Hmm, its been quite a while. November was my last post. November, and December were a complete blur. I don't recall if I have ever mentioned on here that I have had bouts of depression, but one hit me really hard at the end of last year, and I pretty much completely shut down. A few weeks prior to my breakdown, a very close friend of mine tried to take her life. This hit everyone around her, including me very hard. I have lost a lot of friends to suicide over the years, and every time it happens, it reinforces how much it hurts those we care about. I found myself in a very dark place, I didn't want to get out of bed, and sometimes I couldn't.
I gave away between 3 and 4 shifts every week at work, I stopped going to classes, stopped exercising and stopped eating healthy. I was suicidal. I called Crisislink twice, and finally made a decision to go see my doctor. I wanted this fixed. After consulting with him, we decided to try antidepressants. I had always shied away from them, but I didn't see any other way to deal with this. My usual routine of exercise, healthy eating, a shitload of vitamin D only works when I am doing it. I needed a way to claw myself back to being functional again so I could get back into a routine.
After going through the side effects, we settled on Zoloft. There would be an introductory dose for the first week to make sure there were no major reactions, then after that we would go to full dosage. That first week, some odd things happened to ma. There were side effects unlike any I expected, and I did not like them. I asked my doctor and he said they were likely just onset problems. Luckily they were, and they started to pass. The problem with most antidepressants(especially SRRI's) is that they take 6-8 weeks to start working. I was seriously concerned that I would kill myself way before that happened. A month or so later, I went back in and he had set-up an appointment for me at CAMH tor a mental health assessment. The whole concept freaked me out. My doctor said that while he does have a lot of psych knowledge, I really should see someone who has the whole picture and can properly diagnose me.
6 weeks later, my Zoloft was finally working. It had kicked-in after 8 weeks as far as I could tell. I was feeling better and I was beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. If this stuff actually works, I'm fixed, problem solved...or so I thought. I was happy. Too happy. I would get really happy because of the drugs, then hit a point and crash back down. Then I started to worry again. Luckily, my appointment at CAMH was in a few days. After about an hour talking to Dr. Jeeva, he had diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder. Some major signs were my ability to function on no or little sleep for extended periods of time(weeks) excessive partying and drinking followed by major regret and depression, and my reaction to Zoloft. He requested a stop to Zoloft and wanted me to be put on a mood stabilizer. He recommended Lithium. I was up for anything if it could fix me. I went home and researched Lithium. While on it, you need to get a blood test done every 2 weeks to check the concentration of Lithium in your blood steam. The effective dosage of Lithium is just below what's toxic. Lithium gets into your body by being one of a few different salts. In essence, it's regulated by electrolytes, and if your electrolyte levels are off wither by dehydration, or lack of electrolytes in your body you can have major issues with Lithium Toxicity. Lithium toxicity is no joke. In general, the side effects of being on Lithium in the first place are bad. Nausea, tremors and weight gain are the minor ones, fainting, irregular pulse, and troubled breathing during exercise are a bit more problematic! If you are a hard working triathlete who may dehydrate on a 5 hour ride or 3 hour run, the risk of dehydration is already a problem, but if you dehydrate, you risk Lithium Toxicity. The possible problems from that are insane. Seizures, uncoordination of arms and legs, liver failure, or risk of a coma!
So I decided that was a bad idea for me.
I talked to my doctor about that and we decided on the second medication recommendation from CAMH Epival. Before I could start on that, i wanted to stop with the Zoloft first. if there were any onset problems, I wanted to make sure that was the Epival and not an interaction of the drugs. So I stopped Zoloft. 4 days later, everything hurt. Constant headache, nausea, and very time I moved my eyes, there was a bright flash of light and it felt like someone zapped me with a cattle prod. Every time I took a step I was wildly disoriented. Doing regular day to day activities was hard enough. I am a server(waiter) and I need to carry drinks around on a tray and carefully put them down in the correct place or fill glasses...it was terrifying! I promptly went to my doctor and asked him what the hell was going on. He told me that was withdrawal. I didn't know there would be any withdrawal in the first place, and this REALLY sucked. I asked him what I could do about it. He said it should go away soon, but we may need to put me back on it and wean me off. I told him that I was having problems functioning. He wrote me a prescription for a lower dose and I promptly gave my next days shift away at work. I went home, took a pill and went to sleep at like 5pm. Apparently it would be back in my system within about 24 hours and the symptoms should fade, so I wanted nothing to do with reality until that happened.
I took the lowered dose until it ran out(2 weeks) then continued on my way. 3 days later, I was back in withdrawal hell. I went back to my doc and explained the problem, and he gave me a 1 month dose of the lowest they had. Once again I gave away the next days shift and went to sleep. My plan was to take it every day for 2 weeks, then go 1 day on, one day off, for a week, then 1 day on, 2 days off until it was all gone. By the time that all happened, I only had minor withdrawal. Holy crap that stuff messes with my brain in a bad way. I got my prescription for Epival on March 24th and it sits on my desk still unopened. It also required blood work to be done, but not on the same scale as Lithium. To be honest, I am afraid of it. With the amount of bullshit I went through with my last prescription, I don't know what this is going to do to me.
I wanted something else that would keep me stable.
After thinking back lots on my down days, I do now realize that Dr. Jeeva's diagnosis is bang on, and that in order to avoid having the down days, I need to try to avoid going off the rails. If I let go a bit too much, I go manic. Once I'm manic, there will always be a crash. I really have been trying to regulate myself lately, if I am drinking, I can't overdo it. A nice buzz is fine, a few beers, no problem, but if I overdo it and hit the shots really hard, I will cross that line, and the next day(or days) are going to be hell. It's one hell of a good thing that I don't do any drugs. If I did...and went manic while on them, I would likely just keep partying, and probably overdose. If I didn't overdose, the crash from all that stuff would be catastrophic.
So I set some goals for my triathlon season. I wanted to do a Half-Ironman. I needed a serious goal to motivate me. So I signed-up for the Niagara Falls Barrelman. September 20th it all goes down.
I just needed something more to help me get there...a secret weapon if you will.
More on that soon, I am stable and will be posting regularly again.
Until next time,
The Bipolar Triathlete
Sidenote to all of this, Lithuim by Nirvana came on the radio while I was writing this...Ha!
Monday 6 July 2015
Thursday 20 November 2014
This is where I get the name "The Inconsistent Triathlete".
So it's been roughly 3 weeks since my last update.
The first of the 3 weeks went pretty well, I actually wrote a post, but never uploaded it. Now that I finally downloaded this Blogger app, uploads on the run should be easier.
The Halloween weekend started off well and quickly turned into a weekend of debauchery. I put in a good swim and did my 10k treadmill test and the new shoes felt awesome! No problems, no hot spots and I felt ontop of the world. I used to not mind the treadmill but oh man, after running outside so much, the treadmill was torture. I longed to be outside in nature, running down hills and battling up them. I really plan to do a lot of my running outside this winter and avoid the treadmill as much as possible.
After my run I donned my constume and headed to work. My costume was something very practical: a construction worker. I had a hard hat to protect me from my co-workers, earplugs for when my managers tried to talk to me and a tool belt for my work gear! Work went well then the drinking started. The drinkkng didn't stop until sunday at arounf midnight actually. My phone reminded me that I owed 4k at like 9pm...when I was about 6 pints deep. Not happening! I ate more chocolate, drank more beer and various other alcoholic substances than I care to count. I did have lots of fun and blow off a lot of much needed steam, so that's good right?
Monday was business as usual. 5k and my swim practice. We did 6 sets of 500. Swim, build 100's and paddles and pullbouys. I made it to the second set of pulling and got 100m in when Kim told us to cooldown. I did 100m easy to cooldown and headed home. 2700m was pretty rough, but I felt pretty good at the end of that! My shoulder was bugging me when I was using my paddles, so I took it easy a bit.
The next week I was feeling like garbage. I had been feeling pretty shitty for the past few weeks, but was trying to push through it. Pushing through it apparently was not working. My motivation was also lacking pretty bigtime. The winter blues which tend to beat the living crap out of me and with me feeling like crap and I just couldn't get my act together. I gave away a few shifts and took the week off exercise just figuring that if I wasn't recovering from a half day off at a time, I would need a few days. So I took them. On Wednesday I was starting to feel better. Thursday I went back to work and school and was definitely feeling worse than the day before. All that rest for no gains. Oh well. I decided to continue my week of rest into the weekend to see if it would help.
Not so much.
After my usual busy Monday I had resolved to get back on the wagon. No such luck. I was headed north on an impromptu trip. Training is not the most important thing in my life. It can wait. Back to reality next week!
The first of the 3 weeks went pretty well, I actually wrote a post, but never uploaded it. Now that I finally downloaded this Blogger app, uploads on the run should be easier.
The Halloween weekend started off well and quickly turned into a weekend of debauchery. I put in a good swim and did my 10k treadmill test and the new shoes felt awesome! No problems, no hot spots and I felt ontop of the world. I used to not mind the treadmill but oh man, after running outside so much, the treadmill was torture. I longed to be outside in nature, running down hills and battling up them. I really plan to do a lot of my running outside this winter and avoid the treadmill as much as possible.
After my run I donned my constume and headed to work. My costume was something very practical: a construction worker. I had a hard hat to protect me from my co-workers, earplugs for when my managers tried to talk to me and a tool belt for my work gear! Work went well then the drinking started. The drinkkng didn't stop until sunday at arounf midnight actually. My phone reminded me that I owed 4k at like 9pm...when I was about 6 pints deep. Not happening! I ate more chocolate, drank more beer and various other alcoholic substances than I care to count. I did have lots of fun and blow off a lot of much needed steam, so that's good right?
Monday was business as usual. 5k and my swim practice. We did 6 sets of 500. Swim, build 100's and paddles and pullbouys. I made it to the second set of pulling and got 100m in when Kim told us to cooldown. I did 100m easy to cooldown and headed home. 2700m was pretty rough, but I felt pretty good at the end of that! My shoulder was bugging me when I was using my paddles, so I took it easy a bit.
The next week I was feeling like garbage. I had been feeling pretty shitty for the past few weeks, but was trying to push through it. Pushing through it apparently was not working. My motivation was also lacking pretty bigtime. The winter blues which tend to beat the living crap out of me and with me feeling like crap and I just couldn't get my act together. I gave away a few shifts and took the week off exercise just figuring that if I wasn't recovering from a half day off at a time, I would need a few days. So I took them. On Wednesday I was starting to feel better. Thursday I went back to work and school and was definitely feeling worse than the day before. All that rest for no gains. Oh well. I decided to continue my week of rest into the weekend to see if it would help.
Not so much.
After my usual busy Monday I had resolved to get back on the wagon. No such luck. I was headed north on an impromptu trip. Training is not the most important thing in my life. It can wait. Back to reality next week!
Thursday 30 October 2014
Update before the weekend hits.
So I did soldier on after all on Saturday and went for a ride. I threw a base-layer shirt on and then a regular summer kit followed by legwarmers. I didn't own arm warmers, so the plan was to stop into Wheels of Bloor and see what they have. They only had stuff for hot weather and stuff for really cold weather. Someone approached me and asked me for help. He said "I'm not sure if you work here but you look like you know what you're doing. I can understand the question, since I was decked out in my Dark Horse kit. I laughed to myself a bit and asked him what he needed. He had questions about trainers. Luckily for him I have been considering an upgrade to my trainer so I have done a shitload of research in the past few weeks. I ran through the fan/magnetic/fluid thing then saw that they had a few kinetic trainers. I went through the Kurt Kinetic story and told him that if I were buying a trainer I would probably buy that one. He started talking about a "rock and roller", apparently it moved around when you ride and gives a more roadlike feel. I think that sounds like a bad idea. Just more parts to break. I would almost certainly break it. After that I was off to MEC. I am buddies with the senior bike tech at the shop and tend to roll in and talk shop with him. I have been meaning to show off my new set of wheels. I finally got the chance and he wasn't in! All good though. I found some arm warmers that were wind resistant and relatively the same weight as my leg warmers and was happy. I went to check-out and the (really cute) cashier looked longingly at my bike and said "nice ride!" Then she checked her watch and said "only 2 and a half hours until I join you" I was tempted to tell her that I could wait. In retrospect, I probably should have! I'm considering going back next week and seeing if she says something, but I am almost sure that's too creepy even for me. So I headed out and went west on the queensway. I have been really enjoying that route lately. The traffic isn't bad and most importantly the road is in great shape.
I felt great, man it's good to be back in the saddle(haha). I kept going and all of a sudden the road went from a 4 lane road with stoplights to 2 lanes with stop signs, huge houses and a paved trail next to the road. It completely blew my mind. Shortly after that the road just ended. It turned into Old Carriage Road. It looked pretty sweet and there were nice houses so I went that way rather than going north. West was the objective after all. I eventually found Dundas. Sweet! I kept plugging along on Dundas and soon found some huge hills! I eventually got what I deemed to be "far enough" given my timetable and headed south to find Lakeshore. It was a great fast ride from the top of the hill and I felt great. I turned left at Lakeshore only to find a sign that said "welcome to Mississauga" apparently I went past Mississauga. This ride I was using salt caps. I had one bottle of skratch labs and one bottle of water and 6 caps. I had planned on taking it pretty easy. When I go easy, I can usually go out on plain water and be fine. But with whatever I did, it worked. No cramping. I do still need to test out different hydration mixed when I am banging out a few 40K TT's.
I felt great, man it's good to be back in the saddle(haha). I kept going and all of a sudden the road went from a 4 lane road with stoplights to 2 lanes with stop signs, huge houses and a paved trail next to the road. It completely blew my mind. Shortly after that the road just ended. It turned into Old Carriage Road. It looked pretty sweet and there were nice houses so I went that way rather than going north. West was the objective after all. I eventually found Dundas. Sweet! I kept plugging along on Dundas and soon found some huge hills! I eventually got what I deemed to be "far enough" given my timetable and headed south to find Lakeshore. It was a great fast ride from the top of the hill and I felt great. I turned left at Lakeshore only to find a sign that said "welcome to Mississauga" apparently I went past Mississauga. This ride I was using salt caps. I had one bottle of skratch labs and one bottle of water and 6 caps. I had planned on taking it pretty easy. When I go easy, I can usually go out on plain water and be fine. But with whatever I did, it worked. No cramping. I do still need to test out different hydration mixed when I am banging out a few 40K TT's.
Sunday was a good rest day, Monday I had physio. I love my physio sessions. I get to talk triathlon with my Physiotherapist and she gives me great exercises to work on and keep me injury free. I have noticed that the way my foot lands is very different from my left foot to the right and asked her about stretches because the outside of my left leg is really tight! She gave me a belt, you put it around your foot and it allows you to pull on one side of the belt and it rolls your ankle, great stretch. I always have tight calves and she is making me use a block to make sure I stretch them properly. I really like the block and am not sure why I haven't been using one. it turns-out that the feet on my trainer is also really effective for that. I went to swim practice and did some 1 on 1 work with Kim an for a few pointers on my stroke. She wants me to reach farther in my stroke, slow it down and make sure I am entering the water properly. I also apparently put my head down when I stroke. That makes a ton of sense, but I think it's mainly because I am used to looking at the bottom of the pool. I guess I should be looking in front of me. Time for some adjustments! Hopefully that will make sighting easier int he future. I went for a nice easy 4k afterwards and felt great.
Tuesday was a rest day with lots of studying, then we rolled into Wednesday. I had a bit of a stressful day, then we had a fire alarm go off in the school where we have swim practice. It happened as soon as we had all showered and got on deck ready to jump in. So we all headed-out into the cold while wet, waiting for the fire department to give us the all clear. So we lost 1/2 hour of our session! Kim had a back-up plan though. We warmed-up with 500m, then started doing 100m sets. 10 of them, and she was timing us. I swam 2:02 almost every single time, one was around 2:05 and the last one where she told us to go faster came in at 1:54. 200m to cool down and a good practice overall, even if it was short. I came home with tired arms and went for a 5k. Slept very well and woke-up refreshed to study all day for my test. After class, I came home and got on the trainer. 10 minute warm-up, 20 minutes hard, 10 minute break, 20 minutes hard and a 10 minute cooldown. That last few minutes of the second effort was pretty rough but I survived and I'll be stronger for it. I was watching some anime(Black Lagoon) but I needed some fast paced music to get me through the last little bit.
Now it's time for sleep. Tomorrow will be the day I finally get to test my shoes. I'm scheduled to run 5k...but I need to make sure they feel good on a long run, so I'll be doing 10 for fun. Also, I have been slacking on my swimming lately, so it's time to get on that. In addition to my Monday and Wednesday sessions, I asked Kim what I should be doing on Friday, she said to just do endurance. I think if I do a day of drills on Friday, and then do endurance on Saturday, that may be the ticket. that gives me Sunday to rest my arms. Swimming is my far my weakest, so I really need to get that rocking.
Oh yeah, tomorrow is also Hallowe'en! So it will be run, swim, get in costume, then work, should be fun!
Until next time,
The Inconsistent Triathlete
Saturday 25 October 2014
This week has been relatively successful.
I say relatively because well...I survived. I had a test in my class on Thursday and I have been way behind from the start of this entire unit. That probably had something to do with the fact that we started this unit before we did the unit test from last unit. So you can guess where my priorities were...yep, on studying for the test. So I started everything late. I should have done homework over the weekend, but I was spending time with friends(and a 3 year old) and I had 2 races, so that went right out the window. I got back into the city and had like 4 sections to catch-up on. I was not in a good place because I was upset with myself for leaving things to the last minute. So I had to make a choice. I am not a professional triathlete. While this is important to me, it is not my job. It doesn't pay my bills, it will not define my planned future. I would like to do well in triathlon, but I NEED to get good grades. So the decision was to skip swimming practice so I would have extra time to study. I ended-up not writing the test until Thursday anyways...which of course meant that I also skipped swimming for more study time on Wednesday. Ugh. After all that studying, I don't even feel like I did well at all.
At least I ran well this week! I put in 7k on Wednesday. I am still running in my Ride 5's which give me the hot spots when running anything over around 5k. I raced in them this weekend but wore double layer socks and they felt great. I wonder if it's just my sock choice causing all the problems. I had talked to the guy in the Running Room about this and he said that while different socks can help, there is an underlying issue with the way the shoe fits me. So I bodyglided the crap out of my feet where the hotspots were and put my regular running socks on and went for my run. I had a really good run! I really enjoyed myself and mostly ignored my metrics. When I came home I had hotnspots that I was concerned were going to blister but apparently I'm good! Today is going to be another 7k. I had originally planned to swim and the run after work. The plan was to test out my new shoes on a treadmill, but all the gyms were closed by the time I finished my shift. It's really not a bad thing, I do prefer running outside anyways.
It was a great run. I didn't have to dodge tons of people like I do in daylight. I didn't look at my Garmin once. I just wanted to run easy. I was not concerned about keeping my heart rate low, I was concentrating on good running form instead and whatever happens happens. Interestingly enough, my heard rate avg was 168 and my pace was 5:08/km. I usually try to keep it below 160 and my pace ends-up being in the 5:30-5:45/km range. Also, running that slow tends to suck. I really enjoy the speed i was running at yesterday and have decided that is how I want to run from now on. I was at a pace where I was able to sing along out loud with my music with no problems being out of breath. The run ended with no major hot spots that I could feel but I did notice small blisters when I got out of the shower. I really like the 7k route that I have rocking and it makes me really excited to get into longer distance runs so I can check-out more stuff. I want to run in High Park more, and I want to get down to the waterfront a bit as well. I have a little 10k route that I ran a few times this summer that takes me right to the bottom of the park and along the lake shore. That was a great run...with a bit of a downside that it's uphill the entire way home hahahaha. Well, hills make you stronger right? But my run last night was awesome, I hit my stride(literally) and just went out there and had fun. I have been playing around with running with an MP3 player instead of my phone. I find that the armband gets annoying, so i wanted another solution. I checked eBay a while back and found a few "mp3 players" the ones with a display were $4 and without were $2. So I bought one of each. They don't have built-in storage, but they take micro sd cards. I have a few micro sd cards floating around, so I splurged and spent another $5 and got a few 4GB cards just to be safe. They are pretty much just plug and play. Load-up the card, charge the player, stick the card in and roll out. I was pretty happy with my purchases...except yesterday at almost the exact midpoint of my run, the battery died. Ah, maybe that's why these are so cheap. I wish I had thought of that sooner. Then again, it's only $10 so if it turns-out these things are crap, no biggie. I think I want to fully charge one when I am doing a few hour homework session one day and see exactly how long they last. Maybe it turned on in my gym bag and drained it's battery, but it appears to only have held a charge for 50 minutes. This however was the model with a display. Maybe that's the downfall, it has to constantly keep it lit. This time I'm going to charge it for a few hours then put it through its paces.
So I usually work all day on Saturdays which hurts my soul a little bit. I booked off this Saturday for a family reunion/get together thing, but it was cancelled due to a few people double booking themselves, so it turned into dinner with a few family members at a pub at 6:30. That meant that I have the morning off! Yay, I get to go for a ride...wait, it will be cold! Luckily I put an order through to Chain Reaction a few days ago for a bunch of colder weather stuff. A few technical long sleeve shirts for running, a pair of bib knickers, a pair of tights and a long sleeve jersey. I was really excited for it as well, and was hoping it would arrive in time for my Saturday ride. I arrived home from work yesterday to see that they tried to deliver it, but nobody was home, so they had sent it to the post office that's around the corner and I could pick it up after 4pm. this was great news, I could go pick it up tomorrow before my ride! My weekend was saved. I went to the post office today to get it and they said it wasn't there...despite the fact that Canada Post said it would be. I am so frustrated right now! Why does Canada Post have to suck so much? Ugh. Now I'm so bothered by this fact that I don't even want to ride anymore...but I should. I did a spin on Thursday after school, 10 minute warm-up and I had planned to do a 20k TT then a cooldown, but man oh man, I was having issues maintaining my speed, so I did 15 minutes hard(less than half of the planned ride) then called it. I hadn't slept much and my body was pretty mangled, so I let my body win. I also realized how much fitness I had lost from being off the bike for so long, and it freaks me out. A few months ago I would be able to do that no problem, but that was on real roads, not on a trainer, it's very different, but it makes me realize how much more work I have to do on the bike. Now I'm stuck. I want to ride, I don't have anything long sleeve to ride in. I need pockets on my jersey if I'm going to be riding far. I don't want to get out there and realize that I am freezing either. Maybe I'll just HTFU and get out there. Hmm, maybe a quick ride to Wheels of Bloor and see if they have any arm warmers, and if not, I'll head over to MEC and see what they have. I'll ride in short sleeves and leg warmers and bring a packable jacket. Alright, that sounds like a decent plan, now all I need to do is put it into action! Oh yeah, I am supposed to swim today...well, ride, food, swim, family dinner and go!
Until next time,
The Inconsistent Triathlete
Monday 20 October 2014
Weekend wrap-up
So I did a quick spin on Thursday and it felt good, I have definitely not been on my bike nearly as much as I should have The fact that I run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and now Sundays means that I am trying to bike on off days. The issue with that is that I always work, then go straight to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays making it pretty rough to find time to bike. But I got on the bike after class on Thursday and did a 20 minute spin. I realized afterwards that I didn't warm-up properly, but I made sure to do a proper cool down. I have also made the executive decision to leave my bike set-up permanently. I have pretty much ZERO room to move around. It's really squishy while I'm at my desk, but I have exactly enough room to work. It's a bit sketchy getting out of bed without killing myself, but it makes it a lot less of a pain in the butt whenever I want to spin.
Onto race reports!
Trek or Treat: This run is set-up as a family friendly fun run with a "creepy mile" option available to all ages, mainly targeted at parents and kids to do together, then the 5k run. My best friend lives just outside of Collingwood and his girlfriend had just started running so I figured this would be a great run to do together...well, she forgot to register. That changed my whole weekend plan. I had planned on just keeping a nice slow pace with her and having an enjoyable run so I could keep my legs fresh for the race the next morning. However, since she bailed, I was left to my own devices. I decided to just give it a good try and see what happens. I decided against music because it was a run through the dark and I didn't want to miss someone giving me directions if I got lost. This ended-up not being needed whatsoever. I am used to running at night, but not with a headlamp on. I have a pretty nice one and the crew did an amazing job of setting-up the course. There were reflective bits everywhere, lots of people at turns to make sure we went the right way, the initial lead out which ended-up being the run-in to the finish on the way back was decorated with all kinds of fun inflatable things. I was extremely impressed with this race. It was kept fun, well organized and I will definitely come back. My friend, his girlfriend, their son, and another friend all came out to cheer me on even though nobody was running with me and we all had a blast. They were all very impressed with the event as well and decided to join me next year as well! Hey, if I couldn't get them pumped at first, then I am glad they can be there to enjoy it with me and see how awesome it was so they can do it in the future!
So onto the run itself. There were a surprisingly large amount of kids at this race and that kinda blew me away. There were a couple people I had my eye on there as well, but mostly kids, and all of them in really cool costumes. The horn went and we were off, all being led-out by a 12 year old girl dressed-up as a princess running all out at 4:30/km...which confused the hell out of me. I was just keeping on her tail trying to figure-out how to play this thing out. Do I blow by her near the end and take gold? After briefly considering this I decided I would stick with her the whole race, encouraging her along, then say "boy, I'm tired! Ack, I wish I could catch you" and let her "pass" me for the win. Hell, the thing is for kids! About 3 seconds after I made my decision, someone passed us both. Then another guy passed us chasing after him. So I said out loud mostly to myself....Okay, fine, I'll run faster! And I was off. About 3k in I was hurting. My heart rate was through the roof, I was feeling dehydrated, so I slowed down a bit...and was promptly passed. Doh! I pressed-on through the darkened corn field(my favorite part of the run) and headed for the last 2k feeling pretty good. I am used to racing in huge fields between 7k and 25k people I am never anywhere close to the front. Being in the front from the start, and knowing exactly who was ahead of me was a really cool feeling. Since it was dark, I could slowly see the light from their headlamp drift off into the distance, but it was a really neat feeling being at the front of the pack.
I came in 4th overall, and 3rd in my age group. Ha, apparently my age group was the serious runners, just my luck! But hey, still good for bronze. I heard my time as I passed the line; 20:38. No way I thought to myself, I know that my pace wasn't near that fast. I had been running near 4:30 for most of the race. I checked my Garmin to see that the race was only 4.6k. The fact that it was shorter than 5k does not bother me in the least. It's supposed to be fun, and it was. I learned a lot from it and if I am able, I would love to come back next year and win the thing. I crossed the line to see a pile of my friends all smiling and that is an amazing feeling. We went inside shortly afterwards for awards and I picked-up my first ever placement medal. I am acutely aware that this was not a super competitive race, but I am still proud of myself.
Oh yeah, and I did this thing dressed-up as a piece of bacon:
Everyone tried to eat me, it was awesome.
Run Blue Mountains 5K
So this race started approximately 12 hours after I got my first ever medal. This not only offered a 5,, but a 10k and half marathon. The Scotiabank waterfront Marathon, half and 5k was happening at the same time back at home, so this was the equivalent race of the area. Unlike the night before, this was a serious race. A sea of running tights and neon long sleeve shirts and determined looks. I of course was wearing bright long sleeves and running tights as well, because man it was cold! According to TheWeatherNetwork it was 4°C and felt like 1°C. Yep, that felt about right. I was very glad to have my gloves. I had painstakingly spend an hour(or more...ha) making the perfect 5k playlist. The music all had a great beat and the tempo went-up each song. It was going to be amazing. I put it on to get pumped before the race, and 5 minutes later the battery was dead. Doh! My buddy was there the whole time, so I gave it to him and prepared to run without music. There were also lots of kids in this one! So the start was a bit crowded, but I suppose I should have been more diligent about getting to the front of the start line, so I can't complain. Within thew first 200m, we all quickly divided-up and the faster runners started to pull away. The leaders were me and a lady slightly older than me, a mom from a track club who was PUSHING a running stroller, a 10ish year old kid who was wearing the same track team colours keeping pace with her, and 3 younger kids probably around the 16-17 year range. The 3 kids were all clearly part of cross country teams and were leading out the pack. I started out running 4:30/km and then started feeling pretty good around the 3k mark, so I picked-up the pace. I passed the lady near my age, and the kid passed who I guessed was his mother pushing the stroller. Yep, she was still ahead of me and I was bewildered. The 3 track kids were all in the lead and I could see them when I was at the 4k mark turning a corner, they had a pretty good gap on me. I took a cursory glance behind me and didn't see anyone. I was feeling pretty good! An amazing bonus from this course was that is starts and ends at a water tower. That gives you something to shoot for once you are getting close. When you make the last turn on the course, there is the water tower and the finish line, both about 500m out. That gives you one hell of a good goal to run for, to finish strong and make your final move to pass people. When I saw that, I smiled and dropped the hammer. I finished in 22:05 with a smile on my face. Once again, my friends were at the finish line waiting and cheering for me. I had a look of pure determination on my face, but as I passed them, meters from the finish, i shot them a huge smile and we all cracked-up laughing. After I caught my breath, I shook the hands of the people who beat me and told the mom who pushed the stroller that she was crazy. If she was just running full out unimpeded, she would have won for sure. I shook the hand of the young guy who ran right with her for most of the race and told him how impressed I was. If people did that to me when I was young, I would have really appreciated it! So I came in 6th overall, and first in my age group this time! My pace was faster than the race the night before, and my heart rate was lower...I still can't figure that out, but it may be due to the vast amount of beer I consumed the night before Trek or Treat. Either way, I was really happy! My first gold!
In addition to winning a medal, I also won an apple pie, which I promptly shared with my friends.
I had a ton of fun running these 2 events. I didn't run as fast as I was hoping that I would. I was wondering if I could run near 20 minutes, (which would have netted me 1st overall both races now that I look back on it) But I seemed to top-out around 4:19/km. I ran the Yonge st 10k in 44:30, so I knew I was capable of running 4:30/km...but then again, that was all downhill. Considering that I hadn't even planned on racing, I am content. I have been being good lately and just increasing my base. I'm focused on the long run.(ha, what a pun!) I have not done any intervals, or speed work at all, no track work, and nothing involving pushing myself at all in the last few months, so the fact that I couldn't run really fast shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was certainly eye opening. Also, being in the lead packs of both races was a really interesting experience. I could see the people in front of me and I caught a few. I also now have a few goals for next year. If I can come back next year and run faster, I can probably win both of them. I really want to be able to break 20 minutes next year.
And that was that!
I came home Sunday evening and promptly took a nap then started the studying that I should have done while out of town...but hey, I was out of town and visiting friends. The next day upon waking-up...I was SORE! Yep, I expected that, mall price to pay. I went for my run this morning and was back to my casual pace with a huge smile on my face.
I think it's going to be a great week.
The Inconsistent Triathlete
Onto race reports!
Trek or Treat: This run is set-up as a family friendly fun run with a "creepy mile" option available to all ages, mainly targeted at parents and kids to do together, then the 5k run. My best friend lives just outside of Collingwood and his girlfriend had just started running so I figured this would be a great run to do together...well, she forgot to register. That changed my whole weekend plan. I had planned on just keeping a nice slow pace with her and having an enjoyable run so I could keep my legs fresh for the race the next morning. However, since she bailed, I was left to my own devices. I decided to just give it a good try and see what happens. I decided against music because it was a run through the dark and I didn't want to miss someone giving me directions if I got lost. This ended-up not being needed whatsoever. I am used to running at night, but not with a headlamp on. I have a pretty nice one and the crew did an amazing job of setting-up the course. There were reflective bits everywhere, lots of people at turns to make sure we went the right way, the initial lead out which ended-up being the run-in to the finish on the way back was decorated with all kinds of fun inflatable things. I was extremely impressed with this race. It was kept fun, well organized and I will definitely come back. My friend, his girlfriend, their son, and another friend all came out to cheer me on even though nobody was running with me and we all had a blast. They were all very impressed with the event as well and decided to join me next year as well! Hey, if I couldn't get them pumped at first, then I am glad they can be there to enjoy it with me and see how awesome it was so they can do it in the future!
So onto the run itself. There were a surprisingly large amount of kids at this race and that kinda blew me away. There were a couple people I had my eye on there as well, but mostly kids, and all of them in really cool costumes. The horn went and we were off, all being led-out by a 12 year old girl dressed-up as a princess running all out at 4:30/km...which confused the hell out of me. I was just keeping on her tail trying to figure-out how to play this thing out. Do I blow by her near the end and take gold? After briefly considering this I decided I would stick with her the whole race, encouraging her along, then say "boy, I'm tired! Ack, I wish I could catch you" and let her "pass" me for the win. Hell, the thing is for kids! About 3 seconds after I made my decision, someone passed us both. Then another guy passed us chasing after him. So I said out loud mostly to myself....Okay, fine, I'll run faster! And I was off. About 3k in I was hurting. My heart rate was through the roof, I was feeling dehydrated, so I slowed down a bit...and was promptly passed. Doh! I pressed-on through the darkened corn field(my favorite part of the run) and headed for the last 2k feeling pretty good. I am used to racing in huge fields between 7k and 25k people I am never anywhere close to the front. Being in the front from the start, and knowing exactly who was ahead of me was a really cool feeling. Since it was dark, I could slowly see the light from their headlamp drift off into the distance, but it was a really neat feeling being at the front of the pack.
I came in 4th overall, and 3rd in my age group. Ha, apparently my age group was the serious runners, just my luck! But hey, still good for bronze. I heard my time as I passed the line; 20:38. No way I thought to myself, I know that my pace wasn't near that fast. I had been running near 4:30 for most of the race. I checked my Garmin to see that the race was only 4.6k. The fact that it was shorter than 5k does not bother me in the least. It's supposed to be fun, and it was. I learned a lot from it and if I am able, I would love to come back next year and win the thing. I crossed the line to see a pile of my friends all smiling and that is an amazing feeling. We went inside shortly afterwards for awards and I picked-up my first ever placement medal. I am acutely aware that this was not a super competitive race, but I am still proud of myself.
Oh yeah, and I did this thing dressed-up as a piece of bacon:
Run Blue Mountains 5K
So this race started approximately 12 hours after I got my first ever medal. This not only offered a 5,, but a 10k and half marathon. The Scotiabank waterfront Marathon, half and 5k was happening at the same time back at home, so this was the equivalent race of the area. Unlike the night before, this was a serious race. A sea of running tights and neon long sleeve shirts and determined looks. I of course was wearing bright long sleeves and running tights as well, because man it was cold! According to TheWeatherNetwork it was 4°C and felt like 1°C. Yep, that felt about right. I was very glad to have my gloves. I had painstakingly spend an hour(or more...ha) making the perfect 5k playlist. The music all had a great beat and the tempo went-up each song. It was going to be amazing. I put it on to get pumped before the race, and 5 minutes later the battery was dead. Doh! My buddy was there the whole time, so I gave it to him and prepared to run without music. There were also lots of kids in this one! So the start was a bit crowded, but I suppose I should have been more diligent about getting to the front of the start line, so I can't complain. Within thew first 200m, we all quickly divided-up and the faster runners started to pull away. The leaders were me and a lady slightly older than me, a mom from a track club who was PUSHING a running stroller, a 10ish year old kid who was wearing the same track team colours keeping pace with her, and 3 younger kids probably around the 16-17 year range. The 3 kids were all clearly part of cross country teams and were leading out the pack. I started out running 4:30/km and then started feeling pretty good around the 3k mark, so I picked-up the pace. I passed the lady near my age, and the kid passed who I guessed was his mother pushing the stroller. Yep, she was still ahead of me and I was bewildered. The 3 track kids were all in the lead and I could see them when I was at the 4k mark turning a corner, they had a pretty good gap on me. I took a cursory glance behind me and didn't see anyone. I was feeling pretty good! An amazing bonus from this course was that is starts and ends at a water tower. That gives you something to shoot for once you are getting close. When you make the last turn on the course, there is the water tower and the finish line, both about 500m out. That gives you one hell of a good goal to run for, to finish strong and make your final move to pass people. When I saw that, I smiled and dropped the hammer. I finished in 22:05 with a smile on my face. Once again, my friends were at the finish line waiting and cheering for me. I had a look of pure determination on my face, but as I passed them, meters from the finish, i shot them a huge smile and we all cracked-up laughing. After I caught my breath, I shook the hands of the people who beat me and told the mom who pushed the stroller that she was crazy. If she was just running full out unimpeded, she would have won for sure. I shook the hand of the young guy who ran right with her for most of the race and told him how impressed I was. If people did that to me when I was young, I would have really appreciated it! So I came in 6th overall, and first in my age group this time! My pace was faster than the race the night before, and my heart rate was lower...I still can't figure that out, but it may be due to the vast amount of beer I consumed the night before Trek or Treat. Either way, I was really happy! My first gold!
In addition to winning a medal, I also won an apple pie, which I promptly shared with my friends.
I had a ton of fun running these 2 events. I didn't run as fast as I was hoping that I would. I was wondering if I could run near 20 minutes, (which would have netted me 1st overall both races now that I look back on it) But I seemed to top-out around 4:19/km. I ran the Yonge st 10k in 44:30, so I knew I was capable of running 4:30/km...but then again, that was all downhill. Considering that I hadn't even planned on racing, I am content. I have been being good lately and just increasing my base. I'm focused on the long run.(ha, what a pun!) I have not done any intervals, or speed work at all, no track work, and nothing involving pushing myself at all in the last few months, so the fact that I couldn't run really fast shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was certainly eye opening. Also, being in the lead packs of both races was a really interesting experience. I could see the people in front of me and I caught a few. I also now have a few goals for next year. If I can come back next year and run faster, I can probably win both of them. I really want to be able to break 20 minutes next year.
And that was that!
I came home Sunday evening and promptly took a nap then started the studying that I should have done while out of town...but hey, I was out of town and visiting friends. The next day upon waking-up...I was SORE! Yep, I expected that, mall price to pay. I went for my run this morning and was back to my casual pace with a huge smile on my face.
I think it's going to be a great week.
The Inconsistent Triathlete
Wednesday 15 October 2014
Back in the saddle...well, in a manner of speaking.
Alrighty, today was great! It started with some homework, holy crap my class may kill me! That thing is going an an unbelievable pace. I had a test on Tuesday and man oh man am I glad I studied a lot. I feel like I did well, but it was a bit sketchy as I only finally grasped one of the major concepts the same day. I felt good about 99% of the test, so unless I made some stupid mistakes, I should get a good mark. I am going for 91%+ in this course, which will bring my overall average back up to 90%. Right now it's 89.6, which technically rounds-up to 90..but I want the real deal! So as well as being good with my training, I need to make sure that school is a priority. We will have either a test or quiz every other class. This week is a bit nuts. We had a test on Tuesday, then quiz Thursday, and another unit test on Tuesday, talk about fast.
So onto training stuff. I did not spin on Tuesday, partially because I do not know what the heck I should be doing for my base bike training and partially because I want to get 100% well before throwing more training load on the fire. Also, it's a pain in the butt to set-up my bike on the trainer! I think I will start my serious base building on the bike at the beginning of November. However, I still do need to get some bike sessions in to keep my legs used to it. Thursday should work well for that.
As for what type of training...what am I supposed to do for base training on a bike? With my swimming 3 Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Running Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday(Sunday running starts this week) I am really hesitant to add too much cycling. I think Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday like I planned int he first place will work very well for me, but do I just do long slow miles? Do I do drills? Do I do threshold work? Do I work on improving my cardiovascular system? If so, do I do that through higher intensity training?
I recently read an article talking about how the body will adapt when it has to. So if you are not doing stuff that causes your body to adapt much, it won't. Doing harder efforts forces your body to adapt and gets your base built far faster and more effectively while minimizing those endless miles and hours spent on the bike. The article also talked about how those really long miles can lead to fatigue setting in. After being pretty active my whole life, and taking various physiology and biology courses through the years, this makes a great deal of sense to me. One program I was looking at has you doing 20 minute sets at 95% of threshold with as little recovery as possible. Start with 10 minutes and work your way to only having 5 minutes recovery between sets a bit down the road. This excites me a lot for 2 reasons. Reason #1 I have a very limited amount of time, and getting more bang for my buck is always a better thing. Reason #2. Those efforts seem a hell of a lot like doing a TT, and I am training specifically to do time trials! I have read a ton of specificity of training(thanks Joe Friel, I can see 2 of your books from where I sit.) I usually wouldn't bother with specificity of training until later, but hell, if it will do the job now, that seems like a win-win!
In addition to doing these threshold rides, I feel like I need to throw in some technique building stuff. I have also read a lot about how proper technique(well, better) can drastically improve your efficiency on the bike, so hey, I'm all for that. I do have a major tendency to just mash my pedals pretty hard, though I spent a lot of time trying to keep my cadence up. I feel like drills would be a really good thing to incorporate, so maybe I can find a way to add them into a warm-up before I get into my main sets.
So I ran today, I did the 7k that I assigned myself, and I ran to a new playlist! As a result, I ran way harder than I probably should have. I checked my HR and I was way up there right from the get go. It seemed way higher than it should have been. I tried slowing down, but my HR wouldn't come down. At one point, I said "screw-it, I am feeling good, lets go play!" I came in with a PR in each segment I hit on Strava as well as a 4th overall on a segment that I didn't even know existed. The shoes I am currently running in are Saucony Ride 5's. Before my fractured fibula, I ran a ton in the 4's and they were super amazingly comfy. When they had tons of mileage, I retired them and bought a pair of 5's. From the get go, they seemed just as good, but on longer runs I was getting hot spots just on the outside of the "knuckle" of my big toe, right at the bottom. Not exactly on the balls of my feet, but on the sides of the balls. I assumed this would pass but it never really did. I got minor blisters a few times, but just attributed it to them being a different shoe ans suffered though it. I had after all put elastic laces in them to make triathlon transition faster, and I fell in love with elastic laces. Yanks to be exact. They made everything super comfy once you got the tension correct and made my brick sessions and triathlon transitions a snap. I remember having the hot spot problem with laces in the shoes and for a while I thought the elastic laces fixed it. Nope. Luckily I wasn't putting in much mileage, so it wasn't becoming a problem.
Since I started my base running plan, I have noticed the issue getting a little bit worse each week. After my run today, which was just over 7k, and the fastest pace at that distance since my 44:30 10k race back in April, I arrived home with some pretty sore feet. After taking my shoes off, I found blisters on both feet at the hot spots. I always run in running socks,and have tried double layer socks with not much success, so I decided it was time for new shoes! The current ones have 223k on Strava and I ran in them for the entirety of last season as well, so I think buying new ones is totally justified, as the soles are showing some heavy signs of wear. After lots of talking with the salesperson(who runs 31 minute 10k's...holy crap!) in my local running room, and testing out 6 different pairs of shoes, I immediately ruled-out the Saucony ride 7's. I wasn't sure if trying on a new pair of shoes while I had blisters was a good idea, but hey, the hot spots will be hyper sensitive, so if anything rubs, I will know...and as I was informed, if there are hos spots now, they will not be better 20k in! Very sound advice. I settled on some Nike Zoom Pegasus 31's. To be honest, I looked at them and thought to myself "are you kidding me? This guy is giving me Nike shoes to try? Does he have any idea that I am a serious runner? Is this a joke? This was of course before I found-out how fast this guy is! After picking them out of all six pairs he showed me, he smiled and told me that he runs in the same ones. But man, they just felt really good. He advised me to try them out on a treadmill because as long as they are still squeaky clean, I am allowed to bring them back within 30 days for a refund/exchange. That is honestly amazing, I was a big hesitant to buy them because of the current condition of my feet, but that takes a load off. Oh yeah, and all shoes were 15% off! Score! There was also a 20% discount if I spent over $200. Well, he shouldn't have told me that....not I had to hit it! I picked-up a half zip long sleeve shirt which fit awesome and will be perfect for running in once the temp drops a little bit more. The price? $55. But then I got $40 off my purchase, so yay for an awesome $15 shirt!
After that I went shopping, got some ingredients to make some home made power bars with...as well as the usual groceries. I gotta get this nutrition thing down and cliff bars are not exactly cheap. On my longer rides with Dark Horse Flyers in the summer, I would take a granola bar, a cliff bar and a banana. That plus whatever I spent on electrolytes($1ish x4 bottles) as well as a $6 snack at the end of the ride, each ride costs me $12, 3 times per week. That's $144 per month. That doesn't even include other random stuff like shot blocks and gels...oh man, I don't even want to think about that stuff. I don't usually use much of that stuff luckily, because I don't have the budget for that.
I had a quick dinner then went off to swimming. After the pool being closed 2 weeks ago, me being out sick last week, and Monday being Thanksgiving, it has been a LONG time since I've put in some serious time in the pool. Tonight's session went well, we talked about the format of the next bunch of sessions. Kim is going to have our lanes rotate closer to her on a class by class basis so that she can work one on one with a few swimmers at a time to improve our stroke. This really excites me as that's the reason I took this course. I can go to a pool and do lengths all I want, but unless I have someone to correct me, I am not going anywhere fast. I think I'll be working with Kim on Monday, and in the meantime, while she was working with the other lane over, we did out workout for the evening. our warm-up was 400m freestyle. The bulk was 800m with fins, alternating 100 kick and 100 swim. my ankle was starting to complain about all that heavy kicking near the end. Set 2 was another 800m, this time just regular freestyle with an emphasis on breathing every 3rd stroke. Well, since I was taught to breathe bilaterally every 3rd stroke, this was just swimming for me. The hardest part for me was keeping track of my laps! I was pretty good about keeping my lap splits on my watch which really helps, so all I had to do was keep track of how many 200m sets I had done. If I wasn't sure if I was at 6 or 8, I would just check my time. If I was way under, keep going. The first set came in around 4:30 every 8 laps. The second set came in around 5:00 for 8 laps. The 3rd set was with a pull buoy and hand paddles. I haven't used hand paddles in weeks and it shows. I need to work on those things a lot more. That set also came in around 5:00 per 200m I only got through 500m of that 800m set before we ran outta time, but I still felt pretty good about it. we did a 100m cooldown to finish out the night. Total distance was 400+800+800+500+100=2600m.
I'm feeling optimistic like I prefer to feel, not it's time for sleep and an early wake-up so that I can get more valuable study time in for my quiz...after I work of course!
Tata for now!
The Inconsistent Triathlete
So onto training stuff. I did not spin on Tuesday, partially because I do not know what the heck I should be doing for my base bike training and partially because I want to get 100% well before throwing more training load on the fire. Also, it's a pain in the butt to set-up my bike on the trainer! I think I will start my serious base building on the bike at the beginning of November. However, I still do need to get some bike sessions in to keep my legs used to it. Thursday should work well for that.
As for what type of training...what am I supposed to do for base training on a bike? With my swimming 3 Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Running Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday(Sunday running starts this week) I am really hesitant to add too much cycling. I think Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday like I planned int he first place will work very well for me, but do I just do long slow miles? Do I do drills? Do I do threshold work? Do I work on improving my cardiovascular system? If so, do I do that through higher intensity training?
I recently read an article talking about how the body will adapt when it has to. So if you are not doing stuff that causes your body to adapt much, it won't. Doing harder efforts forces your body to adapt and gets your base built far faster and more effectively while minimizing those endless miles and hours spent on the bike. The article also talked about how those really long miles can lead to fatigue setting in. After being pretty active my whole life, and taking various physiology and biology courses through the years, this makes a great deal of sense to me. One program I was looking at has you doing 20 minute sets at 95% of threshold with as little recovery as possible. Start with 10 minutes and work your way to only having 5 minutes recovery between sets a bit down the road. This excites me a lot for 2 reasons. Reason #1 I have a very limited amount of time, and getting more bang for my buck is always a better thing. Reason #2. Those efforts seem a hell of a lot like doing a TT, and I am training specifically to do time trials! I have read a ton of specificity of training(thanks Joe Friel, I can see 2 of your books from where I sit.) I usually wouldn't bother with specificity of training until later, but hell, if it will do the job now, that seems like a win-win!
In addition to doing these threshold rides, I feel like I need to throw in some technique building stuff. I have also read a lot about how proper technique(well, better) can drastically improve your efficiency on the bike, so hey, I'm all for that. I do have a major tendency to just mash my pedals pretty hard, though I spent a lot of time trying to keep my cadence up. I feel like drills would be a really good thing to incorporate, so maybe I can find a way to add them into a warm-up before I get into my main sets.
So I ran today, I did the 7k that I assigned myself, and I ran to a new playlist! As a result, I ran way harder than I probably should have. I checked my HR and I was way up there right from the get go. It seemed way higher than it should have been. I tried slowing down, but my HR wouldn't come down. At one point, I said "screw-it, I am feeling good, lets go play!" I came in with a PR in each segment I hit on Strava as well as a 4th overall on a segment that I didn't even know existed. The shoes I am currently running in are Saucony Ride 5's. Before my fractured fibula, I ran a ton in the 4's and they were super amazingly comfy. When they had tons of mileage, I retired them and bought a pair of 5's. From the get go, they seemed just as good, but on longer runs I was getting hot spots just on the outside of the "knuckle" of my big toe, right at the bottom. Not exactly on the balls of my feet, but on the sides of the balls. I assumed this would pass but it never really did. I got minor blisters a few times, but just attributed it to them being a different shoe ans suffered though it. I had after all put elastic laces in them to make triathlon transition faster, and I fell in love with elastic laces. Yanks to be exact. They made everything super comfy once you got the tension correct and made my brick sessions and triathlon transitions a snap. I remember having the hot spot problem with laces in the shoes and for a while I thought the elastic laces fixed it. Nope. Luckily I wasn't putting in much mileage, so it wasn't becoming a problem.
Since I started my base running plan, I have noticed the issue getting a little bit worse each week. After my run today, which was just over 7k, and the fastest pace at that distance since my 44:30 10k race back in April, I arrived home with some pretty sore feet. After taking my shoes off, I found blisters on both feet at the hot spots. I always run in running socks,and have tried double layer socks with not much success, so I decided it was time for new shoes! The current ones have 223k on Strava and I ran in them for the entirety of last season as well, so I think buying new ones is totally justified, as the soles are showing some heavy signs of wear. After lots of talking with the salesperson(who runs 31 minute 10k's...holy crap!) in my local running room, and testing out 6 different pairs of shoes, I immediately ruled-out the Saucony ride 7's. I wasn't sure if trying on a new pair of shoes while I had blisters was a good idea, but hey, the hot spots will be hyper sensitive, so if anything rubs, I will know...and as I was informed, if there are hos spots now, they will not be better 20k in! Very sound advice. I settled on some Nike Zoom Pegasus 31's. To be honest, I looked at them and thought to myself "are you kidding me? This guy is giving me Nike shoes to try? Does he have any idea that I am a serious runner? Is this a joke? This was of course before I found-out how fast this guy is! After picking them out of all six pairs he showed me, he smiled and told me that he runs in the same ones. But man, they just felt really good. He advised me to try them out on a treadmill because as long as they are still squeaky clean, I am allowed to bring them back within 30 days for a refund/exchange. That is honestly amazing, I was a big hesitant to buy them because of the current condition of my feet, but that takes a load off. Oh yeah, and all shoes were 15% off! Score! There was also a 20% discount if I spent over $200. Well, he shouldn't have told me that....not I had to hit it! I picked-up a half zip long sleeve shirt which fit awesome and will be perfect for running in once the temp drops a little bit more. The price? $55. But then I got $40 off my purchase, so yay for an awesome $15 shirt!
After that I went shopping, got some ingredients to make some home made power bars with...as well as the usual groceries. I gotta get this nutrition thing down and cliff bars are not exactly cheap. On my longer rides with Dark Horse Flyers in the summer, I would take a granola bar, a cliff bar and a banana. That plus whatever I spent on electrolytes($1ish x4 bottles) as well as a $6 snack at the end of the ride, each ride costs me $12, 3 times per week. That's $144 per month. That doesn't even include other random stuff like shot blocks and gels...oh man, I don't even want to think about that stuff. I don't usually use much of that stuff luckily, because I don't have the budget for that.
I had a quick dinner then went off to swimming. After the pool being closed 2 weeks ago, me being out sick last week, and Monday being Thanksgiving, it has been a LONG time since I've put in some serious time in the pool. Tonight's session went well, we talked about the format of the next bunch of sessions. Kim is going to have our lanes rotate closer to her on a class by class basis so that she can work one on one with a few swimmers at a time to improve our stroke. This really excites me as that's the reason I took this course. I can go to a pool and do lengths all I want, but unless I have someone to correct me, I am not going anywhere fast. I think I'll be working with Kim on Monday, and in the meantime, while she was working with the other lane over, we did out workout for the evening. our warm-up was 400m freestyle. The bulk was 800m with fins, alternating 100 kick and 100 swim. my ankle was starting to complain about all that heavy kicking near the end. Set 2 was another 800m, this time just regular freestyle with an emphasis on breathing every 3rd stroke. Well, since I was taught to breathe bilaterally every 3rd stroke, this was just swimming for me. The hardest part for me was keeping track of my laps! I was pretty good about keeping my lap splits on my watch which really helps, so all I had to do was keep track of how many 200m sets I had done. If I wasn't sure if I was at 6 or 8, I would just check my time. If I was way under, keep going. The first set came in around 4:30 every 8 laps. The second set came in around 5:00 for 8 laps. The 3rd set was with a pull buoy and hand paddles. I haven't used hand paddles in weeks and it shows. I need to work on those things a lot more. That set also came in around 5:00 per 200m I only got through 500m of that 800m set before we ran outta time, but I still felt pretty good about it. we did a 100m cooldown to finish out the night. Total distance was 400+800+800+500+100=2600m.
I'm feeling optimistic like I prefer to feel, not it's time for sleep and an early wake-up so that I can get more valuable study time in for my quiz...after I work of course!
Tata for now!
The Inconsistent Triathlete
Monday 13 October 2014
Almost feeling back to normal!
So last week was a bit of a bust.
I only ran once on Thursday, and I was still feeling kinda crappy when I ran...but I really wanted to put my run in. It's so rough when I just want to be consistent...but I also don't want to run when I should be resting and be out of commission for like 3 weeks.
I feel good about my control and not overdoing it though! Now it's time to get back on track. My foot was hurting the day after my Thursday run, and I wanted to run on Saturday, but I decided to be good about it and skip the Saturday run and see how I was feeling on Sunday. On Sunday I had the day off and plans for brunch with a few friends. Wow did I eat a LOT! I went-up for 5 plates. I had bacon every time...Muahahahaha. I eat pretty well most of the time, so I just ate whatever I wanted to on Sunday. After the buffet I headed to my dad's for our family Thanksgiving. Now since I did an all you can eat buffet to start my day followed by this thanksgiving feast, i wanted to avoid alcohol so that I could head home at like 10 and go for my run. However, we ended-up playing cards, and I was having so much fun that I decided I would stay later and continue having fun, so no running. Since I was not going to be running, I promptly cracked open a beer! Good times were had by all and I stayed the night and slept on an air mattress on the floor. I headed home in the morning after a quick breakfast with my sister.
Upon arriving home, I had a nap in my warm comfy bed and woke-up feeling great and ready to run. My foot is still bugging me a little bit. It's the bottom, outside of my left foot. At first I figured it was just bruised, but a bit of fiddling with it leads me to believe it's a tender ligament of tendon. My plan for my run, take it really easy, avoid hills(my Thursday run had lots of hills) and make sure to run with good form. Everything felt good during my run, I was noticing that the outside of my left foot is hitting the ground a little harder than I would like. My right foot is working out just like I'd like, but I think I need to do some work on my outer calves and work-on bringing that up. When I was doing physio, we worked on that a lot and I think it helped, so lets see what we can do in the next few weeks working on that. The run felt good, my foot didn't hurt much, just noticeable when turning left which put a little extra stress on it. I think I'm going to look into some drills to work on improving stride technique to see if there's anything I can add into my runs to make sure my feet are doing what they should.
Next weekend I decided to do not one, but 2 races! I read about Trek or Treat, a Halloween fun run in Collingwood on October 18th. It's a night trail run that is supposed to be a ton of fun. I have a very good friend int hat area and his girlfriend runs, so I figured that would be an awesome time! a fun race and time visiting friends, win-win! After presenting the idea to them, they were both on board. A few days later, my friend informed me that there was another race that weekend, the next morning to be exact! A 5k and half marathon. Run Blue Mountain looks like it will be really fun! The only catch...I have not been training for this. I know for a fact that I can go out and run 21.1k on a whim. I'll just pick my pace and do it and I will likely do a PB, however, this is not race season for me! The urge to push really hard is so strong! Instead I decided to do the 5k. I have actually never ran a 5k. As a novice runner I turned-up my nose at 5k races. I assumed they were just short and that ANYONE can run one. 10k races seemed to be a good distance with half marathons being for serious runners and full marathons being for really serious runners. However, looking at the times people throw down for 5k races...I realize that the pace you need to be running at to place in those things is pretty nuts! After doing a few sprint triathlons, I now have a lot more respect for the 5k distance events. I put in a 22:30 5k to end my Barrie Triathlon this year, so I should be able to run a hell of a lot faster if I am only doing the run...but how much faster exactly? No freaking clue. the plan was to do a test run last week at 4:15/km and see how I feel. I did a 10k this year at 44:30, so that's 4:30. I figure 4:15 is doable, but I haven't been doing any higher intensity training lately at all. I wish I could throw one down and see how it goes, but I don't have time. I want to be good to my foot this week and make sure I am in good shape to race. If I finish feeling alright, I will shoot for doing a faster race, but it I finish feeling completely tapped, I will just shoot for doing the race at that pace.
I think a decent strategy is to aim for 4:15 and see how I feel at the midpoint. If I am feeling good, I will try to negative split the race. I'll just drop the hammer for the second half and see what happens. I expect to push extremely hard this race. I looked at the results from last year and there were only 3 people who came in under 20 minutes. The 5th place overall finished finished after 23 minutes...so hey, if I can come in under 20 minutes, I will place pretty well, but that is wishful thinking. If I stick to my 4:15 pace, that will put me at 21:15, so still respectable! As for the fun race, I will treat that as a training run and just take it easy. I'll probably run with like a 5:45 pace and run with my friend. I will try to not be competitive for that run, all I need to do is trip on a root and break an ankle.
This week will be back to normal. Swimming today was cancelled due to Thanksgiving, but I did my run. Tomorrow I have a test in my class, but I will come home and spin a bit. Wednesday will be a 7k run and swim class, Thursday will be work and class, then spin, Friday...I am scheduled to run 7k to complete my 21k this week, but I will be running 5k back to back on Saturday and Sunday, so I don't know if I will run. I may just do a short one to keep my stride tuned-up for my races. I really really need to get back into a good routine with my physio, so that starts tonight!
Till later,
The Inconsistent Triathlete
I only ran once on Thursday, and I was still feeling kinda crappy when I ran...but I really wanted to put my run in. It's so rough when I just want to be consistent...but I also don't want to run when I should be resting and be out of commission for like 3 weeks.
I feel good about my control and not overdoing it though! Now it's time to get back on track. My foot was hurting the day after my Thursday run, and I wanted to run on Saturday, but I decided to be good about it and skip the Saturday run and see how I was feeling on Sunday. On Sunday I had the day off and plans for brunch with a few friends. Wow did I eat a LOT! I went-up for 5 plates. I had bacon every time...Muahahahaha. I eat pretty well most of the time, so I just ate whatever I wanted to on Sunday. After the buffet I headed to my dad's for our family Thanksgiving. Now since I did an all you can eat buffet to start my day followed by this thanksgiving feast, i wanted to avoid alcohol so that I could head home at like 10 and go for my run. However, we ended-up playing cards, and I was having so much fun that I decided I would stay later and continue having fun, so no running. Since I was not going to be running, I promptly cracked open a beer! Good times were had by all and I stayed the night and slept on an air mattress on the floor. I headed home in the morning after a quick breakfast with my sister.
Upon arriving home, I had a nap in my warm comfy bed and woke-up feeling great and ready to run. My foot is still bugging me a little bit. It's the bottom, outside of my left foot. At first I figured it was just bruised, but a bit of fiddling with it leads me to believe it's a tender ligament of tendon. My plan for my run, take it really easy, avoid hills(my Thursday run had lots of hills) and make sure to run with good form. Everything felt good during my run, I was noticing that the outside of my left foot is hitting the ground a little harder than I would like. My right foot is working out just like I'd like, but I think I need to do some work on my outer calves and work-on bringing that up. When I was doing physio, we worked on that a lot and I think it helped, so lets see what we can do in the next few weeks working on that. The run felt good, my foot didn't hurt much, just noticeable when turning left which put a little extra stress on it. I think I'm going to look into some drills to work on improving stride technique to see if there's anything I can add into my runs to make sure my feet are doing what they should.
Next weekend I decided to do not one, but 2 races! I read about Trek or Treat, a Halloween fun run in Collingwood on October 18th. It's a night trail run that is supposed to be a ton of fun. I have a very good friend int hat area and his girlfriend runs, so I figured that would be an awesome time! a fun race and time visiting friends, win-win! After presenting the idea to them, they were both on board. A few days later, my friend informed me that there was another race that weekend, the next morning to be exact! A 5k and half marathon. Run Blue Mountain looks like it will be really fun! The only catch...I have not been training for this. I know for a fact that I can go out and run 21.1k on a whim. I'll just pick my pace and do it and I will likely do a PB, however, this is not race season for me! The urge to push really hard is so strong! Instead I decided to do the 5k. I have actually never ran a 5k. As a novice runner I turned-up my nose at 5k races. I assumed they were just short and that ANYONE can run one. 10k races seemed to be a good distance with half marathons being for serious runners and full marathons being for really serious runners. However, looking at the times people throw down for 5k races...I realize that the pace you need to be running at to place in those things is pretty nuts! After doing a few sprint triathlons, I now have a lot more respect for the 5k distance events. I put in a 22:30 5k to end my Barrie Triathlon this year, so I should be able to run a hell of a lot faster if I am only doing the run...but how much faster exactly? No freaking clue. the plan was to do a test run last week at 4:15/km and see how I feel. I did a 10k this year at 44:30, so that's 4:30. I figure 4:15 is doable, but I haven't been doing any higher intensity training lately at all. I wish I could throw one down and see how it goes, but I don't have time. I want to be good to my foot this week and make sure I am in good shape to race. If I finish feeling alright, I will shoot for doing a faster race, but it I finish feeling completely tapped, I will just shoot for doing the race at that pace.
I think a decent strategy is to aim for 4:15 and see how I feel at the midpoint. If I am feeling good, I will try to negative split the race. I'll just drop the hammer for the second half and see what happens. I expect to push extremely hard this race. I looked at the results from last year and there were only 3 people who came in under 20 minutes. The 5th place overall finished finished after 23 minutes...so hey, if I can come in under 20 minutes, I will place pretty well, but that is wishful thinking. If I stick to my 4:15 pace, that will put me at 21:15, so still respectable! As for the fun race, I will treat that as a training run and just take it easy. I'll probably run with like a 5:45 pace and run with my friend. I will try to not be competitive for that run, all I need to do is trip on a root and break an ankle.
This week will be back to normal. Swimming today was cancelled due to Thanksgiving, but I did my run. Tomorrow I have a test in my class, but I will come home and spin a bit. Wednesday will be a 7k run and swim class, Thursday will be work and class, then spin, Friday...I am scheduled to run 7k to complete my 21k this week, but I will be running 5k back to back on Saturday and Sunday, so I don't know if I will run. I may just do a short one to keep my stride tuned-up for my races. I really really need to get back into a good routine with my physio, so that starts tonight!
Till later,
The Inconsistent Triathlete
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