Chinook Half Ironman: Tough race, good experience

I could have gone with some icecream this weekend.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning at Lake Midnapore in Calgary AB. The lake was a balmy 19C and looked like a clean sheet of ice. Calm winds and sunshine prevailed.

Hey, I get to do an open water swim (my first!) .. in my new wetsuit to boot!!


As we set out on the 2.2 km swim, my mantra was just "relax and have fun today" . Yeah the swim course was a tad long made longer still by fact that I forgot to sight during the first 5 min and was WAY off course LOL.



T1:
This had to be the most enjoyable transition I've ever had in a Triathlon.. It was also the longest LOL... 15 min. Sat down, had a chat with some friends who came to watch us race then waited for Carm and steve to get set up for the bike. We all mounted our bikes at the same time in mutual comradery and support.

This is where things fell appart for me.

Bike Leg:

First let me digress and say that I've been very sick during the month of June and only had two days of training (weights and 1 run) since June 4th. I also had a minor surgical procedure done last week and was still recovering from that.

It was apparent from the get go that I wasn't physically ready yet to compete. I made a decision to just enjoy the beautiful day on my bike and retire after riding the 96km route.

This was very hard being a man and all with my ego and shite to allow people to pass me left right and centre LOL.

It was a very humbling experience and after shedding a few tears from the physical pain I was enduring (yeah I still hadn't fully recovered from the surgery) I came to a state of grace and just enjoyed the beauty of the day and being on the bike again.

God it felt SO good to ride again! Pain and all! LOL

I didn't make the 4hr 15 min bike cut off time and was officailly DQ'ed but it was a good experience having an open water swim under my belt and a wonderful day spent with friends.

Carmen totally kicked ass finishing 3rd in her AG and 26th overall. Steve overcame a very tough and painful run and managed to complete the course. He will do well in Aug at IMC.

I could be disappointed with my performance but I'm not. It was a really good learning experience and I can apply the lessons learned to my next race (which I just registered for last night!)

.... The Prestige Half Ironman on July 30th!!!

hmmmmm

Hmmmm......not much to report since my last blog entry. Aside from watching heaps of Footy!!

GO ENGLAND!!

I'm pretty much over my cold and feel quite rested up which is a good thing considering I totally over trained in the month of May and ran myself into the ground. Today was my first day back exercising in 2 weeks. 2 Weeks!!! Blimey!!

In fact I've worked out exactly 2 days (incl today) all month!

Anyhoot, it was a brilliant 14 day rest as my energy levels are coming back and my mental health is much better too. I can actually look at my bike now without cringing! LOL

Talk about an extreme taper!!

Considering my 1/2 Ironman is this Saturday it was probably the best thing that could happen to me.

In the end the body always gets it's way.

It's been an amazing journey up to this point and I've learned some very important lessons. The most important being: Rest/Recovery. I have two more races in Aug and once I've taken a proper recovery from my 1/2 IM I aim to train intelligently for the remainder of the summer.

Overtraining sucks and I'm going to ensure I never run myself into the ground like this again.

Lesson learned! *the hard way*

In the mean time it's back to watching footy.

GO ENGLAND!

Fútbol gooooaaaaal!!!!!!

Flying high up in the sky
Keep
the St George flag flying high

from Wemb-er-ly to Germany

keep the St George flag flying high

Ahh one of the beuties about being sick (yeah I am STILL sick!!) is that I have heaps of time to relax and watch World Cup Football.

Got a bit of a scare yesteday when England went to sleep in the 2nd half and let Paraguay back into the match.

Luckily the boys came though with a 1 - nil victory. *whew*

So I'm just taking it one day at a time, trying to get lots of sleep and keeping my fluids up. The body is sure enjoying this rest and hopefully I'm not losing too much fitness.

If I do, no worries I'll just enjoy my training that much more! That's the part I really like anyway! :)

In the meantime, it's back to watching the beautiful game...................

Keep bending it Beck.. keep bending it

Meh.... overtrained and got sick.....

Blah, it was bound to happen. The past few weeks I've ignored the "warning signs" my body was sending and kept pushing the training harder and harder. Had some awesome LSD runs but failed to allow time to recover properly.

Well in the end, as we all know, the body always gets it's way! As the Australian side of me would say.. ."I'm bloody nackered mate". I'm shattered. Not overly sore mind you, I just have no energy. Zapped, zippo, nadda, no juice mates.

On top of it all today my body laid down the hammer and I've developed a head cold. Shite! Probably for the best as this is forcing me to take the rest of this week off from any training what so ever.

Hopefully I'll feel well enough to partake in the Sunday group ride... until then though.. it's......




NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! *cries*

Live Long and Prosper........

It was a brilliant sunny (but windy!) day in Vulcan, Alberta for the 17th annual Bodyworks Tinman Triathlon. A large contingent from my Tri Swim group drove down to compete and to cheer on our fellow competitors!

The first swim heat started at 8:00AM and the first person from "our group" started at 10:45am with the last swimmer (me) not starting until 2:30pm!! This gave us hours of fun in the blistering Southern Alberta sun cheering everyone on and eating heaps of Nanamio Bars, pancakes and pirogies! mmmmmm.. pirogies!!

This is probably one of the best organized and most enjoyable races of the season here in Alberta. If it's not the wonderful volunteers and friendly family atmosphere, it's the Kids of Steel and the "Tinbits" race for the kids held after the main competitors are done. Seeing all the little kids tearing it up on the course is just too cute!!

First let me say I had a wonderful time and a pretty good race. It was great to share this day with friends from my Tri Swim group and everyone met or exceeded their own personal goals.

Here's the thing..... when I registered for this race waaay back in February (it sold out within a few hours) I put my 500m swim time as 10 min. For some reason, the organziers must have figured all the hard work in the pool I've done paid off and put me in the 2nd last heat of the day... the

Chilling just before my swim heat.

I started out WAY too fast, trying to keep up with the competitive swimmer beside me, methinks!!! LOL...and began to hyperventilate after only 150m. Crap..... at the wall I stood up... took some deep breathes and after about 20 sec began to swim at "Peter pace".

It took me another 100m or so before I began to settle down. It wasn't until the final 150 or so that I really began to "feel" the water. I hate sprints LOL Gimme a 2 km swim any day!!

Catching my breathe in T1 after a "difficult" swim...

I love the bike, the only thing I dislike about cycling is riding into the wind.... Today the West winds were gusting up to 40km/h and .. oh joy, we get to ride due West for the "out" section of the bike leg! Blah!

The best thing about riding "into" the wind is the turn around and having the beautiful wind on your back.. blowing you home!!

T2 incoming!!

Brick training.. yeah I need to do more brick training... seriously!! OMG, my legs were like jello..

LOL Crap my legs hurt!!

Limping out of T2... mmm jello

The run is my weakest leg (no pun intended!) due to my injuries, so my mantra is to just keep it "slow and steady". Short quick strides, mid foot strike, lean forward a bit.. relax and breathe.. yeah don't forget to breathe!

The best part of any race!

Such a wonderful day spent with good friends. I really enjoyed watching everyone's race and while I felt pretty drained starting so late (my heat didn't go until 2:50pm) because of the heat and sun I had a good race and hit a few PB 's (swim, transition times).

Sprints are fun and I'll definitely be back next year, but it's the long distance events that I'm really going to enjoy!!

Times:(my watch, not official)

500m | 15km | 5 km

Swim: 9:25
T1: ~ 2:00
Bike: 26:55
T2: ~ 1:40
Run: 30:00
Total: ~ 1:10:00

J'ai frappé un mur de brique

O la la, Je suis très fatigué!!!!

I'm so tired I can't even speak Engrish!!! LOL

The common warning signs of overtraining include the following:

• Mild leg soreness, general achiness
• Pain in muscles & joints
• Washed-out feeling, tired, drained, lack of energy
• Sudden drop in ability to run ‘normal’ distance or times
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Inability to relax, twitchy, fidgety
• Insatiable thirst, dehydration
• Lowered resistance to common illnesses; colds, sore throat, etc.

Shite, I did it again... Some HUGE training weeks, combined with little or no recovery time led me head first into the wall.

Subsequently I've really notched things down this past week, including a nice rest last weekend (the weather was shite anyhow!).

I'm feeling a bit better, not quite as mentally and physically drained but my legs are sore. The soreness could be attributed to the new PB I hit during my LSD run yesterday.. 1 hr 45 min WOOOT!!!!

So I experienced an epiphany over the weekend.

I AM DOING TOO MANY RACES

It's not the racing I enjoy so much... it's THE TRAINING I love!!!!!!! Subsequently, I've completely revamped and reduced my race schedule for the summer. New schedule is in the sidebar.

Keeping in mind my long term goal of completing an Ironman distance I am focusing on my 1/2 IM races this summer.

My Massage Therapy program will be completed by the 3rd week in Aug 2007, SO.... IMC'07 is doable if it's something I want to commit to whilest in school.

We shall see!