Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Ironman Canada - 6 weeks out


IMC: 6 weeks to go (June 15-21)
Challenge: 6 weeks to go (July 7-13)
Total training hours
12:42
12:46
Swim
4:29 / 10,166m
3:44 / 8798m
Bike
5:37 / 146 km
5:38 / 149.2 km
Run
2:36 / 23.5 km
3:24 / 31.1 km                
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
12:42
12:46

6 weeks pre-IMC and 6 weeks pre-Challenge are looking pretty comparable – both overall and on the bike, with variation in time spent swimming vs running. And I can explain.

Monday of this week was my birthday. And a few years ago, I started a tradition of doing something to challenge myself on that day – something that was both a physical challenge and just a little bit awful. In 2013, I went to the Grouse Grind in time for the gate opening, just 6 days after posting a new PB (51 minutes), getting under an hour for the first time and vowing never to do it again. I motored my way up, passed by only a few people, reaching the top in 48 minutes. Celebrated with a coffee & a view, then took the gondola down. In 2014, I swam 2 loops of Sasamat – which took me so close to 5 km that I extended and swam a little extra. A Happy Birthday biggest swim ever. Until this year. This year’s birthday challenge: Kits Pool x my age. For those not in the know, Kits Pool is 137m long. And I’m not 27. I was a Kits Pool virgin going in… 2 hours and 40 minutes, and 6165m later… New biggest swim ever. Challenge met. 

And this year, the bright side to getting older is that it brought me 10 minutes closer to Boston, without ever having to step foot on the track. Silver linings.

And the rest of the week?

Week 6:
Monday
The Birthday Challenge: 6165m swim
Tuesday
Rest… first one in 3 weeks. Ahhhh, gratefully respected.
Wednesday
1700m swim before work
41 km ride with a wee TT effort mid-ride
Thursday
13.9 km PRM group run
Friday
A second rest day… and fine with that!
Saturday
2.3 km open water swim
9.6 km trail run post swim
Sunday
105 km ride

So as I write this, we’re into “5 weeks out” training… 4 weeks and 5 days right now. 4 WEEKS AND 5 DAYS. I’m in a light week because of the Scotia Half this weekend and find myself often feeling anxious about how close the race is, how close the taper is. Given my light week for the race, I think I’m left with just 2 big rides… Yikes.

Ending my reminiscing of this past week... if I could mention the Sugoi Warehouse Sale. A tradition every fall/winter... standing in line for hours on opening day. After the first year I went, I started taking the afternoon off work just to get in early... but often returning again later in the weekend ...just in case I missed a deal. I've got drawers stuffed full of Sugoi Warehouse Sale purchases. Really, that first year I went to the sale, I was nearing the end of my giant weight loss and the Sugoi sale helped me purchase a whole fitness wardrobe in my new smaller size. It was a Godsend. (Losing big weight gets really expensive... everything needs to be replaced. EVERYTHING.) But Sugoi is relocating their warehouse Stateside (or so the rumour goes), and this surprise summer warehouse sale was the last ever. I didn't really need anything but I had to go... Added a few more Sugoi pieces, and a lot more pink, to my collection... Cheers Sugoi Warehouse Sales. It's been fun.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

IMC Training Camp Recap

Last weekend, I had the good fortune to attend a training camp up in Whistler. Put on by Endurance Sports Canada and led by my Coach, it was 4 days of hard work, learning, and bears. It was a great confidence building immersion in the beautiful IMC course and all its challenges.

Camp kicked off with a short 1 pm swim at Alta Lake. On the drive up, as we passed through Squamish, I observed with some trepidation: it’s really windy. 45 minutes later, I was standing at Rainbow Park watching as the lake pitched and rolled, whitecaps on the surface. Great. It reminded me of my training camp weekend in Penticton last year, when I had that awful choppy swim in Okanagan Lake. My first swim in that lake. The second was just as bad and prompted a defeated text to my Coach: I can’t swim in this lake… and I spent the next month worrying about the swim cut-off. So this year, standing at Alta Lake, watching the wind stir it up, listening to Coach Shaun talk about the possibility of similar conditions on race day, I felt my stomach sink and wished I hadn’t already registered. I will always worry about the swim cut-off on race day. Add waves. Add worry. But I squeezed into my wetsuit and reluctantly waded in for a 30-40 minute swim along the buoy line.

Swimming in choppy water always feels like a cross between swimming and jumping on the bed. It could almost be fun. Except that it’s not. I swam out for 20 minutes, covering a mere 675m, taking a few waves to the face, one big drink of lake water, and thinking a few times as my legs were tossed up behind me that this must look pretty comical from the shore. After 20 minutes, I turned to swim back in… 15 minutes for the return trip. The wind that had made the swim out such an effort was a gift on the way back. Note to self, on an out & back, the wind gives back.

Yes, the wind giveth and the wind taketh away. After the swim, we checked in at Athlete’s Village, and then it was time for the next bit of work: a ride from the Athlete’s Village, up Callaghan, and back. I love that Callaghan climb and this was my fastest ascent… by 3 minutes and 38 seconds. Thank you tailwind. Coming down? If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m a chicken-shit descender. It’s something I’ve been working on but still, I would rather climb than descend. So it was testimony to just how crazy that wind was that after I rounded the corner coming down from the Olympic Park, I barely touched my brakes until I was at the stop sign at the bottom. Crazy wind. And things were about to get crazier.

Friday’s camp agenda was a ride from Athlete’s Village out to Pemberton, the out & back on the flats, and then make your way back, followed by a 30 minute brick run, and later, an easy recovery swim. We left in staggered intervals, based largely on ride speed, and I headed out first. The day looked a little unsettled and we knew we might get some rain. It started to rain when I hit Pemberton, and rained off and on as I battled my way through the flats. Yes, battled. The rain was joined by wind, and lots of it. One of those punishing relentless winds that makes you want to get off and stand by your bike and cry for a little while. And just so you don’t settle in to that grind and push forward on autopilot, you’d occasionally get a big powerful gust that threatened to blow you sideways across the road. I was reminded of the wind the previous day and the gift it gives on an out & back, so I pushed on, all thoughts on the tailwind I was going to enjoy on the way back. And it’s always better to have a tailwind on the way BACK. Tree branches were cracking overhead, debris was all over the road, and the rain picked up… I pushed on. Made it to the end of the road, unclipped, and took a picture and then looked over my shoulder as I prepared to turn my bike around and what do I see? Coach Shaun screaming up in the SAG van. He threw it into park, got out and said “I need you to get in the van RIGHT NOW”. I sensed this wasn’t just about waiting out better weather as a group in a coffee shop so I didn’t argue. And as he crammed my bike into the back of the van, he filled me in: the wind has brought down power lines, which started a fire, we need to get on the other side of this before they close the road.

Well, so much for my tailwind. As we drove back to town, Shaun stopped other riders and told them to turn around, ride back, and stay together. He dropped me with Diane at the gas station (I really hoped she’d be at the top of all the climbs when we found her!) and after a quick pit stop, and a Red Bull for good measure, we started the climb back to Whistler. Climbing up that first hill out of Pemberton, it was raining hard, my teeth were chattering I was so cold, and I called ahead to Diane: I’m not swimming tonight. And I don’t think I’m running either! And remember when I said I was a chicken-shit descender? Well, you can imagine how I feel descending the corkscrew. Yeah, I don’t like climbing that steep bit of twisty, gritty nonsense and I like riding down it even less. Add rain? Hell.

The Whistler Road Tan. 
The ride back was full of the usual Highway 99 eventfulness: bears lumbering into the road ahead of you, big trucks passing so close that you’re sure that they have no idea you’re there or that they’re actually trying to take you out. Add to that rain off and on, sometimes so hard you couldn’t see, and foamy wet pools of water on the shoulder. Good times indeed. Seriously, I was glad for the experience. That night when we debriefed someone said that if it were like that on race day, they wouldn’t make the cut-off and I replied with absolute certainty: I would. So it was confidence building and informative: I was so soaking wet by the time I arrived back at Athlete’s Village that I needed a complete change of clothes before heading out on the run. Note to self: even though planning to race the whole event in tri kit, put a dry run outfit in T2 in case conditions are like this. Running a marathon in soaking wet kit isn’t worth the 10 minutes or so saved in transition. Of course the sun came out when we concluded our ride… all that tough talk about not running or swimming? I did both.



Saturday was the full course ride (minus T1 to 99), and starting from Athlete’s Village followed by a short brick run. We started early (6:45 for my group) so it was chilly at the start, but warmed up quickly and staying at a comfortable temperature for the duration of the ride, with none of the wind from the days before. The ride itself was pretty uneventful but I was tired and as I finished the flats, I stopped at SAG to stretch, take off some layers, restock my fuel, and get myself sorted. I had a dry contact lens that wasn’t sitting right so I plucked it out and threw it on the ground. Hey, I raced Challenge with one contact lens, I could finish this ride with one! The downside was that everything I saw ahead of me on first glance appeared to be a bear… everything that is, except the pride of lions. Pretty sure that was just something lion-coloured but you know, keep your eyes open! I arrived back at Athlete’s Village, feeling OK, ready to head out on that run, so that I could be finished and then EAT. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a key to my unit and waited, legs up the wall, for about 45 minutes before someone with a key returned… so a long T2 before heading out on the run. By then, I had lost interest in running, and had to reframe to get out there… No, I’m not heading out for a 30 minute run. I’m going to run for 15 minutes. Then I’ll turn and run back. But the run felt great, and I felt strong so I extended to 40 minutes, spending a bit of time on a great trail along the river near Athlete’s Village.

Every time I do this ride, I am struck by how beautiful it is, and how challenging. I really like this ride, but there is no getting around it: it’s tough. I can’t imagine how it must be on race day for athletes who have not had a chance to ride it before.

Sunday was a run, on-course… sort of. Somewhat directionally challenged or map impaired… call it what you will. Three of us ran together for 90 minutes, on sections of the course, with a few detours thrown in. Whatever. We ran and then we celebrated with a Starbucks finish.

And that was camp. Four days of hard work, learning, and confidence building. I’m not sure if I’ll be up again to ride before race day… maybe, maybe not. If not, I’ll see you race week Whistler!

Friday, June 19, 2015

Ironman Canada - 17 weeks out... oops... 7 weeks out!

So while I have not been busy posting, I have been busy training. I can’t claim that I was too busy training to wax poetic here – at least not until recently – and that’s part of the reason that I’ll go ahead and catch up my training week updates. As an aside, looking back to pull my Challenge training summaries, I can see that I did nearly the exact same thing preparing for Challenge last year: Training Weeks 17-34! The truth is, until the last couple of weeks, I have felt like I haven’t been doing all that much in terms of hard work to prepare for race day, and yet July 26th loomed closer and closer. Volume has ramped up in the last two weeks, and with a training camp behind me that included a full course ride, preceded by a big ride with all my least favourite parts of the course… in a storm no less, I’m feeling a little more confident. But I’m curious how the last 10 weeks or so of training have compared to my preparation for Challenge so up next: summaries from the last 11 weeks, compared against their pre-Challenge counterparts. If you’re curious what goes in to preparing for an Ironman, or wonder how this compares to your own training… read on.


IMC: 17 weeks to go (Mar 30-Apr 5)
Challenge: 17 weeks to go (Apr 21-27)
Total training hours
15:14
15:56
Swim
3:52 / 8.3 km
3:09 / 5.75 km
Bike
8:01 / 162.1 km
6:15 / trainer time + 121.1 km on road
Run
3:21 / 32 km
2:42 / 27 km
Strength training

0:35
Yoga

3:15
SBR Total
15:14
12:06


IMC: 16 weeks to go (Apr 6-Apr 12)
Challenge: 16 weeks to go (Apr 28-May 4)
Total training hours
12:47
12:10
Swim
2:25 / 5.2 km
3:54 / 8.45 km
Bike
6:27 / 126.7 km
5:30 / trainer time (yuck!)
Run
3:55 / 35.9 km
2:46 / 27.1 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
12:47
12:10


IMC: 15 weeks to go (Apr 13-19)
Challenge: 15 weeks to go (May 5-11)
Total training hours
13:54
13:29
Swim
3:40 / 7.6 km
2:02 / 4.3 km
Bike
2:42 / 65.5 km
6:22 / trainer time + 120.9 on road
Run
6:32 / 44.2 km
2:25 / 24.3 km
Strength training

0:30
Yoga
1:00
2:10
SBR Total
12:54
10:49


IMC: 14 weeks to go (Apr 20-26)
Challenge: 14 weeks to go (May 12-18)
Total training hours
11:26
17:05 (includes Training Camp)
Swim
2:57 / 6.1 km
2:19 / 4.65 km
Bike
5:32 / 141.6 km
10:51 / 254.9 km
Run
1:38 / 15.2 km
3:55 / 39.1 km
Strength training
0:09
                      
Yoga
1:10

SBR Total
10:07
17:05


IMC: 13 weeks to go (Apr 27-May 3)
Challenge: 13 weeks to go (May 19-25)
Total training hours
14:08
13:58
Swim
3:26 / 7.3 km
2:48 / 6 km
Bike
7:24 / (PowerWatts + 154.8 km)
7:18 / 188.4 km
Run
3:18 / 32.2 km
3:52 / 38.5 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
14:08
13:58


IMC: 12 weeks to go (May 4-10)
Challenge: 12 weeks to go (May 26-June 1)
Total training hours
16:00 (includes Training Camp)
13:06
Swim
1:36 / 3.4 km
3:22 / 7.5 km
Bike
11:48 / 283.8 km
6:14 / 146.4 km
Run
2:36 / 25.9 km
3:30 / 35.5 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
16:00
13:06


IMC: 11 weeks to go (May 11-17)
Challenge: 11 weeks to go (June 2-8)
Total training hours
13:21
9:30
Swim
4:00 / 8.4 km
2:04 / 4.6 km
Bike
6:31 / 159.4 km
3:21 / 84.9 km
Run
2:50 / 27.9 km
4:05 / 42.1 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
13:21
9:30


IMC: 10 weeks to go (May 18-24)
Challenge: 10 weeks to go (June 9-15)
Total training hours
16:05
15:40
Swim
3:39 / 7.8 km
4:22 / 10.1 km
Bike
8:34 / 203.7 km
8:36 / trainer time + 119 km
Run
3:52 / 38.8 km
2:42 / 24.3 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
16:05
15:40


IMC: 9 weeks to go (May 25-31)
Challenge: 9 weeks to go (June 16-22)
Total training hours
12:55 (includes travel week)
18:00
Swim
3:18 / 7.5 km
4:09 / 9.7 km
Bike
4:22 / 117.1 km
9:30 / 223.8
Run
2:20 / 22.5 km
4:21 / 42 km
Strength training
0:55

Yoga
2:00

SBR Total
10:00
18:00


IMC: 8 weeks to go (June 1-7)
Challenge: 8 weeks to go (June 23-29)
Total training hours
18:30
15:01
Swim
3:57 / 8.5 km
2:09 / 5.1 km
Bike
10:22 / 257.5 km
8:27 / 176.8 km
Run
4:11 / 40.3 km
4:25 / 41.2 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
18:30
15:01


IMC: 7 weeks to go (June 8-14)
Challenge: 7 weeks to go (June 30-July 6)
Total training hours
22:20 (includes Training Camp)
18:22
Swim
2:33 / 5.4 km
4:04 / 9.6 km
Bike
15:50 / 390.2 km
10:09 / 246 km
Run
3:57 / 37.6 km
4:09 / 38.9 km
Strength training


Yoga


SBR Total
22:20
18:22

Well… what a useful exercise this has been for my mental preparation! With only a few exceptions, my training volumes have been the same or a little higher this time around. And the exceptions land on “out of the ordinary” weeks – a training camp last year, a travel week this year. What’s interesting is that I have felt less taxed in my preparations this time, and I wonder if that’s reflecting that I’m fitter this time around, or perhaps my recall is based on those heavy, heavy weeks when training peaks, and you’re so deep in it that the alarm goes off and you struggle to remember what day it is and the workout that you’re waking up to do… But that reminds me of an IMC motivational video. So enjoy.