This past week became a bit of a recovery with a test week. I got in only three trainer rides and no training runs. I was quite tired all week…maybe it’s something in the house because both Tera and Paul are a bit sick, and they’re both really tired and sleeping alot. On Saturday, I did my Physical Fitness Test (PFT) for the Marine Corps. It turned out to be a nice day. With a 1000 start, it

What happened this week?1. Goal was to ride for 60 minutes each day Monday through Friday. I did it Monday through Thursday, then had to watch Paul Friday morning when he woke up early. I did the ride on Saturday morning, so I met that goal.2. Run 15 miles. I got in 14 miles. Missed the Saturday run when Paul woke up early (again!) and couldn’t run after the bike. Was going to run during a

Another two hour ride, again spiced up with a couple of half-hour efforts. I felt pretty good, and didn’t feel like I was that close to any threshold. It was just a good piece of work, followed by an afternoon of yardwork. Lots of raking and mowing. If you own a maple tree, chop it down before it’s too late.I’ve added the Garmin speed/cadence sensor to my bike, so I can keep recording all of my

Bike in: 30km @ ~1hrBike home: 30km @ ??? (it’s still to come!)I’m not sure what it was, but something inside me was really wanting to “man-up” and bike into work one last time this year. Well, I’m hoping it’s not the last time, but given the tempe…

Sunday: Bike: 31km @ 1hr20 (VERY WINDY - http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3257871)Today: Run/roll: 5.6km @ 31min (Rideau Canal)I’ve been saying this a lot lately – What a weekend! All three days were packed with activity, and I still didn’t get ev…

2009 has been an interesting year so far.The moments when things fell into place seemed to be outnumbered by those when things felt off - sometimes due to the physical, sometimes to the mental. IMUSA and the Giant Acorn being obvious examples.After IMU…

A review of the week:I biked each day of the week except Monday morning, when the alarm volume was down. I got in 45 minutes easy (Zone 2, Average Heart Rate 120), and it feels really good.I didn’t get in any runs because I was working through lunch. Lots going on as we do final preps for vaccination clinics for H1N1.Saturday I spent the day on the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park

Tonight I’m off for Thanksgiving dinner, so it was a must that I get in a good ride beforehand. An hour and a half, two by twenty minutes at a decent effort, and all was right with the world. I feel good, pleasantly taxed, but ready for a good run tomorrow, that will include a bit of a surprise.Bike: 90 minutes, zone 1-2, w/2×20 minutes @ 250w

Monday started out alright. Tuesday started okay, but ended under heavy stress thanks to work. Unfortunately, work pressured on right to Friday at 4.30pm when I completed the “emergency” task at hand…only to find out that the deadline moved out a f…

I really enjoy rides like this, even if stuck on the trainer. This is something like my usual modus operandi when riding outside, and I find it to be a real benefit. I’m never killing myself, and I don’t feel shattered at the end, but I know I’ve done a solid bit of work. Long intervals, in the no-zone (Z3). Some say this is useless training, but I really get something out of it. At the very

Or watching a race where I was a participant.I’m not fast enough to make the actual coverage. (Or look haggard enough, since that’s the other way to make the broadcast.) To keep myself entertained during today’s ride, I dialed up my tape of the 2008 70.3 Worlds. It IS pretty fun watching a race, thinking “I remember that part” or “Oh yeah, that hill sucked.” It makes the time fly by, even when

Bike: 51km @ 2hrs (Kanata North / March)It must be fall, or the change in seasons, or the darker mornings, or the back-to-school routine - but this week has flown by in an instant…again. I need to hurry up and adapt to this. Got some good enjoya…

Since tomorrow is a shorter run, today is a longer bike ride. Nothing too significant, since this isn’t a time to focus on cycling, but a bit of length and a couple of pick-ups. I watched Roadhouse, which made the time pass quickly. What a great piece of 80s cinema.Bike: 120 hours, zone 1-2, w/2×30 minutes @ 210w

Or a few days of it anyway since Lake Placid…I rode my bike in beautiful settings.Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.Sometimes not even thinking about the pace.Sometimes on flats that seemed effortless.Sometimes on hills that are still daunting.Sometimes…

Since the season is over, it’s time to move the tri-bike back to the trainer, and spend the next few months staring at the wall. I’ll actually only be doing one session a week on the bike, Saturday mornings for 90-120 minutes (length in inverse proportion to length of Sunday run). Just to keep my mind in the game and try to keep a little bit of cycling strength, I’ll be tossing in a couple of

Coach Alan and I were chatting via e-mail about a variety of topics yesterday and he brought up the topic of my aero position, based on one of the pictures from my IMC race report – in particular – this one: He noted that perhaps we could work on …

I just knocked out a really easy hour on the trainer this morning to stretch things out and get the system primed for tomorrow. Stretching afterwards showed some tightness, but I should be good in the morning. Now it’s a day for relaxing.Bike: 60 minutes, z1-2

This was the end of the road, the last triathlon of the year. I wanted to end the season on a good note, so I set out planning on turning in my best possible race. I was a little nervous on the beach because I really wanted to do well, and a little sad that the year was coming to a close. Once things got going, it seems like the summer flew by. I got a good warm-up in the water, slightly delayed

A good mix of activities today. A little swim, a little run, a little bike. The swim wasn’t as astounding as Monday with dramatic improvements, but I’ll keep trying to groove any gains I can make. The run was pleasant with beautiful weather, and the bike was a good session to clear my legs.Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull2x(100 back, 30″200 free as 25 head-up/75 ez, 30″300 pull w/

I live on a hill. Not a big hill (though it seems that way sometimes at the end of a long hot ride when I’m chugging upwards) but a pretty steep one, with a stop sign at the bottom. So when I start off on my daily ride and go bombing down the hill and …

Things were a bit messy this morning. There were some predictions of showers, but the biggest issue was a low-lying fog in the area. Since this was really my last real chance for a long ride outside this season (excluding next week’s race), I wasn’t going to miss it due to rain/fog, so I loaded my pockets with a rain cape and set out from Lake Wilcox. Amazingly, I was the only car in the parking

I have one more race left for the triathlon season. Redman sprint. USAT Club Nationals. Hoping to win my age group and get good points for my team, KSRVTC. May be just on the edge of a realistic goal. I haven’t won first at any race except Emporia, and the field is so small that I don’t know how I’ll measure up at a bigger race.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

Here’s the thing: at the end of the tri season, most of us start focusing on a single sport, yes? We start planning for a fall half or a spring marathon. We target 5ks and 10ks with hopes of a new PR. We do cyclocross or masters swim meets (actually, does anyone actually focus on swimming competitively in the off-season?). Triathletes are very good at multi-tasking. The whole point of the sport is to be solidly mediocre in three different sports. Focusing on a single sport for a while allows us to get ahead for next season, make our solidly mediocre a little better than everyone else’s solidly mediocre.

Make sense?

The point is that when you focus on one sport, you can come much closer to your potential than when you’re trying to get better at three sports at once.

So I have two goals for this off-season: Podium in the DeStad Cyclocross series (and, again, I’m not sure if that’s even a realistic goal; I feel like I have it in me) and break 7 minutes in the mile.

In other words, I have high-performance goals in two separate sports.

Yes, yes. I do know better.

I know that I can’t reach my ultimate potential in both sports simultaneously. I’ve got these two different training plans–one chock full of power intervals on the bike, the other chock full of speed intervals on the run–and I’m trying to juggle the two. Putting these two single-sport training plans is ludicrous. Ridiculous. And (quite possibly) futile. And I know better! But I’m still gonna try it. Oh! And I’m going to keep doing masters swim as (erm) “cross-training.”

I am, in other words, soooooo a triathlete.

Tonight was my last meeting with Coach Troy for a couple of months. Once triathlon season ends in a week, I’ll be doing a run-focus block through October, which will only include one session on the bike each week, and easy stuff at that. So I had to make this one count. I was following up with a repeat of the workout from two weeks ago, Time Trialapalooza, but with greater intensity.Last time I

With this past weekend in the books, everything ‘long’ is now over.  No more long runs, nor long Skyline rides.  Though, that didn’t mean things were all strawberries and peaches this past weekend in the workout world. Saturday I had a…

Who schedules a race for 8am? Especially when I have to drive 90 minutes to get to the race site? This required an unnecessary 4:50 wake-up call, followed by the fastest “make coffee, pack car” I’ve done in a while. I wanted to be in Orillia by 6:30-7, so I needed to be on the road way too early. Luckily, traffic was light, so I made excellent time.I should note that I switched up my pre-race

Just hit the trainer for an easy one this morning. One hour, a couple of pick-ups comprising 5 minutes at ~280w, and a lot of easy pedaling. That should wake me up enough to give it full gas tomorrow. It will be an early morning, with 8am start, preceded by a 90 minute drive. Almost everything is packed, so now I’ll eat a bit, and relax for the night. See you on the flipside.Bike: 60 minutes, z1-2

It feels like a little cliche now, my describing my taper week workouts. There’s truly nothing interesting to them, just a little bit of work to keep things humming along, while getting as much rest as I can. And since I have nothing interesting to say, here’s a recap of the day.Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull15×100 free, 10″, as 25 drill/75 ez free(1-3: scull, 4-6: catch-up, 7-9:

Last weekend I learned that I don’t respond well in the heat if I don’t get fluids, so when I set out this morning, I took more than I usually would. And good thing too, since I easily took down 3 full bottles in just over two hours. I was soaked by 40 minutes, and just kept replacing. This is a very important lesson for the future. If I power through that much at 85-90% effort, then I definitely

I’m feeling pretty good after Sunday, and I’m now into the last block of the triathlon season, and so, I need one last bike workout for the last weeks. This is now the time for the last of the new Spinervals DVDs from last Christmas, Time Trialapalooza. It’s a simple workout after the warm-up. Four intervals, twenty - fifteen - ten - five minutes each, with five minutes rest between. The

I may usually use song or album titles for my race reports, but I never would have expected to pull out a Meatloaf track. But it applies better than any other for today, so there we go.There had been many predictions of some awful weather for the day, and some good thunder blew through overnight, but race morning wasn’t too bad. It was definitely humid, and the sun was playing hide-and-seek, but