Swagger Cap.

Swaggercap.com what is it? Swagger cap is a new website that allows any athlete to raise funds for anything by offering any unique skill they possess. I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea. There are limitless possibilities for how much you can raise and what you can offer. The only catch is you have to be able to deliver.

Being a relatively shy person I was hesitant of the idea of self promotion. But I knew at someday if I want to have more time to train I need to start selling myself, and put value in what I am doing. When I first heard of swaggercap.com I was immediately intrigued by the idea, because I am someone with a wide interesting range of skills. I just needed a confidence boost to get me started and start telling people about what I am doing.

 I was more then eager to get a fund up on swagger cap. So I pushed myself way beyond my comfort zone and made a video wrote some lines and sent it in.  I had no idea what to expect there were no examples to even base my fund off of it was totally new and totally exciting. To my surprise I received a personal email with personalized recommendations on how to make my fund better. I was totally inspired and went further out of my comfort zone to make the fund even better.

As a result I now have swaggercap.com's first fund! It is a product I am proud of and happy to call mine and promote to the public. I want to take this time to thank the starters of swaggercap.com for creating a platform that made this possible, for getting me inspired to be proud of what I am doing and put some "swag" in my step, and for helping me learn how to more effectively promote myself a field in which I had no experience. Truely grateful for the opportunity, and already thinking of bigger and better things for the next fund! So what are you waiting for! Get over to swaggercap.com support the athletes, support a great site, and start funding you purpose today!

D

My Visit With "The Captain"

The week of Dec 3-7 was uneventful, I laid pretty low at the apartment and just smashed episodes of breaking bad. A secret thing I have been wanting to do for awhile. The weather was the shits and I wasn't really intrigued by the idea of venturing into downtown, which like any other big city is an insane money pit. I still have my hopes and my money saved up for Montreal. To top things off on my high intensity run on Monday my heart rate did not want to come close to AET. Since I am working on knowing when to rest this year I took 2 days off and RESTED, didn't fill it with other crap just rested. The only thing I did do was go for some osteo on Wednesday, which was very relaxing. It was nice to see that the diagnosis and procedures were consistent with Winnipeg.  Come Thursday I felt pretty good and got back into it. My HR was a little resistive but one I got it up there it stayed up there.

 On Saturday I had planned to make my way over to my Uncle Bryan "The Captain" Payne's and do a bit of riding. For those of you who don't know the Captain, hes a 10x Ironman finisher and a beer Cono Suer. Unfortunately he has had some recent health problems which can be read about at trainingpayne.blogspot.com. I do not feel obligated to talk about other people health. Due to his current health hes on doctors orders to abstain from drinking, and high intensity training for 6 months. Talk about a lifestyle shift.

I was going to use Toronto transit to make my way over there as an adventure but being the full time beauty that Bryan is he came and picked me up. The ride back gave us time to catch up on a lot. I cant say everything, but it was a good start. It was +4, -3 with the wind in TO. Don't forget it was raining too. Well it might as well be a hot August night for a Winnipeger. So I kitted up pretty good and went and earned some kilometers.

After the ride Bryan insisted I take a pull from his fresh keg of Amstel light that he cant drink. He says it gives him great pleasure to give it away. The beer was followed by a nap. When the evening rolled around Bryan was kind enough to invite me to his neighbors Christmas party. It was really nice, mid 30`s couple, good food and of course some beverages. Once I was out of there I pretty much fell asleep on the walk home, it was straight to bed.

Sunday

Sunday`s weather was suppose to be shit, but I dodged a bullet and it turned out better then Saturday. What can I say the universe is working for me on this trip. Little colder, but it wasn`t raining. Huge difference. Bryan came with me on this ride it was good to spin together for a bit. He lead me to a climb I wanted to do. Its called rattlesnake. I am not sure all the details on it but I did it four years ago, and I owed it an ass kicking. It still hurt but it was good hurt, so I didn`t mind.

That hill definitely snuck up for some late ride punishment. For the first time in a while I got Da Bonk. Its been a long time since I last bonked. Its not even painful you just know your in the bonk. I loaded up on chocolate bars to get me home and just smiled at the fact I was riding my bike in December. Bonk or no Bonk.

After the ride I had a recovery beer and Bryan drove me back to the GO train to get back to York. I deeply thank Bryan and his family for having me it was an absolute pleasure to catch up, and it made for a really great weekend logging miles.

Toronto

November 29,

My birthday!! Flew out to Toronto at 5 am was here by 9 in time to log a 13 mile run. Legs felt like they had been on a plane for a couple hours but the work got done non the less. It was a decent run here got to hop back into shorts which was nice. The route wasn't great but it doesnt have to be you just need to get the work done, and when your traveling that's half the battle.

After the run my bro picked me up to head to York University to see watch his game and find out where the exam was. Him and his roommates left early, which gave me a couple hours to hit the books and take a nap.

Despite the 10-5 loss my brother had a good game he was +1. It was  good to see him play, after the game we just hung out and shot the shit, and Paully drove me back.

November 30,

Standard exam prep. I was up early logged a few hours on the books before taking TO's fantastic transit system over to visit my brother. I was able to sneek into the York gym facilities. This gym was straight out of the 1960s. Weights all over the place and everything was just weathered. But again the work got done. One thing that was cool was I got to run on this really neat treadmill. It was motorless and called the woodland curve. Very natural feel and the time really flew by on it. I looked it up later too bad its $6000.

Dec 1.

Exam day
The reason I am in Toronto is to write my CSCS certification exam. Today is the day of the exam.
I had a terrible sleep. Even though I was not really nervous I still was tossing and turning like the night before a race, waking up every 2-3 hours. I know this is a sign of doubting my ability. But I knew I had done the work and I just needed to stay calm. I actually woke up at 5:55 before all my alarms, I had everything laid out so the morning could be fairly automated and it could just smoothly get to the exam stress free. It was a nice surreal walk at just after 6 over to the subway in the mall which is normally packed with people. I did not see one person. It amazed me how people work as a whole, in unison. I was in there the day before and it was hard to move. Here it is, same place, and its empty. 

The subways do not run as quick in the morning which made me sweat a bit but it was a good thing I left myself a big buffer of time. Plus I was able to use my flashcards as I was waiting.  I got to the exam room at 7:45 and the exam did not start until 8:30. As more people started to gather around the room, I actually felt a bit better. I dont know why. There was a brief feeling of jealousy and nervousness about the other people but I realized that I am just as qualified as all of them, and there is no need for those feelings.

I dont want to bore you with detail about the exam. But its a 2 part exam, and I felt I was more in the groove on the second part then the first. I started off a little shakey but I was able to gain confidence throughout the test. Overall it was fairly stress free all multiple choice.

After the exam I felt good, a lot more energized then I thought. So I took that energy quickly stopped and vested my brother before his can and shot back over to the hotel. Since I was feeling great I hopped on the bike and smashed through a session. It was a shitty hotel bike but it did the trick, and the bottom line is that the work got done.

I capped the day off with a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant and was in bed early so I was able to get up and run the next day.

Dec 2.

Move in with Paully day

I got up at around 9 although I was in the sleeping zone could have easily slept well past noon. I was pretty good about getting straight down to work and nailing my run despite it being rainy and shitty out. I couldn't really complain after some of the run I have been having in Winnipeg. The run actually turned out to be really nice, and I was able to find a building I had wanted to go to without even having to look for it. I it ended up just being on the running route. Now thats flow. The run was timed really well and gave me just enough time to pack up and get out before my already adjust late checkout time.

Me and Paully grabbed a quick breakfast in the mall and then headed over to York. Its tight living here, but only for a short period and we are gonna have a blast.

My afternoon consisted of finding the North York YMCA and getting over there for a swim. Talk about packed what a mess that pool was. You have people double arm back stroking in the fast lane. I just did my shit and got outta there ASAP.

After that picked up some good healthy clean food, and headed back to the apartment to call it a night. Just hung out with the boys and got to bed early. The life of an athlete fairly simple.


Until next update..

Get Honest

Everyone talks about how many miles they rode or how many hours they put in this week. Or how they toughed it through a session. No one likes to talk about when they HAD to rest. When they woke up and the felt like a bag of assholes and had the balls to say I cant put in my best effort today and it will do me more harm then good. I say HAD to rest because you never really HAVE to. Its a choice and as a more is better thinker most of the time you will push through and do a shitty workout rather then get honest and rest up. For the last few seasons I have always based my progression on how many miles I was putting in or how many hours I was logging per week. But what is the quality of those hours? This season I am focusing on being honest. Its one of the harder things I have done. Its harder for me not to do a workout out then it is to tough one out and write it down.  There is a time and a place for it. Sometime you have to push though to make the break through but sometimes pushing through will break you. It has the potential to wreck the rest of your week.

If we were all the highest level of elite we could wake up get a blood test, check our catecholamine levels and we would know exactly weather we were over trained or not.  But as an age grouper you have to base it on how you feel, and what else you need to get done in the day. For me the big thing is food. Nail the big workout and get to eat a couple extra calories. But when you just need to physcailly rest what do you do?

Stratagies:

• Catch up on LIFE!!! 
• Yes we all have them outside of training watch a movie with the misses, or stack some firewood just stay busy.

•  Do the stuff you usually ignore.
•  Foam roll, stretch, bulk meal prep, etc

• Write it down
• up date logs 
• reflect on your training 
• realize its all going to be ok

So the next time you wake up in to fog get honest with yourself maybe its a sign to rest up and catch up on the other things in life!

Write It Down

When completing any kind of training your looking for a result. Weather its to get faster, stronger, slimmer, smarter it can be anything really. How do you know if you have actually achieved any of your goals?

In sport there are competitions which act as a form of test. Are we winning more games? Swim times? Bike times? Run times? Thats great, but maybe race day your not feeling your best, or the weather is shits. You need to account for that. People will get down on themselves for a shitty performance and not look at the whole picture. Or the make excuses. Maybe you weren't as fit as you thought?

 Its also not uncommon to be nervous on race day. Why is that? Because you have doubts in your ability. If you were confident in your ability you would not be nervous.

So the question is how do you KNOW how fit you are? How to your create that confidence in your ability? You keep RECORDS!!! Test yourself regularly, and know exactly where your at. If your not where you want to be ask yourself why and how do I get there? Is it realistic? This way when the race comes your not guessing. You know you have done the work, you know where your at, you know what to expect and, NOW all you have to do is go get the best from your self.  The records can also be used as motivation later to see how far you have come. Or to quickly solve a re-occuring problem.

So quit just doing the work to do the work. Write it down, keep track,  be proud of what you have accomplished. So when the race doesn't go your way you can look and know weather or not you gave your full ability. Then from there you can learn and keep moving forward.

Until next time write it down and have FUN!! Happy Training

D

Deeper Recovery

Ever since this accident things have been weird. Yes weird. I managed to dodge a lot of serious injury and I am grateful for that. I have never experienced whiplash before. It is a rather unusually acting injury.

In the beginning I had mild soreness along the front of my body which was to be expected. It wasnt until weeks later that the real full body soreness began to set in. This is where I was spending a lot of time just laying down to avoid pain. From there I began to crack..... a lot as the joints began to re align. And the most interesting of all....Weight Gain. I have put on 12-14 pounds in 3 months. I have come up with three reasons I belive may be causing it.

1. Honest Reality

Although I feel I am eating in accordance with my reduced activity level, the only person I may be cheating is my self. Maybe I am overeating, and not being strict enough on my choices. But 12 pounds is overeating by 392 calories everyday since the accident. Which is possible, but unlikely because I do track calories. And have been able to regain some of my activity level.

2. Water Retention

Inflamation of  muscle tissue  and a bodily respone to healing to inflame to reduce movement and retain water to repair cells. But should have subsided by now I would think.

3. Most Recent Suggestion. Nerves???

The possibility of pressure being applied to a spinal nerve therefore creating an over stimulation in a region of the brain that would monitier digestion. I found this one to be the most interesting because it would be happining at a subcontious level. Consiously I have being doing everything I can to make it easy for my digestive system. But it is possible that there is a problem beyond my conscious control because I have been experiencing digestive issues. Coincidence? This reasoning came from an osteopath who had suggested there was a malalignment of two lumbar vertebre causing overstimulation of the hypothalamus. It sounds like pseudo science hodge podgem but, stack that with an assessment from a physiotheripist comfirming tesnsion in the specifc aera of the malalignment, and an unusual onset of depression, leads to evidence that my weight issue may be controlled beyond conscious control. Either way I am intrigued and have began to closely monitor performance mood and weight in correlation.

For now I am treating the depression, and focusing on reliveving tesnsion for the low back muscles to see this may be the link to where this creeping weight is coming from. My goal is to be back to normal by Christmas, which through moderate caloric restriction should be a non issue.  I will keep monitiering laxitiy of the back along with mood and weight to see if there is any corilation. I am also under the belief that I need to just relax and let the body auto regulate.

Please feel free to comment and discuss the topic. I struggle with the ability to organize all my thoughts at the moment. But would be more them happy to discuss any questions you have further.

Post Season Blues

Ahh yes the post season blues. You know its coming and we all get a little taste of it in some form or another. You have been racing and pushing your self all summer meeting with friends, setting PRs, making bets against your friends, whatever! Now there's a gap, you know you need the recovery, but training has become so ingrained in your life you don't know what to do with this awkward situation of "free time." Going into my 5th year of competitive triathlon I think this year I have dealt with it fairly well for a few reasons.

One, this season I developed a stronger belief in my abilities. It was a season packed with adversity from flat tires to car accidents. But through it all I still managed to make some progression. I now have at least 6 more so relaxed months until my next race. What can I accomplish with that? That thought now excites me.

Two I LOVE TRAINING. Period. I have developed a sincere love of training. Not just the getting fast part. But the knowing yourself part as well. For years I would push myself so deep down the rabbit hole of over training and stress, and by the end of the season I hated triathlon and would binge myself up on thanksgiving until I registered for a race to light the fire under my ass. But its the "off season" now. That doesn't mean slack off it just means enjoy the work you have done and you don't need that intense focus you need during race season. The brain is a muscle to. Give it a rest, it will give you more later. Trust that.

That said I still felt a little bit of a hole. But its ok theres another race coming and I will be bigger faster stronger regardless of when it is. Because that's something I want, and I am confident in that. But for now enjoy this anomaly people call "free time" read a book, try a new recipe so you have it on speed dial when training kicks up, spend time with the family who has only seen you in spandex for the last 5 months, and go eat a doughnut. Then get back to work, but dont forget to get back to work. You will feel better about it.

D