Well That Was Short Lived

Just got an email from 5150 yesterday telling me the race is cancelled. Just peachy. Of course its after I book everything for the trip and now I am going to get dinged for cancelling flights and everything. What a pain in the ass.

I guess I will be training like a pro in the off season now. Its probably for the better my shoulder needs a lot of treatment anyways. I am not going to dwell on it. It sucks but I am sure with the extra time I have I will find something to do.

D

Living Like a Pro

That's the goal this month. I got laid off at the end of September and squeezed into 5150 Clearwater, because I loved being in Florida and it gives me a goal for the month of October. I am going to live like a pro.

I have watched dozens of training day videos of all my favorite pros, and I dream of being able to go through a day like that. Where your main focus is your training, and everything else comes second. Yes I am in school but only one class, and that comes second. Right now I am eating sleeping and breathing training. I know its only a month, but I am very excited to see what I can get out of myself on this race. I guess it also helps that I just PR'ed a half marathon my 6 mins. Needless to say my tires are pumped up.

So far its going well, it is not even a real life change. I was doing it before but I had the inconvenience of an 8 hr job in the middle of my day. So even though I am training more it really doesn't feel like it. I am more relaxed and more recovered.

I am still a little tight from the half marathon pr on the weekend but a little rest will fix that and I will be good to go by next week. Check back for updates on me training like a pro!



Train Smart

D

Operation Half Marathon Revenge Accomplished

After my running performance in Vegas, needless to say I was discouraged with my running abilities. I had really put focus on my running this year with some intensive focus in the early season. I had an opportunity with an early season half, and was not given an opportunity to fully perform. As hard as I tried it was just not a pr day. Report can be re capped here.

Coming into this race I was not feeling 100 percent either. The cold weather is setting in and I have put on a few pounds especially after racing Vegas and relaxing a bit. I also woke up tight. But I needed to put that aside and do what needs to be done, RACE a half marathon. Not run it race it.

Once we arrived at the race site and the caveman in me fired up. I was feeling better I was feeling competitive. Not full out jacked, but willing to run. There was competition there lots of fit people and another guy that I know goes sub 1:20 (we will refer to him as sub 1:20 guy). I tried to stay focused and just get loose.

Time flew by and in no time we were lined up. After the speeches the gun went off. I immediately pulled in behind sub 1:20 guy and took his draft for as long as possible. But he was running at sub 1:20 pace and slowly pulled away. Mentally I blocked that out I was starting out feeling good and I liked that. The first 2 miles were good well below the 6:45 pace I was looking for. I believe I was closer to 6:00-6:20 ish. Then the race changed..

Since this was a muti distance race offering a 5k, 10k and half marathon distance there was a turn off for a 5k loop. The sub 1:20 guy took that turn off. I was now leading the half marathon. My mind set shifted. This could be my race, I was feeling good, it was a nice day, and I was in first place.

Through the first 10k loop I stayed strong. So strong in fact I pr'ed my 10k with a time of 39:30. Saw it on the watch I was greatful and then shifted my mind to staying strong on the second lap and avoiding my typical 10 mile shut down. Knowing I had a buffer I backed off a bit and tried to stay even and paced. Surging when I had the opportunity and pacing when it was time.

The second lap was longer and felt like it never ended. I didnt start really suffering until the 12th mile and then I was digging. The race just looked so good on the watch I wanted to keep the numbers where I they needed to be I knew I was paced to break 1:30 the question was by how much??

Coming into the final stretch I helped another participant to finish strong and then started my sprint. I never looked back the whole race, until the end, to see that no one was even close. I saw the clock was reading 1:25 high I knew I was gonna be in the 1:26 bracket so I soaked in the whole race. I double pr'ed, I broke 1:30, and I am finishing first! I cruised across the line arms up!!! Totally thrilled.

You just always gotta come prepared. You never know when your going to have that race. Race every race like it is the most important race of your life, always do your best and you can never have regrets. Your best is always going to be changing, but you need to adapt to the situations. I am just really grateful I was able to conquer some personal barriers that day and it worked out well.

Winkler Half marathon

1:26:34

10k split 39:30

Revenge Weekend

Well it has come time, I am coming into what I am calling revenge weekend. I am running a half marathon on Sunday and I am kicking its ass. My goal this year was to break 1:30:00 which with my built and training hours should be no problem. I got robbed by the blizzard in may for the police service and that was the only half I had scheduled all season. I put up a nice time of 1:38:52 in RI at the end of a HIM so I dont see why there should be a problem for me crushing 1:3o:00. I made sure to take adequate rest after Vegas and then I nailed down some solid run focused weeks. I am feeling good about this race, the weather has been good and I race the course last year. Its a two looper so I can get a good even split. But I plan on killing it. I am going to try and stay even the first lap run with cola in hand and not have a typical Davis mile 10 shut down. Anyways wish me luck race report will be up Sunday hopefully.

D

Vegas Race Report

Well what would this race be with out some adversity. My triathlon life so far has not been a cake walk. You talk to some pros and they just do the work and everything works for them. I have always had a struggle weather it was the sickness before Muskoka, or the car problems in Calgary. All that aside I am still making improvements so when I do have that flowing year the results are going to be exponential. With that said lets break down the trip and the race.

So save a work day, and with it being in Vegas I was able to grab a direct flight Thursday night at 9. Not to say that Thursday wasn't totally stressful. I seem to have a problem of over booking myself and Thursday was no different. I had work 7-3:30 then class 4-5:15 and then be at the airport by 7:30. As you other triathletes know, triathlon trips or "Racecations" are not to be confused with "Vacations". Racecations are all work and triathlon being as specific as it is everything must be accounted for. I don't know what it was about this trip but I felt uneasy leaving. Thinking back now I think that I have just be come so comfortable with traveling to race or train I had accounted for everything and it felt easy. It felt to easy, but I guess I now just have my systems set up and thats why its so easy. I was stressing for not reason. Like any trip once the wheels picked up into the plan I felt relaxed. There was nothing I could do now, but deal with the problems as they come.

I grabbed a quick nap on the 2hr 45 min flight and we were in Vegas by 10:10 Vegas time. Grabbed the rental car which ended up being a hummer haha, hit the grocery store for some good food, and then hit the hotel for a sleep.

Friday like any other work day we (my aunt and I) were up earlyish around 7:30 because we had work to do. So we went and grabbed some breakfast and headed down to the expo for nine. Like last year the expo was top notch and American sized big. I have some great pics I will upload later. I met Chris Leito who was a D bag and Craig Alexzander who is a gem. I acutally was able to talk to him, and we reminisced about Muskoka, and I grabbed a set of newton runners. From the expo and check in we moved to the race sight to go check it out. I gotta say they do not mess around in Vegas! WOW! it was picture perfect venue absolutely gorgeous. It felt like we were not even in Vegas it almost felt like we were in France the way things were set up.

From there we grabbed a quick nap at the hotel and then we headed to the banquet. Once again purely top notch. This event really made you feel like you were on top of the world. They had a drumline, slide shows, and good quality food. I found out there that it was worth the money I spent to get the good swim skin because a lot of people got turned down. After this we were pooped and back into bed early.

Saturday we were up at 5:45 because we needed to get the race sight for the practice swim between 6:30- 8:30. I did my mini triathlon and everything was in order. Picked up my racing flats which came in just in the nick of time, to go in my race bag and dropped of my bike. After that tried to stay low key and eat good food and get good rest.

RACE REPORT

4:45 Wake up:

Up early had my pre race meal of a couple boiled eggs a banana a wrap and then started to hydrate it was a total of about 700 cals. Got to the race site in time to set everything up and then just try and get in a good head space. I was relaxed, again with this race almost to relaxed. Going in I was ready to give it my best. You can not be disappointed if you just give it your best. But you also must remember that your best is always changing. As part of some of my pre race thoughts I was running the last 6 week block through my head.

Starting with the positives:

I have done the work.

Half Ironman distance doesn't scare me anymore

I got out to hills 5 out of the 6 training weeks

I have done everything in my power to do well here

Negitives:

The sickness knocked me out for 10 days and hurt my physiology (tight hip flexers, muscles loss, never fully recovered running speed)

Felt a little tired

Swim

The nice thing about racing at worlds is that its all the best athletes. Racing other Half Irons in the 18-24 cat your go off last, the group breaks up into the fast and the slow and then you are catching the slow people of the other age cats. At worlds the whole field is fast so it was easy to find someone to draft off that was swimming at my pace. I felt good in the swim I felt strong the whole way and I was suprised at my time because it went by a lot faster then past swims. Out of the water around the monster transition run loop and up the switch back on to the bike.

33:09 (1:44/100)

Bike

The bike, everyone wants to know about the bike, this is my office, and I went hard. With the stupid late start it was already getting hot at the start of the bike course. The hills were not terrible and the up hills were nicely balanced by the down hills. Bryan because I know your racing here soon, you have nothing to be scared of. Muskoka is way worse, conserve you power on the down hills get into a nice tuck and power the uphills you will be fine. When there was a windy flat section thats were my prairie roots shined like 24 carrot gold and I lit guys up. The last 5 miles into t2 were pure up hill just to really punish you going on to the run. Coming into those final miles I knew I had to build a buffer if I wanted the 2:30 bike split. I was able to come into the climb at about 22.7 and came off it at 21.72. Coming off the bike I was feeling good I just need to have the strong run and I would be laughing.

2:34:43 (21.73 mph)

Run

Here is that adversity. I started out and I could feel that climb in my legs my quads were tight, it was a feeling I had never experienced, and I have been doing more then enough brick workouts short and long. The first mile or two were normal little hurt waiting to get my legs and really lay the hurt down. However things did not go the way I wanted, they started to go down hill fast. I was almost in a panic I had never felt this before it was total nutitional failure I was slowed to the death march. At this point I was worried about finishing, I watched my average mile time fall off the radar. It was a tough mental moment to know that even my best right now could not get me the time I wanted. I saw my dad on the side he knew I was hurting. I tried to stay calm and looked back on my nutrition. I had my salt, I had my cals, there was one thing left. Hit the cola and hope for the best. So thats what I did the next couple aid stations cola and water. In two miles it was like a brick to the face BANG I was right as rain you wont believe it but my mile times came back down to 6:20!!! It was a relief to see my normal fitness. At this point I knew I couldn't get the time I wanted to I moved my thoughts to enjoy the day your at the world champs and finish strong. So thats what I did I finished as strong as I could and that was the best I had that day.

Here is a commentary on my splits:

RUN SPLIT 1: 1.21 mi 1.21 mi (8:12) 6:46/mi

Feeling good here following my plan.

RUN SPLIT 2: 3.22 mi 2.01 mi (17:53) 8:53/mi

Things not looking good here taking sodium pills sticking to plan waiting to get my legs and start crushing.

RUN SPLIT 3: 5.4 mi 2.18 mi (20:22) 9:20/mi

Now worried about finishing slowed to a death march. Wobbling not myself. Telling myself to enjoy the day.

RUN SPLIT 4: 7.72 mi 2.32 mi (20:29) 8:49/mi

Running nutritional analysis on myself, evaluating where did I go wrong decide to hit the Cola hard!!

RUN SPLIT 5: 9.9 mi 2.18 mi (16:08) 7:24/mi

Get hit like a rock to the head absolutly crush the 3 miles of uphill.

RUN SPLIT 6: 12.88 mi 2.98 mi (20:38) 6:55/mi

Stay calm and bring it home strong just felt good to be normal again. Enjoyed the day and was just happy I was able to finish strong. Great learning experience.

A dispicable 1:51:30 (8:35 pace)

In conclusion, its over that was what I had on that day and now its time for some well earned recovery and to set up next year. Three positives on this race:

1. Had a great swim and great cycle.

2. Learnt more about nutrition.

3. Was able to adjust on the fly and get back to normal.

I just have to be happy with that, keep my head up, get back to work and earn those improvements. But for now its time to celebrate, I am in Vegas!! Until next time,

Happy Training!!

D

Ironman 70.3 Worlds Vegas:

Swim: 33:09

Bike: 2:34:34

Run: 1:51:30

Total: 5:03:40

Straight To The Top

Well its been a long, hard, and successful season. If I include my spring running block I have been going fairly steady for about 25 weeks. Needless to say after this race I am ready for some real rest. Not the couple days and then easing back into training rest. I mean rest until I feel 100% then I will focus on my fall running. Don't get me wrong I still want to bang out at least a half marathon before the snow hits. But I am determined to fully recover.

This last 6 week block has been hard. It started out with the sickness which lingered around for just over a week. Then because its August the last month of summer here, everyone wants to get the most out of it so there was lots of trips to cabins, which was good because I got to hammer the hills but it was still extra work, but good work. I think it was mainly the sickness that kicked my ass and it was really hard to get back in gear.

But coming into this final taper I am really just focusing on rest. All the hard work is done, and now its time to get paid. I know Vegas is going to be hot so I have been doing my best to acclimate, I got my nutrition plan worked out and ready to go, got the swim skin for the warm water, the bike is set up and ready for me to put the hammer down, and got some new racing flats so hopefully no blisters. I dont think I have felt more prepared. I do have 6 half under my belt now. I am really excited to go out and enjoy this one, pain and all. Its the end of my season and I am going straight to the top.

Craving a Run

Its been a while since this has happened, but on Wednesday while I was hacking away in a ditch with a weed wacker I found my self really craving a run. Its a weird feeling if you have ever experienced it. You just have extra energy, your light on your feet, and you want to just start running. Sometimes this feeling goes away as you lose energy from the work day. But on this day I was able to maintain it right through. When I finally got to running I kept my head held high and I was striding strong. I felt really good and I had a good handle on my HR. Even though it was hot it was a really enjoyable run and I really appreciated it after what had happened to my running early this month with the sickness.

Moving into the weekend I am gonna rest up and put two really hard sessions Saturday and Sunday. I am looking forward to testing my limiters just to prove to myself I am still strong, as I have been battling with myself lately just because I have been so tired.

But thats enough blabber for now I will try an do a quick write up to re cap the weekend but until then, stay positive, and train hard.

D