going to china

i am leaving for China on Sept 4th for the world ITU triathlon championships in Beijung. i am going as an age group competitor having qualified in a race in New Brunswick last year. It is really just an excuse to go somewhere i would not go otherwise. The reality of it is setting in. I am only going for 10 days as i am busy at work and it is a stuggle to take off more time than that. I have two days trips booked; one to the Great Wall and one to the Forbidden city and around Beijing. I am going with a group as part of triathlon canada so i won't really be alone and i expect i will meet people.

my training has been going well. it is always a challenge to balance work, social activities and training. Summer on PEI is very social and there is always lots going on. I think my swimming and cycling are very good and my running is ok. I have been working hard on my running and i see some improvement but it is not as rapid as i would like. I will be getting organized this week; packing including packing my bike and other triathlon gear. Travellling with a bike is becoming an increaing problem as planes are getting smaller and they frequently don't have room for them. The airlines simply don't put them on if it is crowded and make no apologies. it can take several dasy for your bike to get to your destination. the biggest challenge for me in getting my bike to china is getting it out of charlottetown airport where all the planes are small. i am going to go early on departure day and speak nicely to someone to see if i can impress upon them that it needs to get on the plane.

triathlon by the sea 2011

I did this race this past weekend and the swim portion was terrible. I have done this race 3 or 4 times and each year the swim is a problem. This year it took me 40 minutes to swim 1500 metres. (it would normally take me around 25 minutes to do that distance) I have done some tough half ironman swims over 2000 metres that only took 34-36 minutes. In the race this past weekend, you couldn't see the buoys because of the waves and at one point I had no idea where I was. I could see the shore but that was it. Based on this experience, I will not do this race again if the swim is in the same location. It will be interesting to see if it stays in this location. Otherwise my training is still going fairly well. My running is still not as good as I had hoped it would be despite considerable effort on my part and doing lots of speed work. I am wishing that I had maybe done more roadrunner races which might of helped but i cannot do everything.

triathlon by the sea

I did this triathlon this past weekend in Dalvay. this is the 3rd or 4th time i have done this race and almost every year, the swim is a probalem. The north shore of PEI in August is just not suitable for having a triathlon. This year, it was terrible as you couldn't see the buoys because of the waves and I had no idea of where to swim toward. The swim took me 40 minutes which is a lot longer than a half ironman swim would take me. I had a rough swim in a race in Monaco in a half ironman with big waves which took me 37 minutes but this race was 500 metres shorter and it took me 40 minutes.

Lake Placid

Last weekend I went ti Lake Placid to watch ironman and have a little vacation. I took my bike and a friend, Billy Macdonald. I swam the course (full 4 k) in about an hour and 7 minutes; did the bike course as well on quite a hot and windy day. Didn't time my self exactly but averaged about 30 k/hour which is what i would do in an ironman. I thought about signing up for 2012 but being there did not really make me want to do it again. I am already singed up for the new Tremblant ironman in August 2012 and that is probably enough.

I am finding that the summer is flying by as usual; Work is very busy and i havebeen training alot for the wordl ITU championships in China. I am not sure if I have plateaued a bit or am getting a bit tired. Sometimes, I think I may overtrain and overrace a bit. I have done so far this season: red island relay, china point duathlon, mooseman half iron, glenfinnan duathlon, canoe cove duathlon and fredericton triathlon. my performance in everyone improved quite a bit from last year. My running remains a challenge. I think it is faster than last year but i almost have a bit of a mental block about really pushing it. Today i did the Rustico duathlon as part of a three hour training day. I biked to it from charlottetown, raced and then biked to new glasgow and back to town. i was reasonably happy with my performance- 6th about of about 35-40 . i had my garmin on which i think i should do more often for running in races. I was running with my heart rate in a good spot (int eh low 14os) and was doing usually 4:30 ks or better. that would be 44-45 minutes 10 k. i can do better than that and would like to have it down around 42 in a race.

mid summer training

This is the time of year when training becomes more difficult: my enthusiasm wears off and i I start to get a bit tired from a lot of races. Last weekend, I did another duathlon and had a pretty good result (3rd). i was a bit disappointed with my run; running 46 minutes and something. i have been working at my running and have gottena bit faster but it is still a challenge. Otherwise, my training is going well. This past week i cycled for 4 hours on monday; swam on tuesday; ran twice on wednesday (7 k and 9 k) swam thursday and friday; cycled on thursday for an hour and a half; ran friday a speed workout and cycled for 3.5 hours saturday. That is about 18 hours which is a lot. My coach calls it "maintaining your aerobic base" which i think i used to fail to do. i would do lots of short races in previous summers but no long rides or runs. You do loose your base endurance when you do this. Tomorrow, I am going to go for a long run.

Improvement

I have now done about 4 races and shown quite a bit of improvement over last year, in each race. I have done two duathlons, a half ironman and the red island relay. my running in particular has improved but also my cycling. My enthusiasm for training and racing has been high but we have had a couple of days of bad weather and I have been feeling a bit lazy. I am doing a triathlon this coming weekend in Fredericton. NB and hope to keep on with the trend of showing improvement.

I have also changed my diet a bit with less carbs from bread and pasta and more protein, vegies and fruit. I am not sure yet how that is going to work with my training and racing as I used to eat alot of bread and bagels. We will see. I have lost a few pounds over the last week or so and am around 150 which is about as light as I have ever been in my adult life. Tomorrow i am scheduled to do a 3000 swim and a speed workout running. Wednesday is a two hour bike ride and another swim i think. I would like to try to do one of the cyling pei thursday night bike rides as they are very tough and good training.

Mooseman 2011

I think this is the 5th time i have done this race. I enjoy the trip down to New Hampshire and it is a good way to start the triathlon season. Last year it became part of the ironman 70.3 series and they made the bike course much more difficult. (probably added 15-20 minutes to everyones time) my times have ranged from 5 hours 3 minutes to 5 hours 36 minutes last year in the new course in extremely wet conditions. This year it was a nice day and i went alot harder on the bike. My bike time was 12 minutes faster than last year. I am a bit disappointed with my run time as it was slower than last year by about 2 and a half minutes. Overall, though, my time was 8 minutes faster than last year so i have to be happy with that. During the run today, my legs were very heavy and it never got any better. Usually that feeling goes away after you run for a bit. It can be partly due to going hard on the bike course. Also, I have been doing alot of short fast runs and haven't done a run like that after a really hard bike ride. I guess that is something to work on.