Pre Race thoughts

I was reading Jeremy Hopwood's pre race blog post and I like the way he wrote it up. A quick review of last year, followed by hopes and expectations from this year. So here goes. 

Shawnigan Lake Half Iron 2008

Swim 1.9km: 29:38 (1:34/100m)

At this point this was my fastest swim pace ever in a race, however, with the work I've been doing I'm hoping this year to have it down to around 28 minutes. We will see, first open water swim of the year, I may be a little slow.

T1: 1:27

can't really improve too much here, maybe a few seconds. Not a concern.

Bike 88km: 2:34:47 (34.1 kph) 

Was feeling good on the bike last year but I remember my back getting a little stiff nearing the end. Being a few 100kms further in my riding season I hope this won't be an issue. I need to keep more consistent laps on the bike as well. If memory serves me well, I slowed down by nearly a minute per lap which suggest I went out too hard.

T2: 53 

again, can't really improve on this. I had the 3rd fastest on the day. If I can match that again I will be happy.

Run 21.1km: 1:40:05 (4:45min/km)

Not my best run but I remember not being sure how I was going to need to pace it. Having run 3 more half irons last year, I know that I can push myself to sub 4:20 pace. In training lately I have been running pretty consistent 4:00 for my long intervals and closer to 3:30-3:45 for my faster speedwork. So if all feels good tomorrow I should be able to hold a decent pace on the run.

Total time of 2008: 4:46:47

Now for 2009

Like I said, on the swim I want to be out of the water in 28. This will allow me to be on the bike by 30 minutes. On the bike I want to go a few minutes faster than last year, instead of 2:34 I want to be off the bike and through transition in 3 hours. Mixed with the swim and a stronger bike leg, I hope to be able to do this. And finally the run. My running last year ranged from 1:31-1:40. I feel like I should be able to beat that this year. So if I can go sub 1:30 I will be super pleased.

This gives me a total time of 4:30. Pretty fast and probably a little over ambitious but might as well set my goals high right? Realistically if I come anywhere from 4:30-4:35 I will be happy though. 

I'm really excited for this race. I wanted to write a quick little blurb about all of my competition however, Jody and Choppy will be here any minute to pick me up so hopefully I will have a chance this afternoon to write then.

Off to the ferry

Mid Taper

For starters, I hate tapering. I find that before races I'm in my most motivated state and all the things necessary during a taper (short race effort practices/stretching/ AR eating habits) are all the things I hate about training. I much rather go out and just put in a good grind. At least I have more time on my hands and have completely caught up to all my Giro d'Italia watching! Di Luca is pretty awesome. 

As a result, my tapers are usually shorter rather than long, and I typically don't actually scale down my workouts so much as shift them towards swimming which is much less impact so allows me to rest up my legs.

That being said, the past couple days I've had a couple solid swim workouts in the glorious sun at UBC and then tonight I led the run practice with UBCTC where we did a race prep run of 3/2/1km all at theoretical race pace. Since doing so at my half iron run pace was somewhat useless, I decided to run them at 4min/km pace. This brings me just outside comfort talking pace but still relaxed and not really hard on the muscles and joints. 

One thing that tells me that race season is about to come and that I'm in the middle of a taper is that I'm feeling aches and pains everywhere. This always happens to me, I always become paranoid about everything hurting before a race.

I've been struggling with my IT band and hips, and this week it seems like they are 10X worse than ever before. Obviously they are not but that doesn't stop me from feeling it. One thing that actually has me quite worried is I'm getting the ticklish feeling of bruising in my shins. And as a veteran of shin splints I knew exactly what this is. So icing and stretching will ensue and hopefully I can nip this one in the butt. Its a little suspicious because I only started noticing it last night (an off day), and I hadn't run since last Thursday... Weird. I may even race in my training shoes to prevent the shock from racing flats. But thats a tentative suggestions. Come race day I may throw caution to the wind.

As far as the race is concerned I'm feeling pretty good. As I said, running is coming along smoothly, I haven't quite decided what my target pace will be yet but I know it should be much faster than last year. 

On the bike I'm feeling very strong. I haven't put much time in TT position, however, that doesn't worry me too much, I know the strength is there and I'm still young and limber, my back rarely bothers me on the bike.

Unfortunately my bike is currently in the shop. Last weekend one of the rides I did was up Cypress. I went up at a pretty steady pace pushing hard but not killing myself (I still had 100km of riding to do after), about 9k up the climb my chain skipped up into my wheel dragging with it my derailer. Fortunately I was riding slowly and was able to stop quickly without causing much damage. Result being I stayed in my 19 cog or below, avoiding the 21 and 23. This meant I still had to climb the last 3.5km in my 19, YIKES! I reached the top in 53:58, and this didn't mean much to me at the time, but upon review when I got home turns out this was my fastest ascent by 50 seconds on a day where I just buried myself last year. This was a huge confidence builder since I felt I could have gone significantly faster and the technical issues I had with the gears. Hopefully when I pick up my bike tomorrow the derailer hanger will be fixed and this won't be a concern over the weekend. It shouldn't matter either way, I won't be going into my small gears, since there are no real hills. 

In other news, I received my second helmet in the mail today. My old road helmet was getting a little worse for wear and probably shouldn't have been used for the past year. That being said I ordered a Giro Atmos and it fits and is super comfy, I snapped a few dorky pictures of me in it to show you all.  

Front, Wow I look happy...

Side

Back!

I tomorrow in my typical Friday procrastination will have a race preview with my expectations along with my competition. Stay tuned!

Vancouver Bike Routes

I've gotten questions from a few new riders along with a few people new to Vancouver as to where I typically ride so I decided to compile a list of my most common routes. Keep in mind, the three I have listed are very long, mainly because I typically only do part of these routes on any given day. 

Click on the route title for actual GMAP Pedometer file.

Richmond Route!

Horseshoe Bay/Cypress!

Deep Cove/Seymore!

Biking! WOOO!

Update

Finally my long weeks of work are finished! Three weeks of recovery work and about 200-220 hours in lab and I managed to complete my work in time for my presentation! I'll tell you, this isn't easy to do while still training 15 hours a week. 

I had a few first last week. One of the funnier ones was last Monday. I was in lab for a disgusting 17 hours (gross) and was hoping to get in a run workout. Unfortunately due to complications at work this didn't happen. I stayed in lab until 3AM which is the long past the last bus so I thought to myself, I haven't done a run yet today and have no other way home. So at 3 I suited up for my run and jogged the 5.5k home. This was by far the latest workout I have ever done. I wouldn't recommend it. 

Sure this was a little extreme, however, the rest of my week was similar to this. What I struggled with most was the lack of groceries. Being at work during all open hours, I was living out of the pharmacy across the street, getting bagels and Mr Noodles far too often. 

But now its finished! And I took full advantage of this this past long weekend biking. From Friday afternoon until Sunday morning I rode an awesome 270km. Thats the most I've done in 48 hours I think. I felt pretty good after it all though. Legs are a little stiff and need to work on the I.T. band but other than that my fitness feels good and is ready for next week.

Speaking of next week. My first Half Iron of the season is fast approaching and I have a new weapon to unleash. A nice surprise mid week while I was slaving away in lab was my new TT helmet arrived in the mail. A LAS Chrono

This is exactly how mine looks. I haven't tried it out on a ride yet (will do that tomorrow), but just putting in on it is really comfy so I'm confident it will be good. I just need to decide if I want to leave the visor on or wear sunglasses. I think thats going to be a debate I will be having until race day. 

I won't get into the race all too much because I will hopefully have a pre race report, but so far I'm feeling ready for it.

A second first for last week was my first 21+ km run of the season. Wednesday night in the middle of a downpour I went out for my first long run of the season. I had worked my way up to 16km but decided to simply make the jump. This isn't usually recommended if your trying to increase you mileage but I wasn't too concerned, I knew I had the distance in my legs. The only reason I hadn't done it yet was time restraints. 

Finally, my last first was going out riding a mountain bike. My roommate Rob got a mountain bike a few weeks ago and last night although supposed to be a rest/recovery day, I decided to go out for a fun spin. No real effort involved, just a cruise to play in the mud. It was raining again so I got pretty awesomely dirty. Check it out.

Dirty Bike

Dirty Legs

Can you tell where my bike shorts went to?

Sorry for everyone who raced yesterday that I missed. I had a friend call me up Saturday saying she had a 6 hour layover in Vancouver yesterday morning and so I spent the morning with her which meant I couldn't come out and watch the Tri. I was upset to miss the race, however, I figured there would be other races this summer to watch, whereas my friend I may not see for another few years.

Hope everyone did well!

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

I miss you!

Love Vince

Rest Day Jitters

I wasn't feeling 100% on Saturday so decided to take the morning ride off and make up for it later in the day and sleep in instead. It turned out to be a pretty good morning to sleep in because once I got up I had lots to do and started off my day flying and just kept that momentum going (unfortunately to work). The reason I bring this up is because I found out that while I missed the ride people were talking about me. Discussing how I never take rest days and am training so hard these days.

If you've talked to me lately, work isn't going 100% so I've had to put in many 12-14 hour days in the lab. Mix that with 2-3 hours of training a day and still trying to eat/sleep/play, I've felt like I've been burning the candle at both ends. With the triathlon club, often we have mailing list going and its been brought to my attention that many times I will reply to a thread after people go to sleep, and then again before they wake up. Backing up 6-7 hours of sleep a night for two weeks on end was killing me. 

I thought about this conversation with my friends during an easy ride Sunday and decided it was true, my riding was getting a little flat with fatigue and I needed a rest. Turns out I hadn't taken a full day off since April 10th (granted a few days were simply 30 minute swims). Monday became my rest day. 

Who ever said rest days were easy? I was sitting in lab all day just dancing around in my seat. It was funny, even though I often don't get in any exercise until the evening, knowing that I wasn't going to exercise at all was getting me all riled up. I even had talk myself out of going to the gym and doing a simple ab workout (would would have undoubtedly turned into a leg workout as well). 

It still wasn't the most restful day because of work, but at least physically it wasn't too strenuous. I decided I've taken one day, I might as well make this rest day count since I probably won't take any more until my taper for Shawnigan in two weeks. That being said, I went to the gym Tuesday morning and did stretches as well as some leg stuff but then took the rest of the day off. One thing I didn't enjoy much at all though was sleeping. Not getting in any exercise all day I slept terribly. Took me a long time to sleep (by Vince standards), and was up tossing all night. Thats one thing I really like about hard training days, I'm out like a light until my alarm goes off (or often much later). 

What really surprised me was how easy skipping day 2 was than day 1. Breaking a pattern was so simple it was scary. Then again, getting into one happens just as quickly for me as well. 

But here I am, two days more rested and ready to take on a big weekend. Got my 9.5 hours of catch up sleep last night and am ready to go. 

Bring it. 

Strong Feet are Healthy Feet

Advice

A few month ago I was reading Simon Whitfields blog and he had a few bits of advice for each sport. 
http://simonwhitfield.blogspot.com/2008/11/impact-magazine.html

For swimming: “Find a great Masters squad and just enjoy it. Don’t stress. Don’t stress about what the sets are or whether you’re getting enough stroke work. Remember that’s all noise. Just find a great Masters’ group or a great group of people to swim with. Have fun with it . . . enjoy!”

For the bike: “Find someone who knows what they’re doing on bike position. Get fit properly. And get fit by a fellow who understands triathlon, because we’ve all been corrupted by the guys who know about road cycling. They say, ‘Wow! You triathletes, you don’t know what you’re doing; let me show you.’ And they’ll set you up in a position that’s great for road riding and terrible for running off the bike. So find someone who understands triathlon and the demands of running off the bike, and get fit properly.”

For running: “Strengthen your feet. Read up on drills and exercises that will strengthen your feet. Your feet are so important.”

This really surprised me, I half expected him to have some typical track workout that he likes to focus on. But instead it's straight forward and simple. Keep your feet healthy.

After the marathon, my feet were just crushed. I felt like I had broken all the bones (I hadn't) but it still wasn't good. I decided to take this advice to heart. Using the exercises found here I worked hard at it and had nothing short of a miraculous recovery. I was pretty pumped by this so I figured I would share the knowledge.

Without further ado, here they are. Number 1/5/6 were the ones I focused on most