Shutting it down

For such an easy, simple race Welland took a bit of a toll on the old body. My heal is getting better but still tender but worse than that my back has gotten slowly worse. It was a little sore on Sunday but has gotten progressively more painful as the week went on. So I've shut down training at least till Saturday. Hopefully it'll be back to normal or close enough by then and I can get back to my training.

Hills for Justin

As per Justin's request, tonight we did hills. To add to the pain we had a 25 kph headwind, cooler than normal weather and a consistent up grade to get to the hills. So the plan was to get Justin's legs fatigued and that called for a couple of reps of the Webb Road hills. Out of the saddle at the bottom and power up as far as he could get. He did well and if we can continue weekly hills he'll strengthen his legs, build up aerobically and be able to gain some speed and stamina. It is going to have to hurt though. Normally I'd do a run afterwards but I'm still a little tender in my heal so no run tonight. This is hopefully not going to continue much longer and my heal will start feeling better because I sure don't want to lose all the run gains I've made to date.

Injury woes?

Deja vu? Oh man I hope not. So my heel is still feeling tender and I am not going to risk it getting worse. This is almost the same time last year that I hurt my groin and didn't let it heal properly. I still have days when my groin bothers me and have to back off a bit but for the most part it's good. I just can't afford to let my heel go that route though. With that in mind I skipped running today. I also changed up my swim today, I swam in my pool. It's only 10 metres long but it's right there and I can jump in whenever which makes it easier on me then heading to the community pool. Yes, twice as many turns but I guess I have to make some concessions. Hopefully the rest will do my heel good and I can get back to running later this week.

The day after

Long run day today but my heel is feeling a little tender so I decide to do a shorter run, only an hour. I noticed it after the race yesterday but didn't think much of it and figured it would be fine by today. Well it's still noticeable so I didn't want to push it. The weather was kind of iffy too so it became an indoor run on the treadmill. I don't mind these occasionally because it can get pretty warm running inside and knowing that I'm likely going to face warm humid conditions in Miami I'm ok with running in "simulated" conditions.

Race day

Race day means an early wake up call for a 2 hour drive to Welland. 4:30 am and it come way too quick. I had a restless sleep, not sure if it was because I went to bed much earlier than normal or if I was excited about competing again but I felt pretty tired getting up. This is the first race of the season and I'm feeling excited about competing again and seeing if my winter's training has had a positive effect. The truck's been loaded since last night and I just have to get dressed and throw in some water and a bit of fruit into a cooler bag and head off. First stop though was in Mississuaga to pick up Justin. From there we head to the race. We get there and go through the usual pre-race routine, set-up and psyching and make our way to the swim start. Its a time trial start which I like as there isn't that mass of humanity charging into the water and arms and legs flailing and churning it all up and smacking you in the face. We line up in competitor number order and slowly make our way to the start. Justin starts about 175 bodies and 15 minutes ahead of me so it's my objective to catch him before the end of the race. The swim goes well but my arms are getting tired due to fighting with my wetsuit. Every stroke my arms are tugging against the tightness and they're fatiguing but I try to put it out of my mind. On exiting the water I have a 450 metre run to T1 and the inevitable struggle with my wetsuit. I really have to do something about it. Its too long and bunches up around my ankles and really difficult to get off. I think I have to get it cut shorter. Off it comes (eventually), helmet and shoes on and zoom ...... off I go. Nothing exciting on the ride, flat, little wind, I see Justin heading back at my 12 kilometre mark and urge him on. So I guess he's about 6 k ahead of me. I put the hammer down the rest of the ride and average 34 kph. T2 is much better and I get out onto the run pretty quickly and set my sights on Justin. At about 3 k I see his familiar backwards worn visor and hunt him down. A couple minutes later I catch him, pull up next to him, call out that I'm passing him on his left and remind him not to forget to take his gel (which I find out late he does forget). By now I've found my stride , I'm feeling good and picking up the pace. I have no idea what my pace is though because my Garmin isn't showing it, just distance and time elapsed. I gotta figure that out. After the results go up I see my pace was 4:49 per kilometre and my final time was 1:51:47 including a 2:14 time for the run from the swim exit to T1. I'm happy with that and especially with my run split.

A short day

Didn't do much today. Went for a 35 minute swim and skipped the run to try and keep my legs fresh for Saturday. Brendan, Danielle and the babies came in from Hamilton to visit and we had a great afternoon. Olivia had a ball in the pool jumping in and being caught and then got wrapped up in a big towel and sat on Big Niko's lap and ate chips. Annabelle kinda ...... did not much. Oh wait, she did raise hell for a bit so I guess that counts for something. I cooked up some dinner and all too soon it was time for them to go. Wonder when I'll see my baby girls again.

Not feeling it tonight

Not sure if it was the heat, my change in training schedule or if I'm rundown a bit but I just wasn't feeling it tonight. The threat of thunderstorms kept me inside on the trainer tonight and bottom line is I really don't like riding the trainer. I figured I'd try and keep it a little different so I rode my road bike instead of the tri bike. Big mistake. First of all the geometry is way different which I know but wow what a difference it makes. My seat position is way behind the pedals and it's a whole different pedaling motion. Secondly I'm way stretched out and was reaching for the handlebars the whole time. Thirdly I kept wanting to get down into an aero position but of course the aerobars weren't there. I only spent an hour spinning, I couldn't handle it any longer. It didn't look like rain any more so I decided to head outdoors for a run and it was just as "unfeeling". I'd forgotten to turn on the GPS on my Garmin so I had no pace or distance information and I was running a new route so I couldn't even estimate a pace or distance based on a familiar route. So I just ran a pace to a perceived effort. When I finished it took a bit longer than normal to recover and I hadn't thought that I'd pushed myself like I had last night but after I got on google earth and calculated the distance I'd run (6.5 kilometres) and figured out my pace it was 4:51. Surprise surprise.