THURSDAY, AUGUST 25th 2011 - DAY OFF

We are now in Penticton and well into our taper. Today is another day off, so I’m just sitting on the back porch looking over at the Okanagan lake (where we will be swimming in just over 2 days time). Since arriving here on Monday, we’ve done a short run, and a short bike. Tomorrow will include an UNDERPANTS run downtown (held by the city in support of a children’s charity) followed by a swim in the lake to test out the waters.

The taper hasn’t been as hard as I was expecting. I’ve felt fine with the little training volume and resting. I’ve gotten to watch a lot of movies! (and get some work done…) The only thing I really need to concentrate on is resting and hydrating (at least 3 litres of water per day!).

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6th 2011 - 29km Run

Finally the end of peak training, with our last long run of 29km. Although slightly shortly than last week of 31km, this run was significantly more challenging. After both the peak week last week in lake placid, as well as this second peak week, exhaustion is high. Muscles and joints are near their breaking point, and this run almost put it over the edge. Although usually a good runner, this run caused me to have severe muscle soreness and knee pain from impact. It was the first time I had felt sore after a run since the first run back in January. This, I’m told, is due to complete and utter exhaustion, which is supposed to happen during the peak week. But now it’s all over, and the taper begins! It couldn’t have come at a better time

– Puppy

SUNDAY, JULY 31st 2011 - 2km swim

I finally got to swim in my wetsuit! At first, it was horrible. I got into the water and felt the wetsuit close in around me. It was very tight and I had trouble breathing. It was very frightening. However, after a few minutes of relaxing and swimming near shore, I felt a lot more comfortable. In the end, it was fantastic! Unlike JennyD, I now LOVE swimming in a wetsuit. It makes you a lot more buoyant, so you feel unsinkable, and thus a lot of my fear of swimming is mitigated. Your body position is better as you’re completely flat at the top of the water, and so swimming is easier. It was a great day, and helped me feel more confident about the swim.

– Puppy

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27th 2011 - 140km bike (lake placid IM course)

Lake Placid is laden with stunning scenery, many lakes and beautiful mountains all around. However, mountains everywhere make for a very tough bike ride. It’s hard to believe that in a month I’ll have to run a full marathon after an even longer ride!

It was a beautiful day. We were spared from the rain despite the forecast of thunder showers. It was sunny, but not too hot. We couldn’t of asked for anything better.

Every training session is a learning experience, especially when it comes to proper hydration and nutrition. Today was almost perfect, although I was getting close to bonking and will require a bit more food next time (Perpetuem) and jenny’s stomach wasn’t quite accepting the sodium tablets, and thus we’ll try a different form next time. Hopefully all will be resolved soon!

–Puppy

SATURDAY, JULY 23rd 2011 - LONG RUN 29 km + new wetsuit!

It luckily wasn’t too hot as we again left a little later in the morning than planned. But it was a great run, but pretty uneventful. But, it is only the second time in my life that I’ve ran this distance!

I am also super duper excited about my first wetsuit purchase! I’m looking forward to using it next week in Lake Placid, NY in a real lake (I’m getting tired of swimming pool laps). It fits great, and I got it semi-second hand for a great price!

– Puppy

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SUNDAY, JULY 17th 2011 -LONG RIDE–TRANSITION RUN

HOT. WINDY. AND HOT. We had the best of intentions and planned to set out early in order to beat the heat. But it seems we both needed some extra sleep. We started our 4-hr ride in the afternoon. It consisted of an easy “mileage” ride with 4 x 10km TT intervals. We chose to do this on the Estacade, by way of the Ice Bridge (pictured left), because it’s ideal for Time Trial riding. No cars, no traffic lights, and few pedestrians. Perfect. Just get into aero and go….

Puppy followed through with a 30min transition run, with every 10 minutes increasing in speed. I, on the other hand needed a break from the sun, and opted out of the T-run.

Then, we ate french fries.

–Jennyd

SATURDAY, JULY 16th 2011 -LONG RUN (P:27km, JD 23km)

Alarm goes off at 5am. On a Saturday. And the only reason it’s going off that early on a weekend is because  we have a long run to do and it’s going to get hot. And while Puppy fares pretty well in hot weather training (and she is an awesome runner) I really fall apart, running in the heat. I’m also slightly behind in our target mileage (due to injury and catching a bad bug a while back), so every long run needs to be a success.

What we both realised? We need to bring more fuel. I felt pretty good and was running at a respectable pace (for me), but ran out of gel and bonked :-(.

Puppy? Ditto. Next time, we’ll be sure to have enough to get us through properly….

–Jennyd

FRIDAY, JULY 15th 2011 -LONG SWIM

Back in the pool. Keeping it easy with a steady 2,5km swim. We’re resting up for a bulky weekend…

THURSDAY, JULY 14th 2011 -DOUBLE BRICK!

We were actually looking forward to this workout. It was a relatively “modest” testing out of the “jelly-legs” after riding. Our morning consisted of a 20km bike, then a 5km, then back on the bike for a quick 10km and ended off with a 2.5km run. It is modest for 2 reasons.

1) Because it is only a sampling of what a true bike-to-run will feel after a much longer distance. It’s good to train your body and your head to work through the transition from cycling to running.

2) Because we got out a bit late and had to pare down the original Bike: 25km, Run: 5km, Bike: 25km, Run: 5km.

–Jennyd

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6th 2011 - LONG SWIM

Wednesdays are usually the long swim day of the week. Now that it’s summer they are much more enjoyable than our winter swims. However, “enjoyable” may be too strong a word, more like…bearable. As I’ve only learned to swim in the past year, I’m still not 100% comfortable. I find the swimming activates my asthma more than running or biking. Nonetheless, it’s nice to go for a ”dip” of about 80 laps (2km) on a hot day, under the sun.

–Puppy

SUNDAY, JUNE 26th - TUESDAY, JUNE 28th 2011

TRAINING AT THE LAKE PLACID IRONMAN COURSE
As a sort of training camp - we went down to lake placid to train at one of the hardest Ironman courses.

Day 1: 140km bike + 15min transition run
It was a very hilly course, and a very hot day. We managed to pull it off despite some hydration issues. Next time we’ll need to add more salt tablets to our water (ex: Nuun)
We also tried out a new liquid food called Perpetuem (Cafe Latte). It worked well and didn’t cause too many gastro troubles - so it has been kept on the menu. I also decided on a name for my bike - Mahogany - after a strong, fast horse I rode once as a child.

Day 2: 18km run + 1km swim
This was one of the hardest runs I’ve done so far. My legs were very tired from the previous day, and it was very hot. I felt like throwing up the whole time, and was constantly fighting the urge to stop and take a nap in the grass. It felt like it would never end, but somehow I managed to get back to our campsite.

After was a short swim in the water, to get used to swimming in a lake instead of a pool. I get nervous in lakes because the nearest land (or place to take a break) is far away. I also am prone to getting asthma attacks, especially when nervous and swimming. Luckily JennyD is a fantastic swimmer and stayed with me in case anything happened.

In all - it was a difficult weekend, but a lot of experience was gained!

– Puppy

SUNDAY, JUNE 19th 2011 - NEW RUNNING SHOES / 16km

This week was the first of the long runs, as we’ve passed the long biking Rideau lakes tour, so it’s now time to focus on running. It had been slightly neglected leading up to Rideau lakes because most of our energy was being spent ramping up the biking mileage. I’ve also neglected running because I had troubles with my knee over the past month, which needed physiotherapy. Luckily, my coach is an excellent physiotherapist (Mel Roch - Accès Physio) and fixed me up fantastically. I also got NEW SHOES! - Mizumo wave elixir (a more neutral sole which should help my running, as I land on the outside of my foot first). Luckily, my shoes were perfect, and the run went decently for a first long run.

–Puppy

MONDAY, JUNE 12TH 2011

HIGH MILEAGE FOR EARLY SEASON CYCLING EVENT!

Well, despite the quick ramp-up for Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, Puppy and I had a fantastic weekend!

Originally forecast as a wet, cold weekend, we couldn’t have asked for better weather–Sunny, warm and a nice wind at our backs!

It was tough ramping our riding mileage up so quickly and so early in the season, we were admittedly dodging the “10% increase” rule…. Sure enough we BOTH caught a nasty bug, but managed to mend in time for the big weekend.

At RLCT this past weekend, we put in just under 360km over 2 days, starting in Ottawa down to Kingston Ontario. Then back the next day. We stay overnight at Queens University, who offer a pretty substantial post-ride buffet dinner…. And there was even food for us vegans!

But NOTHING tasted better than the veggie dogs we had at the post-ride bbq….YUM!

–Jennyd

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 7TH. END OF IM TRAINING FOR 2009

A WELL-DESERVED BREAK!

If you have followed along in my training log, thanks ! This will likely be my last post for a while. BUT I’ll be back when IM Canada comes around…”Better, stronger, faster…” Or, just “back”.

Train well!

THE TAPER BEGINS!!

July 6th. 3 weeks before Ironman is when the training starts to wind down so that the body can mend, repair and build up STRONG for race day. It doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels, but we definitely won’t be riding anymore 180k’s in one shot.

And while the taper on one hand is welcome, it is typical to feel panic (”have I trained enough?”), disoriented and a little blue. Check. Check. And check.

If you have any questions about training or whatnot, feel free to ask them on the comments page in the main menu.

MONDAY, JULY 6th, 2009

TRAVEL DAY/DAY OFF!

Back in town for at least the week…Feeling a little off….Ho Hum……

SUNDAY, JULY 5th, 2009 (Is that….the…SUN????)

BIKE: 4 to 5hrs strong

RUN BRICK: 30min.

Although very windy, it did our spirits good to be training in the SUN!! Chrisine and I had a decent start to the day…Managed to ride 110 and tack on a 30′ run to complete the brick. Apparently our taper begins……..(Phew! AND Yikes!)

SATURDAY, JULY 4th

SWIM: Open Water

Run: 2hrs on hilly course

Scrappy day….Cancelled swim and PUSHED just to get out to run for 1.30hr…Repeat of day before…Crazy winds, rain. Not very fun.

FRIDAY, JULY 3RD

BIKE: Long with pick ups 160km

Rode with Christine (and Nicolas)….Managed to ride about 90km before a FREEZING, TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR….We were all thinking the same thing: “finish this loop and call it a day”. After several build weeks of training though wet weather, this finally put us all over the edge. We’re tired, cold and on the cusp of a taper….Motivation is hard to conjure up this late in our training regime….We’ll try again before the weekend is up.

THURSDAY, JULY 2ND

RUN: 1 hr steady

SWIM: Open water

Went into Placid to run around mirror lake..easy, steady fr about 50 minutes. (cut it short because of the “hot spots” I had gotten from previous day’s run….OUCH!! Swam immediately after in Mirror lake (just under 2km).

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1ST …HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

BIKE: 2.5 to 3hr ride, strong and steady

RUN: 1.5hr steady state, Warm up 15min, 60′ strong and steady (level 7.5 to 8), cool down 15min.

“What REALLY happened….” Took advantage of the work holiday…Rode race course loop (minus the out-and-back section) of about 70km. Napped a little then took Birdie to run some hill repeats (5 x 4′ steady run climb towards Whiteface Mountain, recovery back down)

MONDAY, JUNE 29TH

DAY OFF (Yessss!)

SUNDAY, JUNE 28TH

RUN: 3hrs, steady pace.

Ran the marathon course (along River Road and back). The sun was out, which has been a rarity, and I ran better than last week despite the heat. Still not sure how I’ll get through this run after a killer bike segment, but it wouldn’t be exciting if this were in the bag, eh! Gotta be careful, it seems I’ve developped an IT band problem on BOTH sides. I’ve never had that before, but I’m almost sure it is due to a sloped road surface….Might need to rest a day….

SATURDAY, JUNE 27TH

SWIM: Open water

FRIDAY, JUNE 26TH

BIKE: 160km steady with pick ups.

Another long ride in the bag!!  It was a beautiful, sunny day but the wind got pretty fierce on the second round. I rode with Mado, our starting point was the Wilmington campground. That means we start each loop (2x) climbing into Lake Placid. Took a while for my legs to wake up–I think they’ve gotten used to the Lake Placid start :-). The first loop was the full 90km and was fairly uneventful. In our second loop (minus the out-and-back) of 70km I had made the mistake of fueling up on a sandwich right before the climb….My muscles weren’t getting the love they needed as my body was trying to digest what was in my stomach. NOTE: do not eat major solids right before a 20km climb. Basically.

Got Extremely windy the second time around. Lucky for us, we got in just before things got really violent….An intense wind and thunderstorm brought in some cooler air.

PHEW! Deaked a downpour AGAIN! Yesssssss….

**They’ve repaved the most dangerous parts of the course…What a dream. Nice to know they don’t plan on Quebecing their roads!

THURSDAY, JUNE 25TH

RUN: 50 min. steady with 8 x 20″ pick ups.

Went well enough….It was the first time I ran in real heat so far. Had to leave early enough so that Birdie could run with me (before it got TOO hot for her). She was a champ! Kept today’s training load light in order to be fresh for tomorrow’s ride.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24TH (HAPPY ST.JEAN!)

SWIM: 2.5km open water

BIKE: 1.30hr Low level intensity hill ride

Swim was just ok….Having trouble with the wetsuit…..While I only biked for 1.10 it was a constant climb (biking up towards Whiteface, there are NO FLATS. Felt good!)

TUESDAY, JUNE 23RD

(Was supposed to drive the Tupper race course but was traveling back to Placid)

I took advantage of having access to the pool in town and swam 3km.

MONDAY, JUNE 22ND

OFF (travel/work day)

SUNDAY, JUNE 21ST (FIRST DAY OF SUMMER!!!!!)

RUN: 60′ easy

Yeah, so I thought it would be a GREAT idea to run the run course for the first time…..Wish I had stuck to what was on my program. I ran for about 2.30 hrs with legs of lead. Very discouraged—Can’t see how I’m going to run 42k after such a tough bike ride….

My head needs a lot of help….

SATURDAY, JUNE 20TH

BIKE: 160km. Long and steady

We (Christine, Marie-Eve and I) rode the race course 2 times less one out and back. Felt sluggish most of the time, but pushed myself through the last 3oks of climbing back into Placid. Thanks you Coka Cola for super powers!!

FRIDAY, JUNE 19TH

RUN: 90′. Combination 30′ med to high and 30′ 1/5 marathon race pace

BIKE: 1hr spinning on flat

The run ended up being more or less steady as I was on a constant climb the way out. I picked up the pace on the way back.

Skipped the bike as I had a work deadline and knew I would be doing a long ride early the next morning

THURSDAY, JUNE 18TH

OFF (poured buckets, and had to catch up on work)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17TH

RUN: 1:15 hr. 15′ warm up. 30′ medium/high level. Cool down

SWIM: 3km open water

Went well, but extended the run to about 1.35 hr. I used the higher intensity section to do some hill repeats on “John Bliss” road. Birdie  and I were pretty tired after that, as it was the only part of the day where the sun was out….And we’re not used to it

This was my FIRST SWIM in Mirror Lake…..And it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be. Can’t stand my wetsuit. It’s a 2-piecer. It keeps riding up my waist and too constricting around the shoulders and neck. I wish wetsuits weren’t allowed. Need to fins a solution…Swam about 2.4km. Felt pretty good, considering I hadn’t been swimming since coming down to Placid 2 weeks ago (!)

TUESDAY, JUNE 16TH

SWIM: cancelled

RUN: 45′ steady

BIKE: 1.30 hr steady pace

Went ok, only I split the run and bike up when it was supposed to be a brick (back to back)

MONDAY, JUNE 15TH

RUN: Warm up. 5 x 1km @10km race pace, 2 min recovery. Cool down.

Ran with Birdie. Decent enough run, though I’m still struggling with the uphills….Got in just before a downpour AGAIN….Someone’s on my side!

SATURDAY, JUNE 13TH

CRAZY BRICK!! Bike1: 90km (race course loop). Run 30 min. Bke2: 90km (race course loop 2)

Well…I made it through! I rode with a buddy (Christine!!), kept each other company, cracked some jokes, and finished strong.

–Beginning to realise that previous long ride bonks are due to simply not taking in enough calories, and the right calories at that. I payed more attention to make sure I was taking in food and hydrating every 30 minutes. I even had REAL food just before the 2nd bike loop. Also had some Coke during the last hour of riding. IT MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE! This day was great for my head. Great to ride with Christine!!

FRIDAY, JUNE 12TH

OFF

THURSDAY, JUNE 11TH

LONG RUN: 3hrs (easy, steady pace)

Legs felt really heavy today…Cut the run down to 2:45 (it was also about to downpour!). I just hope I’ll recover enough for a big day on Saturday!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10TH

BRICK: Bike, long hill repeats (6 x  alternating 8′ slow steady climb with 6.5′ fast climb). Rocovery in aerobars. Run 1h easy pace.

CrackerJACK this was tough! The hill intervals left my legs feeling pretty rubbery. So much that my brick run was cut short to 30 minutes, but my head and body got the point anyway :-)!

TUESDAY, JUNE 9TH

RUN: Dirt trails.

Warm up. 3 x 5′ @10km pace. 5′ recovery in between sets. Cool down

BIKE: Long intervals

Warm up. 3 x 10′ @1/2 IM race pace. 3′ recovery in between sets. Cool down

Much better day than yesterday! Got through the workouts and ready for more (gulp!)

MONDAY, JUNE 8TH

RUN: trail running

Warm up. Includes 3×5′ at 10km race pace, then 5′ recovery in between. Cool down.

Felt under the weather today and need to rest up for the biggest training week yet. Hope tomorrow will be better!