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. 

A Shoe Review! - The Saucony Mirage 4

So there it is, the Saucony Mirage 4 (well that's a picture I stole from the internet, but mine looks the same). It sure is flashy and we all know that flashy means fast. The colours alone conjure up images of speed.

Anyway, I don't do a lot of gear reviews and shoes are very personal, but I thought I would jot down a few notes about why this shoe is working for me. I won't worry about things like ProGrid technology! or other such marketing terms though, just the how and why of what works for me.

I had been running the in the immensely popular NB 890 for quite a few years, but last year they changed the last it is made on and it threw me for a loop. I had to size up and still the toe box was too narrow. Also I found it slightly bouncy. While many people like a cushiony feeling shoe, I like my shoe on the firmer side.

So a stop at my favorite shoe store Aerobic First in Halifax to talk to my favorite shoe guy Luke and we found this great Mirage 4 (see picture of shoe above) in the sale rack left over from the previous year. The price was right, the fit was right and Luke watched me as I ran in it on the treadmill and all seemed good. So I bought them  (plus what's not to love about A1's fit guarantee).

After 100km and 4 half marathon distance training runs I am sold and will use this as my go to shoe for now. So what features do I like?

4mm ramp: I like a 4-8mm ramp shoe and this hits the mark. I don't like zero drop shoes and I don't like high heel wedges. So perfect.

Firm: This is a firm shoe with less cushioning than other distance shoes. I do like to have a bit more ground feel as I run and this help. The bounce comes from you and a high cadence, this shoe is probably not for the runner with a slow turn over.

Smooth Inner Liner: Unlike some of my New Balance shoes, you can easily wear this shoe sockless. There are no rough seams to worry about. While I do wear socks for most of my runs, I don't when I race in triathlons. So with the simple addition of some elastic laces, this is a great triathlon shoe.

Weight: While the weight listed by Saucony does put this much higher (some 100g) than say a NB 1400 or other pure race shoe, it feels responsive and not heavy at all. Perhaps that is the firm factor?

Toe Box: As I said initially, my feet are a bit too wide in the toe box for the NB 890 in normal width. But only slightly. This fit with room to spare.

Wear: So far with 4 half marathons and 100km the shoes are showing very little wear, so that bodes well for this being a great trainer and race day shoe for me.

Posting: There is minimal posting on this shoe (it is listed as a neutral runner) but there is some. Personally I like this. Just enough to deal with my slightly shallow arches and keep my foot more rounded and happy, especially on longer runs.

So over all, not bad, shoe. Definitely one I will revisit as long as Saucony continues with this Last style in making and shaping the shoe.
 

Tri the Oval 4, 2015 Bite Me Winter

So last Sunday (yeah I know I am slow writing this one up) was Tri the Oval 4. Ever since we had an outdoor long track speed skating oval installed in Halifax, the wonder MC has hosted a race, and she puts on a quality show. Skate, bike run makes for a crazy fun time and a great non traditional triathlon.

Every year we get some sort of crazy weather show up on race day making this race a challenge to put on, but so far we have never had to cancel the skate. This winter looked to be a great heading into the race.  Cold temps, tons of snow....the Commons were primed. But the night before rain. Seriously, the temps went up and rain came down.

So we showed up and the ground was ice and wet. Except where the snow was, that was deep mush. As I stood chatting with some fellow racers, MC and the volunteers were hurriedly trying to alter the course and prep things. The oval was under a couple of inches of water and a huge wind was blowing.  Volunteers were using snow  shoes to try and create a new course. All was very crazy. I wore a rain suit and was getting hot.

By the time it was race time a few brave souls had decided to get on with things and give it a good race (while we watched the street flood).

At this point it was announced that the lap counting system was broken (likely due to all the water) so we had to count our own skating laps. Yikes, but them's the brakes.

We were off and I watched Greg zoom away on his speed skates. The headwind was fierce, the tail wind carzy fun. The water was so deep in areas that my feet were instantly soaked. Brrrr. I pushed hard and was hanging with the leaders in the skate. I think ultimately I was in about 4th place. The 5K skate was the only part of the race that wasn`t cut short. After I counted 13 laps I stepped off the ice, only to see that I had fallen to maybe 10th or 12th place due to my inability to count. Ha ha on me. Dang.

Still, I didn`t cry about it, switched to my sneakers and ran /shuffled to the bike, passing a few people at that point. I grabbed my bike and headed to the mount line (by the way transition for the bikes had to move as the regular spot was under water). At this point it became apparent that actually riding the bike wasn't going to be easy. The sow was deep, knee deep in spots and super soft. So we were all running our bikes. I tried a few times to get on and ride, but it always lead to failure. Still I was passing others and managed to ride in an icy spot for a bit. I yelled with joy, then I had to get off and run some more.

By the end of the first lap on the bike, we were told to head straight to the run portion, as watching us push bikes around was very sad to see I guess. I had now moved myself up into 4th position.

Hey clear ground to run on!

I hit the run course in second, and then more deep snow. This time it was more calf deep, bit oh so hard to push through. Still I ran as best as I could. The run course was shortened and was just a little over 2 km. I finished it in just a little under 12 minutes. Ouch.  I finished in 38 minutes and it was the hardest 38 minutes I had ever raced. I was about 1 minute down on the winner, which considering my extra skate lap (and the fact that he lapped me 3 times anyway on the skate) felt really good. I guess my deep snow running is quite good.

Having an event like this makes winter a little more bearable. It forced me onto speed skates for the first time (and I love them). And regardless of the crazy race day weather, it is fun. 

Chatting with race winner Greg at the end (he was soaked)

See race done still smiling

My custom medals and race bib (disregard the date) 

The ever in demand Tri the Oval Winter Hat 

 Coffee from Java Blend, uber important to warm up

 The real reason we race, cookies

 

My New Gadget

Well I couldn't resist grabbing a new to me, piece of old school technology. I saw a sale recently and had to buy what the runners of 2000 would have thought of as really cool stuff, but the runners of 2015 in the age of GPS would see as mostly useless. I bought a foot pod.

So before GPS watches were taking off, many runners used foot pods to more accurately gauge distance and speed. A foot pod is essentially just a small accelerometer that you wear on your shoe. It sends signals back to your watch via a unique code. Based on calibration, the foot pod will track a variety of metrics such as speed, distance, and most importantly cadence.

So there it is. Light weight and unnoticeable once attached and running. In this case I have a Timex branded foot pod, but because it uses standard ANT+ communication tech, it speaks just fine with my Garmin watch (do check for compatibility though if you try to mix and match brands).

In the winter I do a lot of indoor running and this of course means no GPS signal. I happen to run on an indoor track, but this can also work just fine on a treadmill. While treadmills generally tell you speed and distance anyway, they are notoriously inaccurate and it doesn't allow you to up load your run data to your favorite training log, you have to do it manually.

So after getting this little beauty, I took it to the track yesterday to try it out. 15 minutes in and I realize that my attempt at calibration failed. Maybe next time I will read the instruction (online of course as it doesn't come with any). After the issues were fixed I was back to running. It was great to see my cadence showing up and right where I like it, right around 90 per foot. In the end my average cadence was 176, but that included stopping a few times for a drink and a bit of a cool down at the end.

No more guessing on pace for me for my winter runs, or on dodgy hotel treadmills. My goal of making each run count so that I can focus on a less is more training philosophy has taken a new step.

Also it turns out my indoor runs were at a much faster pace than I realized. That didn't hurt the ego.

Skating Towards Something New 2015

So anyway it is winter here in Nova Scotia. It is cold here right now, and while run training is happening regardless, sometimes it is fun to actually take part in winter and thus I have started Speed Skating lessons.

I started taking lessons a few weeks ago, and while fun, it is hard work for sure. Much like swimming, I am an adult onset skater. My technique on any skates is fairly limited. Sure I took part in the Tri the Oval winter triathlons for the past few years, but my skating there was more tenacity than technique.

After a few weeks, I have progressed quite a bit, even to the point of rather liking skating quite a bit. And as is usual, that means I had to take part in a race. So this morning I suited up for a 5km long track race.

A small field of 10 lined up on a rather chilly morning, half on speed skates, half on hockey skates. After a few warm up laps and then we were off.

I'd love to say I flew along and did great things, but I will say I survived. I started in 4th place and then took over third, to stay there for the rest of the event.

Our race took place after the 10km marathon skate, so the track was already a little torn up, especially in the corners. I tried to do my cross overs for extra speed, but after a few stumbles, I decided to hold off and glide through the corners a bit more.

I was able to hold onto my technique for about the first half of the event, but slowly my lower back started to ache, my thighs started to burn. I just need more skate time to build my endurance it seems.

Soon, I heard my name called for my final lap, pushed through as best as I could and came home in 3rd overall. About 1 minute down on first at that point for a 13:47 time. Over a minute faster than my fastest Tri the Oval 5km skate.  I did keep my heart rate monitor on as well, and had an average heart rate of 156bpm. I'll have to see how that compares to future skates, but it is 1 beat away from my marathon heart rate.

I'm happy I took part, it pushed my limits, showed my lack of skill and took me out of my comfort zone. I am looking forward to more practice and definitely more races in the future. My skill on skates has grown a lot this winter season and I urge everyone to find a great "cold" weather sport to keep on their toes all winter long.

And hey, a cool medal! I'm not a huge collector, but it is nice to have a first medal to commemorate things.