Let's try a new route

After riding pretty much the same routes for what seems like forever I thought we should head elsewhere for a change. I've thought about riding Taunton Rd for a while now but just never got around to it but tonight I decided Justin and I would head south instead of or usual north. We rode to 10th Line and turned south and rode into a bit of a wind which would be helpful coming home because as opposed to our usual routes we were riding downhill to open up and uphill coming back. The road heading down 10th Line was in great shape although there was only about a 6" shoulder to work with. Actually the roads were all in great shape except for a bit of roughness on 14th Ave between 10th and York Durham. That's where we turned, at 14th and rode to York Durham where we turned south again. We got to Taunton Rd and made a left to head east. Taunton was great because even though there was a fair amount of traffic it had a huge paved shoulder that we rode on. This was a fast part of the ride where I could average 34-35 km/hr and for one stretch of about 2 km I averaged 45 km/hr. Justin didn't push it to my degree but he kept up very nicely only lagging behind by a bit. We turned around just past Brock Rd and began the gradual climb back towards home. There was one long gradual hill but for the most part it was just slight climbing. All in all it was a nice ride on great roads and a great change from the usual. This route is only good for a short ride though, only 40 km worth because once you get past Brock Rd the area starts getting kind of urban and there are a lot of traffic lights that tend to slow you down but for a short sprint it's not bad. On our way home we rode by and stopped in on Chris to congratulate him on his performance in Louisville. We talked about his exploits and the race for a bit and we could see that he was still pretty pumped and excited about the race. He said he was looking forward to riding with us on Thursday and I thought geez, if it was me I'd be sleeping for a week.

Another low volume Monday

It seems Monday's are becoming lower volume training days. Not by design though. It seems that every Monday I'm nursing some hurts. My shoulder is recovering but not perfect so I got in the pool for a few laps hoping to get 2000 m in. I got to 1200 m and felt a tweak in my hip flexor/groin area. this has been ongoing with good days and not so good days but I've learned that if I stop as soon as I feel anything it tends to feel better fairly quickly. In the past I'd train through it and we all know that's a mistake. I'd be out of commission for longer periods but here's hoping I've finally learned my lesson. So where I'd normally do a run on Mondays as well as swim, today I passed.

Race day In Louisville

Chris' big race. He's been training for months and I know he's been looking forward to today for a while. By the time I woke up he was well into the race so I got online to check his times. His swim split was 1:21:25, a 2:08 pace per 100 m. No surprise there. I would check in again later but at 9:30 someone was coming to look at Justin's Dual. I headed downstairs, fed Kona and sat to read a bit of the paper while I waited but a few minutes later they showed up. The potential buyer was a personal trainer and swim instructor and was looking for a first bike to get involved in triathlons. She rode it around, liked it and decided it was just what she'd been looking for so she bought it. SOLD! Now I need my commission cheque. I checked on Chris' progress a bit later and saw that his first bike segment was done at about a 30 km/hr average. I know the first part of the course is flat so it looked like he was pacing himself well. The next few times I checked I saw that his paced hadn't slowed and I know he was into the hilly part now so it looked like he was feeling pretty strong. His pace didn't slow down at all and each time I checked he was still riding at 30 km/hr. He was doing awsome and I knew he was pushing for a sub 6 hour bike split. I decided to head out for my run and I would check in later. It was hot out, very hot so I didn't know what I would feel like after yesterday so my plan was to run a 3.5 km loop close to the house so I could bail whenever I felt done. It was hard running. My legs were a little worn from yesterday and the heat was taking its toll but every time I came around to my bail out point I passed it and went out for another loop. I'm not crazy about running on sidewalks because there are spots where there are height differences between slabs and I am constantly adjusting my stride to avoid those spots. Specifically because of my big right toe which does not bend and if I hit one of those spots in the sidewalk .... Yeowww! So when I can I'll run on the road and I did so today along a part of the loop where I could. The heat was significant enough that when I moved from the sidewalk to the road I instantly felt a large increase in the temperature. This part of the road was newly paved and black and gave off enough heat that my feet would get hot running along it. I ended up doing 4 loops and 14 km at a 4:59 pace. It was tough but satisfying. Back to check on Chris. He'd finished the bike in 5:57:20!! A sub 6 hour bike split. Wow, amazing job. I also noticed his first run segment, a 10:29 per mile pace which was right where he wanted to start. In the back of my mind though I was thinking did he go out too hard on the bike. Later his times started slowing down. A 13 minute pace and then over 14 minutes and I knew he was suffering some. The bike ride and heat was really beating him down but typical of Chris he bore down and came in at 13:23:11. That's an outstanding performance. Huge congrats buddy!

Time to start going longer

So my plan for Justin involves getting him to run long off the bike. We can obviously only work on this on our weekend bricks so I want to keep our rides in th 80-90 km range but continue to lengthen the runs afterwards. Last week we did a 90km/10km brick and today's would be an 85km/11km combo. Remembering how he had to stop at the 7.5 km mark because of some dehydration I also wanted him to start dialing in his nutrition plan. So he fueled up with Heed and a PB sandwich and we were off. The wind wasn't significant but strong enough that we got a bit of a push heading north to Bloomington Rd and also east towards Uxbridge. Going through Goodwood I hit those same freaking railway tracks as the previous weekend and just like then I tossed a water bottle. Stop, turn around, pick up bottle, start to chase. This is getting repetitive. So off I went again chasing down Justin. I eventually caught up and as I did I noticed that he was slowing down. Apparently he'd just had a close call with a car making a left turn in front of him. It's times like those that I wish I could chase these dummies down and give then a good shaking. We hit our turnaround point and stopped for some quick nutrition and headed back ..... into the wind and bay did Justin's pace ever slow down. Hills and wind, his 2 nemeses. So we did 25 km into the wind along Bloomington before stopping for another break, turned north on Woodbine up to Aurora Sideroad before turning around and heading home. On the way home we dropped by Cyclepath to pick up chain degreaser to work on Justin's Dual after we'd done our brick. He's got it advertised and a couple of people interested in it and we were going to tune it and clean it up before anyone came to see it. We rode easy the rest of the way home and got changed for our run. It was hot out and I hadn't realized how much I'd been sweating until I saw the salt salty sweat stains on my shorts and jersey. I had a feeling I should have hydrated more. We headed out but unlike Thursday I didn't want to push Justin today. It was just about getting the distance in. We hit 5 km and Justin needed a break for a couple of minutes so we stopped at the traffic lights at McCowan before continuing for another half a km to turn around. We did another 2.5 km back to Markham Rd where Justin had to stop again. He was feeling rough and it was evident that he was dehydrated again just like last weekend. I wasn't feeling perfect myself and I don't think either one of us realized how much water we'd lost on the ride. After a few minutes we started running again but it only lasted about a km and Justin was cooked. We'd done 9 km and walked the last 2 km home. So at this point it's really important that we figure this out over the next few weeks. It will be hot and humid in Miami and we'll need to have our nutrition plan dialed in and working before then. I made him a chicken on a bagel and we sat down to "nutriate" albeit a bit late and then got out to work on the Dual. We spiffed it up and by the way he was looking at it I almost thought he wanted to keep it.

No lollygagging tonight

We're down a man with Chris in Louisville prepping for his Ironman race but Bob decided to join us tonight and get some miles in. He rode over from his place and we decided to do a route that went over past his house so that he could split off on the return and just head home. Tonight I gave Justin the lead to make sure he didn't get a chance to draft like on Tuesday. I don't want to sound mean but the only way he'll improve is by making sure his legs and lungs get stressed. You know the saying,"no pain, no gain". So we headed up York Durham as usual and turned onto Bloomington and into a bit of a wind. This was good because I knew he was working now. Bob had fallen in behind me and was keeping up well even though he hadn't ridden in a couple of weeks. The pace was a little slow for me but I'd purposely fall behind Justin then pick up my pace to catch up and then repeat it. Mini intervals I guess you'd call it. We turned south on McCowan and headed down the hill with pretty good speed and as it leveled out I pulled out from behind Justin and Bob (who'd gotten between us) and hammered hard to see who could keep with me. That was a good hard sprint and Bob who'd been in and out of my draft during the ride and probably had some legs left tried to go with me but lost ground and I think Justin was just a bit too tired to even bother. At Stouffville Sideroad Bob and I got talking and Justin pulled way off into the distance and Bob made the comment of "let's catch him". That's all i needed go hear and I took off after him. Bob did too but I started pulling away from him and slowly closed the gap on Justin. No matter that you're faster than another rider, chasing someone down that has a 400-500 m lead on you is hard work but these intervals were helpful tonight. I finally caught him after about 3.5 km of hard chasing and backed off again to let Bob catch up to me. A couple of km late we split off from Bob and I took the lead homeward. For tonight's run I decided that we'd push it a bit more then Tuesday when Justin took it kind of easy. He had too good a kick then and I wasn't going to let him have another tonight. The whole run i kept edging ahead picking up the pace slowly and I could tell he was working harder tonight from his breathing. We did 5.75 km at a 5:29 pace and when I took off for the last 750 m Justin didn't follow. While I did that 750 m at a 4:00 minute pace I'd succeeded in pushing him just hard enough that he could finish well but not freakin do the last 50 m in a sprint.

Not much of a day

My shoulder is still bothering me so I just wanted to get into the water today and do a shortened distance. I only got in 800 m before stopping as my shoulder began getting a little sore. I tried to work mostly on technique concentrating on head position to try to get and keep level as well as my arm position through the pull to maximize output. Who knows, sometimes a little can be a lot. Here's hoping. Later in the afternoon I attempted a run but just about 750 m into it the rain started and by the looks of the assembling clouds I wasn't about to push my luck. It looked like a wicked thunderstorm was brewing so I did a u-turn and high tailed it back home. Not much of a day today.

Rise or Fall?

Justin is now all set to travel with his bike. He'd been looking to rent a bike case for the trip to Miami but also kind of looking at purchasing one. I'd kept my eyes open as well and last week I saw an ad by someone selling one. Some emails were exchanged and today I met up with the seller to take a look at it. It was the same model as mine and mine has been very good to travel with. It keeps the bike and wheels very protected and can take pretty much anything the airline baggage handlers throw at it. Justin couldn't make it so I was given full responsibility in the purchase. I think Justin trusted my judgement. The case looked solid with a normal amount of wear so the deal was made and I purchased it for him. So now I'm responsible for 2 recent major triathlon purchases by Justin, the case and the P2. I'm not sure how he feels about that, I think he's good with it but as I told him tonight, at thus point he's made too much of an investment to back out. Next year, an Ironman 140.6. So tonight we did a short brick. We went for a 35 km ride and for a change we took one of our older routes out along Elgin Mills to Woodbine and back. Right off the bat the little weasel tried drafting off me heading up 10th Line but I could hear his wheel when he coasted so I picked up the pace and pulled away forcing him to push himself if he wanted to keep up. Once we turned around at Woodbine he settled in behind me again so this time instead of picking up the pace I slowed down some and then hoping to catch him off guard I got out of the saddle and hammered away. The bugger jumped on his pedals right away though and kept up with me. I think that I should have slowed down even more though because he probably still had plenty of speed from drafting me. Either that or the P2 and the HED 3's are really working! I could tell that he wasn't tired just by looking at the smile on his face when we stopped at traffic lights so I eventually made him take the lead for the last 5 km of the ride. Well coming down 9th Line less then a km from home I pulled up beside him and the smile was gone. No more drafting for you young man. before heading home we dropped in on Chris who was getting ready to head off to Louisville for his race this weekend. We talked for a bit, wished him luck and just before we left I noticed that my X-Lab bottle carrier was broken. So now I have to get in touch with X-Lab to see if it's warrantied or if I need to get another one. The run was an easy one, about a 6:00 pace. I monitored Justin and decided he could have gone harder then that pace but I let him maintain it for the duration and at the end he had a real good kick. Next time there'll be no more drafting and I'll have to push him a bit more on the run so that it's a bit of an effort for him because "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training".

Am I fighting an infection?

Well bee sting venom should be considered an infection. Afterall my ear is swollen and red and hot, all symptoms of infection. I went out for my long run today and while my time wasn't terrible it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it could have been. Plus I just didn't feel comfortable. I did 18 km at a 5:07 pace and I should be happy with that but I'd have been happier at a little quicker and more importantly feeling better during the run. On the plus side though my post run recovery was normal with no lingering effects. So I'm putting it down to 1) fighting an infection (ya I know, a bit of a stretch) and 2) the after effects of yesterday's brick. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What are the odds?

OK, I need someone with a degree in Chance and Probability to calculate the following for me; what are the odds that as I'm cycling northbound at 30 km/hr, a bee flying westbound at 24 km/hr and fighting a crosswind from the south of 20 km/hr would fly into my right ear and sting me? Crap that hurt! It didn't bounce off my ear lobe or hit the top of my ear or just in front .... it friggin flew right into it. We were just reaching Uxbridge, about 30 km into our 90 km ride. Justin and I were going to do a brick and Chris joined us for the bike even though he was tapering since were going to take it easier. I had Justin lead so that he could set his pace at something that would challenge his legs but not blow them up considering the 10 km run we had planned for afterwards. As we were coming into Uxbridge Justin was leading, I was behind him and Chris behind me. Well Chris must have thought that I was having a conniption. I started swatting and slapping at my ear and shaking my head to get it out but it had other ideas, it wasn't leaving till it stung me which it did and promptly flew off. We rode into Uxbridge for a couple of km then turned around to head back to Hwy 47. At that point I zoned out for about 10 km. I remember crossing 6th Concession, the last set of lights heading south from Uxbridge and then the next thing I realized we were coming into Goodwood. 10 km of only being able to focus on how much my ear hurt. Then to add insult to injury, we went over some railway tracks in Goodwood and I had to know it would happen, a bottle got tossed out of my carrier. At this point I was riding 3rd and while I turned back to recover it Chris and Justin rode off unaware. After waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear I picked up the bottle, turned and picked up the chase. I could see Justin and Chris way off in the distance, about a half a km away and I just started to hammer. It wasn't till about York Durham Rd. that Chris realized I wasn't behind him and slowed up a bit for me while Justin kept riding. I caught up with Chris and then the two of us took off after Justin. I found out later that Justin had looked back and saw Chris and me behind him and thought "Oh, real nice, the two of them can take their time shooting the breeze back there and catch me whenever they like". Well no that's not what we were doing Justin but to be honest ..... ummmm ya, we probably can ... lol. So the rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful and we ended up doing our 90 km at a 30 km/hr average, a bit faster then I'd thought we were going to average and I was concerned that Justin had gone too fast. In addition, Justin didn't take in enough fluids and no food and I had a feeling he was pretty low on energy. It's funny how we know how we should "nutriate" (my word for nutrition and hydrate) but sometimes don't. It happened to me last weekend and Chris a few weeks back. It will be really important to be strict about it in Miami, especially if it's hot. Chris split off to head home and we went to my place to transition for the run, albeit a rather slow transition so Justin could "nutriate". After a few minutes we headed out on our run and we took it easy but I don't think Justin had any other choice. It wouldn't get better, not on this run anyway and Justin would have to gut it out for 10 km. Which he did for the full 10 km and we pretty much maintained the same pace for the entire distance. We did stop a couple of times and at one point we monitored his heart rate which had climbed to higher then normal and took longer then usual to start coming down. He was dehydrated but completed the run. So next weekend Justin you "nutriate" and it'll feel way better.

Nice and easy

The weather was kind of iffy, it thunderstormed in the afternoon and was forecast for the evening as well so we weren't sure about riding tonight. On top of that my knee was still bugging me so it was all up in the air. Chris and I decided that we'd give it a shot but keep it short and easy. We only did 45 minutes of riding and I didn't even bother to look at what our average speed was, it didn't matter. Chris is tapering and won't be doing anything intense between now and next weekend in Louisville so with my knee issue this was a good chance to just get out and have a fun ride. It was good not to have to chase him all over the countryside.

I love my K-Swiss K-onas

My new K-Swiss K-Ona's make me feel like I can run faster then wearing any of my other runners. They fit perfectly with no pressure points, no tight areas and no spots where it feels like a blister can occur. They're very light but feel substantial and have excellent support which I've found difficult to find in a light shoe. I'm a heel striker (even though I'm trying hard to change that and become a forefoot striker) and the K-Ona's have a curved heel which really promotes a good heel to toe transition. All in all it feels easy to run in these shoes. I did a swim this morning, shorter then normal but I tried pushing harder, pulling harder with my arms and kicking somewhat more. This actually fatigued my legs so I was thinking my run later would feel kind of sore. I went out for a 10 km run in the afternoon and started way faster then I normally do, at a 5:00 pace but I was feeling ok except for some knee irritation. It's kind of been bugging me since the weekend so I didn't want to aggravate it and cause any longer term issues so I slowed up a bit to 5:15 and thought that I should just get the mileage in and not worry about my time. I stayed at that pace for about one and a half km and the pain went away so I picked up my pace and started pushing a little more. I hit 5 km in 24:21 with the last km being the uphill climb on 16th Ave. heading west up to McCowan Rd. I was happy with that. I turned around to head back and my plan was to just maintain a decent pace but I'm terrible at following plans. I blame the shoes. They just want to go fast. I think they've been talking to my bike and between the 2 of them they're going to kill me. Anyway, 23:29 later I've done 10 km. Total time 47:50, 4:48 pace and that's including a slower kilometre and a half during my first 5 km. Needless to say the return 5 km was one of my best times, the only one better being my 5 km in the Solana Beach race. I think I'm going to buy a case of K-Swiss K-Ona's.

First ride

Cervelos, Cervelos, everywhere I look I'm surrounded by Cervelos. Chris' P2C which he upgraded to a P3C. Justin's Dual and now his P2C. I started thinking that unless I get a Cervelo I may not be able to play with these guys too much longer. Anyway, Justin got to ride the P2C tonight. It needed some adjustments so during the day I raised the aerobars and leveled them out and filled the tires with air. I didn't get around to switching the saddle though and I figured Justin's butt wouldn't be to happy but I was hoping the excitement of riding his new bike might make him forget about it. We hadn't done a fit on Justin yet so Chris and I watched his position on the bike and his legs during his pedal stroke and we figured it would be best to stop and make some adjustments. Especially the saddle height. If that's off then it's easy to injure your knees. Good thing Chris was along because you'd need a team of Cervelo engineers to adjust the saddle position. It must have taken 20 minutes but we finally got the saddle adjusted and got on our way. It was pretty windy so I wasn't expecting a fast ride so we let Justin lead us out. As we got past Elgin Mills though Chris passed and went ahead and I followed. It was time to see what Justin could do with the new ride. Chris and I figured he'd likely think he was faster and truth is he is faster on the P2C then his old Dual but as I mentioned to Justin last week when he was asking if he'd be faster than me on this bike, "You may have the chassis but you still don't have the engine". We kept up a decent pace and as we got to Webb Rd. we peeked behind us and sure enough we'd dropped him. He was back there, just a spec but still pumping away. Just a reminder buddy, you've got a great new, fast ride there and you'll be faster on it but you've still got to experience some pain to get better. We rode out along Bloomington and considering that it was getting dark we decided to shorten the ride and cut down McCowan instead of riding back to York-Durham. Going south on McCowan from Bloomington there's a good sized hill that eventually flattens out but is basically downhill for 4 km. Chris and I attacked it all the way to Stouffville Sideroad and got some real good speed going and you'd think going downhill all the way would be easy but it was hard work. Especially trying to keep up to Chris. He sure can ride when he puts his mind to it. We backed off a bit the rest of the way home ending up at just 38 km but a good first ride for Justin's new bike.

Justin buys a bike

Justin had been toying with the idea of upgrading his bike for a little while and when Chris upgraded his frame to a P3C Justin started thinking about Chris' P2C frame and going carbon. So I started keeping my eyes open and searching online classifieds for anything interesting. I noticed an ad last week for a P2C where the seller would sell the full bike or the bike minus the wheel set. I'd seen the same ad in a couple of places, Craigslist and Slowtwitch and it had been around a couple of weeks so I thought the seller might be willing to deal some and I passed it along to Justin. Some emails were exchanged and Justin arranged for us to go see the bike in Peterborough today after work. It was actually a pretty nice drive. Justin came and picked me up and we avoided rush hour on the 401 by taking the back roads and every time we turned on to another country road I thought about how this would be a nice road to ride. Hey Chris, we encountered a hill just north of Oshawa ... 10% grade, and it wasn't a short hill either. Good training for IMLP or IMC. We got to Peterborough, found the house and met the seller who then brought out the bike. Based on the ad it was not ridden much, only about 400 km on it so I inspected the components for wear. The rings, cassette, the chain, the tires and they all looked to have very little wear. Justin took it for a test ride and when he got back I rode out on it. It was fast. It moved real nice and didn't need much effort to get going or to maintain speed. Now it was a short ride but you could just tell. So we started talking price for the bike minus the wheel set and brought him down a bit from his asking price and bottom line .... Justin bought a bike. As for the wheels, Justin has ridden my HED 3's and agreed that getting as aero as possible with the new bike was the way to go so he's going to go with them on the bike. I can tell he's excited and can't wait to get out on tomorrow's ride.

Lessons learned the hard way

Sometimes, even though it doesn't feel like it at the time, blowing up during a training session can be a good thing. Chris was planning on a 4.5 hour ride followed by an hour to hour and a half run. He left at 8:00 in the morning so I figured he'd be back by around 12:30. I was looking at a shorter ride so I could get in a longer run as part of my brick since my brick runs to date have been short and I really needed to lengthen them in preparation for Miami. So my plan was I'd leave around 9:30 and get back at about the same time as Chris did and join him for the run. I didn't get going till 10:00 though so I changed my original 90 km ride plan to 75 km but decided to go harder and make it feel like 90 km. Oops, mistake number 1. I did go harder, 32.5 km/hr average. My legs were trashed by the end of the ride and if Chris hadn't been running I could have easily laid down on the couch for the rest of the day. During the ride I only took in about a litre and a half of water and even though I knew this was wrong it just got away from me. Mistake number 2. And to follow it all up I didn't take in any calories at all. Mistake number 3. Normally I wouldn't need food on a ride but the difference today which I didn't account for was that I'd be running afterwards. A long run. Aside from my legs feeling destroyed I still felt ok energy wise though so Chris and I decided to meet at the Petro Canada and head out from there. It all started out fine and my legs seemed to be holding up fine for the time being so we ran over to 10th Line and turned north. It was uphill most of the way, especially from just south of Major MacKenzie and it was hot so the going got tougher as we went. For me anyways, Chris seemed fine. As we got to Major Mackenzie I told Chris I'd see if I could make it to Elgin Mills, another 2 km of uphill and he reminded me that it was a matter of could I make it BACK from there. Duh me. Well I made it up to Elgin Mills and that was our turn around point, 7 km from home but heading south would hopefully be easier as we would be heading downhill and into a cooling wind. I started feeling a bit better at this point and our pace picked up a bit but my right quad felt like it was on the verge of cramping a few times so I would slap it as I ran every once in a while. We hit 10 km and I was happy to have made it that far and could have easily stopped at that point but kept going because as I've written on my blog page, "Pain is Temporary, Quitting Lasts Forever". And now I was starting to feel it. By 11 km I knew the bonk was coming on. My energy was pretty much done, my legs were moving strictly from memory and my brain was telling me to stop and walk. But I told my brain "Are you kidding me? With only 3 km to go? No way." I pushed through, we got back to the Petro Canada where we'd started and Chris headed straight along 16th Ave. while I turned south on 9th Line towards home. Well that last kilometre to home was one of the toughest I've run in a while. I could have easily walked it and no one would have known or even cared. Except me. So as for the lessons: 1. Do Not Hammer on the Bike. I'm still going to need these legs for 21 km or running. 2. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate. And for the most part I do but today seemed to get away from me. I just have to make sure I'm constantly aware of taking in fluids for the extent of the race or training session. 3. Eat. It may not be necessary for the shorter rides/runs but for the longer bricks I'll have to take in calories to maintain my energy levels throughout. Lessons learned the hard way.

Hammer it out

With Justin still studying it was just Chris and I tonight for our ride. I was hoping Chris had recovered from his monster weekend training and we could take advantage of a good ride tonight. The wind was unusually out of the south tonight and we had a tailwind heading up York-Durham Rd. so I pushed harder and we got to Bloomington in pretty good time. This became the theme for the night, go hard. We kept hammering for the full 54 km and ended up at a 32 km/hr average speed. Not bad. I guess Chris has recovered.

Back in the swim of things

Literally and figuratively. I hadn't done any good swims for quite a while and my training consistency has been sporadic at best with my recent travel so today I got back at it. I did a 1500 m swim this morning and even though it seems a short swim it's a start to get back up to weekly 2000 m swim sessions. But after Sunday's run where everything seemed to fall apart on me I was really interested to see how my run today would go. Well thankfully everything looked to be getting back to normal. I ran 9.5 km and good thing number 1 was my pace, 4:50. I was very pleased to get that back down to where its been. Good thing number 2 and actually more important to me was that I recovered very quickly from the run. On Sunday it took quite a while to start feeling normal but today I was fine within a couple of minutes. This was good.

Wow, Chris IS human!

Ok, Tuesday night so it was ride night. Justin was still studying for his engineer certification so it was just me and Chris tonight. So I was thinking that based on last Thursday night's ride (remember the 38 km/hr INTO the wind?) and Chris' epic 160 kms on the weekend that I was in for it tonight. We started out well enough, along 16th to York Durham and turned north. Our typical start to most of our rides. We headed north and maintained a bit slower than normal pace. Ok, Chris will pick it up soon. We reached Major Mackenzie and I thought "Ok, now. Chris is gonna go now". Nope. Up the hill leading to Elgin Mills. Ok, at the crest he'll go. Nada. Up to where York Durham merges with Hwy 5, to Stouffville Sideroad, Webb Rd. Still an easy pace. I started wondering if he was hurt, or maybe on a rest week. Then I figured ahhhhh, we'd get to Bloomington and then he'd crush me. Get me back for last Thursday's sprint that I pulled on him. Evil Chris, evil. So we reached Bloomington and Chris turned to me and said "well that was tough". The man is human after all. He then told me that He'd done a 9 mile run in the afternoon and got a bit dehydrated so he was still feeling the effects of the run. Hey wait a minute ..... 9 mile run in high heat and humidity, dehydration ..... and still out riding at a decent clip. Dammit he IS Superman!

OK, That hurt

Two and a half weeks of inconsistent training has reared its ugly head and bitten me in the butt. My trip to San Diego and business in New York had me missing several days and I've only been able to run 4 times and swim even less. My cycling seems to have held up though but that's always been my strongest element. It rained all this morning and I was relegating myself to getting on the treadmill at some point to get my run in but it started to clear up in the late afternoon and I managed to get outdoors. It was long run day so I wanted to get 14-15 km in but I was more interested in what my pace would be like after the inconsistency. I started off faster then normal and this could have been a mistake. My first 2 km were at :15 to :20 seconds faster pace then I normally start off at and it may have affected the rest of the run. While my legs felt good that's where it stopped, the rest hurt. I can normally run at a 4:55 - 5:00 pace comfortably but today I was struggling at 5:10 - 5:15. The first 5 km were painful but I got into a bit of a rhythm at around 5.5 km and was hoping that it would get better as I went. No dice. I ran at 5:00 - 5:10 but it was still uncomfortable. By this time I'm easily at a 4:50 pace and while it is a bit of an effort it's not difficult to maintain. The evidence of my slipping backwards came at the end of and after my run. Normally my last km is my fastest but today it wasn't. I usually pick up my pace to finish, its hard but not painful but today I couldn't do it. And after I finish I always recover fairly quickly but today I didn't. I finished at 15 km at a 5:03 pace. Slow for my liking and worse then that it hurt. I sure hope that a few more runs will get me back to my previous level soon.

Justin's first 100 !!

Actually 108 km. I've been trying to build Justin's distance slowly up to and beyond 90 km so that come race time in Miami he'll be comfortable at that distance. Well today Justin blew 90 km out of the water! So far he's done rides of 70 and 75 km but we needed to get that distance extended and then follow that up with progressively longer runs off the bike. Well not only did we get 108 km in today he showed no where near the physical effect that his 70ish km rides had on him. His legs are getting stronger and I've had him working on his nutrition during the ride so his energy levels remain high. His progress over the last month has been amazing. Chris was on the ride as well and he was planning to ride for 5 hours so at some point he was either going to drop us or we'd part ways somewhere along the route. We rode up York Durham Rd. all the way to Zephyr and continued a few km further up to Ravenshoe Rd. A right turn and 6 km later we were in Udora where we stopped at the local store for a quick break and to refuel. Our distance at this point was 54 km and I turned to Justin and said "looks like you're going to break 100 today". I think he was kind of excited that he'd be riding 100 km but right at that moment it looked like he was more interested in his peanut butter sandwich because he just kind of nodded, half smiled and grunted "yup". I'm willing to bet that the sandwich had something to do with his excellent performance today. From that point Chris' and our routes parted. He set out back along Ravenshoe Rd. from where we'd come and I learned later after talking with him that he turned north to Lake Simcoe, followed the bottom of the lake to Woodbine Ave., back south to Bloomington Rd. and home from there. A total of 160 km and he averaged 31.5 km/hr. Wow. He must have really picked it up because we didn't ride that fast getting to Udora. Way to go buddy, awesome ride. Justin and I decided to ride south from Udora on Brock Rd. and work our way back to Concession 2 and then south to home. Hmmmm. In retrospect we could have made a better decision. Actually the blame is all mine because I picked the route. Sorry Justin but in the end you'll thank me when you rock the ride in Miami. Over the first 12 km riding back we hit climbs of 50', 85', 50', 100', 50' and 80' (thanks Google Earth). 'Get me off this freaking road' and I did first chance I could. We turned on to Sandford Rd., westbound to Concession 4, south to highway 8 then west again and in my brilliance south on Concession 2. With last weekend's ride and the hills that Chris and I encountered on Concession 3 still fresh in my mind I thought Concession 2 would be a better option. Well 4 km and climbs of 95', 45', 95', 75' and 85' later (thanks again Google Earth) I looked like an idiot. Once again I turned to Justin and said "you'll thank me later". I don't think he bought it this time. Actually I don't think the hills affected him that much because he rode very briskly the rest of the way home. Maybe it was just the fact that we were almost done and he wanted to get this ride over with so he could grab those couple of slabs of pizza he kept telling me about that he was going to reward himself with. Either way, I'm still waiting for that thanks. Seeing how good he was feeling at this point of the ride I figured this was a good time to tell him that I still expected a run out of him, no matter how short it might be. If he was feeling good up till then I think I changed that pretty quick because I know he wasn't expecting to run. Thing is though I need to get him running on fatigued legs so he relented and agreed. We did a real short run, only about 3 km but it was tough on him and I think he realizes these are necessary. As for me, my legs felt great and I could have gone much further. My plan was to go out with Chris after he got done riding but as good as I felt when running with Justin, by the time Chris called my legs had been immobile too long. So I settled with the 3 km but was happy that my legs had felt good for the short run I did.

Enough with the intensity Chris

Yet another break in my training. Business had me traveling to New York and I wasn't able to get any training in. I was on the road most of Tuesday, had to work Tuesday evening and Wednesday before getting back on the road Wednesday night. So between being in San Diego and business I've missed several days of training and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting soft. So I was definitely planning to get out tonight. I emailed Chris and our ride was on. Justin has been studying for his Engineer's certification and will be doing so for the next week as well so he couldn't make it tonight. Well you know what this meant. I'd be chasing Chris all over the countryside. We got an earlier start than usual. I rode over to Chris' and that's when I noticed that the wind was, well, kinda windy. Oh great. As if chasing Chris wasn't bad enough now I had to do it while battling the wind. It was slow, tough going heading north dealing with both the wind and climbing but we got up to Bloomington in pretty good time. From there it was right into the wind heading west. Chris, dude, do you not want me to survive till Miami? He flew. At one point I glanced at my speed and we were doing 38 km/hr into the wind. We rode another 10 km to Warden Ave. and turned back to retrace our route home. This is where I planned my 10 minutes of revenge on Chris. I hammered back for the next 4-5 km knowing that my legs would feel it but so would Chris'. I think we rode at around 42+ km/hr and when I finally slowed to look back Chris was a ways behind me. Whew, my chance to rest. Chris caught up and I fell in behind him and followed him all the way back. We ended up doing 55 km at 31.5 km/hr and I was thankful that another one of Chris' intensity workouts was done.

You never know who you'll meet.

I hadn't done a decent distance run in a while so it was time to. I did 11 km in San Diego (remember my encounter with the young fella?) but at this point I need to be doing 15+ km runs weekly. So I headed out thinking I'd aim for anything between 14-17 km, out along Bur Oak to McGowan or possibly Kennedy and then back. When I run now I first go east to the Markham Bypass and follow it back around to 9th Line and go west from there. This has added about 4 km to the distance of the usual routes I've been following. Just as I get to 16th and the bypass I hear someone calling me and turn to see Chris chasing me down. He's just started his long run, 32 km planned, so I change my plans and decide to run with him till about 8 km and turn back at that point. His route took us up 10th line instead, essentially a continuous climb from 16th Ave. on. But it was great running with Chris and I didn't even notice the upwards grade. I ran to the 9 km point where I wished Chris well on the rest of his run and turned back towards home. My pace picked up a bit and I felt good all the way back and finished at 18 km. Excellent considering the ride and run I'd done yesterday.