Day 199 down! and a good one it was!

It seems today was no different than any other day.  The nervousness from last night is all but gone, I got up this morning and everything was the same.  Yep, I did not like getting up, went to the washroom with the same result, went to work and it continued like every other day.  Life i suppose is a game of numbers and last night the number was first and foremost in my mind.  I am certain there will be other days that pass the same way, all out panic at 8am and back to normal by 9!  What a fun game this is!

Work today was a good one.  It seems that work has been very cyclical lately, last month was a snooze the month before was a great one.  Finally today seems the to be the beginning of some good activity.  I was out to 2 client visits that should both produce some results.  As well, the phone was ringing and activity in general is on hte upswing!  this is a good thing, earning a few dollars will both fund this crazy habit as well as keep the roof over our heads.

My workout today as short but good.  I was out for another short run and managed once again to maintain a sub 5 min/k run.  It is such a blast to be out running and actually enjoying it.  In all the time I have run it has always seemed like a chore to be doing it, now it is to produce a result. As I am getting results it is making the workouts enjoyable and ones that I look forward to.  So far as I have been ramping my mileage I have also been fortunate to avoid the plantar fasciatis that got me before the holidays.  Ideally upping my mileage logically will help me prevent.  I have been very conscious of stretching this time around, I think that contributes a great deal to the overall avoidance of injury.  I have spoken with a couple of trainers and they tell me that the key to success will be to continue to stretch.  WIthout addressing flexibility they suggest that my account with the physiotherapist will increase significantly, that is something i certainly want to avoid.  

Tonight is a big night as a Canadian, it is hockey do or die time. So, I am treating myself to a night at the pub with some friends to cheer them on!  Cheers with me, Canada's national sport is hockey and we need to be in the finals!  Go Canada Go!  Cheers!
I have just returned from a great hockey game!  Canada played hockey like they have played it before!  WaHoo! And hwo about the Canadian women bobsled!  Wahoo x 2!  Skating, lovin it!  It has been a great day! Way to go Canadian Olympians!

Holy Crap!(pardon the language)

Holy!  Yeah, the number on my countdown is 199 days to the start line.  It gives me a bit of a butterfly in my stomach.  It seems like yesterday that the number counted down from 300 to 299.  As the clock turns to 199 it seems to have all of a sudden added a tremendous reality to the event.  Not that I have not been taking it seriously, but now I need to take it seriously.  My official training program is 174 days long, so I can 'goof off' for a couple more weeks, but holy crap it is less than 200 days to the start line.  I have to say that I am totally pumped about the game that is about to kick into a higher gear.  Being nervous about something only adds to my resolve to exceed my own expectations of myself.  With my current expectation of finishing my first IM this is going to be a blast!
As the journey moves forward I have done a lot of periodization in my training, moving up intensity and backing off, adding some tough workouts at key times and then relaxing.  Spending most of my weekends 'cruising' using the intensity of my ski training as my effective cross training.  It seems to have been an effective method over the winter leading up to my harder training days!  Now as the next few weeks burn by and go time arrives, the method to my madness becomes a little more prescribed and scientific.  As a goal driven person it makes the journey simple to follow. With a proven methodology it is up to me to put in teh workouts, and listen to the rules and the rest should all come out in the wash.  I am looking forward to the intensity of the training.  Call me a freak, but workouts that drive me til I feel i am going to be sick make me feel stronger, so that part is not an obstacle.  The part that I find mysterious is the training while I am already at the wall.  From the blogs I have read and the books that I have reviewed it is an inevitable thing.  Oh well, I guess I will have to suck it up, cry a little once in a while and 'git'er done'  Holy crap!  Here I go!
Today was a great day for training once again.  I decided it was time to increase my distance in my swims.  I have been averaging 2200m practices for a while, they have been with decent intensity.  Now it is time to add the distance and keep the intensity up as well.  SO s well as some of my regualr drills, I introduced some strength tools today.  Out came the paddles.  Holy!  After 2000m of swim with various drills, the paddles were a tough end to hte workout.  As I get tired, like most my form begins to drop a bit.  Not today, ever try swimming poorly with paddles on?? It was an awesome training swim.  The paddles  not only made me work like a dog to pull through, they made me keep form so that i did not swim like a water snake.  I did a total of 8 x 100m with 15s.  If the way I felt at the end of the 5 and 6 rep is any indication, I may be sore in teh morning!  Oh well, it can only mean one thing, it will  make me stronger.
Tonight was one of the first night that I went out to a Yoga class as well.  It was a great class once again, as I continue to practice it is helping my core strength as well as my breathing.  I have had great success bringing it into my training which is a great benefit to the practice.   The major physical benefit is also the flexibility element to the training.  I guess it is bonus stretching and it helps a lot.  If you can fit a class into your schedule, I highly recommend it!  In addition to the great benefits of the practice, the owners of the studio are awesome community leaders and mentors.  I have been invited by them to host a learn to run clinic this spring  It is great as I get to share my passion with others and coordinate my efforts into my IM training.  It is a lot f fun being involved in such a great community.
As the evening moves forward I now need to force myself to bed.  I have been sucked in to the Olympics tonight.  First Canada winning hte ski cross, then a little redemption in hockey.  I have just watched a very courageous Canadian girl figure skate after her mom passed away as she arrived to see her skate at the games.  It brought a tear to my eyes seeing a girl live her dream in the midst of such adversity and at such an emotional time!  makes what we do every day seem a little insignificant.  I certainly look up to all the Olympians and what they do for the sport they play.  It is an inspiration!
I hope you had a great day!  Cheers!

I love mondays! (this one anyways)

Most people arent keen about Mondays'.  I guess reality being what it is, back to work and the daily routine is a reason to be hohum?!  I guess it all depends if the glass is half full doesn't it?
Today was an awesome day!  I got back to work after a very action packed ski weekend.  No, nothing wild and crazy to speak of, but the challenge that waits for you when you arrive is exciting.  What will the weekend have brought to the projects I am working on?  What kind of unreasonable request will my customer have for me today? Who will I have to chase to get paid and what new excuse will they have? The variety is both enlightening and entertaining!  Work is a necessary evil so I try and make the best of it, today was a decent day for that!
Truth be known, the best part of this Monday had nothing to do with work.  Let's face it, it would be a little creepy to love my work so much that I look forward to Mondays!  I had a couple of awesome workouts today that have me pumped and feeling great!  Much like many of you in the US, we had an impending snow storm.  As out winter has been very climatically calm, the news and everyone else seemed to be in a panic.  Oh god, we are going to get 6" of snow, call in the National Guard!  Canadians in general are so ridicluous when it comes to winter storms.  Face it, it is the same storm, the same snow, the same road conditions that you have had for the first 40 years of your life, you are used to it, save me the storm drama! Knowing that our world was going to soon be covered in snow, I came home at lunch to do my run. I have started on teh build my mileage route so I am getting out more seriously and regulalry.  It was once again a great day.  As I ran the snow started to fly, by half way through my run my shirt was all white with blowing snow.  It was actually kind of refreshing making my way through the blowing snow knowing that I was one step ahead of mother nature in getting my workout done.  ONce again i was very pleased with my pace of 5 min/k(8 min/mile) with a HR of 150.  That is awesome progress from 12 months ago when I could only run 1 km at that pave with a heart rate of 175. I am happy with my run progress and look forward to seeing what the training and upcoming drills will add to the speed and endurance.

As well as my run I spent some time on the trainer this afternoon.  As the time is coming when my butt will be in hte saddle for hours, I thought it would be proper time to get some calouses built up.  It was a short 10 mile ride on the new trainer, only using the time function rather than racing a course. I have not trained using WATTs in hte past so the numbers mean little to me.  I did a 16k(10mile) ride at an average speed of 34k with an average watt reading of 238W.  It felt decent with most of the workout being relaxing and couple of good hills and sprints built in.  If nothing else it gave me a good baseline ot start my cycling from.  As I said before I have an axe to grind on my bike so some grueling workouts are welcome as they will fuel my hill climbing victory 2-3 months from now.
It was a great start to the week with a great couple of workouts to set the pace.  I am looking forward to this week as I have chosen to add some workouts and intensity before the weekend and play time arrives again!
I hope your Monday was fantastic and your week is off to a great start!  Look forward to reading about your week!  Cheers!

that was a long day! but good!

Today was the culmination of a season of planning and coordinating the Proffesional Training Series for ski instructors in Ontario.  One of those cross training days with a purpose. After 4 months and 8 events today represented the end of the season!  IN one breath I am saying WAHOO!  in the other I am kind of sad as I had a of fun planning, hiring staff and working with over 500 athletes over the winter season!  It was great as I had many people thank me for the training and for a job well done.  As it is a position that I volunteered for, it is great to receive recognition for it.  The day was also a perfect ski day, it was sunny and the conditions were impeccable, what a day!
The moguls today were out of this world.  they were so good, we packed up our gear and went back to the hill tonight to spend a couple more hours skiing them.  I have to day my legs are cooking, skiing bumps for 5-6 hours takes the gas out of my legs!  But,  I would go out and do it all over again!
Last night my nigh of my run club at LULULEMON was awesome.   I had a few people come out, the best thing is the reaction today.   There were at least half a dozen inquiries about the club and when we will meet again.  It sounds like it should be able to grow and build a brand of its own.  It brings a smile to my face to run with others and give back some of the passion that I have.
After a couple of hyper-active days I am ready for a good night sleep.  Tomorrow promises to be another great day on snow, so I must get my rest.
I hope that your  day was great and that your weekend is over the top!  Cheers to you all!

10 out of 10!

As I thought it would be, it was a great day!  I know it always seems to go well, but, I believe it is all in the outlook and the way that you choose to look at it!  I choose to look at it from the glass half full perspective and it is a great way to look at it!
As I always do, my morning started with my Thursday yoga practice.  I will not bore you with the details as I have reiterated them several times. I will say that it is becoming a fundamental part of my training as I move forward in my journey.  If you have not tried it, find a god studio and try it out, you will be pleasently surprised at how awesome it is for you and how much the rest of your training can benefit form it.  I have to say thank you to the girls at POWER YOGA CANADA for the awesome studio that they have established!  The passion they have for the practice is contagious!
My afternoon swim was also a great time today.  A lot of what I id revolved around drills for speed.  Of all my training in the water to date, this was amongst the most intense.  From moment one it grew in intensity as well as speed.  Working for almost an hour at top intensity is a great feeling, getting the results and being able to maintain the required speed is the best feeling of all.  I will continue with this practice intermitently with the goal of maintaining form from start to finish.  Overall I suprised myself with my ability to hold it together like I did. Someone I was training with sugggested I was probably angry when I wrote the practice out as it was very intense.  I certainly went at it with that type of angry intensity as well.
As soon as I was done my swim I out on my shoes and went out for an hour run.  Another great success!  I felt relaxed all the way and was able to maintain my pace without  having my heart rate run away from me.  My goal was to run a LSD run in order to start to ramp my miles.  I only did 11k, but very consistent and my slow pace is where my fast pace was in teh past.  With very little training I have made some good progress, the future should be exciting as I start to sharpen my focus.  My run today was to the LULULEMON store where I was hosting the first night of the run club.  I thought, going to host a run club should probable done as a runner, so I put my shoes on instead of driving.  Once I got to the store, I had 3 people join me for the club.  As it was the first night, in the middle of the Olympics, with a Canadian hockey game and spring break, it was a success.  After our short run my total for the day was 16km running, it felt great. Not our run, I discovered comments on their website, their were lurkers waiting to see what was going on.  It will ideally result in some new people joining us and being able to build up a god run community out of the store.  It sure was fun being able to share my passion and getting others to join in on my run fun!
As I was up bright and early and will do the same tomorrow, it is time to pack it in!  I hope you had a great day and your training went well!  Cheers!

A day of good things!

I guess the fact that it is Wednesday is in itself a good thing! we are 2 days from the weekend and satisfying my winter passion!  However, today was full of a lot of good things that made it move along with a smile.
I must say that looking at my countdown has now started to give me a little case of butterflies.  As the number approaches 200 days the reality of it seems to be becoming very real.  I know that as long as I continue along the path it will be an tremendous and complete accomplishment, but the reality still freaks me a bit.  All the 'training' I have been doing ot date is kind of fun and fluffy stuff, I am about to start teh real thing.  Put my skis away, tie on my shoes, strap my bike seat to my butt and put on my goggles for the next few months!  It is going to be a great journey and I look forward to reading my blog in 7-8 months and appreciating the babble I have been putting down here as I ride the road t Wisconsin.
Today was another light day(they all are kind of light right now), but it was one that saw me maintaining the new pace that I am moving at when running.  All my life I have run at a 5:30-5:45k pace.  As I run these shorter distances I am now more in the 5k pace.  it astonishes me how good it feels, and I am pleased that I have accomplished this without beginning to focus on technique and doing drills as yet.  I am loking forward to pushing my limits and seeing what I can out out there as I ramp up my running.  As I have a couple of early raod races, I am going to start to increase my miles now.  By this time in 2 weeks I want to be doing 20+ k long runs and adding some hills and technical stuff.  I will aslo get in some weights in order to build my strength and power!  It is all good to be starting down this road.  I have to say that when I am running I feel better and healthier than I have in 20 years and it is only going to improve if I stay logical about this jourmey!
As well as an awesome run today, I have learned that I am now part of Tem Running Free. This is a great as it helps to support my race efforts and also gives me a way to give back to the community by paritcating and helping out with the events that they plan.  I ordered my team gear tonight and will be sporting it before long.  As well as Running Free, Dermatone is going to support my training efforts.  If you have never tried their products before, you should do it now.  If you are training in the winter, it is a saviour fro the wind biting your face off.  They have a protector that is better than covering your face up, it serves as a wind block and is not greasy and dripping all over your face.  The lip balm they have will save you from your lips cracking for 2 days after being out in the cold as well.  As I seem to spend more than 50% of my free time outside it is great to use products that work and make the training experience both safer and clean.

Another good thing today.....Yep, there is more!  As I have said I am very keen to coach and help people reach goals.  Tomorrow evening I get to begin to exercise this passion with some new runners.  I have been asked to lead a run club for 2 of the local LULULEMON stores around town.  It is awesome to be associated with a store that has a great community feel and is all about supporting and providing opportunities to the people around them.  It is an opportunity to share with others the success that I have had following my practices and methods and ideally leading and motivating the participants to get up to the start line for a race of their own.  As I continue along this journey it is great to have the opportunity to live some of the things that I love to do.  My passion for skiing is fuelled by the time i have spent training an the improvements that I have made in my own results, then being able to share that with others as a coach and instructor.  Now I have the opportunity to do that with another sport that I love.  As I have said a number of times, 'Live for your Dreams'.  It makes the day go by and the next one far more exciting to arrive.  
Tomorrow will be an awesome day.  Some Yoga in the AM, a great swim practice in the afternoon, a long run tomorrow and then my run club to top it off.  Does that not sound like a way for the day to go by!  Have a great night and I hope that your training is going awesome!  Cheers!

Way to Go Canada!

And again I found myself stuck to the front of the television watching those crazy Olympics!  Canada seems to have a knack at getting results on snow!  Imagine that, a country that has 5 months of winter!  THAT IS AWESOME! 3 medals on snow in 3 days!  it makes me smile each time I think about those athletes reaching the top!  the years they have spent working towards the dream!  it brings me back to when I was a kid being out a -40  with my mother telling me it is time to come in.  I always refused wanting to be out there to get faster and get better!  These guys have lived the dream that we all worked towards as kids!  it makes me proud to be a cold Canadian!  I look forward to the games as they continue and we get into some of the other sports and seeing the competition heat up!  GO CANADA GO!
Amongst the Olympic excitement I had an awesome swim today.  Although a short 2000m workout, I did some new drills that were extremely effective.  As a matter of fact after only 250 meters of these drills I found myself being able to bilateral breathe with some ease.  As the practice went on I did have to go back to the drill to get back into the rhythm, but knowing how effective it was will be great to add it to each of my practices.  Once again, it was a favorite workout for me.  My speed is picking up, my technique is becoming a little easier than it has been.  Over the next few weeks I am going to begin to make my practices longer so that I can add some more endurance to my swim.
As I finished my swim today I thought back on my 'training' over the winter.  It has been a game of the id and the ego, ying and yang!  I spend all week passionately training and then I ski like crazy on the weekends.  I always feel like I should be running/bike/swim on the weekends but then.....hhmmmm, I feel the workout of my ski day.  Even as a passionate skier, I am looking forward to packing it in this year and focusing on the task at hand.  That is a funny statement for me to make, I kind of feel guilty for saying it.  I told a fiend today and he looked at me like I had done something wrong.  Being a 'skibum' makes it tough to want to hang them for a season, but this tri thing seems to have bitten me a little.  I hope that I can produce the same results over time as my investment in skiing has given me.  I guess only time will tell!
As Canada is now in the throws of a great hockey game, I am going to sign off and go and feed my Olympic addiction!  Enjoy the games!  GO CANADA GO!  Cheers!