An epic ride to end the month

April 2008 is finally in the books. Who knew you could fit all 4 seasons in a single month!!

This past week's been especially hard with the return of winter like weather but we had a short reprieve on the weekend with some decent temps. This was short lived as this morning we had another dusting of snow.

Moving forward towards May brings renewed excitement of sunny skies, warm afternoons and the majority of training happening outside!

Speaking of training.. with today's shitty weather I decided to end the month with an epic bike ride.

Unfortunately this ride was indoors but I was on the bike none the less so it's all good.

BIG BIKE DAY BABY!!

4 hrs 15 min and 110km. Today's been the longest ride of the year and will set me up for some epic long rides in the coming weeks.

I have about 5 weeks until World's and physically speaking... I feel more then ready. Mentally.. not so much... Over the next few weeks that will change as I log some quality riding and running km's outside on the road. I've only been outside on my road bike 3x this season. :(

I shouldn't be concerned though.. by the numbers I managed to get in a very solid month of training.

I took the past week off swimming as well.. just to make sure I wasn't over training.. most I've EVER swam in my Tri career to date.

April Totals.

Swimming:	27200 meters	- 11:33:00
Biking:	831 kilometers	- 33:30:00
Running:	38.5 kilometers	- 04:50:00

Looking forward to what May will bring

ahh Spring time in Calgary

Spring 2008 *sigh*

I was looking at some old entries and came across April 20th 2007

hmmm something looks oddly familiar..... cold... snow... cold.. what's this white stuff???

Last Friday we were hit with a HUGE Spring snow storm of biblical proportions.. ok ok well maybe not that bad.. but WTF we're about a week away from May!!

This morning I awoke to a balmy -19C wind chill.. Bloody hell!!

Thankfully we're in for a reprieve of "normal" weather later this week and *fingers crossed* I'll be training outside this weekend.

Speaking of training.. I am on fire this month. Fitness is progressing very nicely and last week I enjoyed my first 15hr training week of the season. I'm allowing my body proper recovery from key workouts and stuck with a methodical base training program over the winter.. even when I felt I could do more. or do things at a higher intensity... The end result... no injuries.. no carrying deep fatigue from one workout to the next and subsequently NO over training!!

I'm on track for a truly epic month of training.

Swim: 37,000 m (est)
Bike: 800 km (est)
Run: 45 km (est)

Crikey!! 64 days and a wake up 'til World's

Taking a much deserved recovery week before I start my build 2 phase of training this Sunday. I love this time of year.

After spending a long hard winter of doing the majority of my training inside (I'm a total pussy when it comes to cold weather) I'm looking forward to some Spring-like weather and getting outdoors!

Elle 3.0 arrived at the shop and she's all built up and put together! Spoke with Greg from Speed Theory and I can get in to be F.I.S.T'ed sometime next week!

I can not wait to fire it up and see what this beautiful bike is capable of.

Fitness wise I am right on target (aside from a few hiccups in March).

This is my third year in the sport and it's amazing to look back at my old training logs to see where I was 2 yrs ago compared to where I am now.

Every year builds upon the next and I am learning so much about myself and the sport from these experiences and the incredible people I'm meeting throughout this journey.

I'm finally seen some significant improvements to my freestyle stroke (notably maintaining a high elbow throughout the catch phase) and it's translating to some faster times in the pool and OMG I'm actually becoming efficient!!

Cycling... my plan to focus on the bike from Sept - Jan by maintaining a minimum 400km/month target has paid off. I'm faster and stronger on the bike then ever before and feel I'm capable of going a ~ 1:05:00 40km TT split in Vancouver.

The Run: Ug.. by far my weakest leg.. mainly due to my injuries. I'm supplementing my training with some deep water running (as I did last year) while maintaining my LSD targets.

If I can match or be very close to my 10km split from Hamburg last year (1:00:03) I will be very pleased! My goal will be to run the entire course without stopping.

Lots of goals to shoot for.. thank god there is still 64 days and a wake up to prepare!