Duathlon #2: Cyclesmith @ Lawrencetown 2015

Two weeks and 2 races. Bam. This year Cyclesmith's Lawrencetown Beach Duathlon was held a little later into June than normal. But with the weather we had this Spring, maybe that wasn't a bad thing. I apologize again for a lack of photos.

Race day came and the morning seemed great. It had rained hard the day before but this day promised sun. Outside I was greeted with a slight chill in the air but otherwise lovely day. Until I got to the beach. Dang you Lawrencetown. The sun was out and bright, but the wind was crazy hard. You could see bikes with disc wheels blowing on the transition racks. You coudl also see the sun slowly disappear under a huge blanket of clouds. Blah. There went the warmth.

Regardless, the race must go on. I was racing the Sprint distance duathlon today, 5km/20km/2.5km (or close enough). Today there was about 22 of us in my race. Not huge, but there were 4 of us up front that would give it a good race.

A few minutes following the start of the International Distance race, we took off. I quickly jumped into the lead, knowing again that I needed to have a little comfort room before the bike leg in order to have a hope that beating some of these bike studs. I hit the first kilometer in 3:29, but I couldn't hang onto that speed after the turn around with the wind in my face. I managed to cross the line into T1 in 18:36 for an avg speed of 3:46 min/km. I had a lead but would it be enough?

A quick change and I was on the bike. The head wind was fierce. I tucked low and pushed on. I really hoped to get as far into the bike portion as possible before the others caught me, but alas Brad got by maybe 5 km in. Still I pushed on. A kilometer later Greg passed me and then Adam. I was able to hang onto Adam at a legal distance, and then to my surprise passed Greg as he had to stop and fix his chain. I knew that bit of respite wouldn't be much, though, as he is such a strong cyclist. And the next thing I knew Adam dropped a chain, wow.

I hit the turn around expecting to finally get out of the head wind (it was so hard to keep a consistent rhythm) and yes, a huge tail wind. The speed jumped quickly. I was happy. Until about 6 km to go at which point (what?!?!) the head wind was back. Oh cruel Lawrencetown.

Shortly after this point Adam recaught me and passed (Greg had gone by again as well). Rather than fight him, I dropped back and followed along. He was pulling away, but it was slow enough that I saw him all the way back to the beach and T2. I figured (and hoped) my run would send me past him again.  My average speed was 33.8 km/hr. Dang the speed on those other guys.

I got to transition in fourth and made the switch to my running gear quickly enough. I took off. Adam was just slightly ahead of me on the path. I focused on picking up my cadence and just hitting a decent pace. I passed him in less than 1/2 a kilometer. I took off after Greg and Brad.

As I neared the turn around I finally saw those two guys running together. But I knew unless they had a really bad turn of events, I was too far behind to make up that distance. Still 3rd place was mine to lose, so push on I did.

I coudl see a few hundred meters ahead as Brad took off and won, followed by Greg. I hit the line with an 11:03 2.5 km run for an avg pace of 3:48 and a total time of 1:07:49. That was a hard fought race and while 3rd wasn't what I wanted, it was earned.

I was mostly really excited that my run averages didn't really drop off as they usually do. Holding a higher pace for the second run was great. I just need to keep doing that. And as usual some more bike work.

Duathlon 1: Shearwater Navy Duathlon

So wow, I'm a little late posting about this race (as the next race is almost upon us). I was waiting at first for some photos, but alas, I found there were none to be had of this race (at least for me).

So we were back at Shearwater, which was the first duathlon of the year for 2015. The good classic 5/20/3 km Sprint distance duathlon is always a fun one. And it is always one that comes with some crazy weather.  This year was no different.

We arrived to find warm sun hidden behind cold wind, and heavy wind at that! We knew that the runway, where the majority of the bike portion is held, would be crazy windy and that it was going to be an interesting race.

After sign in and some warming up, I opted for a last minute addition of a long sleeved compression top.  It was just too cold for me after hanging around outside.

The race briefing was quick and to the point and we soon lined up for the start. Off we went!

I quickly took the lead and hoped that I could grab a good lead heading into T1 by pushing hard on the first 5km run. But the last few weeks I have not been able to do much if any training and it quickly showed. My uber fast starting pace quickly slowed down to a more tempo esque pace for me. I kept the lead but not nearly as much as I had hoped for. I hit T1 in 18:55 for a 3:45min/km pace. Not bad, but considering how much it took out of me, not great.

A quick change into some bike gear and away I went.  We start with a huge climb to the runway plus some twisty turny bits. I hit the runway in the lead but Adam was not far behind. Soon I heard his disc wheel as he over took me. I dropped in behind and followed at the legal distance.

We were flying down the runway and over the bumps and ruts of the tarmac before we changed direction and headed back the other way to finish lap 1 of 3. Then the headwind hit. Wow. We dropped from high 40's km/hr to high 20's in no time. I found that my distance to Adam wasn't changing so I overtook him and tried to use my strength in the wind to pull a gap. At this time Kevin C caught up to us as well.

Kevin overtook me at the finish of lap 1. As I dropped back Adam surged ahead. So I tucked back in. Again, though, as we hit the head wind I surged passed Adam and worked harder to really open the gap up. I stayed ahead for the remainder of the bike portion. But I could catch back up to Kevin, who is a demon on the bike. I knew I needed to be within a minute to really be able to catch him on the short final run.

Coming into T2 I just about caught up with a truck bringing in a BBQ for the event.  Then at the last second it turned off. Whew.  I hit the dismount line with an average speed of 31.5 km/hr and a time of 41:09. Not as fast as I would have liked, but I'll take it with the wind and lack of bike training I managed not only the past few weeks but frankly all winter long.

So Kevin was gone at this point. I switched into my running gear as quick as I could and took off. Sadly, I only started to catch him by the turn around point, and was not nearly close enough to mount a real challenge at the end. My endurance on the run wasn't there. I did take about 1 minute out of his lead on the run, but his bike had been just too good for me. I ran a 11:19 3K for a 3:58min/km pace to end things off.

I am okay with my second place finish, but not satisfied. I had worked quite hard but things derailed me this past month. Nothing one can do about life challenges, but I am glad to see that the hard work I put into my running meant that my fitness loss over the last few weeks wasn't as bad as it could have been. My heart was strong, my lungs were strong and I was able to push. So I am looking forward to the next race.

My finishing time was 1:11:23.

Vacation, training and life's hiccups

So here I am still in Colorado, should have been home last week but life threw a little block our way.

We traveled here to visit family and unwind after that horrendous winter we had. I had just finished the Bluenose Half Marathon and a rest sounded nice. I figured some easy runs daily and nothing too crazy. After all this is a high elevation and the altitude can play havoc on you when you aren't ready for it. We didn't really pack for such cold weather. I finally got out for a short run after 2 days, when the rain let up long enough to make it viable. As far as runs go, it was blah.

Instead I started to rely on my physiotherapy exercises and eventually we found a local gym to go to, where I took in some swimming and a little easy spin biking. Not too bad, though kind of annoying to do in such a beautiful place.

Finally the weather cleared and the warmth arrived. We took the opportunity to do some hiking. That was great. Then a family member got sick, hospital sick and we had to put things on hold. We missed our flight home and spent days hanging out in a hospital room "entertaining" the sick. I did manage a couple of easy short runs around the hospital grounds, but with lack of sleep and lack of oxygen creeping in, those didn't feel so good.

Things have worked out well, we'll be on our way home soon, everyone having recovered perfectly.

So yeah, life throws this stuff at us, and in a way it is almost like an injury mid training. You go from high to lows and you can't get that pent up energy out. You are tired and exhausted, but not in that good way. But you roll with it. We aren't professional athletes. We don't rely on "exercise" to make a living. We need to step back, regroup, focus on what needs to be done and realize that we'll get back to where we were soon enough.

That all being said, i can't wait to get back on my bike. I miss it.

Halifax Bluenose Half Marathon 2015

So today was the Bluenose Half marathon here in Halifax. I have been training hard for this event, even with the horrible winter we had. Based on my training indoors for months I thought I had a great shot at getting slightly faster than my last time here of 1:23:53. While training on the track went well, it did lack some specific outdoor training (ie hills!) which I knew might be an issue.

The weather was overcast and cold to start. The cold was annoying while waiting around, but lovely for the run.  I lined up next to the guy who would win, a Kenyan named Abel who was the 2012 London Olympic Marathon Silver Medal winner (yikes!). He was a very nice guy, from what I saw.

There we go!

So off we went. I was immediately trapped behind a few runners but found my way around and into 3rd place overall, with Abel already taking off at a blistering pace. By 2km into the race I had eased my way into 2nd place overall and my pace felt quite nice. I wasn't passed again until 4km in, at which point my shins started aching. That was odd as it doesn't happen often. It also started to drizzle at this point as well. Thanks for that.

Still I was happy to be easing into a pace I liked. At km 6 I was passed by another couple of guys but still held my pace. But the slight head wind really seemed to be sapping my strength, as I frequently found myself drifting off pace. I'd surge and drift, surge and drift. I managed to cross the 10km mark at 39:23, which while good, was almost 1 minute slower than my time last year, and at this point the ache in my shins moved to my calf. This calf had given me issues last year, but nothing so far in training had come up. Thanks calf.

Pushing through I tagged onto two guys that eased up and passed me at the 11km mark. I held on with them for the next 2 km but drifted back just enough to lose their draft. From this point on I ran relatively alone. 

The hills of Point Pleasant Parks luckily didn't hurt as much as last year, but the calf certainly did. I drifted in my overall average pace from a 3:56 to a 3:58 then a 4:01. The next series of hills aches for sure but I pushed through. I was incredibly happy though to have my cardio not at all be a limited factor, my heart was strong and my lungs very happy. Hooray on that.

On Queen St I dared to look back and saw that the next runners were quite a distance away. Still, you don't let up at this point. I pushed through the next couple of kms which were on a very slight uphill (1-2% grade) and then came to the final downhill. I was not looking forward to this. I knew I couldn't go too crazy downhill as my calf wouldn't be able to take it, but the other runners were maybe 200-300m behind, so I couldn't let up.

I managed to hit the bottom of the hill and make the sharp turn towards the finish line and the next uphill (ugh). I summoned what I had left and pushed to the finish, coming in at 1:24:58. Not the time I hoped for, but the time I had today. My legs just didn't want to let me have anything faster.

I was happy to come in 8th overall and 2nd in my Age Group. A little more work on my calves, a little more threshold work and we'll come back for a Fall half marathon to see what I can do. Thanks to Aerobics First for the great shoes and to Jeff Z at Kinesic Sports lab for the strong cardio. Now onto the world of Triathlon!

My prize for my great finish, a limited edition print.

More Gloves? Yup. Enough with the Gloves. A Review.

So I went and bought new gloves. The guy with always cold hands. I didn't need them, but I was at  a product demo sale and the price was very nice, so I bought them.

So this was a Salomon product sample sale I went to. They usually have great products, high end stuff. That usually means I need to wait for sales to buy them, but when I can, look out!

So I found these simple but great cycling gloves.

Seems normal enough. They are comfy, pull on style cycling gloves with a mesh back and no fingers. They aren't heavily padded on the palms, which I like.

Okay, so what is so special about these gloves? Well as usual I like to have warm hands and this means that  I need the fingers to be covered. What's a cycling boy to do!?

Zing, a little pouch on the back of the glove stores a windbreaker like cover for your fingers and thumb. Sure not ground breaking or Earth shattering, but darn handy, and I personally hadn't seen gloves like these before (I have seen gloves that become mittens but not finger less cycling gloves).

The little windbreaker is super light weight, so when folded away you don't notice it. And it is just enough to take off the light chill in the Spring air. So far I love these little guys.

Enjoying my Garmin Swim

So at the end of last year my watch broke. The good old trusty Timex Ironman I used as a daily watch and as my pool watch. Sure it did laps (manually) but that was about it. I coudl keep track of my basic swim session but it required me to remember what strokes I did, how long sets were etc... Still, until it broke, it worked fine.

So I needed a new watch and the opportunity to get the Garmin Swim watch at a great price came up. So I said yes!

First off, it is a very nice daily watch. Not too big (I have small wrists), but plenty easy to see. It has the watch basics I need (stopwatch, time, alarm) and best of all it tracks my swims for me automatically. I feed it a small bit of info ahead of time (pool size, my weight etc...) and it tracks it all. It know what strokes I am doing, how long each set is, and all I need to do is hit pause when I stop for a rest. This is a major step up for my swimming (which let's be honest isn't great).

So no need to go into a full on review. There are tons of those online. But aside from being a way better tracker than my brain, this watch is great at letting me review how well a swim progresses "during" the swim. Before I coudl say that the set was 10 minutes long, but know I can see if I am too fast to start and then slow down, slow in the middle etc... That is great information. It also tracks my strokes per minute and as a bad swimming that is really nice. I have seen over the past few months that my spm is actually increasing ever so slightly. This gives me hope that I am actually progressing, and now that my heavy run training is winding down a bit, I can actually hit the pool a bit more often. So I hope to see that number climb even more.

There are other great options for swim watches as well, and this one does fail at not being usable outdoors. But the opportunity was too great to pass up, and I really love to pour over the numbers after a work out. So yay for me!

Race #2 the MEC Citadel 5K - Go Hills or Go Home

So here we are in April. That means time for the MEC Citadel 5 and 10 K crazy hill fantastic awesome race. Okay, I may have embellished the name a little. This is my 4th year doing this race. The first year I ran the 10K, the next 3 I have done the 5K. I really like this race at this time of year as I get to see where my fitness is and how training has been going .  Plus I can see if my hills are okay or really lacking.

So the day was promising to be wet, but luckily it wasn't. We had sun and only light wind. That meant I could run in shorts and a short sleeved top. I did have to add some light weight gloves as the air was chilly, but that was a perfect combo for running in this weather.

Sadly we couldn't run the usual course this year as the ditch was still full of snow from our crazy winter. So it meant a slight detour at street level to make up the distance.

This year I did a decent warmup and ran the perimeter of the Fort. I probably could have done a second lap and maybe that is what I will do next year. But it gave me confidence in my choice of apparel anyway.

As usual you have no idea what sort of racers will show up for any given race in this series, though usually there is some fast guys. I lined up at the front and right around 9:30 the Highlander gave us a great send off with a fire from a rifle.

The race starts on a gravel surface as we work ourselves out of the Fort's parade ground, then across some pave stone and to the paved perimeter road.

There I come, trying to pace appropriately

The race then drops to street level which is a huge drop in a very short distance, followed by a 180 to start the climb back up. At this point I had worked my way into 3rd place (though didn't know if both runners ahead were 5 or 10 k). I had a strong climb up and continued around the backside of the Fort before the next drop to street level. The second steep climb back up to the hill top was a lot more difficult. My pace here dropped quite a bit, though to be truthful I hadn't glanced at my pace in quite a while as I was using the faster runners to pace off of.

The race does one more lap of the outside of the Fort (though without the drops to street level again) and then into the Parade Square again. At this point the runner behind me passed me as we started up the gravel ramp to the ramparts. In the past I had a little more kick left in me, but today I had paced to my limit and holding my pace was the best I had. Guns were dodged (cannons) and finally the finish line came. Whew. 18:55 was the official time. The winner was 17:50.

So a fourth place finish this day and no medal for me. That's cool, I was beaten by faster runners on the day. But I will say I managed to better my previous best on this course by 26 seconds, and that a lot. I averaged a 3:49 pace, with an average heart rate of 177. So that average heart rate is close to my maximum usable heart rate from my last lactate test. I guess a new test with Kinesic Sport Lab is in order.

Great race as usual MEC. Great to see my fitness as high as that, especially as I have spent most of this winter running indoors. But my training plan is going well, I have stayed injury free  and now appear to have got faster as well.

Next planned big race, Bluenose Half Marathon. Here we come.