spare Bag
Old Shoes
Warm-Up Pants
Warm-up Shirt
Toque

Special Needs
Fuel/Concentrate
Salt Tabs
Sweater (if Run)
Spare Shirt (if Run)

Swim
Swim cap
Goggles
Swimsuit/Trisuit
Wetsuit
Wetsuit Booties
Wetsuit Hood/Beanie
Race Chip
HR Monitor Strap

Bike/T1
Bike
Bike Helmet
Sunglasses
Headband/Sweatband
GPS
Socks
Bike Shoes
Bike Short
Bike Shirt
Race Belt and Number
Water Bottles
Emergency Glasses
Tire Levers
CO2 cartridges / Bike Pump
Spare Tubes
Gels/Gu
Towel
Armwarmers
Gloves

Run/T2
Extra Socks
Running Shoes
Shorts
Singlet/Shirt
Long Sleeve
Cap/Hat
Salt Tabs
Motrin
Towel
Band-aids
Gels/Gu

12 days of taper to Ironman St George

2011-04-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

Decided to use the Dave Scott taper program for this last two weeks before the race. Saturday I did the Run-Bike-Run (5km-43.5km-5km) in 23.5 minutes, 78 minutes, 24 minutes at just a little bit over Ironman Heart Rate Race Pace. Sunday as my usual rest day and then did my longest ride between now and race date today (a 131 average bpm ride on a hilly course). Was very militant about staying in profile position during the hills and wind and it paid off with a solid 1h 45m ride for 60km.

15 days to race date, taper started

2011-04-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

Two weeks to race day as of tomorrow, so what's been happening.

First off, my last heavy week ended up lighter than planned mostly because by mid-week I was thrashed. Legs heavy, congestion etc so after the heavy Monday, and an intense Tuesday of a week and a half ago I just did a swim on the Wednesday. Still feeling fatigued I took Thursday and Friday off and then a HARD workout with Bernie on Saturday. Was not quite back into full health and despite drinking and fueling well the 2h 30m bike at 227 watts followed by 12 mile run and a 30 minute swim left me almost 6 lbs lighter than I started the workout.

Took the usual Sunday off, then shorter but intense workouts this last Monday, hard swim Tuesday and then got sick and missed work on Wednesday and took Thursday off working out as well to recover. Will do something today of moderate intensity as well as something tomorrow to wrap up week 1 of 3 in the taper.

Worried about the swim temperature as the lake is apparently still at 52-55 degrees F. Ouch. Not good for me.

Ironman St George bike profile and a MONSTER brick run

2011-04-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

First off I need to give a great "shout out" and kudos to my best friend Bernie for his age category win at the Texas Half-Ironman (70.3) and his qualification to the world championships in Las Vegas for that distance. He won in a 1/4 mile sprint to the finish by 2 seconds.

While Bernie was doing that this last weekend, I was doing my monster brick session with a 6 hour ride followed by a 26 km run off the bike. Averaged a very strong 4:56 /km while at the Ironman heart rate of 136 bpm. Worked out the nutrition on the run and managed to down about 100 calories every 15 minutes with water when I could find some on my run route (about every 30 minutes or so).

Took Sunday off workouts as my rest day while I attended to other responsibilities. Monday was another huge ride for 6h 18min followed by a very short 1 km run to see how my legs and knees were holding out. I was happy with how that went. Today I tested my nutrition plan on the bike. Water and 100 calories every 15 minutes. In the early stages I was not working hard enough and because I wasn't sweating enough and needed to take a few more bathroom breaks than planned. Other than that it worked perfectly.

Over the next while I want to start really calculating the right heart rate efforts on the simulated IMSG bike course along with pace planning at the wattage that I need.

Profile of IMSG Bike Course

How a friend helps you swim harder, train harder

2011-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Most of this week has been pretty easy to manage the fatigue but I was / am quite tired today. Thursday was a hard workout day, moderate to hard intensity water run, then bike intervals followed immediately with a brick 5 km run. The bike intervals were a set of the 4 X 20 min efforts (231, 245, 241, 252 average watts in that order). The run went very very well as I averaged 4:48/km at 137 average bpm, which was much better than Tuesday. I would definitely take that pace / Heart rate at Ironman.

For my easy Friday workout it was a water run (easier), harder swim and easy spin on the bike. The swim was a tough session as I still felt fatigue in the arms from Wednesday's long effort. Thankfully Shannon of www.roskopp.com was at the pool at the same time. I did a 500m technical warm up and then into a hard main set of 3 X 7 X 100m on a 1:45 cycle with 2 minutes between sets. Overall average of about 1:29 or 1:30. Shannon swam the middle 7 and first 4 of my final set in the lane beside me and as a result I had a few 1:25-1:26 100m intervals in that one. Thanks Shannon for helping me out on a tough swim. I'm heading into Saturday with 16 hours already so should be on track to get 23-24 hours for this middle week.

Many of you have seen this video but it represents my mindset when it comes to this last 21 day training block of which 8 training days are left.

Halfway through final training block

2011-04-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

No video today as I blog from the bike machine in the gym at work and can't find and embed them very easily on the ipad while spinning. Week two continues well with a water run yesterday morning, a lunch 3000m swim in 51 min, and an evening brick session outside. Wind was really strong (outbound section of 11 km took 31 minutes and return took 15 minutes) and as this was first outdoor ride since October and still up to 6 inches of snow on the ground so I stuck to a good highway that was well cleared for a 44 km ride followed by a 5 km run right off the bike. Ran it at an average 138 bpm and clocked just under 5 min / km.

Today was an easier day with a 4500 m pull buoy and paddle swim in 70 min followed by this easy bike on gym bike for 76 min. Did a bunch of work emails tonight on the bike as well as got ready for some duties at Church.

10 days of heavy training to go.

Ironman St George course walkthrough video and new run workout

2011-04-04T20:51:00.000-07:00

Celebrated the start of the 2nd last hard week with an easy 3000m swim in 61 minutes and then straight into a 2 hr hard run, both right after work.

Tonight's workout was intended to get me ready for this very tough run course. Check out the video here describing the Ironman St. George Course.

The hard run was a modified version of something my good friend Bernie did a couple of weeks back mixed with my usual mile repeats. After seeing that promo video I knew I needed to work more hill efforts in over these next two weeks. The workout was

1 mile warm-up

10 X 1 mile repeat on a 10 min cycle with 3 minute walk breaks at 3.0mph between
Elevation was 2.0% for the first four mile intervals, then 2 @ 2.5%, 2 @ 3%, 2 @ 3.5%
Pace was alternating between 7:03 per mile and 6:58 per mile, final mile at 6:55 up 3.5%

1 mile cool-down

Knee held up well, heart rate dropped to under 110 between each set, max heart rate on last interval was 170 bpm

IMSG promo video and Ventricular Hypertrophy and T-wave inversion in Ironman Athelete

2011-04-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

First off I want to share the results of my wild goose chase on cardiac anomalies Friday's run was the cardiac stress test that I was scheduled for. The T-wave inversion that worried the Dr.s on my EKG resolved to a normal shape and orientation after about 5 minutes of my "run". I think proceeded to get up to 20% grade and 5.5 mph on the Bruce protocol before I hit 150 bpm and they decided to not bother trying to get me to maximum, apparently very few even get close to where I was on the stress test and they said that was good enough to convince them that there was no issue with my heart under stress. My competitive instincts wanted to keep going :)They then did the nuclear medicine images afterwards and I go back Monday morning for the rest images and then finally this coming Thursday they will do the echo cardiogram. However, they gave me green light to push as hard as I would like in training.

Here are a few articles that relate to my type of situation
Soccer player with EKG abnormalities
Why ECG is not a good screening tool
Athletes Heart

So basically I fit the criteria and observations but they will proceed to complete the tests to make sure its truly athlete's heart not a cardiomyopathy. Now as for my last few days of training concluded with me 1/3 of the way through my last push towards Ironman St. George and I am very happy with how this last week finished off. Thursday got in another water run plus 2:10 ride, Friday was a swim, bike and the "run". Saturday I did intervals sessions mixed in with listening to General Conference on the laptop.

Good thing I have a computrainer. This was a friends picture of Calgary on April 2.
Did my warm-up followed by 4 X 20 minutes at high wattage (232, 240, 232 and 242) with 5-7 min breaks in between. It was a lot harder to go 20 minutes than the 15 minutes from last time. Next time I want to get to 5 X 20. In order to get my full training in for the day I did another 2:45 of moderate spinning (~29 km/hr) to finish the day at 5h 5 minutes workouts. This got the week total to 20.7 hours.

Goal for next week is to get to 23 hours as well as some good intensity workouts. For those interested here is an Ironman St George promotional video.

Committment captured on video

2011-03-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

As Frances and Melanie head to Yakima, WA today in preparation for the marathon on Saturday I decided to post today with this video I saw on a friends Facebook update. I can only say I hope I can have this level of commitment.

A 30 year odyssey to Kona

2011-03-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

How time passes...

It was about 258 or so days ago when I started this real attempt at my quest for Kona. Sure I had talked and planned about this since I was about 13 or 14 years old when triathlon was a brand new thing. I'm not sure if it was a 1981 ABC sports special or the fact I was in Hawaii just after Ironman moved to Kona or the fact my grandparents showed me how the course went in front of their condo on Alii Dr. Either way a dream began. In 1983 I convinced my grade 10 Phys Ed teacher to have a school triathlon, she organized it and I won my debut race which was 800m swim, 17 km bike and 5 km run. She quit teaching the next year and went pro as a triathlete and I switched schools.

Afterwards I got more involved doing a winter tri the next year consisting of xc skiing, skating and running in Banff and in my new school convinced them to have a tri in my grade 12 year, which I also won. After that over the next 24 years to now I did Ironman Canada in 1989, and 4 more Ironmans, and many Half-IM and Olympic and sprint tris later here I am.

It's not that I haven't trained, but never this hard. My previous 20 triathlons never saw me really be consistent. I've either skipped multiple whole years from racing or just plodded along doing Ironman on less than 6 hours a week average training.

So this journey starts to come full circle as the passion I now have burns as fiercely as it did 30 years ago. Over the last 258 days I've focused all on a few basic principles.

1. Build a base worthy of a real attempt to get to worlds.
2. Strengthen my body so I can put in the absolute strongest 21 day peak cycle I've ever done in my life.
3. Develop power on the bike that changes my bike from a weakness to a strength.
4. Learn to run fatigued so I can run an Ironman without walk breaks.

In a mere 39 days Ironman St. George will be history. The last 258 are what they are, and the next 18 days of hard work and 21 days of taper is all the is left in my control. No regrets over the last 7 months. I lost less than 5 training days due to illness and skipped less than 7 days without a rationale reason to not train. Every other day was intentional and planned.

It would be easy to change my goal to just having a best time. I've earned that but there needs to be no mental doubt going to St. George. I'm going there to get a world champs qualifying spot. I need to be strategic and focused and use every tool and technique at my disposal to finish this journey.

So what was the last week like? I took four days off from Thursday to Sunday to recover from the months of effort and to prepare for the final stretch. Monday I was eager to resume, the energy and focus and my knee felt great for the first time in months, perhaps since September. I started the 21 day load with an easy spin at lunch for 30 minutes with a 10 min cardio core rotation of 100 crunches, 25 tricep dips and 40 pushups. Then after work was the second last long run I will do until the race. I ran 23 miles knee pain free at 140 average heart rate and did 8 min mile pace over my mock St George course plus 0.5%. That was so awesome to see my knee hold out. I ran it in my tri suit to ensure I could be comfortable enough to run in it at the race for that long. Then on Tuesday night I did a moderate 3 hour ride focusing the last hour on impeccable profile position. I need to make sure now I am riding technically clean so it's all habit race day. Today was a split day with early morning water run, lunch swim ( did a solid 20 x 50 m set averaging 41 secs on a 1 minute cycle) and a post work spin and blogging session.

Goal is to get 21 hours this week.

So in a nutshell the first 3 days of the key 21 are solid and on May 7 at dinner I will celebrate with some chocolate ice cream my Kona qualification.

45 days, another IM swim PB and EKG anomalies for athletes

2011-03-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

As time gets closer to the race more obstacles keep on showing up, or at the very least, distractions. Did a EKG screening way back in November and some anomalies showed up so another EKG screening in march and either I have athletes / runners heart or an impending MI or heart attack. My GP and I both think the former but protocol is to screen for the latter so referral to cardiology clinic and echo cardiogram are now both scheduled.

At this rate they may give me a kona spot as a human interest story before I even run IMSG as a qualifier. I'm stacking up stories faster than miles logged it seems. So Monday when they made the referral and I got the Dr office calling I confirmed with the GP that I'm good to continue training and she said yes and this will likely end up a wild goose chase. I can't wait to be referred to do a treadmill stress test. You can see it now, Sir please tell us when you feel near your limit. Hopefully the test treadmill can go above 10 mph.

So after taking the extra day off on Monday I celebrated my failing body (sarcasm intended) with an ironman swim at lunch in a personal best 63:10 and felt really controlled with splits consistent between 8:15 and 8:20 per 500m all the way through. A 30 min water run at mod rate intensity after work and a 2 hr indoor trainer ride at 175 watts resistance to finish the day. Wednesday was a 45 min water run at lunch, blogging and work emails after work on the reclined bike for 75 min and an intended ride for an hour later tonight.

Did some more research and found 3 really good options for my taper that I am choosing from and decided to go 20 hrs this week, next week a rest week with 2 hard weeks after that before the three week taper.

Weeks ago I posted no excuses, no regrets. Holding to that cause.

WTC here I come!

Under 50 days to IMSG and How much to push in this final build cycle?

2011-03-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

Last week was very busy at work as expected but I did get in a decent interval session on Thursday running 10 X 1 mile repeats averaging 6:45 overall per mile. Saturday was a massive brick run doing a 6 hour ride followed by a 19.5km run at about 5:20/km averaging under 140 HR. Both of these I feel were good solid workouts. Finished the week at just over 19 hours.

For the first time in my life I am finding it hard to be willing to schedule in a rest week. Race is 7 weeks away and I am planning a three week taper. I have two more long runs to build on in the next 4 weeks (36.5 and 39 km) but I have met the target for a long brick and have done three 5h 20m plus rides. So the real test now is to properly plan this last 4 week cycle before the taper.

The last 7 weeks have been a scale up order (13.7, 12.4, 15.3, 13.1, 18.4, 16.1, 19.2 hours respectively). I am thinking I should drop down to 16-17 hours this week, 21 the week after, then 16-17, then 24ish and then taper. I am also really watching my knee as well. After all these years of self coaching I need some seasoned advice going down the stretch. Usually I don't have this much base at this stage. Time to call a friend.

No substitute for work, great need for motivation, great example of a first time marathoners preparation and a video

2011-03-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

After a hard run last Thursday I did an easy 70 minutes bike ride on Friday, working out soreness and all, and to recover the knee. I had hoped to do a long brick Saturday but knee was still very tender so I decided a long base bike ride on the computrainer would have to do. So after getting back from my Saturday morning dental appointment I did a six hour ride at easy effort. Sunday rest day. Monday morning 35 minute up tempo water run and a moderate steady state ride indoor bike late Monday night of a couple hours.

Still crazy busy at work and will be for at least two more days but hopefully will hit my goal of 20 hrs this week. However, no long run of 20+ miles this week. Frances and Melanie both starting to taper down for the Yakima marathon in just under 3 weeks. I wish my leg was solid enough to go with them but need to keep it rested for IMSG. It will be Frances' first full and I think she is ready with a peak 41km long run, a 13 X 1 mile long intervals session with 3 min rest between each and a 92km total in her max week. Way more than I did for my first.

Aryana is training hard for her 1st half marathon also, its in Ontario in late April. See her blog here >> Wear Sunscreen

Finally, the video clip of the day for triathlon motivation

The Wall revisted, great long run and cool video

2011-03-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I ended up not only doing a 5h 20m bike (albeit at an easy pace) but I decided to run off the bike outside. It was cold, and it was my first hard surface and outdoor run since we got back from Hawaii in early December. Three layers on my legs, three on torso, double gloves and a warm toque. Ran it averaging about 8:15 per mile and was happy with that off the bike.

Took the Sunday rest day and then decided to make my bike ride a Richard vs the Wall round 5 or 6. It had been months (mid November) since I had done a time trial on the IMSG computrainer course. Got all my food ready, drink ready and mentally prepped for a hard workout. End result was I was absolutely ecstatic probably riding faster than ever in my life averaging 32 km/hr over a hilly 108 km course (over 3000 ft climbing) and a big increase 212 average watts compared to the 186 watts back in November. Did an easy water run as well on Monday. Tuesday was a busy work day and only got in a 84 minute ride and Wednesday was even busier at work and then at church so ended up not getting in a workout.

The URD (unscheduled rest day) was put to good use as I did a long run today. The last two long runs were less than stellar so I took lots of energy bars, plus 3 bottles Gatorade and ran 34 km of the IMSG run course on the treadmill plus an extra 0.5 % grade throughout for good measure. Ended up running 2:55 for the 34 km which is about 8:15 per mile pace and was much happier with that over the previous weeks. Last 30 minutes were tough but I just promised myself that if I did the full 34 km at pace I would give myself a rest week next week from a long run. So between mental chanting of "K O N A" and "earn the rest" and "train like Kona depends on this effort, because it does" I pushed my way through the final stages of the workout.

Tonight when I decided to blog I skimmed through the updates from friends on Facebook and found this video below. Makes my piddly Ironman effort seem, well, piddly.

Making Ironman training fit into the available time

2011-03-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

The value of time. I wish that I had more in a few ways.

First, more days in a week. I like my job, and really don't mind doing it, I just wish I had an 8th day of the week in the middle for a longer training day. That would be really useful.

Second, more hours in a day. I would love to get more sleep and have an extra 30 minutes from when I drop off Leah to seminary and when my work day starts. It would help me get in that morning workout without being as rushed, and 15 more minutes at lunch for the same reason.

Third, more weeks before IMSG maybe just 4 or 5 so I could get some outdoor rides in. It's march and not even close to riding outside with ice, snow and -15 C temps, thank goodness I have a computrainer.

However, none of those things are going to happen so I need to maximize the time I do have. Like right now, riding an easy long ride and blogging at the same time not only dulls some of the monotony but allows me to take care of multiple things. Awesome having the wireless keyboard and mouse, although the keyboard occasionally flakes out.

Busy life tasks at the start of this last week got me off to a slow start. After Mondays easy spin I got in a second easy spin on the bike on Tuesday for just over an hour and a half. Really making sure I get the time on the bike in. It wasn't that easy though as I did a set of single leg drills that I sure felt on Wednesday. Wednesday was a water run and swim. Did the warm up and cool down with a main swim set of 6 x 100 x 3 for 1800m averaging 1:27 on a 1:45 min cycle with 2 minutes between each subset of 6. I was pleased with that. Thursday was long run day, and again it was tougher than I wanted. Only got in 17.5 miles at 8:30 pace on the IMSG course. the knee was wonky at the start but settled down and heart rate stayed reasonably solid but legs were generally fatigued.

Is it just the fact I am in a heavy volume block or am I over traing? Who knows but I did three workouts Friday with them being an easy bike (85 minutes), easy water run (40 minutes) and moderate swim (3200m steady with pull buoy and paddles in 51 minutes). That went pretty good for the day after a long run.

This morning I decided to switch my 4 hr hard ride with an easy 5 hr ride and take advantage of tomorrows Sunday rest day to ride hard on Monday. Just over 90 minutes into the long ride now. Should finish the week at about 17 hours.

After I finish the blog I will read a pile of emails I have to catch up on. 9 weeks to race day as of today.

68 days...

2011-02-28T18:17:00.000-08:00

68 days to go...

Last week it was either a bug that has been going around or just a touch of over doing it but after my monster Mon and Tues i took an USD - unscheduled rest day - and it was well worth it. Thursday I did a swim and long run (20 miles) and found the run really hard, heart rate was great but muscles were really sore afterwards so Friday was just a swim day. Took both sat and sun off and just did an easy spin for two hours tonight.

74 days left to have no excuses - go hard on hard days!

2011-02-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

Less than 11 weeks to go to Race Date

Finished off last week with my first real test on my knee running mile repeats on Friday night after work. Decided to take them more cautiously at first with a easy 1 mile warm up and then a relatively controlled opening mile repeat on 6:58, knee felt great so I picked up by .1 mph on the treadmill, ended up doing a solid 8 mile repeat set and finished the last repeat at about 6:27. Saturday I got in a reasonable tempo bike ride at 197 watts for 2 hours.

This week started even better than last week finished with an easy long ride on the holiday Monday of 5 hours 10 minutes at 140 watts. Today (Tuesday) was short intervals of 5 X 1km averaging 3:48 (plus a warm up), a strong swim of 5 X 500m averaging 7:57 and then the best long bike intervals that I have ever had with a 3o minute warm up and 5 X 15 minutes (228 watts, 228, 234, 242 and the last at 259 watts) and cool down.

I am grateful that I have been blessed with sufficient health. My key focus now is to remove any excuses that could get in my way of hard workouts.

Some people have commented this goes a little extreme but the intent should be to do all you can to remove the excuses. For example - Go to bed earlier!

Survived knee injection for the osteoarthritis treatment

2011-02-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

With just over 11 weeks to go my focus continues to shift to more intensity and power, especially on the bike. But before getting into that I should talk about the Duraline shot (sp) I got on monday. In addition to the Glucosamine I made the decision to get the knee injection to help with the cartilege pain and damage. Pretty simple process, some freezing first, then the deeper injection to the lateral side of the knee. I was able to bike later that day but it did feel a bit tight in the evening and didn't sleep overly well that evening.

Doctor said to wait 2 to 3 days before impact training I.e. Running and so Tuesday was a water run, swim and some bike intervals. Wednesday was also water run, swim and bike but easier effort as it is my mid week active rest day. Today, thursday was a morning easy run on the treadmill (30 minutes - 6 km) and then a linger bike with some intervals in the middle of an easy warm up and cool down while I blog on the iPad.

Overall the first four days of the week I an tracking to about 11 hours and should get close to 20 health and fatigue permitting. Best workouts this week include a 2 km time trial swim in 32:13, a bike interval set that included a 4 x 3:45 set with 2:30 rest averaging 293 watts and a swim with two string 500m pull sets averaging 7:20 or less.

No, I am NOT having a baby, that's just my pain threshold

2011-02-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

12 weeks to go as of yesterday.

Another 12+ hour workout week completed last week with eight easy and three intense anchor workouts (my bike tempo on Monday, a long run Tuesday and a hard double bike interval on Friday night - 30 minute warm up followed by 2 X 16 minutes at 240 then 253 watts average and a 15 minute cool down)

As I start to work harder on my intensity I am finding it more key to recover. I had planned to get in workouts on Saturday but between family and church responsibilities plus a trip to the dentist for a cleaning in the morning I just didn't have enough will power to work out, especially after the very intense session on Friday night.

This week my focus again will be at least 2-3 core anchor workouts on the bike and a reasonable run workout - might even try an interval session. The Glucosamine tablets seem to be helping along with the reduce running on terra firma - I did three water runs this week.

However, at the end of the day I must get the bike power up. Friday night I guess I was making so much noise during my interval that my 12 year old daughter came in to the work out room and asked if I was having a baby - I had no idea I had been so loud but I was just pushing my quads to use the highest gear I could and still maintain over 85 rpm. Apparently my pain threshold triggered a bit of heavy breathing and noise. And for the record for those who read but didn't know - I am a guy.

Fitting in ironman training to rest of life

2011-02-09T16:21:00.000-08:00

6 Days in May
30 days in Apr
31 days in Mar
18 days in Feb

That's all that's left. 85 days and it doesn't seem like enough. 35 minute morning water run sure felt great after last night's long run. Nice steady state 50 min swim at lunch (500m warm up, 500m kick, 3x500 pull on 9:45 cycle averaging 7:33 plus 100 m cool down) was nice and an evening spin on the bike very easy effort while I blog and answer emails on the ipad.

Focus today is get loose for a hard bike interval session tomorrow night. Watching weight as I lost too much water on last nights run. Despite 2 full water bottles I was down to 149lbs and had some circulation issues post run. So today am refueling. As time gets tighter I continue to look for ways to double up activities. I am sure people at the gym think I an nuts working away on iPad while riding but just only so many hours in a day and I really need 8 plus hrs sleep a night.

Especially since I have other things to do after the workout with kids and church responsibilities.

Nothing Left on the Table - No Regret Plan

2011-02-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

The last two training days I realized that I plan to leave no regrets, no thoughts about could I have done more, trained better. Every hard day I plan to train hard. In other words treat every hard day as if the effort is a direct correlation to a Kona qualification attempt.

On the converse I plan to make sure that I don't over train and that every easy day is just that - EASY, that I have enough recovery time and that there are no excuses for being too tired or too beat up. That the recovery and easy days are critical for building.

So Monday was a solid swim, an easy water run and a hard bike effort with a long warm up and cool down sandwiching an intense 217 watt 35 KM tempo in the middle. Tuesday was a high effort long run on the treadmill where the knee held up great. Got in 20 miles in 2h38m.

And now for Wednesday its a recovery day with three very easy workouts to loosen up, stretch and recover.

Leave no regrets and no effort on the table with empty wishes. Regardless of outcome I plan to stay on focus for the next three months with a discipline that I will be happy with.

3 Months to Go and still focused

2011-02-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, its been a while since I posted. I have been training over 10-18 hours per week despite the usual busy back to work and budget season and its been relatively tough to juggle but have not been overly consistent blogging.

I could blame it on the news about the arthritis, or work in general but its simply been lack of sleep and distractions. However, its time to take advantage of the easy month of January (57 hours total) and regroup for a serious build phase.

Some key workouts that I accomplished during January include a pair of serious bike interval sessions (4 X 15 minutes at 220 - 240 watts with 5 min breaks), and a couple of long bikes, some decent swim workouts (10 X 100 at 1:45 cycle averaging 1:27) and a solid 200m (2:45) and 1km time trial (15:16) and a couple of good long runs on the treadmill (28.5 and 31.5km)

So for a month where I felt that it wasn't spectacular it was still better than what I used to do 6 months ago.

Tomorrow represents three months to Ironman St George. Since my knee probably won't allow another season like this I need to make it count. I am taking some Glucosamine (sp) and its early to tell but it might be helping.

First Cholesterol Scare, Now Arthritis Reality

2011-01-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

Day 176 (Sunday) rest day
Day 177 (Monday) 20 min swim 800m, 136 minute run - 26.5km
Day 178 (Tuesday) 37 min swim 2000m
Day 179 (Wed) 90 minute bike 40km
Day 180 (Thurs) 50 min swim - 2500m, 155 min bike - 73km, 40 min run (water)
Day 181 (Fri) 55 min swim - 3000m, 120 min bike - 55km
Day 182 and 183 Off

Well, I've delayed this post long enough. Whether it's laziness or a subconscious refusal to post the results of the specialist appointment from Monday.

Doctor confirmed that I have osteo arthritis in my right knee and that while it doesn't prevent me from continuing on this years focus it does mean I still will need to rest it lots and manage the issue with the caveat / advice I consider reducing my running and impact to my knee substantially.

Now that that is off my chest I can focus on this next weeks workouts having finished last week at about 12 hours (when I include a weights session)

First full week of 2011 a good one

2011-01-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Day 172 (Wed) Bike 47 minutes - 23km, Run 55 minutes - 10km
Day 173 (Thurs) Swim 52 minutes - 2800m, Bike 220 minutes - 66km
Day 174 (Fri) Run 54 minutes - 11km
Day 175 (Sat) Bike 165 minutes - 77km

Finished off the first week of 2011 better than any other first week in my training career. While I did less volume (17h 45m) than I have been doing over the last month it was a good week.

Recently I have been a bit worried about the swim not coming along but the Thursday swim workout went awesome (500kick warm up and 500m kick cool-down with (6 X 100) X 3 with 15 secs between 100s and 45 seconds between the sets) By far my strongest repeat 100m swim workout when it comes to endurance. Average by set was 1:28, 1:28 and 1:27. Last two 100s in 1:26 and 1:25.

Also pleased with the 11km run on the St George profile (+.5% extra incline) at a good pace and controlled effort.

Spent some time playing games with the kids and also backed off a bit at the second half of the week due to fatigue and some lack of sleep. With today's usual Sunday rest day I am ready to put in a pretty good week next week - ideally around the 20-22 hour range.

Also it's time to start developing some power in the legs for the bike.

Another large base building day

2011-01-05T05:18:00.000-08:00

Day 171 Swim 75 minutes - 4050m, Bike 190 minutes - 90km

Today fatigue really set in and I need to make sure tomorrow is very much a recovery day. Happy with the volume of the workout but effort level was far higher than it should have been for the pace. Also focusing on getting a good sleep.

Swim workout was

500m warm-up
500m Kick with fins
5 X 300m on a 5' cycle averaging 4:32 using pull buoy and paddles
500m Kick with fins
21 X 50m on 1' cycle descending speed to 40s before fail

Calculation of ideal HR in an IM marathon

2011-01-04T10:29:00.000-08:00

Day 170 Swim 76 minutes - 4.2km, Bike 90 minutes - 40km, Run 121 minutes - 22.5km

Registered for a training peaks account to see what their plans and stats are like in a training plan. Monday was my second last day before retuning to work from the holidays so I took advantage of the full day to get in a good set of workouts.

Nothing super special but I was most happy with my run since it was on the IMSG profile + .5% extra incline throughout. Run was planned as a zone 2 run which for me should be between 120 and 130ish Heart Rate - aka easy enough to pass the talk test throughout. Therefore the speed was slower than usual at an average of 8:40s per mile almost but I also averaged 121 bpm.

Based on some research I've done with my max HR of 177 and resting of 42 I should be running IM marathon at 135 to 145 HR. I figure that if I do that I should be able to average just under 8' per mile on the SG course - right on target for my 3:30 pace for the run.

The methods I used was to take LT threshold for running and subtract 20-30 bpm, as well as checked with a method that says take 180 - age for target and a third method that says take 82% to 88% of the LT bpm. All three methods hit about the same AND seem to match what I have had from experience. When I have run over 145 bpm at Ironman I get in to trouble so good fit there.

Tuesday plan a swim and long bike.

2010 in review - 7 career records

2011-01-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

Day 167 (Friday)

Decided to take an extra rest day and enjoy New Year's Eve and time with the kids

Day 168 (Saturday) Bike 180 minutes, 85km

Did a base building three hour ride and then enjoyed preparing for and having family over for new year's. Games, fun, meal and visiting.

Day 169 (Sunday) Rest day!

Finally the report up on the finish to 2010.

Highlights of 2010

1) Most weeks run in a year in my career (51 of 52)
2) Most minutes run/walked in a two week stint ever (992 minutes)
3) Highest average swim distance per workout ever (2040 minutes)
4) Highest swim distance in a single month ever (49.7 km)
5) Highest bike distance in a single month ever (1083 km)
6) Highest total hours in a single month ever (86.9 hrs)
7) Highest total hours in a single year ever (391 hours)

What is more impressive is that 5 of those 7 highlights occurred in the month of December. Great start for me to move into January with.

Happy New Year!

Short clip of my running form and two heavy training days

2010-12-30T19:34:00.001-08:00

Day 165 (Wednesday) Swim 70 minutes - 3km, Bike 61 minutes - 28km, Run 63 minutes - 12km
Day 166 (Thursday) Bike 180 minutes - 85km, Run 95 minutes - 21km

Total on Week 1074 minutes

First off its been a great volume training week despite the trend not looking good for me to break my goal of 100 hrs on the month of training. Given my highest month this year was just over 60 hrs and my career high month is about 67 hrs I am very happy with the monthly volume. I expect it will hit around 92 hrs. I also had hoped to get nearer to 30 hrs on the week but am on track for about 25 ish given we have family coming Saturday.

Wed morning swim was great. Aryana joined me and we had a lot of fun doing technical training together. Then in the afternoon Leah and Melanie joined me at the gym and they did a workout while I did a treadmill run. Knee felt quite good, still not ideal but seems to be better than it was. Finished off with a short bike in the late afternoon before family came over for dinner and a holiday visit during the evening. Thursday I started off earlier with a 3 hr ride on the computrainer but I sure felt tired and worn - likely due to the volume this week and month. Of course my goal was to teach myself how to deal with the efforts in preparation for a strong race at St. George.

I returned to the gym for a recently rare two runs in a row workout. Knee felt really good despite yesterdays terra firma run and I felt quite recovered from the morning ride so decided to push the afternoon run a little. Opened up around 8 minute miles and finished the 21km in 1:35 with a 6:12 mile to finish. What a sense of relief.

Secretly I have been worried I am losing my running speed with the injury but not only did I do the run injury free (Big YaY) it was also fast negative split (50min / 45min) I also did it on fatigue and felt absolutely great! I think my reward should be sleeping in tomorrow. About a month ago I did a short video clip at the gym when I was running. If you slow mo through you can see the stress on the knees as I plant and push off. Is very interesting.

Tomorrow's blog post will be the year in summary and hopefully I can do a monster swim tomorrow to set a career swim mileage high.

Two long workout days back to back

2010-12-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

Day 164 Swim 85 minutes - 4.5km, Bike 165 minutes - 77km, Run (Water) 50 minutes

Total on week 605 minutes

Day 2 in a row of 5hr plus training. Swam again at the Canyon Meadows pool, more continuous than yesterday but a new workout set

1000m w/u (250 technical cycle as usual X 4)
500m kick
5X100m on 1:45 averaged 1:30 per 100
500m kick
5X100m on 1:45 averaged 1:30 per 100
500m kick
1000m pull buoy (17:00)

Not overly fast but not pedestrian either.

Did a 50 minute water run immediately after and then went as a family to the new TRON movie in 3D IMAX, kids all loved it! After the movie did the bike ride inside and watched 1996 Ironman Hawaii for the last part of it to stay motivated. I needed the boost today.

It's going to be a long week going after the volume level I want but I am holding back on the intensity and working on my base in order to build the engine (as Kyle M encouraged)

Time with kids plus some good base training

2010-12-28T04:32:00.000-08:00

Day 163 Swim 85 minutes - 2.7km, Bike 165 minutes - 77km, Run 55 minutes - 10km

Total on week 305 minutes, Goal 25+ hours

Started the week out well with an opportunity to swim with a fellow blogger from Calgary and then have a breakfast afterwards. Great chance to chat and meet up.

Followed that up with a mid day indoor bike ride on the trainer and then a late evening run spending time with the kids in between playing games and visiting.

Great holiday day, nothing fast or intense just building base and volume. Plan a similar type of workout day tomorrow.

Training through the Holidays

2010-12-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

Day 159 (Thursday) Swim 58 minutes - 3km, Run 109 minutes - 22km
Day 160 (Friday) Swim 40 minutes - 2.1km, Bike 102 minutes - 48km, Run (water) 45 minutes
Day 161 (Saturday) Run 100 minutes - 16km
Day 162 (Sunday) Rest Day

The past few days I have been enjoying the holiday season and still managed to get in most of my training. Highlights included Thursday doing a 2X1km swim interval at 15:33 (PR), 3 minutes rest and then another at 15:46. In the evening I did an accelerating long run where the first 10 minutes were at about a 9 min/mile pace and every 10 minutes I accelerated about 12 secs / mile finishing the last mile at a 6:45. The knee held up quite well during the run but the legs and knee did feel fatigued the next few days. On Saturday I did a long run with Frances and I was the one slowing the pace down because the knee felt a bit on the weak side. After the evening ride on Friday and the two fairly long runs I decided to not do my 3 hr bike Saturday night which worked well since it was Christmas day. Finished off the week with a regular Sunday rest day.

New week starts tomorrow and since I am off work I hope to get in some great training. As a side note I am officially over half way to the Ironman St George race from the day that I registered.

Ironman Swim PR in practice, Technique Review Video

2010-12-23T05:48:00.000-08:00

Day 158 Swim 67 minutes - 4km, Bike 124 minutes - 57 km, Run (water) 30 minutes

Not a bad day at all, watching a potential niggling cold I have developed sniffles since being back from Hawaii. Morning swim was a steady state IM swim test and while setting a new PR in the pool I was hoping to be faster than the 63:22 I was. Started out a bit quick at 8:05 for the first 500, last 500 was around an 8:25 so need to balance things a bit better. Had the guard a while back take a clip of me swimming from the side of the pool.

I noticed that my left arm is extending too far over the water before entering. My buddy Bernie is now swimming blistering compared to me so I need to chat with him and find out where his big improvement forward came from.

Water Run at lunch to allow the knee to recover a bit from yesterdays 9 miler and then a lower cadence bigger gear 2 hr bike last night. Despite the extra hours this month my weight is back up to 154-155 lbs. Not sure if that is reality for my size of frame or if I can squeeze the weight down any further. It's going to be hard to modify diet much more and so only option is reduce portion size and do another calorie counting week to log what I am really eating.

Slacker on Blogging, Partial Slacker on Training, My new shake mix

2010-12-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

Day 154 Bike 106 minutes - 50km, Run 80 minutes - 16km
Day 156 Bike 241 minutes - 114km
Day 157 Run 72 minutes - 15km

I got out of habit blogging and also was less consistent training over the past 5 days or so. I got my rest week in but it was a little lighter than I had planned and this week I want to get in about 20 hours of training but a slower start than planned as well. The next two days will identify if I can things on track for the 20 hour week.

Highlights of the last few days include watching IM Hawaii (Kona) broadcast last Saturday, A couple of pain free runs on the treadmill with the hope of being able to slowly build back my run volume and setting up a better connection for me to watch TV shows we recorded on PVR while I ride in the basement.

Finally, my new favorite protein shake mix.

8 frozen strawberries
1 banana
6 ice cubes
3 tablespoon rounded of 0 calorie/0 fat yogurt
1/2 cup milk
scoop whey protein

First swim in Calgary plus my free Wheaties promotional boxes

2010-12-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

Day 152 Swim 50 minutes - 2500m

Since we were leaving Hawaii Tuesday was a no workout day due to travel for 15 hours plus three time zone changes. Wednesday was getting caught up on work and personal things so that left today to resume training. Suffering a bit of jet lag so not planning on an evening workout leaving the noon swim as the only thing (500m warm up, 3x500 at 7:30 pull buoy, 7:30 pull buoy, 7:45 full stroke, 500m cool down).

Got my new promotional Wheaties and Wheaties Fuel box via Fedex yesterday complete with Macca images on the box.

Wheaties FB page has nutrition tips now.

They did some videos getting Ironman Kona participant views on nutrition on their you tube channel.

Final Hawaiian Workout and Pictures

2010-12-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

Day 149 (Monday) Swim 34 minutes - 2000m, Bike 70 minutes - 31km

Total on Week 104 minutes

Sunday was a very restful and relaxing day doing next to nothing except hanging out at our rental place. We took a couple pictures at the church (no snow removal assignment in their ward.

We packed up on Monday to stay Monday night in Honolulu just off Waikiki. Before leaving Kauula I did a final morning swim at BYU-H and then Melanie and I did a short easy bike ride and took the camera and got some final pictures of the usual south direction riding route.

After checking out we first went and did the Pearl Harbour tourist thing before checking into our place on Waikiki. We lingered at the beach long after sunset and then headed back for our last sleep before the Tuesday flight home.

Our final vacation sunset.

Run, Sun, Surf, Hiking and Pictures!

2010-12-12T09:30:00.001-08:00

Day 147 (Saturday) Swim 43 minutes - 2100m, Kayak/SUP 75 minutes, Run 106 minutes - 20km, Hike 3.5 hours - 12.5km over 1300ft ascent

Total on Week 1629 minutes (27.2 hrs)

We had planned our final full "adventure day" to be packed. I got up early and did a long run. Was very nice to be able to run with no knee issues despite it being a heavy volume week. Ran north 10km, then returned by 8:30 am. Temperature was cool and very comfortable. No pictures just a workout run. Grabbed my swim gear when I returned and did a steady state swim with some technical work at the BYU-H pool.

Once I got back Melanie and I did some kayaking here and then I tried to do the stand up paddle board and was OK on the knees but only could stand for about 5 seconds before the surf would forced me to back to me knees or in one case tossed me overboard.

So I decided to switch to a surfboard but the surf was too small to effectively surf.

After eating some lunch Melanie and I decided to do a hike just west up the hills near the Laie temple. The hike took us about 3.5 miles up around 1300 ft to a waterfall. The hike started out going beside a property owners house who wanted you to not enter his driveway.

If the first sign didn't get the message across the second would.

Once we past the private property area the trail started off quite easy and scenic with some cool trees along the way and a nice trail before we got to an area that the trail had been washed out.

Some soft clay areas.

As we moved out of the lower treeline past a "meadow" there were some nice tropical flowers.

And as elevation increased we were treated to some views back over Laie.

And then up towards the cloud line as we climbed up the mountain range.

Melanie poses for a view over the valley.

About 1/2 way up the mountain we went through a tiny "pine" style forest that sat on top of a 8 foot wide ridge that dropped off either side of the trail.

After passing the "pine" forest the trees on the ridge became more tropical style and off to the left was a sheer drop that you had these thin little trees guarding the 2 ft wide path and about 4 feet to the right was the other drop-off.

After what seemed forever under this canopy we finally go to a fork in the road that gave the option of going to the summit or dropping down to a waterfall. The sign said exercise caution to the waterfall so that is the direction we chose of course. It was a small waterfall and warnings not to swim in the water so we took a couple of pictures to give you a sense of what the little waterfall was like.

Now a few days ago we posed a picture from another hike but on this hike we did have to use some ropes and climbing to get back out from the waterfall area. Here are a couple of pictures to give a sense of the climb out. You can get a sense out dark it was deep under the canopy as the auto flash was triggering in the first picture until I turned off flash in the second.

So that concluded a busy day. Tomorrow is officially a rest day again after we attend church in the morning.

Harder Swim, Harder Bike, Long Hrs

2010-12-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

Day 146 (Friday) swim 48 minutes - 2300m, Bike 110 minutes - 59km, Run (Water) 30 minutes

total on week 1195 minutes (just under 20 hrs with one day left)

It was a bit harder to get motivated today with the less than pleasant weather but I got out at noon for a swim (Swam it hard with 4X500 with pull bout and paddles at 7:42 per 500 on average) and water run after we cleaned up from the flooded floor of our rental. Rain slowed quite a bit and had sections where it stopped and by late afternoon had stopped enough that I could go for a bike ride and Melanie went for a short hike just from our place here.

We both had a great time and I rode really quite hard for the volume I have put in so far so no pictures from my ride. I went out at over 30km/h in a slight head wind and came back at about 34.4km/h. Melanie had the camera with her on the hike so she got a few there.

Feeling pretty tired so we went to bed at about 8:00 pm local time and are starting to get ready to re-acclimatize to the Calgary time zone. We have a big day planned for Saturday so should get a number of good pictures I hope.

Rain, Running, Rental Place Flooding

2010-12-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

Day 145 (Thursday) Swim 100 minutes - 4.8 km, Run 93 minutes - 18 km, Water Run 60 minutes

Total on Week 1007 minutes

Well these two volume weeks are now starting to be felt in overall fatigue. hitting 21 hours last week and on pace for about 27-28 this week if I were able to maintain it would be huge for me. Tropical storms and heavy rain made today's 5 hour workout goal really difficult without biking conditions possible. As a result I put in a long run, a water run and a very long swim.

The rain was heavy enough that they cancelled the surfing competition we had planned to go and watch and also washed out some trails we had thought about hiking today. By the late evening when we went to bed the news had broadcast about one dead surfer, another badly injured one on the other side of the island and some tourists almost swept away because their backs were turned to the ocean.

Video of surf competition from earlier this year that we didn't get to see today

In addition we saw 4 search and rescue helicopters off the north east coast by us for over and hour searching the outer reef. Don't think that bodes well. Just as we were about to turn off the lights we realized our rental place was flooding and within 30 minutes about 50 percent of the floor was under water and some of it over 1.5 inches deep. maybe tomorrow mornings swim might be heading form bed to the washroom.

Around Oahu Ride

2010-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

Day 144 Bike 392 minutes - Between 165km and 172km

Total on week so far 754 minutes

Melanie and I had a great time today doing the original Ironman Hawaii Bike course on Oahu with a few modifications. In preparation for our ride we researched the following two websites with some information on the route we would be taking.

FLA Cyclist

Ironman Revisited

Our route was slightly different as you can see from the map below:

We started and ended just north of Hauula and rode the island counter clockwise. Here is our version of this vacations epic ride in the format of an interview.

(EV) Richard and Melanie, I'm the Burninator (TM) from Extreme Vacations for recovering marriages due to Ironman training regimes. I heard that the two of you recently went on a romantic vacation at Oahu, Hawaii and took your bikes (insert eye roll from the Burninator here). So romance aside you can tell us about one of your rides while on vacation.

(R) Well we like to make sure we are suitably rested before we start so Melanie is practicing her pre-workout technique in this picture.

(EV) OK, so we know by the picture that you are already up and getting ready for the ride. Richard, tell us about the first part of the ride.

(R) We rode the north section first with limited wind and the cool of the morning. This section of rode is a bit rough for the first 30km or so. As you round the north-east corner of the island you pass Turtle Bay resort and golf course. This is about 14 km into the day.

(EV) It looks like the sun is just barely up, what time did you two leave anyways

(M) It was OK. At least it was light out when we left at 7:25am.

(EV) Melanie, you are not overly descriptive with the play by play style of your husband. No stats to report for us?

(M) ::eye roll::

(EV) OK then anything else in the first 30km that is rough roads and just getting light?

(R) Around 20km in we passed Sunset Beach, Banzai Pipeline and a few other surf spots that were already quite busy as the surf was up today and there was the Banzai Pipeline surfing competition.

(R) Just before Waimea Bay (26km) we got another great picture

(EV) So once you got off the north shore road rumor has it that hwy 99 south is far smoother, just climbing and headwind is all.

(M) It is a very deceiving hill, you don't think you are climbing all that much as you pass pineapple fields on one side and orchards on the other. This picture is before we started climbing hard.

(R) That was around 35km. We didn't take many pictures over the next 30km due to the climbing effort, then the downhill stint past Schofield Barracks. Once we got into the outskirts of Honolulu / Pearl City we had to navigate some ugly highway / freeway interchanges to keep somewhat out of traffic. The traffic and the lights really slowed the middle section of the ride.

(EV) So I understand that you have been whining about your bike making clicks and not spinning smoothly under loads. Did that cause you any trouble today.

(R) In fact, just as we started going past Aloha Tower my chain was getting caught and causing me tons of problems. At first I thought it was just really dry and needed lubrication so we started looking for a Gas station. It seemed that there were none for ages and we got stopped at a light and looked across the street and there was a bike specialty store "Bike Factory". We decided to see if they could help and while lubricating the chain we noticed that my chain had a broken link with one side gone and the other side bent.

Who knows how long it was like that but what a blessing to have it break right then at the store and was able to get the chain replaced. If it had happened most anywhere else on the island we could have been in real trouble.

(M) I could see it now. Richard then convinces me to ride all the way around the island to get the car to come and pick him up. Some people will do anything to get out of a long ride or long run. Not unlike Richard calling me when we were first married to come pick him up from a long run he bonked during halfway across Calgary.

(EV) OK, let's not dredge up the past and keep this article about a bike ride. You had to have been out for a while by then, ever think about lunch?

(M) Well I wanted to get more than halfway before we stopped for lunch so we rode past Waikiki, then Diamond Head, then almost to Hanamau Bay before having lunch at Subway.

(R) We saw lots of pre-race preparations for the Honolulu marathon on Sunday as you can see the start /finish area being prepped. I was so hungry when Melanie the taskmaster said we could stop for lunch at 105km just past Kuliouou

(EV) OK, so what did you guys eat for nutrition on this monster ride?

(R) I had 2 power bars, 4 oranges, a banana, a foot long sub at subway (lunch), 3 bottles of water and 4 bottles of Gatorade.

(M) I am not a pig like Richard and just ate 3 power bars, 3 bottles of water, 3 bottles of Gatorade and a 6 inch sub (lunch).

(EV) So is the southeast coastline as spectacular as you two make it out to be?

(M) See the pictures I took at about 115km into the ride.

(EV) Ok, so you were probably getting tired by this point, was that an excuse to take pictures or pictures the excuse to take a rest.

(M) No comment. Just look at some more pictures.

(R) These would be at about 120 and 130 km into our ride before and after Kailua, Oahu.

(EV) So any finishing pictures to celebrate the ride?

(M) Of course. These are at our rental place.

(EV) Any final comments?

(R) A great ride, we were very fortunate that not a single flat and my chain repair came at the absolute best possible time.

Disclaimer - Any reference to the "Burninator" and words put in Melanie's mouth at the hands of my fingertips are purely informational and not necessarily realistic.

Recovery day and trip to LDS temple

2010-12-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Day 143 swim 62 minutes - 3200m

Easy Day today in order to be fully rested for the Around the island bike ride on Wednesday. All I did workout wise was a swim and relax all day and then Melanie and I visited the Laie LDS temple in the evening.

Very peaceful and enjoyable.

Cold in Hawaiian Ocean Water? Yes, that's me.

2010-12-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

Day 142 (Monday) Swim 70 minutes - 3200m, Bike 167 minutes - 85km, Run (Water) 62 minutes

Total on Week 300 minutes

Not a lot of pictures today as I went on a solo ride without Melanie this morning and rode some hills as well as fairly hard up tempo 25km tail end of my ride on the flats home. Averaged a pretty quick pace of 35.5 km/h with no wind over the last 25km. I went to upload the data and show the Garmin info and realized I left my Garmin connect cable at home in Calgary. Satellite image of ride route

Water Run in the morning in an outdoor pool sure beats at SAIT plus an evening swim. For our afternoon recreation we went to a nature reserve area in the Southeast of the island. I only snorkeled a bit because I felt really uncomfortable snorkeling over the shallow areas of the reef at low tide. Melanie saw a turtle as well as many cool fish. I saw a number of fish in the deeper sections until I got too cold, guess the floating around and snorkeling doesn't cause me to generate enough body temp and I ended up getting out and warming up. Even got pasty white fingers and feet in the Hawaiian water. My poor circulation that I can even get cold in Hawaii.

Rest and relaxation

2010-12-06T07:50:00.001-08:00

Day 142 (Sunday) Rest Day

Took a well deserved rest day on Sunday. We slept in, went to church, came back to the rental spent time on beach (Melanie more so than me), Skyped home to kids and family members, caught up on some reading of fellow bloggers, enjoyed the sounds of the ocean and babied the sore legs from the harsh hiking and running on Friday. Nothing overly spectacular.

Two random pictures for today

Polynesian Cultural Center and a light workout day

2010-12-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

Day 141 (Saturday) Swim 61 minutes - 3200m, Bike 116 minutes - 50km

Total on week 21 hours Yay!

Finally broke the barrier this year of 20 hours of workouts which was set in the 3rd week of September. Plan is to get in a HUGE week next week after taking Sunday (today) as a rest day. My first week back in Calgary will be a recovery week down to about 10 hours or so and then two more big weeks to finish off December as the key volume build month.

Saturday mornings swim was the usual here with a large technical warm-up and cool down of about 750m each with a 750m pull set and 750m regular stroke set in the middle with a few lengths puttering around to finish the two mile distance. Melanie had joined me for the swim and did slightly more than I did. We then did the "hobbit" like thing and went back to the rental place for second breakfast and then off for a bike ride.

Today on the ride we had even more wind than previous days and both of us could feel the strenuous hikes/run from Friday in the quads so we kept the effort fairly low intensity and did the same 50km ride that I had done yesterday. It was a blast with the tail wind return hitting an average of 30km/h and not even working at all. You can see some of the wind strength from the photo below of the para sail surfers out in force.

We showered, changed and then headed off to the Polynesian Cultural Center for our sightseeing activity of the day. The various shows in the village were all quite good but my favorite was the main evening show "Ha, the Breathe of Life". Dinner was a good buffet. I thought it was a great deal for the ticket prices on the full day pass that included everything. We didn't take a ton of pictures at the centre but I have included one of Mel and I thanks to the self-timer picture feature.

Two hikes, great scenery and mourning the loss of a loved article of clothing

2010-12-03T21:45:00.000-08:00

Day 140 Swim 73 minutes - 3.8km, Bike 100 minutes - 50km, Hiking/Run 194 minutes - 18.5km

Total on week 1006 minutes

This morning began bright and early with the wind howling over the ocean surf and into our window making a whack of noise and cooling the room. Melanie was hot as an oven and didn't notice the cold while I was freezing and got up to close it slightly.

After finally deciding to get up at 5:30am local time to have breakfast I headed to the BYU-H pool. Now for those occasional readers out there I am not racing anything this trip, its just a vacation full of training to build up volume during the month of December to prepare for my power/intensity phase in the new year. So a leisurely swim of Ironman distance and back to the "house" by 8:00am and then a short nap and planning out the rest of the day.

I decided to ride south today towards Kailua (Oahu Kailua, not Kona) and did a short out and back of 50km round trip. The road was much smoother and will likely be the direction of the long ride for tomorrow.

After the bike ride Melanie and I decided to tackle two hikes, one to Kaena Pt from the end of the road that we biked to yesterday. The second hike was up to Kealia Trail. As you can see from this picture the trail got pretty steep.

disclaimer - do not try this at home

We had to move pretty quickly to get both hikes in before we ran out of daylight since we didn't start the first hike until after 2:00pm. Our strategy included drinking and eating pretty much the last of our fuel before hike two to stay lightweight backpack wise. The hike was rated as a 2.5 to 3 hr endeavour which we allotted all of 1 hr and 40 minutes to get done. In fact, in order to get back before dark and before the parking lot closed we had to run back the 5km downhill. It was a big test for my knee and as a result of protecting the right knee my left quad was screaming at me by the time we got back to the car.

Sadly my favorite shirt, the St George Ironman shirt was left on the car roof and didn't make the 1hr driving trip home. A silent moment of mourning because that shirt did not have the power of the "Polki" a famous sweater that just won't die or get lost.

the polki

So barring the loss of the IM SG shirt it was a great day. Tomorrow I can sleep in to 8 before the pool opens.

Long Bike to Kaena Pt and a Swim at BYU-Hawaii

2010-12-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

Day 139 Swim 65 minutes - 3200m, Bike 234 minutes - 101km

Total on Week 715 minutes

I was able to sleep in a bit better today and I hope to be fully adjusted to Hawaii time by tomorrow. Melanie and I got off on a bike ride by 8am local time. The wind was a bit more than yesterday and we decided to go forward with our plans to get to Kaena Pt anyways, or at least as far as the road went as it goes unpaved for the last few miles. We had a strong tailwind / cross-tailwind heading out and made it to the end of the road before 10:30 with only one stop near Sunset beach where Melanie had flatted. Scenic and uneventful other than ejecting water bottles from the cages due to rough roads (which happened about 4 times between us until Melanie found some elastics to tighten the grab of the water bottle case).

Our Route

A picture of Melanie and I at the end of the road well past the Dillingham Airstrip for skydiving and gliders

On the way back we had a fair bit more headwind as the tradewinds picked up and so we took a few more stops to rest and fuel up along the way. Melanie had a tube go missing on the bumpy road but fortunately I saw it eject from her Bento Box and retrieved it unlike the tube I had lost yesterday. We took some pictures at Haleiwa Regional Park at the first rest stop on the way back and then some more pictures at Sunset Beach before putting our heads down for the very windy final 21km to the house.

Haleiwa Regional Park

Sunset Beach

After we got back and had a quick shower we went to the BYU - Hawaii Campus and got our guest passes so we can use their swimming pool - very exciting since our beach area here is not a safe ocean swim place with the currents and reef. The cost was $10 each and good for a month of swimming. Very Very Cool.

A grocery run, a meal, a nap and then off to the pool for a swim to round out the day. The pool is an uncharacteristic 36m long, kind of like the SAIT pool but no bulkhead to end it at the appropriate 25m. Therefore I just did a steady state swim.

At peace and enjoying workouts

2010-12-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

Day 138 Swim 57 minutes - 3km, Hiking/Walking 150 minutes - 9km, Biking 82 minutes - 43km, Run 51 minutes - 9.5 km

Total on Week 416 minutes

Today was our first full day in Hawaii. I still haven't adjusted to the time zone but oh I am so happy to be on vacation. I woke up at 3:30am local (6:30 Calgary time) and dozed on and off until at 5:30 when I finally decided to get up and walked to the good beach for swimming. I think it was called Ali Moana Beach. After walking at a brisk pace in the dark to get there I waited until there was enough light to swim a straight line between the beach and the seawall parallel to shore. I swam for an hour going back and forth along the .5 mile beach a couple of times and then got out. Once it got light enough I saw a school of fish that I swam right through. I didn't see the mass of jellyfish that ended up on the beach. Lucky for me. They looked like a bunch of used IV bags lying on the beach. When I got back to the hotel Melanie was up and we went for breakfast at IHOP and then checked out to go to our rental cottage at the North Shore. On the way we decided to go see Diamond Head. We took a whack of pictures of which I will only show one picture from the lookout and one video from our hike up.

The lookout at the top rim of Diamond Head Crater looking west towards Honolulu and Waikiki.

Video of the middle section of the hike up.

After hiking Diamond Head we drove along the coast on our way to the North Shore rental property and got groceries en route. After checking in I had a brief nap, Melanie went for a run and then I got my bike put together. Thanks TSA for a battle wound to the frame (again), damage to my seat and to the bike pump. I don't think they actually do the damage but fail to repack properly after inspection which then allows damage to be caused in flight. Once I had the bike together I went for a ride from our place at Hau'ula Beach to Sunset Beach and back (about 43km round trip). Easy ride with a fair bit of wind but averaged over 30km/hr comfortably. Lost a tube out of the x-lab rack in a bumpy section unfortunately.

After finishing the bike ride (almost got nailed by a truck who was backing out of a driveway without looking) I then did a brick run off the bike and ran easy for 9.5 km to close out the workout day. Got home, ate supper (thanks to Melanie for having it ready) and put Mel's bike back together.

Loaded the pictures off the camera on to the computer and took some time to post the days events. It's a late night already in Calgary and Mel is now sleeping as I blog. I should get some rest soon as well. We hope to ride the full section of North Shore tomorrow, which might be about 120km and then go swimming at the BYU pool in the evening if we can get a pass and temp ID to swim.

Travel Day to Richard's Training Camp and Melanie's Vacation

2010-12-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

Day 137 Travel Day (Tuesday)

Flying through Denver was definitely the long way to get to Honolulu but we finally arrived at about 4:30 in the afternoon local time. We took the scenic (read long and slow) route from the airport to our one night stay at the Courtyard Marriott in Waikiki. It was a tiny little room as you can see from the pictures below.

We did a short walk to the beach, had a meal at some Sports Bar because it was convenient and were in bed by 9 local time (midnight Calgary) since we had already been up 20+ hours. Bailed on the workout since I was pretty tired.

Short workouts and Airport Check-in

2010-11-30T04:26:00.000-08:00

Day 136 Swim 40 minutes - 2km, Run (water) 36 minutes (Monday)

Slow training start to what I expect to be a good week. I had hoped to get in a ride today but ended up spending more time packing than planned. Work went by reasonably quick despite my great anticipation of our vacation. My swim was somewhat lackluster as the repeat 200's were a bit slow (2:59, 2:59, 3:03, 3:02 and 2:59). I plan to take the next two weeks focusing on high volume but very low intensity.

After getting everything packed including the bikes (Mel and I managed to get them all boxed up in less than an hour this time) in our trusty case from Tri all 3 cases we then watched a bit of TV before going to bed for our 4 hour sleep before heading to the airport.

After a very deep sleep for me Melanie woke me up and my mother took us to the airport at 3:45 am. The Check in and Customs went pretty good. Melanie was supposed to pay for luggage but I got two free bags so she did the bike case and I did the free bags. They charge $100 dollars for bike carriage unless its over 50lbs then they double the cost to $200. With the case having both bikes it weighed 80 lbs with both bikes, the case weight and some other gear like the bike pump in there.

We are now sitting waiting for the boarding call to head to Honolulu via Denver in about 25 minutes with me blogging and Melanie reading "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek to pass the time. Wikipedia article here. Hopefully the next blog entry will be from Honolulu.

Rest Day and upcoming vacation

2010-11-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Day 135 Sunday Rest Day

Less than 48 hours to the long awaited vacation and training holiday. Hardest thing to decide each day when I am away will be where to bike. I have very few planned things for the next two weeks.

1) Catch up on sleep
2) Ride the Bike - LOTS
3) Get some land runs (knee pending)
4) See some sights with Melanie
5) Do some reading

I can barely wait!

Work, Church, Family and Training all on a Saturday, with some Rock Band

2010-11-27T20:54:00.000-08:00

Day 134 Swim 60 minutes - 2.1 km, Bike 80 minutes - 40 km, Run 62 minutes - 12 km

Total on Week 758 minutes

The day just kind of flowed through a variety of activities starting with helping clean at the church to a light spin on the bike to a swim to attending a Baptism then to a graduation ceremony at work, then a run, another bike spin and finished the day playing rock band with my kids. It was not a bad Saturday by any stretch.

My knee felt good so I did my run on the treadmill and again tempered the pace so I wasn't risking the knee. It will be interesting to see how it feels tomorrow. I made sure I wore the compression tights afterwards again. Hopefully that will help as well.

This morning I had stumbled across a cool video about swimming that I liked.

Swimming in a Dream from Jim Sugar on Vimeo.

New Swim - Water Run workout combo

2010-11-27T07:34:00.001-08:00

Day 133 Swim 10 minutes - 500m, Bike 64 minutes - 32km, Run (Water) 40 minutes

Total on Week 556 minutes so far

Today I decided to try a new workout. It was a swim / water run combination. I was using the water running as active recovery between some swim Sprint Interval sets. I warmed up with 10 minutes of water running then swam a swim interval

50m Free (35 seconds) Was a bit slower than I would like

then I did another 10 minutes of water running to lower heart rate and loosen up a bit more. After that I did another swim interval

100m Free in 1:16 (36 sec front 50m and 40 sec back 50m) Was a bit better.

I then did another 10 minutes of water running but was not fully recovered and anticipating a tough interval.

200m Free in 2:49 (37 sec at the 50, 1:20 at the 100, 2:05 at the 150 and 2:49 at 200)

10 more minutes of water running to finish the water runs

100m IM (1:38) and a 50m cool-down. Was a good workout for variety and reasonably OK for my speed.

Did a relatively easy hour ride on the bike tonight watching TV to finish off the day. Saturday is a crazy busy day so not sure what training I will be able to squeeze in.

However, best news on the day was how good (relatively speaking) my knee feels. I used the compression tights in the morning to help my knee and legs recover from the treadmill running. Either the compression, or the fact I ran a bit easier or both my knee was doing much better than it usually does the day after a real run. I am going to keep with a more controlled run pace to see if that helps. Fortunately it looks like I can run up to my Ironman pace without too much trouble and that the knee stuff kicks in more when I run harder intervals or tempo. Still makes me sad not being able to open up on the run but I guess the silver lining is it saves my harder workouts for where I really need to do them - on the bike.

Racing Flats need to stay on the shelf for a while

Long days and fatigue

2010-11-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

Day 132 Swim 45 minutes - 2300m, Run 77 minutes - 15km

Total On Week 442 minutes

I needed to muster up a bit more effort for today's workout due to some fatigue. Both workouts occurred after work. First was the swim 400m technical warm-up, then I attempted to do 5X300m on a 5 minute cycle without pull buoy and paddles and average under 4:30. It was not going to happen since the first one was 4:30, then 4:36, 4:42, 4:47 and expending all my effort did a 4:41 to finish.

After a mid workout banana and just enough time to change I headed to the treadmill to do my first run on surface in a while. I did the first 9 miles of the Ironman St George course at a reasonable pace although slower the effort was higher than I would like. Knee held up quite well but the real test will be tomorrow and whether or not the knee recovers fast.

I also needed to push off the disappointment that it is taking so long for my knee to recover despite how much I have backed off. I hope that I can get into the specialist soon to determine best course of action.

New Ironman Swim PR in workout

2010-11-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

Day 131 Swim 67 minutes - 4000m, Run 75 minutes (Water)

Total on Week 320 minutes

This morning I woke up crazy early thinking about work and couldn't get back to sleep so I got up and went into work really early for a swim. Lucky for me it cut time off the commute as nobody is on the roads hardly at 5:30 AM. Usually I don't particularly enjoy a swim that early, maybe its carry over from when I was a pre-teen some 30 plus years ago and went to swim club 5 days a week for 6:00 am swim practice.

In any case I decided it would be a good day to get in a long swim without a huge pressure to get in swim, get out work situation. So I settled in for a steady state 4km benchmark swim. It ended up being an absolutely amazing swim, even pace despite a bit frisky start and covered the distance in 67 minutes. At first I was marginally disappointed until I realized this swim covered the 3.8 km Ironman distance in 63:40, a PR by about a minute and I was going at an effort less than what I swam effort wise at my last two Ironman races.

I am still a ways off the goal of sub 1 hour but given the effort level and no wetsuit or drafting my usual pool swim speed to race speed is about another minute faster (it would be more but in a pool you don't have to sight and you get the benefit of turns).

Here is an old picture of me standing beside the PR setting pool I swim at.

After work I did another water run, a bit longer this time and the knee is now recovered from Saturday's treadmill run. I plan on running on the treadmill Thursday night easy but longer and seeing how the knee holds up. I really need to be able to run on "land" for the next two weeks when Melanie and I go to Hawaii. I sure miss running harder but I have to keep the longer term goal in mind.

When the day conspires against you

2010-11-23T20:43:00.000-08:00

Day 130 Bike 30 minutes - 15km

Total on week 178 minutes

Sometimes the working triathlete is conspired against by the realities of day to day work, -27 degree Celsius and second coldest place on earth weather and life in general. To combat this elusive enemy of training and time I turned to the Coach Troy Spinerval time saver series. Getting on my trusty steed "Arethusa" - named after a Mountain against Highwood Pass representing my biking efforts to be a climbing specialist.

Arethusa in her "indoor stable"

Today Coach Troy was my master as I did his Sprint / Power workout to the max. Considering former pro Troy Jacobson came out of hiding to race Ironman Arizona this last weekend with an impressive race I should pay attention. He placed first in my age category, 22nd overall at Ironman Arizona and will likely be the age group champion at Hawaii.

22 09:06:21 Jacobson Troy M40-44 1/392 1:01:31 4:56:46 2:59:56

Time to get serious and make sure I am doing what it takes to get to the big show. So in that spirit I did the first 3 minute interval at 200 watts, then for the 12 sprint intervals of 10-15 seconds I worked my way up from 330 watts to 460 watts.

Frozen Ears, Winter Scenes and Indoor Training

2010-11-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

Day 129 Swim 39 minutes - 2.1km, Bike 64 minutes - 32km, Run 45 minutes (water)

Total on Week 148 minutes

With all the cold weather we are getting (to the tune of -29 degrees Celsius this morning I heard) my wife actually did an indoor workout today. Usually its just me that is the pansy but yes, Melanie did run at the gym on the treadmill.

For me i did a quick swim at lunch (technical warm-up of 400m, 5X300m pull on a 5 minute cycle - 4:30, 4:30, 4:29, 4:28 and 4:30, then 200m to finish) then my usual post work water run which felt great for the knee and finished with an indoor bike ride for 64 minutes at the gym.

However, one of our family was not smart enough to take her workout indoors. Frances ran 10 km outside and did not wear a toque that covered her ears. Boys and girls, this is what frostbite damage looks like. Don't be fooled by the shiny exterior of the ear lobe, its painful and it's much redder in real life, in fact, I am not sure I would dare being seen in public with it like that :)

I think this is fitting because the other day she started painting this scene (this is a draft by the way) in my workout area. If I want to see a winter scene I just look outside, I don't need it in my workout room as well. I think it was a good karma punishment for her.

However, rumor has it that within 4 days we may be up to +2 degrees Celsius.

Fitting in Triathlon Training and Life - 6 tips to do more with your time

2010-11-21T05:22:00.000-08:00

Day 127 Bike 184 minutes - 92 km, Run 47 minutes - 10km

Total on Week 700 minutes

If work, church and family responsibilities are not enough to schedule around lets throw in -20 Deg C weather. Good thing I have absolutely zero qualms about an indoor trainer or treadmill workout. I started off the day with a 3hr plus ride on even terrain. It was intended to be a fairly relaxed steady state ride at an easy 145-155 watts and I took advantage of the easy ride to do some web surfing and reading since I was on my computrainer setup that keeps the laptop close.

I must say that taking the time to get the right set up sure has helped me be able to keep up with everything.

Lots of people have asked how I manage to get as much done as I do. Besides an awesome support system (see old blog post about Ironmates) I have invested in a few simple things to allow that sort of multitasking.

1) My computrainer set-up has to be near the top of the list. Not only does it have all the pluses of an indoor trainer such as access to immediately get on the bike and start a workout, close access to a bathroom (less than 20 feet from workout room to washroom), a kitchen for all my fuel needs and a very controllable environment - no need to worry when sunset is, or wind and weather but my particular set-up has a bench custom arranged by my wife (yes guys - my wife is the tool handy person in our marriage) complete with DVD, MP3 external speakers, TV, Computer rack, fan, extra shelves for food, towel rack and hands-free telephone. What this has allowed me to do is be able to:

a) deal with all my personal, church service and late at-night work calls while riding the bike. However, I do recommend that if you are taking or making calls to try and do it during the warm-up and cool-down part of rides, or at least during the rest phase of an interval. Some people may mistake the heavy breathing for a variety of less pleasant or appropriate reasons.

b) not worry about forgetting something before you start riding. If any of you are like me you often spend a LOT of time trying to pick the right clothes for the temperature, make sure you remember your food, gear stuff and pack the extra tubes and tires. I find this easily reduces my pre-ride prep by about 15 minutes by riding indoors.

c) Having my computer setup with a wireless mouse, and at times keyboard has allowed me to take care of those pesky emails and catch up on my online reading. I have read most of the blogs that I follow from the laptop while riding the bike. This way I can follow the latest trends without sacrificing my workout time. It's a little harder to write emails and to author my blog so I have to leave that to the easy parts of the workout.

2) Double purpose activities

a) Outside of the computrainer at home you can also reduce the strain of getting in your workout schedules by commuting to and from work, weather and shower availability dependent. I found that since the weather turned it has become a lot harder to get in as much volume. I used to average nearly 3 hours a week in commuting workouts by run or by bike. Since it takes me about 60 minutes round trip by car to and from work each day my net gain in workout time was substantial with limited impact to my overall commuting hours.

b) Family Times - I have also found I need to make the most of family times that may not be easy for everyone to do. Fortunately at our house we mostly share common activities that we can double up on, whether its a run with my wife and one daughter, a swim with another, or offering to drive another daughter to a morning class on my way to work. Any time I can double up an activity helps. This is one area where I enjoy the drives with a kid to know what is going on in their life.

3) Plan and schedule around certain locked in events.

a) Each week I know I have some recurring activities that if I plan around I can gain some time for training. For example, days that I am not commuting as a workout I know that traveling via car at rush hour costs me way more time than doing it at off hours. So instead of traveling at peak times and spending 90-120 minutes a day I re-structured my day around it. For me I have the luxury of the SAIT fitness facilities and can do that workout before work and after work when traffic is heavy by going in earlier or coming home later and avoiding the rush.

b) The second aspect is that each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I pick up my daughter from track and field practice later on in the evening. Instead of driving home and then back across the city I am now doing my workouts between the time I finish work and when I need to pick her up. This means that picking her up at 8:00 on Mon and Thursday I can schedule in longer workouts after work and on Tuesdays at 7:00 schedule in a shorter one. In order to make this fly I need to make sure I am taking enough food to eat lunch and dinner so that I am not working out on calories fumes but am well fueled.

c) Showers - this one may seem silly but as a multi sport athlete doing 2-3 workouts a day I really try to double up workouts in a way I don't need to shower between if at all possible. It doesn't always work out but if you did 3 workouts in a day and need to shower all three times that can suck an extra 30 minutes out of your day, and if you do need to shower that often making sure you have a wash and wear hairstyle is critical.

4) Smile - a LOT. Recently I have come to appreciate how much more effective we are when we are happy. Choose to be happy and you spend a lot less time pining over whats not working and just get about doing what needs to be done. I cannot believe how much more efficient I have been as a result.

5) Don't idle time on things of low value. I absolutely love computer games but also wasted way too much time on them in the past. Maybe for you its television, eBay, Blogging - you can read mine though :). In any case I have found reducing time in these areas or doing them while on an easy treadmill run or ride is far more useful than idle time usage.

6) Don't get addicted to the MP3 or iPod. I love my music on workout time but I also really appreciate the ability to use that time for a quiet inner reflection. It's pretty hard for me to do when in the middle of a gut-wrenching interval set but on the easy workouts swim, bike or run, or even a drive in traffic I like to think and or plan about a particular problem, situation or opportunity. I go even as far as to decide before the workout what problem will be solved by the end of the workout. Some of my best business thoughts, or parenting ah-ha moments came from those opportunities. I have even planned a public presentations or talk during a long easy run.

So I put a bit of this to the test on this last Saturday. Long ride in the morning as I read the Lava Triathlon magazine - great edition by the way, watched my second youngest at a swim meet - Go Sierra with 3 best times, a run on the treadmill with Frances - I ran the first 10km of IMSG, she ran a flat 10km in 50 minutes and went shopping with my wife at night to get me a new winter coat.

Definition of a "Long" Workout at the Rush's

2010-11-20T06:49:00.000-08:00

Day 126 - Unscheduled rest day

Total on Week 469 minutes so far

Friday I woke up tired and somewhat sore from both a couple hard days of swims and a hard bike set on Thursday night. Add to that a long day at work and evening commitments I decided to bail on any workouts and treat it as a recovery day so I could have the right amount of "oomfph" for my planned workouts on Saturday.

At a church function on Friday night someone was talking about hobbies that were excessive and used people who run more than 2 hrs in a day as an example. Made Melanie and I both chuckle, at 2 hrs of workouts we don't even call that a long workout unless it is a swim.

A number of months ago Frances made the statement that in our house a run does not qualify as "long" until it is over 2 hours or 22 km. A bike doesn't even get to category of long until over 3 hours or 90 km. I guess our definition of a long workout is pretty much pegged relative to a half-ironman distance. However, the long swim needs to be at least an hour to get counted.

Long run intervals are usually reserved for intervals of 1 mile or greater, Long swim intervals defined as 500m or more and bike intervals need to be over 15 minutes to get the classification.

Now I would not expect everyone to use the same definition because it is related to your fitness level. I guess then another definition is that a long workout is one in which a) you can't go hard the whole way or you implode b) it is designed to build endurance c) you need to plan a bit more in advance to schedule it in.

I also vaguely remember some adage at a race I once did (it may have been the Grand Columbian) Go Long - Go Ironman distance

Hard Bike Intervals

2010-11-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Day 125 Swim 33 minutes - 2km, Bike 62 minutes - 31km, Run 40 minutes (water)

My upper body was a bit tired from yesterdays swim so the steady state swim workout today was much harder than I would have liked it to be. After work I did the water run and then a bike wattage interval session.

The bike session started out a bit rough. I did 7 intervals with 6 minutes of easy 100 watt spinning between. 2 of teh 7 intervals were only 2 minutes long at 280+ watts, the other 5 were 280-290 watts for 3 minutes. Ideally I would like to get up to 5 minutes at that level of power output.

At teh end of each interval I was really tired but recovered pretty quickly and after teh final one I decided to run 1km on teh treadmill at my intended IM run pace and it felt pretty good and not too bad (even did it at 1.5% grade just to model teh IM St George opening kilometer.

Good swim and other recovery workouts

2010-11-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Day 124 Swim 35 minutes - 2km, Bike 40 minutes - 20km, Run 45 minutes (water)

Woke up with a very mildly tender knee this morning so it looks like the intensity intervals is not quite a free pass yet. However, between the swim at lunch and a water run and bike after work it feels much better already so I am still optimistic to get it back into into shape carefully.

Swim was really solid with the standard 400m technical warm up then 5 X 200m on a 3:15 cycle (2:50, 2:54, 2:54, 2:53, 2:54) then 100m kick set, 400m technical and finished with a 100IM on 1:42.

Water run was easy recovery effort as was the bike. Finished the night off helping Frances get her art website going, you can check it out at www.francesrush.com.

Mile repeats and Frances passed her Driver's Test

2010-11-16T21:02:00.000-08:00

Day 123 Run 52 minutes - 10km

Total on Week 214 minutes

Decided to focus on a faster harder run today and not do as much volume. It was the first time in a long time that I did intervals on the treadmill. Tonight Mel, Frances and I all went to SAIT and ran on the treadmill. Mel was doing repeat kilometers, Frances a Fartlek and I was doing mile repeats.

Started controlled and the warm up was an easy half mile. I then ran 5 X 1 mile on a 10 minute cycle descending sets (6:50, 6:40, 6:35, 6:31 and 6:16) for an average of 6:35. Melanie did a total of 5 X 1km after her warm up and Frances did 10km of Fartlek. It was kind of fun having us all running on the treadmills in a row.

On other news Frances is now a licensed driver, Mother's protect your children! She had to take her test on a day with tons of snow and ice and also recovering from having her wisdom teeth removed yesterday. A true Rush in terms of taking on a challenge.

Executing to a plan

2010-11-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

Day 122 Bike 162 minutes - 81km

Total on Week 162 minutes

Good day at work, good workout at the end of the day. Did an easy steady state ride at a low 150 watts resistance to build base. Nothing overly special in the workout just "taking care of business".

Sometimes a workout is more important or special when its not a big workout. The key is executing the plan according to what is most needed at any given time rather than feeling the need to always push the envelope.

Knee responding well to resumption of running

2010-11-14T05:16:00.001-08:00

Day 120 Bike 44 minutes - 20km, Run 35 minutes - 7km

Total on week 786 minutes

Better week than last in terms of volume but still not quite where I wanted to be. The best thing about this last week was getting in two runs on the treadmill as opposed to water runs and being able to run on consecutive days without knee issues. there were a couple of very very minor twinges but so after effects and no swelling.

With a scheduled Sunday rest day I am highly optimistic that I can run again on "land" Monday plus a bike. Monday and Tuesday we offsite sessions at work so the schedule change will once again test my abilities to get in the workouts I am hoping to. Time to capitalize on the rest day so I can do some early and late day workouts this week.

Getting excited about our vacation coming up in Hawaii and the training time that will be available. Should be able to do well on training volume with less distractions.

Statistical History since 1989

2010-11-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

As the year starts approaching a close I decided I wanted to do a special historical blog entry. I have screen captured my training history since training for my first Ironman (Ironman Canada 1989 12:28).

Yellow cells represents a career high year for that statistic, red cells represent the next milestone for me to pass in the current year. The images might be a bit small and need to be expanded to read completely. If you click on the image it should expand sufficiently.

Swim

Bike

Run

On the Road and Training

2010-11-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Day 119 Bike 30 minutes - 13km, Run 67 minutes - 13km

Total on Week 706 minutes

Enjoying a conference in Banff for work on Teaching and Learning and squeezed in a short bike first thing in the morning and then a run on the treadmill to save my knee and avoid running in the dark. Ended up running the first 8 miles of the Ironman St George run course at a reasonable pace and heart rate. I resisted the temptation to pick up the pace (I was really great) so I could protect the knee and see if it is recovering properly.

A few hours since the run earlier today and the knee is still good so I am going to try another run on it tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to start ramping up the volume slowly again.

Round 4 - Richard vs the Wall

2010-11-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

Day 118 Bike 230 minutes - 115km, Run 23 minutes - 4.5km

Total on Week 609 minutes

Wednesday ended up being so busy with work and other responsibilities I was not able to schedule around for a workout but it did give me a rest from my intense wattage intervals on Tuesday.

I took advantage of the Remembrance Day Holiday to first take more than just a moment to thank those that died fighting for our freedoms and then second to make my fourth assault on the "Wall at St George". After the last time I did the Start plus 1 loop of IMSG I realized that my nutrition was not well planned so today before I started I got everything ready.

My goal was to ride at 3:40 or better for the 108km which would be about 175 watts. Based on that I got 4 water bottles, 2 straight water, 1 Gatorade, 1 a gatorade/hammer gel mixture. I figured that would be a good starting point for fluids. I think got two energy bars and 4 bananas. And I made sure I had a decent breakfast.

So the plan was simple

100-125ml of fluid every 15 minutes
1/2 banana every 30 minutes along with fluid
1/2 energy bar every 60 minutes along with fluid and banana
I did about half the fluid straight water as a final wash and 1/2 fluid at start as Gatorade or the mixture.

It worked awesome. I rode the course averaging 186 watts, was averaging mostly 180 until the last 45-60 minutes and had an overall average of 125HR, well within IM HR zone for me until the end when I intentionally picked up the watts and the heart rate.

Overall result was a 3:37 ride (just a hair under 30km/h) and I got off the bike and ran an easy run at Ironman pace and legs and cardio were just fine.

Slowtwitch article about IMSG here

Total YTD Training

Friends and a Great Bike Workout

2010-11-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Day 116 - Bike 61 minutes - 34km, Run 55 minutes (Water)

Total on week 356 minutes

If I wasn't stoked yesterday I sure am now. Just found out another Ironman friend registered for St George and I LOVE racing with friends. If that wasn't enough good news today a killer bike wattage interval topped the day. I did a warm up and then three 16 minute threshold intervals at 220+ watts.

First was average of 228 watts, 130 HR, 93 RPM
Second was average of 231 watts, 134 HR, 92 RPM
Third was average of 248 watts, 143 HR, 95 RPM

Next time I need to do four of them and not push above 230 watts and do them more evenly and work on a IM race pace heart rate level

Tale of Two Cholesterols

2010-11-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

Day 115 Swim 40 minutes - 2100m, Bike 170 minutes - 89km, Run 30 minutes (water)

Total on week so far 240 minutes

Great start to the week for at least three reasons.

First, as you can tell by the numbers it was an amazing training day, mostly due to a celebration of good news from my visit to the Doctor. Great swim (15X100m as main set averaging 1:26 on a 1:45 cycle). Reasonable water run and then a really strong computrainer bike ride with a resistance of 175 watts and averaged over 30km/hr with the back half faster than the front half.

Second, a great visit with the Doctor as the full medical results are better than fine. The fasting blood tests show that I don't have a cholesterol problem, the readings are great for it and everything else. The tale of two cholesterol's as the screening nurse put it was the HDL values (she called them "happy" are up and the LDL values are down (she called them lousy). I am sure it helped that my mother was praying for me since the screening test.

Third, my best friend has now registered for Ironman St George and that will be absolutely great to have him racing along side of me. I am very looking forward for both of us to qualify for Kona at the same race.

Why Sunday's are great.

2010-11-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Day 114 Scheduled Rest Day

Goal Next week 15 hours

Have I said how much I love Sunday's? there is something really wonderful about having a regular planned rest day without training. A few reasons why this is so great.

1) No need to feel guilty about not working out. It's a scheduled day off and you don't need an excuse why you didn't train.

2) You always have a better start to the week due to #1 above because you are extra rested. It means you can schedule a key workout on Saturday (because you know you get a rest day so can go hard) and another key workout on Monday (because you did get that extra rest day). Then you only have to decide if you want a key workout on either Wednesday or Thursday and can adjust to how busy your week is.

3) It helps you stay balanced. You can prioritize family and other important non-work / non-workout things because it's a day where you are not having those pressures compete for your time. This makes it far easier to be in the triathlon is part of my life club as opposed to triathlon is my only life club.

4) Its a day you can actually pause to self reflect, whether it's about training, or about life, you can take a quiet moment to take a pulse check on life beyond a "twitter" moment.

Good Saturday of Training

2010-11-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

Day 113 Swim 60 minutes - 2400m, Bike 60 min - 27km, Run 120 minutes - 23.5 km

Total on Week - Far less than I wanted but new week coming soon.

Put in another great workout day by starting with an easy run outside. I had planned to run the reservoir but my knee was a bit tender and so I figured I better be careful about running on pavement and only ran 6.5km before returning home for a bike workout. I did an even 60 minutes biking on the computrainer and then headed off to the SAIT pool for a swim. Enjoyed watching the Ironman Florida Broadcast on the net. Grats to Cunnamara for an amazing marathon run to take the win, along with a great run by Gomez to take 2nd as well.

Frances came with me and I decided to test out my new trisuit first and did the first 3.5 miles of the Ironman SG run course on the treadmill. What a huge difference the treadmill makes on the knee cushioning impact. No discomfort and so I was a bit more relieved.

After we ran, she did a run as well, we did a largely technical swim workout and after an hour switched over to finish with a 60 minute water run. The water runs are doing great for my knee but I am hoping to get in some interval training again on the treadmill.

We had a dinner with family (very enjoyable) and then rested up for the night. I must say that I am looking forward to the extra hour of sleep due to time changes for daylight savings switch.

Long swim, easy bike and run

2010-11-06T01:48:00.000-07:00

Day 112 Swim 80 minutes - 4km, Bike 60 minutes - 27 km, Run 60 minutes (water)

Finally a day with real workouts. It will definitely be a light week but I was happy to get in a long swim session with

- a 500m technical warm-up
- 5 X 500m on 10 minute cycle (7:45, 7:45, 7:50, 7:52, 8:09)
- 400m rest set
- 500m technical
- 100m IM

Faded a bit at the end and then did a 60 min water run and finished off the night with an easy 60 minute spin session on the bike. Didn't want to go too hard at the last workout so I could be fresh for the Saturday workout set.

More rest than I want

2010-11-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Day 111 Nada

The week of limited time to train continues but tomorrow should be substantially better. As my friend Bernie says, it may be God's way of keeping me rested, or maybe not either way rested I am from workouts but not overly rested sleep wise.

I will need a big Fri / Sat combo to hit any sort of real volume this week. Hopefully tomorrow I can get in all three disciplines.

High Cholesterol - Get Out!

2010-11-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

Day 109/110 Bike 40 minutes, Run 20 minutes

Tuesday I managed to sneak in a late workout and did a cycle of bricks 10 minutes hard bike followed by a .5 mile run easy to recover, then crunches, rinse repeat 4 times. It was the only workout in the Tuesday / Wednesday combo due to a very heavy work schedule with other responsibilities tied in.

Found out Wednesday at a health clinic pre-screening that I have high cholesterol - what's with that? Looks like I am genetically predisposed so it will be interesting when I meet with my Doctor next week.

However, on the very up side my knee feels great, even before, during and after the running on Tuesday. Now I can start to slowly rebuild my volume once my work schedule allows.

More sleep - less blogging.

Taking Care of Business

2010-11-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

Day 107/108 Rest Days

Sunday was a scheduled rest day and Monday became a forced rest day due to work and family commitments. Despite efforts to schedule around commitments I had a very important all-day meeting on Monday that I needed to prepare for and then after the meeting besides getting caught up on regular work started the preparation for another important meeting that would occur on Wednesday.

By the time that was done it was appropriate to spend the little remaining time on Monday with my family and then to bed. This week might be a much tougher week than expected.

The Wall at Ironman St George - round 3

2010-10-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

Day 106 Bike 3hr 58min - 113 km

A day late in posting my Saturday training - wow it was a hard workout yesterday. I had originally planned on a 4 hr ride (which I did) and a 2:15 run but I felt so bagged after the morning ride that even a nap was not enough to re-energize myself.

I still need to work on better read for my nutrition, 2 large water bottles and three bananas left me a bit short on energy so with about 30 minutes left I downed a bottle of fruit juice, not the best choice but it got me through.

This round of the initial 68 miles of Ironman St George got a bit more of me than the previous workout from 2 weeks ago. After my 10 minute warm-up I was 3:48 (excluding a 3 minute bio break), about 5 minutes slower than last time.

I am guessing that the 2 hr ride late on Friday probably also impacted the Saturday morning ride. Anyways, it was still a respectable ride and good to see what is working and not working so I can feedback the results into training modifications.

Overall I ended the week just over 14 hours and given that I had hardly any running this 10.5 hour bike week did push my legs. This coming week I want to get in a bit more running and swimming but still some good seat time on the bike. At least today I am enjoying a good rest day.

Here are the full computrainer results , note the right-left power split showing weaker right leg.
__________________________________________________________

Computrainer Course Data
Name: StGeorge.3dc Distance: 108.36 KM
Min Grade: -6.6% Avg Grade: -0.0% Max Grade: 9.3%
Total Climbing Meters: 1054

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Kilometers Ridden: 108.42 Performance Statistics Lap Avg: None
Rolling Calibration: 11: 2.13 C Finish Time: 03:51:04.81 Calories: 2242.6

Watts 169.2
Watts Per KiloGram 2.3
Heart Rate 120.8 (149 max)
KPH 28.1 (48.2 max)
RPM 88.9 (113.0 max)
Overall SpinScan 62.2
Left SpinScan 62.3
Right SpinScan 62.1
Power Split Left 51.1
Power Split Right 48.9
Left ATA 105.1
Right ATA 108.4

Don't Stop Believing, You will go to Kona.

2010-10-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

Day 105 Swim 35 minutes - 1750m, Bike 120 minutes - 54km, Run (Water) 60 minutes

Total on Week 603 minutes so far

Finally Friday! I needed to get in some decent time working out today and managed to make it happen with an early morning water run, swim and then late evening compy bike ride. Water run is doing great for my knee, swim went great as well. Today's swim was a 500m technical warm-up followed by the Tony Smith special descending 50's.

This particular interval set starts at the top of the clock, i.e. leaving the wall at the 60s mark. Goal is simple, do 50m and be back by the top of the clock (60 s). For me pretty easy and slow. If you get back early - I got back at about 48 secs you get extra rest, sounds easy again right? 2nd interval leaves at 61 or the 1 second mark, goal again back at the 60. So you get one less second in which to complete. 3rd interval you leave at 62, back by 60. 4th leave at 63, back by 60 and so on...

Since 48sec 50m's is cruise speed for me the first 12 X 50 go smooth and relaxed. You keep following the pattern until you can't get back by the 60. So the next 8 or so 50s get a lot tougher. Usually I fail out at about the 21st interval where you are going sub 40s for 50m. On a good day I can do maybe the 39s or the 38s but today I made the 37s and failed on the 36sec or 25th 50m interval. Yay, go me!

My Friday night date this week was on my Cervelo for an easy bike spin. Needed variety so rode a constant 150 watts on a flat course but set up the computer to surf the net and borrowed Frances' mp3 for music variety to her some 1843 songs. You get new insights to someone by hearing their musical tastes. At 18 hers are pretty broad (even though I was shocked she had Britney Spears). Tonight my song of the day was Journey's, "Don't stop believing" - you're going to Kona!

Consistency, Coaching and Confidence

2010-10-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

Day 104 Swim 24 minutes - 1500m, Run (Water) 30 minutes

Another incredibly busy day at work made juggling in my workouts really challenging. However this blog IS about a working man's balance to triathlon training and sometimes life does make it tough to get in your desired volumes and you have to learn to adjust. I had two very tiny windows of training so I made the most of each window and got in a hardish 1500m swim. It went really nice though and was evenly swum (8:07 through 500, 8:09 through the next 500 and then 7:58 through the final 500) which would be my third fastest 1500m pool swim of my life.

The water run was great as well. Not because of the workout but because of what I had the opportunity to observe while doing my water run.

A dive team was at the pool practicing - what a sight to watch these kids (some probably only about 8yo) doing flips, tucks and twists with unbelievable confidence. It was a reminder to me of the importance of confidence, commitment and training. You could tell they were well coached. I watched how the coaches counselled them and guided them. You could see the diligence they placed on the finer details, the repetition to develop the muscle memory and the willingness to attempt and fail. Obviously, I saw some good "splats" as dives went awry as well.

Consistency, Coaching and Confidence - interrelated.

Fitter than my 2007 and 2009 Ironman Florida

2010-10-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

Day 103 Bike 34 minutes - 17 km

Total on week 334 minutes

This morning as I was walking from my car into my office I was happily enjoying the fact my knee felt really good, even as I went up the stairs and down the stairs. Not to say it is anywhere near perfect yet but way better. As the days go by I am shocked by how much closer race date gets - sure its still something like 190 days away still but to me it feels like next month and I can't explain why.

Perhaps its the passion and focus I have had to really train for Ironman this time, perhaps its noticing that I am in 3 digits for number of posts in my daily blog. Either way it's there and to me it's real.

I took a bit of time to reflect and review my training preparation compared to previous Ironman races.

In the 290 days before 2009 Ironman Florida my 100 day volumes were
Run 240 km
Bike 387 km
Swim 0 (yes 0 km swimming for the first 100 days)

Before my PR 2007 Ironman Florida
Run 662 km
Bike 1094 km
Swim 23 km

So far this cycle my first 100 days
Run 618 km
Bike 2276 km
Swim 81 km

My goal is to stay healthy and to stay consistent. Tonight's ride was a short bike warm-up with a 5 X 90 secs interval session at 260+ watts. Step by Step or Line upon Line I will get there.

Enjoyable Water Running + IM Calgary 70.3 Video

2010-10-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Day 102 Bike 120 minutes - 54 km, Run (Water) 30 minutes

Total on week 300 minutes

Despite a 6 am start to my work day I was pretty refreshed when I got up at 5:30 am due to getting to bed early for once last night. I re-read a snippet from an old article in the magazine "Triathlete" from about 8 years ago that talked about over living is as bad as over training. The basic premise being you can't separate the impact of work, family and workouts and assume they are independent. A good reminder for me when I try to cram too much into a day.

I decided to finally see my Dr. about a better check into my knee and so have some appointments to that purpose. However, I was still eager after work to try out my new water belt for running. Most normal people would hate water running but having used it to rehab my legs a few other times it was like an old and familiar friend. The 30 minute water run felt great, and felt like a decent workout to boot.

Frances did this motivational mural in my workout room - it's in progress

After getting home and having dinner I hopped on the computrainer (I so love my compy) for an easy 2hr ride and surfed the net with remote devices. While not a real workout by any means it was good "seat" time. I even took a webcam clip to get a view of my aero positioning.

IM 70.3 Calgary Promo Video

Back in the groove and on track

2010-10-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

Day 101 Swim 41 minutes - 2500m, Bike 109 minutes - 56km

Total on week 150 minutes (goal 17 hours)

With a bit of effort in scheduling I got in my 2.5 hr start to the week. I need to get in around 2.5 per day M-F and then a 5 hr Saturday to complete the goal this week.

Decided on a steady state swim with paddles and pull bouy. Nice even workout and a pretty solid pace (63ish IM pace). Tonight I did a easy warm-up on the bike followed by the first 40km of the IM SG course (average of 206 watts - need to get that to 210) at about 90 average rpm and 130 HR. The numbers would make that a pretty reasonable pace at Ironman but it felt a bit harder than I would normally go. I was surprised at the computrainer data in that over the first 40km the total meters climbing is 364. That's a non-trivial amount of rollers. For those around Calgary its getting in the range of highway 540 type of terrain towards Highwood House.

Anyways, happy with the ride overall and Melanie bought me an aqua jogger water belt so I can get in the pool and do some water running to save the knee some impact. I have a meeting with my family Doctor tomorrow to initiate the process to get a specialist to check my knee out. I'm not overly worried yet, just being precautionary.

First 100 days - complete!

2010-10-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

Day 100 Rest Day

Final week total for last week 515 minutes

Well I sure didn't finish with nearly as many hours as I wanted last week but had a number of really good quality workouts. Work and other responsibilities make it challenging but as today is a landmark day (Day 100) on my journey it was a good day to revisit my focus and where I am at.

1) My swim is exactly where I would like it to be at this stage. I am swimming faster than ever before and have shaved about 2 minutes off my best IM times. I have redefined a number of things that have improved my stroke and got a stronger routine.

2) My Bike has improved dramatically and while not yet where I need it to be I figure I am stronger than ever and finally have a good plan that I believe will take me forward.

3) My running is absolutely rocking right now, endurance and speed. The biggest worry and caveat is getting my knee back to better health. Yesterday's run went very well but the knee is weaker and tighter today. I "kneed" to get in some water running and see if that allows the knee to rehab while I can still get training in.

Over the next 80 days or so my key goals are

a) Build up to 4km swims and maintain pace with really easy effort based on technical improvement
b) Build up my bike technique in order to smoothly generate a higher wattage output and do at least 1 high quality watts workout each week.
c) Start bringing in some cross training over the winter months to build core, balance and develop the engine (recommendations by pro triathlete Kyle Marcotte included Stair climber, XC skiing, Snowshoeing)
d) improve the sleep amount and recovery techniques and make sure my easy days and workouts are truly easy and my hard workouts are defined and effective
e) get the knee back to full shape by revising my program appropriately and building swim and bike and substituting some water running in for land runs.

Compression Gear and Recovery

2010-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

Day 99 Swim 60 minutes - 2500m, Run 101 minutes - 21km

I may not be done my workout day yet depending on my recovery rate. I finally splurged and bought myself some compression tights. Giving them a try now to work on recovery and if they work well enough then I will do a bit of time on the bike tonight.

Maybe its the fact that I made the purchase and I just want to convince myself, or maybe they actually work well. Either way I think they feel great and am glad I bought them. I decided to by the less expensive 2XU brand instead of the Skins or Zoot brands (129 vs 149 vs 199).

The surprise for me was that I am now fitted as "small" when it comes to compression tights. That kind of surprised me.

Today's workouts were with my good friend Bernie. We first did a treadmill run at the gym. I ran the same course profile as the first loop of the IM SG course. Did the 21km in 1:41. We then did a swim 500m technical warm-up, 5X200 on a 3:15 cycle using paddles and pullbouys (2:49, 2:54, 2:56, 2:56, 2:53 - my best ever set) then 100m kick recovery and finished with 18 X 50 descending intervals down to a 42 sec finish on the last one.

Swim Technical Drill Set and Easy Swim

2010-10-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Day 98 Swim 33 minutes - 1500m

Another easy workout day in preparation for a longer training day tomorrow. Today I started with a warm-up 500m technical swim. I am starting to really like the 250m tech drill rotation

5 X 50m

50m EHF catch-up
50m Closed Fist freestyle
50m Neutral Head single side breathing
50m Finishing extension
50m Finger Tip Drag

Usually I am doing that for two cycles as a warm-up 500m. After my warm-up I did 20 X 50m on a 1 minute cycle focusing on stroke technique. Had originally hoped to do a bike tonight but other commitments prevented that from happening.

Warm October Evening Run

2010-10-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Day 97 (Thursday) Run 60 minute - 11 km

Work was very hectic today and it was fairly late before I got a chance to get out and run. Decided to do an easy an hour run at Confederation Park on the grass. First off the evening weather was absolutely amazing, my knee felt quite good, OK a little minor discomfort in the first 15 minutes and I felt really great at the end of the run.

Tomorrow I plan to have another no-run day and see how the knee feels and try a longer day on Saturday. The last couple of easy days have really reminded me to make sure I am doing the proper hard and easy day combinations.

Value of an occasional extra rest day

2010-10-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

Day 96 - Unscheduled rest day

The lack of sleep and high amount of other responsibilities at work, church and family caught up with me and I decided to follow some advice that Kyle Marcotte gave me about not being afraid to take an unscheduled rest day if it was warranted.

I just felt if I squeezed in a brief 60 minute run or bike yesterday it would be pretty counter productive. So with that advice I got a few other things out of the way and got some extra sleep.

Hopefully it will pay off with a bit more zip in my day for Thursday's workout. I plan to see how the knee holds up with a slow, but longer run.

Adding hours sleep to Ironman Workout Schedule

2010-10-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Day 95 Swim 51 minutes - 3100m, Bike 100 minutes - 50km

Decided to do my longest steady state swim in a very long time. I was very happy with it as I accelerated throughout the swim finishing in under 16 min/km pace. Most of tonight's bike was at easy spin speed but I decided to do a wattage test at the end to get a 20 minute max test in place. The average wattage was 263 over the 21 minute stint. During that same time the average HR was 138 which was less than I would expect although it was 150 bpm at the end. I plan to use this updated data to start developing some interval plans on the bike.

I still need to re-evaluate my training plan and ramp up hours progression. Last nights run intervals did push my knee a bit so I decided to not run today. Most important workout left today is a solid sleep.