Tough swim

This morning's workout was a 2800 metre swim which is not that long but it was fairly intense. There was quite a bit of speed work and my heart rate was elevated for most of the workout. The main part of the workout consisted to 4 sets of 100 metres getting faster with each one; 50 breast stroke and then 150 m pull with a sprint in the middle 50 and then repeating the whole thing 4 times.

Last night, I rode with Tyler Read for a 90 minute bike ride and the last 30 minutes were against a fairly strong wind so it was a tough enough workout. I am going to run after work and my ironman program calls for 800 m sprints followed by 800 metres easy. I think that might be about it for workouts until after my triathlon on Sunday.

Ready to race.

I think I am pretty much ready to do this triathlon this weekend. These races take a lot of planning and expense to get to them. (you have to take time off work; book a place to stay; pay hefty entry fees etc...) You have to tell yourself to remember to enjoy it and set realistic goals. I have a goal for this race but I am not going to publicly express it for fear of jinxing it. (It is good to have plan B and Plan C goals as well. If it is a really hot day; a really windy day or you have equipment problems, your plan A goal goes out the window.) If I achieve my plan A goal, I would do pretty well in my age group.

I plan to leave early Friday morning and get down to New Hampshire early in the evening. I am staying at the same place where I have stayed twice before. Saturday, I will register for the race; maybe do some triathlon shopping at the race site and take part in some pre-race activities like the dinner. Sunday is race day. My friend, Greg Smith is coming up from Boston for part of the weekend.

Yesterday, I swam about 2700 m (out of the 3200 I was supposed to do). After work I did about 40 minutes of speed and running drills in Victoria Park before going to teach at UPEI. My day job as a lawyer has been crazy busy the past few weeks as this is my busy time of year for real estate transactions. Today I am going biking for about 90 minutes.

Busy weekend again

Its Sunday night and I am pretty much exhausted as usual. I had a packed weekend with training, socializing and home maintenance/gardening. Saturday morning I went for a 2 hour run on the trail that I have been doing the last three weeks to get my endurance and distance up to snuff for the Mooseman triathlon. I am feeling pretty confident about my endurance running. The only little issue at the moment is that I have been getting blisters on my feet which is unusual for me. I am wearing the same type of sneakers that I always wear and I have been getting a blister in the same spot off and on for the past few months. (usually, the skin would toughen up after getting a blister once.) I have fancy Zoot running flats that I bought for racing but I am not sure if i will use them in Mooseman. I probably should just stick to what I have been using. I went to the wine show last night and was supposed to meet some friends out in a bar at 11 pm but couldn't do it. I can't stay awake that late these days.

I was up at 6:30 am this morning to go cycling with my friend, Tyler Read, at 8 am. We had a great ride out to Cavendish and then a stop at my place in New Glasgow where we met up with Darcy and Greg. We then went back to town. We didn't push it to hard but kept a good steady pace. The good thing with my biking is that I am starting to get the feeling that I could go quite a bit harder if pushed. In total, I did about 5 hours of training on the weekend which is not too bad. I took my dad, brother and sister out for lunch today for my dad's 82 birthday and then went to my place in New Glasgow and did yard work for about 3 hours. A full weekend as usual. I was just looking at the stats for the Red Island Relay and wishing I had done it. The hardest thing for me to accept sometimes is that I just can't do everything.

This coming week I won't get a huge amount of training in before I leave Friday morning for Mooseman. I plan to do a decent 2 hour ride Tuesday evening and a couple of runs and a couple of swims and that may be it.

one week till mooseman

I am kind of laughing to myself that I am not exactly tapering for my upcoming half ironman next week. I am training for an ironman at the same time so this is kind of a warm up to kick start the season. It will be a good test of my fitness because anything that takes you 5 hours of intense physical activity is not to be taken too lightly.

Yesterday, I did a short brick workout with an hour bike ride followed by about 40 minutes of running. Neither leg was too intense although I did do sprints during the run and felt pretty good. I was a bit late leaving work and I wanted to be done by 7 pm so I could have supper and cut some grass in New Glasgow. This morning, I did one of my week 4 ironman swims which was not too difficult. It was about 2400 m and consisted of 500m, 5- 25 m fast; 400 m, then 4-25m fast, 300 m, then 3-25m fast etc... I don't have anything scheduled for after work today but I am thinking of adding in about 90 minutes of biking. (I really shouldn't be adding stuff) Tomorrow, my plan is to bike 3 hours; run a half hour and then a longish run on Sunday. But, the weather sounds like rain tomorrow fairly definitely and I really don't feel like biking in the rain if I don't have to so I may reverse that and run tomorrow at some point (after the rain) and bike on Sunday.

Eating a Lot

I have noticed that my appetite has really picked up the past few weeks with increased training. I generally eat well but I am just eating a bit more. Yesterday, at both lunch time and supper I was starving. I always eat quite a bit for breakfast - bagel, fruit, yogurt sometimes cereal, sometimes protein shake and usually a combination of two or three of the above. For lunch, I sometimes bring stuff like apples, yogurt and then just buy a sandwich and or salad. My favorite spot at the moment for lunch takeout is the Merchantman deli which is on Water Street around the corner from the Pub. Their sandwiches are fantastic; they are big and you feel like you have gotten your money's worth. I don't go out for a sit down lunch much as I don't have time. I have supper with my mother about three times a week which is great because she makes traditional PEI dinners with meat, vegetables etc.... Training wise, yesterday was a full day; I did running drills in the Park at lunch time for about 40 minutes; I met up with Corena and Greg after work and we cycled out in Pownal and did the Gay Road hill a couple of times as well as Tea Hill. It was between 90 minutes and 2 hours for me by the time I got over there and back home. This morning I didn't realize our swim class was cancelled so I was a bit lost as I didn't come to the pool with a prepared workout. I swam pretty easy for about 40 minutes. This evening I may not doing anything else and take it easy between work and teaching at 7 pm.

Tomorrow's ironman workout calls for a short bike ride followed by an hour run. I am a bit skeptical about running that long after biking as a training exercise. I have always trained with short half hour runs after bike rides and had good success with that in ironman races. I do lots of long runs by themselves for endurance and then the short brick runs just to be used to the feeling of running after biking.

Monday morning

This morning I managed to get to the pool early and did 3400 m. I felt great and it was probably the best I have felt in the water this year. I am not sure why exactly. The main part of this morning's swim workout consisted to doing 200s in zone 4 of my heart rate and then doing 50s in zone 2. This is part of my ironman training program. The program, which is a more advanced one than I have used in previous years, has a lot more variation in speed and intensity and seems to be paying off. This afternoon, after work, I am going to do running drills in the park again.

Getting a bit faster

Today (sunday) I went for another 2 hour run. it was beautiful this morning and I felt great. I did the same route as I did about a week ago and today I ran much faster. In the same time period (2 hours) I ran about 2 k further than I did last week. I was wondering if this speed work I have been doing in my ironman program is helping. Maybe. I ran from 11 am till 1 pm today. I had a big lunch afterwards.

Yesterday, I cycled for about 3 hours 30 mins. with a 10 minute break in the middle at my place in New Glasgow. I ran for a half hour after cycling as usual. Tonight, I will look at week 4 of my ironman program and sort of map out my training for the week in between my work and teaching schedule. It is 4:35 on sunday afternoon and despite being on my second post workout cup of coffee I could easily lie down and take a nap. I am going to swim in the morning and aim to get to the pool a little early around 6:45