Sacrificial Races

Sacrifices. For those that know me, mountain biking is my primary activity. I love riding the steepest, rockiest, scarriest, gnarliest terrain I can find. I am well beyond your average weekend warrior trail rider. My season is normally dotted with some racing but Ironman demands I sacrifice this competitive component of my activity if I am to make it at Ironman.

Paris to Ancaster is a long standing tradition, 60Km mountain bike race. In reality it is dominated by cyclocross riders but it's still seen as a MTB event. The first event of the year, usually a good opportunity to test yourself after a long cold winter of stuffing yourself with Holiday turkey. It's one of those races that reminds you of just how out of shape you really are. Its always a challenge!

Which comes to the sacrifice. I cut this race out of my schedule, as well as all other mountain bike events. I might have time for a couple after Ironman, but in the meantime I decided to save the money and the suffering so I can stick to the training plan as best I can. I was disappointed that I couldn't join friends at this year's race but after seeing the horrible weather and conditions the race had to endure - I am glad I didn't go. Every year has been cold, muddy and miserable so I dropped this race knowing I probably wouldn't miss much. It turned out exactly as expected. These conditions actually make for one epic ride, something to be remembered but alas I do not regret missing the race. I promise myself I will make up for it next year though - I definitely plan to race it next year and actually train seriously for it.

In the meantime I spent the better part of the morning on a 21Km run fit perfectly between the snow and rain. We started and finished between the spurts of bad weather, so outside of some cold and big wind, it was a great long slow run! We learned that the other people in the running group go for coffee afterwards so I accepted the invitation to get to know the other people in the group. That is one of my favourite parts of this running group, everyone is very nice and I like getting to know the other athletes. We had a good time!

I realized that this upcoming week is a recovery week! I had not looked that far ahead in the training program. If I look too far ahead I see scary numbers and I start stressing about how am I going to fit all the training in, so I didn't even think to see what was on the upcoming agenda. I have finished this week very strong and look foward to going 70% distance, intensity and duration for the upcoming week. It is time to let the body heal, build up those energy reserves. I like to think of these recovery weeks as 'wife' weeks. I will run and bike with her so we can spend some time together and I can help motivate her out the door to get her workouts in. This will be a fun week! Too bad the weather may not co-operate, we'll see.

TRAINING:

Run - 2:00hrs

Over Plan

You go through all the trouble of writing a training plan but then do not sick to the plan. Go figure.

I haven't followed the plan over the past few days. I don't mean that I haven't been meeting the requirements, I mean that I have exceeded them by a significant amount. Maybe too much.

Thursday night's run was supposed to be an easy 12Km. Instead it turned into a long sprint. I held a 5min/km for almost 5km to get to the gym to meet up with the rest of the running group. While they stood around talking I made a rush trip to the bathroom since the salami sandwhich my wife made me for lunch was likely expired. It wasn't pretty. Needless to say everyone had already left without me so I had to pull a 4:20min/km for a few kilometers in order to catch the lead pack. By the time I caught up to them they were feeling good and picked up the pace back to a sub 5min/km average for the most part. I dug deep and got it done. No injuries to report of, but clearly well outside the realm of the planned recovery run. Ooops.

Friday was supposed to be a scheduled rest day. No Training. Instead I took my planned long bike on Saturday and swapped it with Friday because I wanted to avoid the bad weather on the weekend. I went out on a 4hr mountain bike ride that followed trails best described as suicidal. It was one heck of a workout. I had a tough time, probably because my bike was not setup properly for those trails and I am coming off 17hrs of training over the last 7 days. I should have taken the break. It's OK to shuffle workouts around, but that was a bad idea to move a scheduled rest day. I paid for it with a tough time on that ride. I got it done and injury free which was a miracle considering the type of trail I was on.

Which brings me to Saturday. This does not feel like a rest day. I woke up puffy eyes and exhausted body. I was too tired to sleep last night. I didn't have obvious soreness in my muscles but there was definitely a background 'burning' sensation to them that kept me up all night. I couldn't get anything to relax, thus I didn't sleep much.

Mentally I'm in a good place. I am getting it done. I enjoy the challenge of training hard but there are scheduled easy days and a method to the madness of intensity & duration. I'm not following the plan intelligently. I am having a hard time toning it down. I am a bit worried I may pay for this later in the plan when the workouts get crazy long. In the meantime, I am kind of enjoying it actually. I am getting an adrenaline rush just thinking about how hard it is. Yup, I'm addicted.

MTB can be safer than Road. Sometimes.

I'm a bit short on 'hours' of training since I swapped my road bike ride with a hardcore mountain bike ride. It wouldn't be unfair to say that my 4hrs MTB ride converts at a rate of +20% to the road equivalent. Its safe to say that my scheduled 3hr road ride was replaced with a 5+hrs ride. Full body workout to boot.

TRAINING:

Run - 1:00hrs Speed
Bike - 4:00hrs MTB Super-Technical

Chocolate Scales

I Love You. All of You!

I didn't need a scale to tell me I am making progress. I could feel the weight slowly disappearing over the past few weeks. If you remember, I had a mini-crisis over hitting my 'Holy-$hit' weight and declaring war on the scale. An ungodly amount of pizza combined with a plethora of snacks, even healthy ones, added up at the waistline.

Actually, if it wasn't for Mrs. LoTC I would still be a phatass. I give her all the credit because it was her early mornings that made my light breakfast, usually homemade fruit smoothies, and my big salad lunches that put a real dent into my calorie counting. I'm happy to say I'm back down to my all-time record low again. 171.8lbs which is technically 0.2lbs higher than my all time low but that last download was worth a solid deuce-and-a-half. Just sayin' ;) lol

Which brings me to my struggle. I don't do fundraisers. I have an easy time ignoring chocolate bars and treats but when approached with Chocolate Almonds, namely the 'Worlds Finest' brand I cannot resist. Unfortunately for me there is a mountain of them sitting in the lunch room calling my name. They have been whispering sweet-nothings in my ear, running their fingers through my hair and nibbling on my neck. They want me. I can feel them calling my name. Even from down the hall.

No. I have no willpower. Of course I slipped a hand in my pocket to buy a box. I only have a $20 though. That never used to be a problem. Seriously, I would have bought $20 worth and polished them off in a single afternoon at my desk. I walked away.

Later in the day I went to get a coffee and I could feel them staring at me again. Of course I gave in. I rationalized the treat by adding some extra miles to my run tonight, so I settled on buying just 4 boxes. UnFortunate for me there was still not enough change to break my 20 dollar bill. Sure I could just get 5 boxes and it would work but 5 is just a bit too much I thought.

Think of the scale this morning. Hitting that goal. Feeling so good! Do I really want to sabotage a few weeks of healthy eating?

HELL YA - GIMME MY FRACKIN' CHOOCLATE ALMONDS ALREADY%%!!!@!#!!!

I gotta get out of here.

Pre Race Festivities

On the training front I had another sooper speedy 50Km ride last night. Rougher roads this time, that was a lousy route to experiment with. I dont know if I was fast or if that is just he normal pace for a TT bike cuz there is at least an additional 4km/h MINIMUM to my average pace over last year. I can see my climbing needs improvement though. I can't seem to find the sweet spot on this bike. I need to work on my climbing posture to get comfortable, there was some lower back pain going on. I'll work on it. I even got out of bed early to get a strength training session in. It was weak but better than nothing since nothing is all I have been doing in the strength training department. I am hoping to make a routine of this.

Oh and I found a bunch of Around The Bay Pre-Race Photos. Yup, my pre-race meal consisted of McDonalds. Ohhhh it was sooooo goood! I ran a PR the next day too so I am pretty sure this worked for me! Of course it was my first ever running race so just finishing would have been a personal best hah!

I REALLY Like the Ketchup!

Old Roadies

No. I cannot come out and play. That makes me sad.
I did all my road riding last year solo so when I gutted my road bike to build the wife's bike I didn't think I would be missing anything. I would just do all my training solo on the TT bike. Instead now I have had a couple of invitations and good opportunities to ride with the local roadies but I am without a road bike to go out and play with them. I've been eyeing a cyclocross bike but am having  a hard time justifying buying yet another bike this 'winter'. I fully intend to buy one next winter without a doubt, so do I wait or do I just pull the trigger? Decisions decisions. I hate spending money. You may have noticed that from my umm 'foam roller' and 'the stick'. Spending money stresses me out! I get it from my cheap-a$$ father! lol must be in the genes.

I'm just riding the wave of energy coming off of a weekend high. 170Km ride, followed by a 19km run followed by a 50km bike sprint lead me to one heck of a run last night. I fought a non-injury all day long. I could feel my IT Band tugging and rubbing my knee area and we all know it takes very little for inflamation to flare up. I stretched it all day to no avail but a quick Stick-Roller RollingPin-PoolNoodle session loosened it up just enough!
I ran with A Machine Steve from our newly joined running group. This guy is on another level of running than me so I have to push myself out of the comfort-zone to hold pace with him. He is 50. I love it! I'm getting schooled by a 50yr old and I'm enjoying the challenge! All together I pounded out a 12km route at 5:00min/km. Another solid workout to add to the streak. Mrs. LoTC and I followed up the run with a 50 minute swim. I took it easy at the pool, I had not swam in a week so I could feel the rust on the joints.

TRAINING

Run - 1:00hrs Speed
Swim - 0:50hrs Recovery

Speed Sails

50Km/h Winds, Dark overcast with threat of thunderstorm, Impending sunset.

Yeh, I mustered up a long list of plausible excuses as to why I should skip the bike in favour of a run and then a swim. In the end,  it had not started to rain yet so in all reality there was no immediate good reason to not do my bike. I suited up and headed out the door...

HOLY FRICKIN' WARP SPEED!

I was easily warming up at a steady 50km/h on the way out of town. I could feel the wind carrying along at break-neck speeds. I didn't let up, I just put my head down and enjoyed the ride. The uphills were amazing, I easily held 35km/h on a steep climb. It was hilarious!
I had to close my mouth. The wind was so strong it caught the inside of my mouth and blew my check up like a ballon. I could feel my big lower lip literally flapping in the wind. All I could do was laugh because it reminded me of just being like a cartoon character.
The most amazing thing of all - the perceived effect of the aero wheels. Even with a headwind, I picked up speed. I could feel the wind grab the deep dish wheel and propel me forward even when it was hitting from a 10 degree angle. Is that possible? Headwind makes you faster? I thought maybe its just in my head and the wind going over my ear made if seem faster but my speedometer clearly indicated I was going faster with each gust to the face.
I screamed down the highways and got to feel the effect of those winds on 66mm deep rims. I recall reading that 66mm is too deep for heavy winds and you will get thrown around on the bike. Well I can tell you that those people probably have very poor bike handling skills. Perhaps I have an added advantage of a mountain biking background so I know how to handle myself on a bike. I was able to lean into the winds, and I mean really lean over to counteract the intense crosswinds. Everything felt great until the wind hit at an exact 90 degree angle. Then I had my first 'Hold $hit' moment. Immediately I got out of the aero position and had to grab the bull by the horns because it took alot of strength and leverage to not get blown over. There was a bit of swerving on the road at that point. This only happened twice throughout the whole ride and I was able to anticipate the cross wind in relation to the direction of travel and seen it coming.
The scarriest moment was crossing the exapansion joints of  small bridge at the bottom of the hill. As I approached the 'crack' I lightened the load on the wheel a bit too much. The bike easily lifted off the ground in a 'bunny hop' and while in the air a gust of wind blew me off course! I felt the bike yaw sideways and I immediately shoved it back into the pavement balancing my weight and applying pressure to the wheel that needed traction most. It was a delicate balancing act, I am pretty sure most people would have crashed. After that I decided not to drink anymore water since I preferred to keep the weight on the bike to help with traction.
I did feel the bike 'skate' across the lane a couple of times. The wind must have been closer to 65+km/h in the open country field and while I was pointed straight down the road, the bike was drifting to the center of the lane. There wasn't enough traction to hold a line and the wind was pushing me to the left. Did I mention it was windy?


The return trip was fun. The headwind was irrelevant, while in the aero position it felt like I was still speeding along at a decent pace. I swear the headwind really was catching the wheels and pushing me forward somehow. I am no physics expert so I can only go by how it felt.

It never rained. I barely made it back before sunset due to dark overcast. I made it home alive. What an adrenaline rush! That was very exciting, but I dont know if I'll be doing that again anytime soon. Maybe I'll swap in the training wheels instead lol.

Check out the average speeds on those splits! Wow!

TRAINING

Bike - 1:40hrs Super-Sprint

Week 25 Review

So here I am with the first full training week since the Around the Bay 30Km run race. I started the week off too strong and pushed too hard on the run leaving me at a snail pace for the remainder of the week. That is just me testing my limies. And finding them. Luckily no looming inuries to report. Everything seems to be as it should be.

Realistc Goal Setting

So the latest mantra is 'every second of every minute of every workout COUNTS against IMLP now, Now, NOW!'. So far it has been working for me, I'm getting it done.
One of the concerns in the back of my mind is a smidge of dissappointment over my pace. Namely the bike. Sure Saturday was the first outdoor bike but given how slow it was, I need to adjust my expectations for IMLP. As the training program progessed I nudged my expected finishing time down a bit every couple of weeks. Now I'm expecting much much longer than anticipated. Sure its a bit early, but I need to get realistic about a sustainable pace and not set myself up for disappointment. Of course the primary goal is to finish, but I had overly-optimistic time goals that need to be put in their place.
I know the rule of thumb is, enjoy the race and just finish it however I've been placing some pressure on myself to perform a certain finishing time. I need to reset mentally. I need to get faster on the bike. It was supposed to be my strength!

I was a bad boy this week. I deviated from the training plan an put way more bike in and slightly less run. I am going to try to stick to the actual plan this week or risk burning out or peaking too soon for IMLP. We'll see how I feel this week.

TRAINING: (Set 7, Week 2 - Performance Phase)

Swim - 2:00hrs
Bike - 9:00hrs (260Km)
Run - 4:00hrs (42Km)

TOTAL - 15:00hrs

Full Weekend

What a big weekend. It's one of those ones that feel like it was a week long!

FRIDAY
I kicked if off with some frantic equipment checking and double checking. I was rushed since we had to be to a party by 8pm-ish so I had just barely enough time to assemble and tune the Tri-Bike in preparation for a big ride the next day. This is the first real ride on my new bike. I got one cold late fall ride in when I first picked it up but it was short and painful from trying to hold the aero position for the first time. I decided to mount my race wheels since I wanted to see what they felt like, plus I want to get my money's worth out of these things. They aren't cheap!
I have been tolerating some lazy shifting from my rear gears while it was on the trainer, but that is not acceptable on the road. I was happy to find that all that was needed is a quick adjustment to the B-Tension screw and the thing was shifting perfectly!
Which brings me to the open-heart surgery I had to perform on my peice of crap Garmin GPS. I hate Garmin. Pi$$ poor service if you ask me. My GPS would shut itself off if you hit a bump the right way, and it would lose the data for the current ride. That makes me very unhappy! Anyhow, Garmin said they would fix it under warranty after a $75 bull$hit depot fee of some sort. Right. Warranty my a$$. In the states some people were able to get a local retailer to send it for free on there behalf but here in Canada it goes to some third party repair depot which obviously doesn't care. Regardless, after some quick research I found the problem. A blatently obvious design flaw which caused a ton of people to complain about the same problem online. Garmin, you suck! I figure I would take the chance of fixing it myself. If I break it, then I'll put the $75 to a different GPS, preferrably not from Garmin, as opposed to paying a stupid depot fee for something that should have been corrected for free. Garmin, you Suck!
I used my fingernail to crack the outer case seal. Ow, that hurt. I cut myself in the process. No matter, it came apart perfectly! I seen the problem immediately. Piss poor leaf springs attached to a board that is directly conncted to the communications ports. Idiots, anyone with half a brain could have told you the connect/disconnect of the port would screw it up in time. So I took apart the comm port, cut out an extra spacer out of an old tube by using the original lousy spacer as a template. Insert both spacers and voila! The connection should be solid now! The hard part was finding the proper non-permanent waterproof adhesive to attach the two bodies. I could not find the loctite product that I had in mind so I just used some generic crap. The danger is that if I used the wrong stuff and the case is permanently sealed, thus I only get one chance at making the repair and will never get it open again. I got it back together just fine but I question the adhesive made a good enough seal all the way around, I dont want water leaking in. Oh well, time will tell. Did I mention Garmin, you suck!
That evening we hit a Conquer Cancer fund raising party at a local cycling-themed cafe. It was great to chat with some of the best riders in the area, except this time we weren't in lycra and helmets. People looked different! I even got to meet an Ironman that was willing to share some fun stories. We stayed up a little past our bedtime but I think it was worth it.

SATURDAY
Slept in an extra hour to make up for the late night. There may have been a slight touch of procrastination mixed in since it was 4 celsius in the morning but supposed to jump to 15 celsius in the afternoon so I didn't want to rush out the door. Getting ready was easy, I had laid everything out the night before. Deciding what to wear was tough, I second guessed myself a million times. I don't want to get far away from home and find I'm freezing to death, but I didn't have the means to store extra layers if I got too hot either. Anyways, I gave up and commited to a decision because it was getting late and if I am going to pull the long ride off, I would like to get home before dinner!
Off I went. Sun shining, no wind and dressed just right. Getting out of the city was a pain. I have new pedals and they are really hard to get in and out so I hated stopping for lights cuz it was risky getting going again. I also had my eyes peeled on the road, I didn't want to ding my fancy carbon wheels on their maiden voyage. I made sure to avoid the man-eating potholes.
Having planned an out-and-back-ish loop I was faced with a bit of a headwind on the country roads. This was offset by a bit of a downhill trend so I didn't mind. I ignored my speedo and just held a speed that 'felt right'. If I pressure myself to hold above 30km/h I may burn myself out before the end. I also have to consider, this is my first ride outdoors. On a new bike. In cool weather. The longest ride I have done in 8 months. With only indoor trainer workouts, I dont know what will happen to my ability to hold aero position on open road. I decided to take it easy.
For the first half of the ride I struggled to find a happy medium for my neck. I strained to look up and down the road. It hurt. Eventually I settled for looking just in front of the bike with the odd look up when I expected cars or intersections.It is nothing like riding a road bike, there will be no touring on this bike. Did I mention it was painful? Actually, I am relieved because my shoulders felt great the entire ride. Last time my shoulders practically gave out on me while trying to hold me up. A better fit on the bike fixed that it seems. So the only discomfort to deal with at this point is my neck which eventually settled into a spot that was 'as comfortable as it is going to get'.

I picked one beautiful route. The roads were perfect, I only counted 2-3 small sections of rough road which is nothing considering the distance I travelled. Things were smooth and fast. I took a brief break at the halfway point and the odd stop sign just to stretch things out. I had to stop to eat. Seriously, I am such a frickin' noob. I stopped to eat and sometimes to drink. Sad. I was just playing it safe, I didn't want to crash the bike on the first time out. I practiced drinking on the bike, the hard part is getting the bottles back in the cage behind the seat while still rolling. A couple occasions I had a hard time finding the hole. Eating was completely out of the question. Partly my fault since I didn't pre-open the package of powerbars before setting out on the journey. No matter, for the first ride I am better off getting the stretching in with those feeding breaks. I think it worked out well.
The return trip was fast. I put a little extra umph into the pedals and held an above 30km/h average the entire way. The only thing that slowed me down was the silly number of pee breaks I had to take. I cant hold aero with a full bladder, and I had to travel great distances in discomfort to find an appropriate spot to stop. I definitely drank too much considering temperatures but it was better than dehydrating. I dont think I will be so discreet next time, its hard finding bush/trees along open country roads. I think I'll just hang it out the side as I roll..... :)
Mrs. LoTC also got out for her first ride on her new bike. Not only that, it was her first ride in ummm 6 months or so? She did an entire 100Km. She's hardk0re like that. Thats my hawt babe for a wife! I'm so proud of her!

SUNDAY
It worked. I came up with every excuse in the book to not go running, as did the wife. Joining this running group worked out well since we were forced to get out of bed and arrive at the trailhead on time to start our run. If it was up to us we would have skipped it. Joining a scheduled running group was just the extra kick in the pants needed to get out the door. However when we arrived at the trailhead we were the ONLY people to show up. Apparently everyone went running the day before in the sun. I am OK with that, I am here and getting my run in regardless. This is what we paid for. Luckily one runner did join up with us and I ran with her for the entire loop. At the end I doubled back to go pickup the wife and to my surprise she wasn't far behind! Wow, she ran exceptionally well for someone that just did a killer ride the day before. She's one tough chick!
The rest of the day consisted of drinking Ceasars by our closed pool. I stripped down to my boxers and laid in the sun tanning on our lounge chairs. It was great! Well actually I have to admit the thought of 'Its too hot' came to mind. I actually didn't like being hot. I'm too accustomed to the cold weather. Wow, we are just never happy are we! It probably didn't help that I was feeling warm from my body repairing itself after some hardcore riding and running over the last couple of days. Regardless, I earned those ceasars, and bag of baked chips, and Dairy Queen Blizzard(Ice Cream). I think I need to do another century ride now though.

Ohh it Burrrns!!

Aero burn. My sleeves slid up while riding in the aero position and it cooked my arms. It was even more swollen and red the next day. It was very painful! Note the stripe caused by the RoadID!








TRAINING:

Bike - 5:56hrs 172Km (7:00hrs including stops)
Run - 2:00hrs 19Km