Another great day to be alive!

What is everyone complaining about?! Woke up this morning, both my feet hit the floor, had a great breakfast kissed my wife and patted the dog Who cares about all the rest of the stuff....it could be worse!
Trish and I are heading up to see her Mom today. After this whole Im stuff started, I seem to have lost a few pounds. All of the clothes that I had just purchased needed to be tailored, so off to Midland to pick the clothes up and go have lunch with Tillie!
One of the great things with road trips is Trish knows the routine. I am lucky that she does not mind driving, so I get to sit back read the paper and enjoy my morning coffee. Oh yeah, and tell her how to drive. Not a bad morning though, Trish seems to have listened to my repeated back seat driving.
On our drive up, I get an email from a guy named John. When we met Bryan at the pool on Thursday, he told me about a friend he met through IM who had made the same IM dive as I did. COmpleted a sprint and went for broke. Well, today John was very cool and sent an email off talking about his IM adventure. It amazes me having made a decision to do this, how many like minded cool people are out there to enjoy the ride and help it come to a great end! I certainly appreciate the advice and hope that I can continue to gain inspiratin from people like Bryan, John and all the other IM athletes out there. As it turns out, a little later in the day during a conversation with Hugh, John was actually in the same lane as another IM friend Peter in 2007 while training in Burlington. It is a small world when you start the training obsession!
Our trip to Midland was quick and easy. When we got back to the city we stopped to get some more 'tools' for our home gym. We are going to make one wall a cork board so that we can pin up all of the great drills and exercises that we can use when doing resistance training. this is a great way to be able shake it up a bit while still focusing on a proper muscle group. I have been talking about weigth training and honestly, I am going to start. I am going to finish my lactacte test and the games begin. Double benfit as the ski season is coming soon. Oh yeah, got a call from ROSSI today about my choice of ski for the season! Wahoo, they should be at the house by courier in the next couple of weeks!
Great LSD run today! As I said, I am doing a marathon training schedule to get my running a bit stronger. Today was 13K LSD. felt awesome. It is a good run as well as I start it with Trish, a bonus being able to spend some of my training time with her, it slows me down so that I do the run like it supposed to be. Another bonus, it speeds her up! As soon as Trish and I split up I can speed up a bit and get into a good groove. Today was good, got up to my usual pace with a drop of close to 10 beats. Like I said earier, the program seems to work, guess I will stick with it.
My turn to make dinner tonight, so on that note. I have to head to the kitchen to make some good Pad thai and have a glass of wine(hydrating)
Talk to you tomorrow after ride time! Cheers

Lactate treshold testing

Yes, it is a tough test, however I did not allow it to get tough enough!
Completed the firdst test with SPC today, it was a great experience, but I need to do it again. As Jeff the coach suggested, I need to go to the point where I truly feel that I am going to collapse or be sick. Today i ran for about 30 minutes and reached a mx heart rate of 192 when I said that I could no longer continue. When I stopped my reading was 9.7, ususally he is looing for somethin higher than a 10. Once that reading is done he works to drop your heart rate by 40 beats ad takes another test. At this point he can begin to measure how fast the lactic clears from your body. I seemed to drop below 3 on the firsdt reading without the heart rate dropping a full 40 beats. This suggests that I did not get my blood full enough by stopping to soon. When I do it again he suggested that I should stay in the 'ugly' zone al leat a couple of minutes longer in order to build over 10 and get a true saturation. Next time I need to stretch when I am done.
All that said, I did feel great going into it. I got a great rest yesterday and the day beofre and had very fresh legs going into it. I guess that rest is an importatn part of a good race result. I felt great as I also focused on stretching which proved to be a good thing.
Well, now that the rest is over it is time to go and start training some more. Today conted as a tempo run, I think i have another 6k run tomorrow and then a rest day? Need to check schedule. Tonight some swimming.
Someone tell me wehen I am going to get off my ass and start my resistance!!!?
Cheers and Happy Training!

Morning Run

A chilly moring it was! The temperature has finally reached 0 celcius, love it, that mens winter is not fdar away. I guesss it is not that good, as it will mean a lot of cold running in the monhths to follow.
This moring Trish and I headed out for a short runto get the day started. I hate getting up in the monring, but, my mind is now starting to tell me that I dont have the choice and it is time to haul my butt and go! Was a short 4k but it is good to learn to get my body into the morning routine. Also, teach my body a bit about when it has to go to the washoroom and when is not a conveneint time. My foot hurt a bit as we took off this morning, but as the run moved forward it loosened up. I am rolling the gold ball as we speak and waiting for my water bottle to freeze so that I can start to ice it as well.
I am going to coninue my gradual growth on lieage, I think this week I have another 20k to un for a total of about 35. Not bad, added in with a couple of bike rides and 2 more swims, I should start getting into shape before to long. Have a great day, and remember, it could always be worse!

Tempo Run

A nice fall day for a run! It is confirmed, beers and running at any time re not a good mix. Today's run was far easier and more productive than yesterday's. The plan was to complete the tempo run from the online clinic i am following. I am working to catch up and not overdue it in the process. Only negative o the run was technology related. Stupid heart rate monitor decided it would stop 1/2 way through, so i topped to get my rate back which then skipped a part of the run....oh well...
Started with a good warmup below 150bpm, and then sped up to hold above 160 for teh next 5k. Went not bad and did not even seem to hit lactic point. I seem to struggle more with sucking for air than anything else. I need to start using my breathing trainer. I was good today with my warm down and spent about 1k working to get my heart rate actively below 160, better than stopping dead and not worrying about it. Then, believe it or not spent about 10 minutes stretching. i am paying particular attention to my calves as I dont want to re-aggravate I did notice today that I likely need some ART to get the knot out of my hamstring. Good things benefits start next week. Another exciting decision today, i am going to a lactate threshold test next week. For once and for all I will see where the heck my heart rate really is and be able to set my goals according to science rather than a math formula. Look forward to telling you more about it!

Rest day

Happy Thanksgiving! As today is family day, I have decided to take the day off and get ready for a new full week!(truth be know I also had to many beers last night) Probably start tomorrow with a run and then hit the pool on Tuesday. As I want to get a good base I will also do wieight traning tomorrow as well. This week i will begin to work on a modified marathon clinic in order to get some good traning miles as well as some structure to my daily routine. Probably going to go 3 weeks on and then drop 50% for the fourth week, then back up. that will build miles as well as ideally prevent injury. I will post my pprogress as I go along! Cheers and happy Turkey! time to go cook!

Time to Start tracking

Today I started tracking all my vitals. With this info I have a baseline to tell where I am at. I list hours of sleep, morning rest heart rate and weight. I am a proponent of sleep(will be important) as training builds will be important to stay healthy. Although I do use a heart rate monitor, I have never used AM rest rate as a tool. If it is increasing it is a sign of being tired or getting sick. Sounds like a great tool!

This afternoon I am getting back into my running shoes. After 3 weeks resting from plantar, it is time to go. I will be aware and follow all the rules, stretching, ice and continue to use night splint. Also have a training ride going tomorrow. Should be good, an escarpment ride with some good hills. This will be good to compare conditioning from early summer to now.

If mother nature is nice, a good swim tomorrow as well. Likely do Kelso as it will be easier and less likely to be windy.

I will report over the weekend!

Another great activity this weekend, I ge to collect on my bet that started this whole I'm madness. Thanks Hugh, and yes I am hungry!

Everyone have a great Thanksgiving weekend! Be happy and healthy!

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What is next on traning scedule?

Well, it is time to start a little more intensive training....for the next 16-17 weeks I am going to complete a marathon traning session. My goal is to begin to build an intensity, while running, weight traning and swimming(forgot spinning) so that I can take a breif taper period befire starting on the Ironamn traning plan that I will follow. I believe that this strategy should get me to where I need to be both physically as well as facing the proper intensity and rest. I will work at building a URL link to my traninig schedule. Cheers and have a great day!

Awesome open water

Did a 1.5k open water swim. Water was freezing, about 10c. Once I got going it i warmed up a bit, but cold is cold! For my first swim of that distance it felt great. Finished 1.5k in 29 minutes, that is keeping up with the swimmers! Hope i can continue to progress that way. Found once I got into a groove, breathing rhythm was goo, nive smooth stroke, overall fairly efficient!

Running update!

Well, my foot still hurts a bit and is starting to frustrate me. I have been using teh golf ball rolling my foot on it, using a night splint and stretching(could stretch more) I am going to go and run on Tuesday and ease back into it! Hopefully no severe re-occurence.

Swim time!

This is my bbefore comment.....I am heading out for a 1.5k+ training swim which will be a huge leap from my past longest swim. Looking forward to it. Temoerature is 11C and the water is currently 14C. Trish is going to follow along in our 'traning kayak' for safety. I am goiing to also wear my Garmin 301 and Trish will have it with her on teh boat to see if I can track my accurate disctance as well as heart rate. I will put some feedback and update on my morning training.

Plantar update

I have not make a comment as yet, but I have been resting from running for the past 1 1/2 weeks in order to allow for a little plantar fasciatis to calm down. Seems to be coming along well. I have been using a gold ball while sitting at my desk, rolling my foot over it to release the tension. As well as have been paying close attention to streching my calf and foot as much as possible. The third part has been using a night splint to stretch things out. So far it seems to be to my benefit. This weekend i think I will try a short run and begin to ramp miles slowly. A bit of a set back but the rest probabl;y has not hurt be either.

What is the next couple of days!

Making sure that you get workouts in regardless is one important element of this event. So, I have a course Friday and Saturday, this means I need to juggle to get workouts in. So, tonight is swimming, more learning to float. Very basic, but, so far its' working and I am going to stay with it! Then tomorrow another good spin class at Total Balance, as well as being a great class, Paul is amongst the best mental trainers I have had the opportunity to work with. The hour of spinning wil be great training, teh 12-14 hours or Ironman will be about thinking like Paul! As well as spinning tomorrow, another swim will be in the schedule. AND, lets not forget the stretch session tomorrow night! I will work at keeping my traning log section up to date so that you and I can both know how much fun this is going to be!

Update

Just set up to update from mobile. Hope this works!
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Ironman Wisconsin 2010

Here we go!