I had my first dream about the first day of swim club last night. I hopped in, and was instantly gliding effortlessly through the water, faster than I’ve ever gone before. Perfect body position, excellent roll, catching massive amounts of water with every stroke.I have a sneaking suspicion that reality will be the exact opposite of that in ten days. :-O

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts in the last couple of weeks. Part of that is due to vacation, but there’s other reasons as well. It’s not that I’ve stopped doing things, I have just stopped writing about it.I’ve decided to no longer use the blog as a daily training journal. I have to imagine any readers left are as bored reading about it as I am writing it. How many different ways

Wow, I’ve put a whole bunch of stuff out on the interwebs, eh? And to think that of that, there’s maybe one or two posts of any real usefulness.Since this seems like an odd little milestone, I’d add a little comment post, rather than a boring recovery run post (THAT will follow). I guess I’ve been doing triathlons for two years now, and perhaps I’m still just in the newlywed phase, but I can see

Blatantly stolen from Chuckie V’s blog:From the movie Miracle: “That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ‘em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight.”

Yesterday during my trawling of various triathlon/endurance sport blogs, I came upon a very interesting read in Matt Fitzgerald’s blog. It’s a discussion on a recently published paper on the role of emotions on pacing strategies and performance. I highly recommend the post for a full viewpoint, but I’ll give you my main takeaway message.As he discusses, there is an interesting relationship

Two things are changing in my schedule, one starting immediately but only lasting a short while, the other not changing for a few months but could have a big effect.First, after last night’s failed workout and my (somewhat) disappointing race on the weekend, I’m starting my upcoming rest period about five days early. I don’t have a good reason for why things are going downhill right now, but my

This weekend I had a pretty good race, much better than I expected, and because of that, I scored a few points in the OSS standings. Enough points, in fact, to move into first place at this point in the season.Note: It’s ridiculous that I won a race, and beyond ridiculous that I would be leading a points series. I’m just not that good. Has the swine flu stricken everyone but me?Further note: My

I’ve made a few changes to this year’s race plan. The first thing to note is that I’ve removed a few races, namely the duathlon and two triathlons. This season is not supposed to be focused just on racing, this is a year for things in real life. So it didn’t make sense that I was dragging my wife all around the province most of the summer. Instead, I’m cutting it down to 5 triathlons, one per

One lesson we all should have learned by now is that, as Paulo Sousa says, “more is MORE”. It’s so simple it’s genius. But obviously, due to time restrictions, nobody can just keep adding time and miles to their workouts. I’m at about my limit of time away from family and other pursuits that I’m comfortable with, but what if I want/need more training. One way I help to cover that gap is the bike

I’ve started the process of registering for my races this year. With no big plans, there isn’t anything that I need to register for a year or so out. Everything is local, and I could probably get in a week or two before, but I like having my entry form in. It gives me a reason to stick to the program. So now I’m an official entrant of Kitchener’s Downtown Mudpuppy Chase 10k. I’ll need to take my

I’ve been boring the few people who bother to read this thing with my daily struggles for 500 posts now. I guess now would be a decent point to recap where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

Where I’ve been:
It all started here. It was at that point that I was beginning the journey to this triathlon thing. My focus was on a marathon, but I knew that I had to begin swimming, since by

I’m really starting to get antsy to start training for real again. Maybe it’s because I missed swimming yesterday (logistic issues caused by my own stupidity), maybe it’s because I haven’t ridden to work in the last two days (too much snow on the ground; I wouldn’t mind riding, but I don’t trust everyone else). But I’m really jonesing to get back to doing some work. According to my plan, though,

I ran a few errands this morning (Xmas shopping almost complete). Then, after lunch, I hit the weights for a quick session. Nothing fantastic to report there. Everything’s going in the right direction, but not as fast as I may like. Just have to keep the nose to the grindstone and things will get better. You never know when that breakthrough day will happen.

Weights:
Bear - 2×4/48
Front squat -

Mark asks regarding Clearwater: When are you going back to implement the changes you discuss?

That’s a bit of a tricky question to answer. Of course, part of the trick is needing to qualify. I had a pretty good race and was able to wrangle a spot,so at least I’ve shown that I have what it takes to get into position for a rolldown slot. As I continue to grow in this sport, I would hope to be

I’m not doing anything (and loving it), but I thought I’d make a brief post. Recovery is going nicely. I’m starting to feel normal again, and I’m quite well-fed. I’m sure there will be a fair bit of walking and maybe some swimming in the next week on vacation, so that should be enough to get me by.

I do have a post about Clearwater I’d like to write, but I’m having some issues getting my tables

Yesterday was a day of travel. Today was a day of (mostly) rest. No workouts, but enough walking with the various errands of the day to keep blood moving. I’ll be out for some real loosening up tomorrow morning.

I started off my picking up my bike. It was shipped down a couple of weeks ago with a service that runs down for IMFL and Clearwater. It was a short walk from my hotel, so I got that out

Race numbers are posted. That’s me up above. Feel free to keep an eye on my progress over the course of the day. I’m in the second wave of M35-39, leaving at 7:30 am. With any luck, I’ll be finishing before 12:30.

I’m having a lot of trouble keeping the motivation up right now. There are a few contributing factors. First, I don’t think I had myself ready for the logistical challenges of racing

Last week, the Athlete’s Guide for Clearwater was posted. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve gone over quite a few times now. I think it’s helping to make things more real for me, like I’m actually involved in this race. (On the flip side, riding to work when it’s a shade over freezing makes the idea of racing in Florida seem a little far-fetched.) Most the details of the race are pretty standard, but there

One month.

Run: 3 miles @ 7.3 mph + 4 strides

I got a little surprise in the mail today. Although I’m not much of a “picture” guy, and don’t own a camera, I ordered some of the race pics from ASI Photo from Muskoka 70.3. One is a finish line shot, that I’ll probably put on my desk at work, the other is a finisher’s certificate that I’ll put up on my “look at me” wall. (I’m really not trying to brag about

Off to the trainer for the first “real” training session leading up to Worlds. Since I know I’m not fully recovered yet from Muskoka, I didn’t want to hammer it at pre-race intensities, but I wanted to get in a really good session, so I settled on a 3×12 minute @ 280w workout. The workout was manageable, but felt a little tougher than I would have expected it to. The fatigue was still apparent in

Most experts will tell you that you can’t get any faster during the last few days of taper before an A race. I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong. I have three tips that worked for me in a huge way last week:

1. Coffee - Or more specifically, an absence of coffee. I parted ways with my dark master the Sunday before the race. It was rough for a couple of days, but I managed. When I started

Or, Why Rudy Project rocks!

I mentioned before that a retention strap broke on my Rudy Project helmet over the weekend. Last night, I sent them an email to find out where I could find a replacement part, some kind of kit, similar to what you can get for their sunglasses. Eight minutes (8!) later, I got an email back saying they were sending a replacement free of charge. This is why I have an RP

I guess now is the appropriate time to reflect at the goals I had going into yesterday’s race. And I did have a few:

1. Finish - Admittedly, this wasn’t the most difficult goal. I’m hard-headed enough that I’ll drag my sorry ass to any finish line, no matter the condition (see running a half-marathon on a bad foot two weeks ago). But I can check it off.

2. Finish strong - This is difficult to

After a day of sleep, and same with the night, I woke up this morning to a still sore foot. The pain had actually dissipated somewhat over the course of yesterday, so I was surprised with the intensity. Not as bad as yesterday morning, but still not good. And that’s when I finally took a good hard look at my foot.

I had figured it was something in a tendon or ligament in my mid-foot that was

Checking the calendar, we are now at exactly one month until Ironman 70.3 Muskoka. I started this journey over a year from the race date, and now it’s almost here. Everything is starting to fall into place, my fitness has never been better, I’ve got my equipment figured out, I have some race experience. It’s go time.

Yesterday was the release of the Athlete’s Guide. I’ve already gone through it

On my hands, that is. A perhaps a bit too analytical for my own good. We’ll see if this gets me into any trouble in the future.

Being curious, I checked out the confirmation list for IM 70.3 Muskoka, and found that there are 266 athletes in my age group, by far the largest wave. That’s a lot of people I’ll be having to try to pass during the bike and run. But how would I do in a field like this?

Another easy day in the pool, letting those of us who raced recover from the effort. There were a few people who did Muskoka on the weekend there, so we talked about the race (as much as you can in the 20 seconds before the next set). It’s funny, almost everybody’s race went “pretty well”, but we’re all sure the swim was long/lots of current. Maybe next time I do the race I’ll be 5 minutes faster

I just noticed that a large chunk of my race report was stolen by the formatting in Blogger. I’ve tried to rewrite it as best I can, so if you’ve read it since yesterday, you may want to go back and see what happened during the missing hour of the race.

Being nervous before a race is never an easy thing to admit to. Usually, I’m not too nervous at all. Usually, I have a very good sense of what I’m capable of on the day, and whether my training has been enough. The last time I really didn’t know was the NYC marathon. Right now, I don’t feel like I “usually” do.

In most circumstances, I’m a pretty relaxed guy. Most people never really see the