Heros

   I always find it interesting to see who or what inspires people. I'm sure like other athletes I get a lot of my inspiration from my own internal drive, but we all have someone who inspires us. There are always those amazing people with unbelievable stories that show us anything is possible with determination and the right mindset.  


Who are my heros? I'm glad you asked!

Danny Way: - http://dannyway.com/

   A professional skateboarder and all around amazing athlete. He's been pro and I've been watching him since we were about 14 (we almost share a birthday and are the same age). Here is just a short list of amazing accomplishments from Danny. (Borrowed from Wikipedia)

• 1990: Was one of the first skaters to try the 900 but failed to land it
• 1991: Was named Thrasher Magazine Skater Of The Year
• 1997: Broke the World Record for Biggest Air with a 12 foot kickflip
• 1997: Dropped in from a helicopter onto a ramp, and is the only skater to have ever attempted this
• 2002: Set the Long Distance Jump record with a 65 foot jump in 2002; on this same jump, he also broke the Biggest Air record, going 18 feet 3 inches above the top of the ramp (this record would later be broken)
• 2003: On June 19 at the Point X Camp mega ramp, broke his own Long Distance Jump record with a distance of 75 feet, and also broke his own Biggest Air record, going 23.5 feet above the top of the ramp
• 2004: Wins gold medal at X Games, once again broke his Long Distance record with a distance of 79 feet
• 2004: Was named Thrasher Magazine Skater Of The Year
• July 9, 2005: He jumped over the Great Wall Of China on a skateboard
• 2005: Won his 2nd Big Air Gold Medal at X Games XI
• 2006: Won his 3rd Big Air Gold medal at X Games XII
• 2006: In May, landed the first "El Camino" (rocket grab back flip) on a mega ramp in Mexico City
• 2006: First to Drop from the top of the guitar at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino from a height of 82 feet.
• 2009: Broke the Land Speed Record on a skateboard with the help of Rob Dyrdek
• 2009: Won first ever Big Air Rail Jam at X Games 15 in the Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA

Back in the 1990's Danny Way was a a mutli-sport professional athlete. He rode for Circle A snowboards, Plan B skateboards, raced motocross and surfed. Danny also came back from a broken neck sustained while surfing, which put him completely out of sports for more than a year. This was just one of numerous injuries including a broken vertebrae and ankle, shoulder dislocation and 5 knee surgeries. The man is an unstoppable machine.

Rich Roll: - http://www.richroll.com/

  Author of "Finding Ultra" and endurance racing monster. He is a top contender in the Ultraman World Championships and the first vegan to compete in the event. In 2009 Men's Fitness Magazine placed him in the list of "The 25 fittest men in the world". Here is a short bio borrowed from his website: 

"In May 2010, Rich and his ultra-colleague Jason Lester accomplished an unprecedented feat of staggering endurance many said was not possible. Something they call the EPIC5 CHALLENGE – a odyssey that entailed completing 5 ironman-distance triathlons on 5 islands of Hawaii in under a week. Commencing on Kauai, they travelled to Oahu, Molokai and Maui before finishing on the Big Island, following the course of the Ironman World Championships on the Kona coast.

   In addition, Rich has been a top finisher at the 2008 and 2009 Ultraman World Championships in Hawaii. Considered by many to be one of world’s most daunting and grueling endurance races on the planet, Ultraman is a 3-day / 320 mile double-ironman distance triathlon that circumnavigates the entire Big Island.  Limited to only 35 carefully selected invitation-only participants from all over the world, Day 1 involves a 6.2 mile ocean swim immediately followed by a 90 mile cross-country cycling race.  Day 2 is a 170 mile cycling race.  And the event culminates on Day 3 with a 52 mile double marathon run on the searing hot lava fields of the Kona coast.

   In his first time out after a 20-year respite from competitive sports and only 6 months of training, Richard clocked the 2^nd fastest swim split, finished 11^th overall and was the 3^rd fastest American."

   Rich, (along with Christine) inspired me to become vegetarian, to improve my diet and strive for better health. His book and story centers around his fall from a world class swimmer in college due to alcoholism and the successful rebuilding of his life into one of the best endurance athletes in the world. Truly inspirational!

Reid Coolsaet: - http://reidcoolsaet.com/

   Local running hero Reid is from Hamilton, Ontario and is a Canadian 2012 Olympian. He competed for us in London in the Marathon placing 27th with a time of 2:16:29. I first heard of him from my friend Steph as he had won the 2012 Around The Bay race that I was entering. He ran 30km in only  1:33:20. Currently I'm hoping to make it in under 3 hours... His other race times blew me away and he quickly became the runner whose times and paces meant the most to me. Although I doubt I'll ever reach his times, for me they are the standards to be met.

1500m:                  3:40
3000m:                  7:53
5km:                    13:21
10km                   28:08
1/2 Marathon   1:02:42
Marathon         2:10:55

   This guy is really fast. He is also a skateboarder and grew up skating with a lot of the guys I know in Hamilton. He even set a skateboard mile record of 3:49. Now that's a record I'll be doing my best to break this summer. Not an official record of any kind, but for a fellow skateboarder and runner it'll be fun seeing what I can do against it.

Mark Allen: - http://www.markallenonline.com/

   IAn early 1990's multi Ironman Triathlon champion. He competed in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, from 1982 - 1995 and won 6 between 1989 - 1995. He also won the ITU World Championships in 1989. He was named Triathlete of the Year six times by Triathlete magazine, and in 1997 Outside magazine tabbed him The World's Fittest Man. I actually discovered him when I began watching the original Ironman World Championships which I was using to inspire me. I was completely amazed as he found a way to win year after year.  In 1995 he came back from a 13 minute deficit to the leader coming out of the swim.  He was nicknamed "The Grip" as no one could get free of it. Certainly one of the best triathletes ever.

Christine Scully: - http://www.canadiandgal.blogspot.ca/

  The only heroine to make my list. All around amazing individual, athlete, diabetes battler and thankfully my other half.  Where to begin? From the moment I met her she has continued to impress and amaze me. She is the most real and down to earth person I have ever met. Although she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes more than a decade ago, she continues to live strong and healthy. She has run half, as well as full marathons and now concentrates all her athletic efforts on becoming a great cyclist. She has traveled through Asia and experienced things I can only dream about. Chris has an amazing determination which I know has gotten her through so many tough times. Always open minded, she is willing to try new ideas, push her body and overcome so many of the obstacles life has thrown at her. I doubt that I could fair so well against a foe such as diabetes. I've told her many times, but she never takes me seriously. Maybe now she will realize that she truly is one of my heroes.

Rob "Ribber" Fraser: - http://www.facebook.com/rob.fraser.319

   What can I even say about this guy to express how much of a hero he is to me. He's been my closest friend since we were about 13. We met in grade 8 at Dalewood Middle School because of skateboarder and he's been like a brother to me since. I couldn't even estimate the amount of awesome skate sessions we've had together. I also couldn't even come close to estimating the amount of trouble we've gotten into together. This guy has been there through thick and thin. What is truly amazing about Rob is his determination. In his twenties he was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration, in layman's terms, he was going blind. I'll let this except from wiki explain much better than I could. 

   "macular degenerationis a medical condition which usually affects older adults and results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field (the macula) because of damage to the retina. It occurs in "dry" and "wet" forms. It is a major cause of blindness and visual impairment in older adults. Macular degeneration can make it difficult or impossible to read or recognize faces, although enough peripheral vision remains to allow other activities of daily life."
 
  Rob not only began skateboarding again, but shreds a mini-ramp like nobody's business. He and his wife Wendy are also two of the best parents I have ever seen and in today's society that is no small feat. I can't wait until my next skate session with Ribber.

January 27/13

   So another week in the can and another week that did not go quite as planned. I'm starting to catch on to the notion that no matter how rigorous my planning, training will never go as planned. Also this winter is dragging me down. I guess we're pretty much in the middle of it now and it feel like I live in darkness, plus the recent cold snap has really sucked my will to train nearly dry. Either way lets get to the details.

Fully Assembled

I miss my heavy bags

   Monday was my usual core and weight training night. I'll tell you purchasing all the components to my home gym over the last 15 years was one of the smartest things I could have done. I'm motivated to workout at home so I have never stopped using it. It has morphed over the years due to space and place. Even though Chris and my cabin in the city only has enough room for the bare essentials  it still works for me. Here are a few pics of how it has looked at different stages. I still have all the components, just some are safely stored away.

My last place

The gym in the cabin in the city

   





   Tuesdays are now my night off. When spring hits they will be skateboarding nights again, I miss a good session at an outdoor park with my friends. Hell I just miss warm sunshine.

   Wednesday the boss called in sick, so day off. I used it for a double session of training. I hadn't run a 5km in a while since I have been working on distance for Around the Bay and I felt like a had a PR in me. I felt like I was going to die breathing in the icy air so rapidly, but I pushed hard anyway.

Old PR - 22:49

New PR - 21:52
   Dropped almost 1 minute off my best time, but still nowhere near where I want to be.

    I also went for a nice recovery swim after with the elderly lunch swimmers. Was going ok, until a strange popping sensation in my shoulder began around 900m. I stopped for a few minutes and did another 100m. Still there. Taking a cue from my past mistakes I decided to call it a day and went home to ice.

   Thursday night I  relaxed with Chris as she was going away to Slipstream for the week. It's basically an all diabetic weekend play date in the snow. Due to my normally functioning pancreas I was not invited. It was a good thing that I had a night off because my work day was absolutely brutal. Ten hours of baseboard and shoe moldings to install. I was bent over all day or down on one knee. By the time I got home I looked like a question mark and had a pulled groin.

   Friday I had my own play date to attend at the Ward Skatepark. My buddies Ben and Dave were there and skating hard! It was my first time back on my skateboard in over a month and even though my groin was still killing me I needed to skate again.  After about 30 minutes it all started coming back. By the end of the session the old Ryan made a cameo and I was pulling out some of my favorite tricks.

   Saturday I woke up pretty sore. My legs were dead and my groin no better. (gee I wonder why?) So I made the intelligent choice and went running anyway. I set out for 26km again, but this times with short walking breaks every 5km. This would cut out about 3 breaks. I need I was going to have a rough day from step one. By 15km I was destroyed, but I knew I would spend the rest of the night beating myself up if I quite there. I pushed on to make a half marathon, 21.1km and actually ended up with another PR of 2:06. I had shaved off 5 minutes from my previous attempt 2 weeks earlier. I paid dearly for it though. The stress of the week on my body was too much and I spent the night laid up in bed with chills and a bit of a fever.

   Sunday I awoke from more than 10 hours sleep feeling much better. Off to the master swim workout. My shoulder was still sore, but I made 2300m. I came home and straight onto my bike trainer for another 15km until I got a flat. Yep a flat on a trainer. I think there was still an issue with my rim from my previous flat a few weeks ago road riding on the spell of nice weather we had.  At that I called it a week, had some lunch and went back to bed.

48 bits of useless information

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

Ryan O'Neal an actor from the 70's. Named by my nana.

Ryan O'Neal

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Unfortunately less than a week ago, because I was upset for someone else.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It's terrible, I should write prescriptions.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LUNCH MEAT?

Became vegetarian this year, but I guess turkey was.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Nope. Wait a sec, Maury Povich just showed up on call display...

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
I wouldn't have the time.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Uhm no I'm always serious (sacarstic tone)

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?

No way, but I got ice cream!

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Not a chance, never ever.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CEREAL?

Oatmeal and berries

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?

Skate shoes nope, running shoes yep.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?

Emotionally or physically? a bit of both I guess.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM?

Became lactose intolerant in my twenties so I just stopped eating it.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

Shoes

15. RED OR PINK?

Red?

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVOURITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?

My crooked nose.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?

My dog Lola. Chris when she's not next to me.

18. WHAT IS THE TECHNIQUE THAT YOU NEED TO WORK ON THE MOST?

Freestyle swimming.

19. WHAT COLOUR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?

White ankle socks.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?

Red delicious apple.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?

Listening and watching the 1993 Kona Ironman Triathlon.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE?

Brown.

23. FAVOURITE SMELLS?

Christine & grass being cut in the summer.

24. HOW IMPORTANT ARE YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS TO YOU?

What's politics?

25. MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY OR BEACH HOUSE?
Beach house for sure.

26. FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Skateboarding still and forever more.

27. HAIR COLOUR?
Brown

28. EYE COLOUR?
Sparkly blue

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No, but I keep some in my phone.

30. FAVOURITE FOOD?

Peanut butter & honey sandwich on whole wheat

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

How can you compare scary movies and x-rated massages?

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Cosmopolis. I'm still trying to unwarp my mind.

33. WHAT COLOUR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?

Brown

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?

Summer, there is no comparison.

35. FAVOURITE DESSERT?

Chris' chocolate chia pudding.

36. STRENGTH TRAINING OR CARDIO?

Both!

37. COMPUTER OR TELEVISION?

No cable or satellite here. Download TV shows, but I despise advertising so much I can't watch it.

38. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?

Just finished Rich Roll's Finding Ultra. learned So much about triathlon and nutrition.

39. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
My mouse is crazy and has no regard for it's own safety. It absolutely refuses to wear pads or even a helmet.

Not my mouse.

40. FAVOURITE SOUND?

That's a weird question.

41. FAVOURITE GENRE OF MUSIC?

All genres. Just good music.

42. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?

California.

43. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?

Nothing special, just silly stuff I've picked up over the years. Juggling I guess. Making excel spreadsheets.

44. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
St. Catharines, Ontario

45. WHERE ARE YOU LIVING NOW?

Hamilton, Ontario with Christine in our cabin in the city

46. WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR HOUSE?
Brick.

47. WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR CAR (truck)?

Black.

48. DO YOU LIKE ANSWERING 48 QUESTIONS?
I'm not really sure?

You're turn!

DO IT! Go answer some questions!!!

January 20/13

   Not too much to report this week. Tough week at work with long hours so I missed a few days. The half marathon distance took it's toll on my legs, so not to repeat past mistakes I removed last Mondays 5km tempo run. 

   Tuesday was back in the gym doing core and strength training. Although most athletes hate lifting weights, I had fallen in love with it in my late teens. I love the way I feel after a good workout. Feeling proud of your physic and loving what you see in the mirror is priceless. I also feel strength training has given me an advantage or other athletes for years, but most definitely now in my late thirties.

   Wednesday it was back to running. Cold, cold night and the wind was absolutely mind boggling.  My goal was for a PR (personal record) on my 10km run. I wanted to break 50 minutes, but mother nature had a different suggestion and at points had me running into the wind like I was on a treadmill. I did get a PR though with a 52:52! I know I can go a lot faster, but all good things in time I suppose. 

   Thursday was a particular tough and long day at work and I came home barely able to stand, another day off. 

   Friday it was back to the pool, but Ryerson Rec Center threw a monkey wrench into the gears of my plans and was "closed due to maintenance". Oh well, turned out for the best as I had a good amount of rest for Saturday.

Sweating on my trainer

   Saturday it was time for a "brick"! That's bike, then run workout in "tri" speak. I'm working into this slowly on my long distance run days, as I have mentioned before that running this season is my priority. A 10km tempo, (lets call it race-pace) ride on my trainer to warm up for just under an hour, then to the Harbour Front for an attempt at 24km. That would be 3km added to last week. As soon as my feet hit pavement I could tell I felt great, so I bumped my 0.25km breaks from 3km to 4km. This means every 4km I would walk briskly for a 250m, than back to my 6:13min/km pace. this would cut out 2 breaks this week and bump me up by 3km total distance. Well it was a long run, but no calf pain. I was feeling good and enjoying the 6C weather, so I decided to keep going. I ended up running 26km! I removed 2 breaks and added 5km to my distance this week. Pretty good. Satisfied, I went home to collapse for the evening with Chris.

   This morning I was exhausted (Sunday). I was so sore I had trouble sleeping through the night, but the show must go on. Masters swim class today. I Met some really nice age groupers, (that's "tri" speak for older triathletes) today. I will say this about the sport, the athletes seem genuinely enthused when new people come into the sport. Everyone I have spoken to has made me feel incredibly welcomed. An interesting difference from skateboarding where many of the athletes are territorial and clique-ish. I was no different as a skateboarder either. 2100m later, 100m further than my personal best and it was home to get back on the bike trainer. a 30 minute, gut busting interval workout and I was totally destroyed. by the 20 minute mark I wished I had a gun to shoot my Garmin or myself or both. It was 30 seconds all out with 1 minute recovery. Let me say 30 seconds has never been so long and a minute so short.

   Time for rest, good recovery meals, stretching and foam rolling. Tomorrow starts another week.

   I can't wait!

A Scheduling Nightmare

Great beginners learning tool

  So in one of my first blog posts I mentioned schedules and explained that I would get into that topic a bit later. Now it's later. I really don't know how other triathletes manage their time, but for me it was and remains a total nightmare. How much of each sport do I train? When? What type of workouts? How much rest? (uhm yeah still working on that one...), etc. I found a great video series called "Science of Triathlon" that really helped me out at the onset of this crazy idea. My girlfriend Chris and her friend Steph have been great resources for my run and cycle training, but admittedly I let too much of their words of caution slide in one ear and out the other. One of the reasons I loved skateboarding is there are no coaches or scheduled practices. You simply grab your board and go. This is what drew me to triathlon as well. It's a sport where you can train alone and only pit yourself against others in competition. Yes, I know there are many coaches, teams, clubs etc, but that aspect doesn't interest me at this time.

Chef de Partie at Ristorante Giardino

   In my previous career I was a chef, well in my last position I was a Food Services Manager for a large retirement company. I was in charge of two properties, more than 30 employees, numerous suppliers & contractors to keep track off and multiple departments to coordinate with. Oh and don't forget the company cell phone that never stopped ringing. It took my organizational skills to another level and I was already pretty effective as an efficiency consultant. It was one of the reasons I reached the level in the company that I did. Little did I know all of these skills would really be tested with triathlon. Now before I get into the meat of the matter let me just say that I'm sure ALL triathletes must have issues with this. Even more so if you have a family, which is something that I don't have to schedule around. All I can speak to is my particular set of circumstances and what I have had to work around.

    A week is a great microcycle of time to use when planning. Oh some quick vocabulary I'll use and what my intended meanings are; macrocycle - a yearly schedule of training, microcycle is a week and mesocycle is a repeating group of time, such as a 3 week cycle that I use. 

     So lets do some simple math. there are 24 hours in a day, that's 168 hours in a week. First off I work 12.5 hours a day, that's including travel time and no I'm not exaggerating  I leave for work at 6:30am and I usually walk back in the door at 7:00pm. I work as a finish or trim carpenter in Toronto. It's not overly physical, but a hard days work all the same. Ok so let's knock off 62.5 hours right there. We're left with 105.5 not too bad. On top of that I spend about 1 hour on work days getting ready, packing my lunch and eating breakfast. Plus 30 minutes after work to unpack, wash thermoses and get everything ready for the next day. Also about 30 minutes every night to shower, stretch, foam roll and ice. That's approximately 11 more in the week, now we're at 94.5 hours. Groceries, house cleaning, laundry, errands, etc. on the weekends and you can put down about another 10. Hmmm  84.5 hours left. Well we all need to sleep, especially us athletes. Unfortunately with my schedule I average 6.5 hours of sleep through the week and I squeak out 8 on weekends. That's a total of 48.5 hours a week. Yep we're down to 36 hours. I try never to train on Friday, Saturday or Sunday evenings. It's for rest and time with my perfect partner Christine. So let's chip away 16 more hours and we get a grand total of 20 hours even. Sounds ok right? We still have the commute times to training destinations like pools, tracks and such to consider. Then of course time to get ready, changing in and out of running gear and the swim suit. Seems like nothing, but I end up losing another 30 minutes of time each day and for me that's 6 days so 3 hours. Now we've whittled the week down to 17 hours of possible training time. Somehow though I still lose a few hours here and there to the unknown! In realty I`m lucky if I get 15 hours to fit in all my sports and activities. Sounds ok in writing, but look at how tight things have become and notice that I have hardly any time for friends, hobbies or anything else. Even writing a blog post is a little tricky to fit in.

   The love for something and I mean truly loving something or someone usually means one very important thing, sacrifice.

   I've tried numerous schedules in the past few months. They always need double training days because of time constraints. In addition to the troubles are pool times which have to be worked around. Most nights I was training my shorter harder runs with swimming or biking. One other thing I would like to mention is that there should be a "brick" workout each week, which is cycling followed by running and a swim then cycling session. This way you train the sports in the succession that they occur in. Another issue I struggle with is I'm not just training for triathlon, I weight train and do core workouts once a week for all around fitness, as well as still finding a day a week to skate. I've also worked a day of mountain biking (one of my favorite sports) into my already hectic 3 week mesocycle.

Here is my current training schedule as of January 2013:

TRIATHALON TRAINING WEEK 1
MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
Work	Work	Work	Work	Work	Cycle: 30min Interval Workout	Masters Swim Class
7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm
Core & Weight Training	Skate board	Run: 5km Tempo	Swim: Distance  Workout	Rest & Recovery	Run: 30km Zone 2	Cycle: 30km Tempo
TRIATHALON TRAINING WEEK 2
MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
Work	Work	Work	Work	Work	Cycle: 30min High Tension Workout	Masters Swim Class
7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm
Core & Weight Training	Skate board	Run: 10km Tempo	Swim: 1000m Tempo	Rest & Recovery	Run: 45 mins Hills &  Drills or Intervals	Mountain Bike: 20km
TRIATHALON TRAINING WEEK 3 (ACTIVE RECOVERY)
MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
Work	Work	Work	Work	Work	Run: 22km Tempo	Masters Swim Class
7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm	7:30am -7:00pm
Yoga	Cycle: 2hrs Zone 2	Run: 8km Recovery	Rest & Recovery	Rest & Recovery	Rest & Recovery	Skate board

   My intention here was not to bore your with numbers and my apologies if I have. The intent was to really make you think about how you spend your time every week. When you're not trying to squeeze every possible second from it you probably don't even give it a thought. I know I never did until triathlon came into my life. Now every second in the day is as precious as gold and must be used wisely.

1st Half Marathon Distance! January 13/13 - Training Log

   It's been a couple weeks since I began this blog and it's interesting how I've begun to look at my training as I write about it. I'm not sure what this blog will turn into, but my original intent was to document my training and racing as I step into this new world. It's for the tough days so I can look back and see how I made it through other difficult times. It's for me to be able to celebrate my triumphs and prevent repeating mistakes. If it benefits anyone else through learning or interest than that is icing on my blog cake.

I wish Bay Front looked like this yesterday...

  Yesterday was my first half marathon distance! 21.1km seemed absolutely impossible to me just a few weeks ago. After all the calf strains I've had during the last 5 months I had all but given up on hopes of making any gains in distance this season. I had to return to the drawing board and come up with a new plan. My legs needed to build up the distance slowly. I decided increasing pace was now out of the question and I needed to simply work on distance. (yes I know a "I told you so" is owed here from a few individuals). I had to break it up though and decided I would run easy paces, around 6:00 - 6:15 min/km with a walking break of 0.25km every 3km. It was the perfect day for it too. Hamiltons' Bay Front park is my new home for running and yesterdays weather had it buzzing with people.

Enough hospital trips please!

  I began adding some short speed workouts into my week. Monday I put in a 6.5km interval run, getting my intervals to around 2:30min/km pace and my heart rate (HR) to around 165 bpm. Right where I want to see it for now. I also trained core and strength that night in the gym. Tuesday ended up taking an ambulance ride from work to North York Hospital where Chris came to my rescue. She is such an important part of my life now. She's my inspiration and always there when I need her. After an afternoon of vomiting, dry heaving, fading in and out of consciousness and horrific stomach cramps, testing showed nothing and the best guess was food poisoning. As far as we can tell, possibly salmonella from raw pumpkin seeds we bought. Wednesday I was back on my feet again and managed to eek out a 10km tempo run after work. Friday I was back in the pool after two weeks off and did a light 1000m workout. Chris came with me and got some great shots with the Go Pro camera while at the bottom of the deep end.

Chris takes amazing photos even underwater!

   Today was my first Masters Swim Workout. Central Memorial pool here in the Hammer has a Masters "workout" on Sunday mornings. No coaches, just a new workout printed out on the board at the end of each of the skill levels' lanes and an hour and a half to do it in. Can I say PERFECT for me! I may have eluded before to my disdain for coaching so this is a great chance to get a Master swim workout without the structure of a class.

   That being said about coaches, I do realize that I could greatly benefit from the knowledge of someone more experienced than myself. I have tossed around the idea of searching for a part-time or internet coach. Someone who could provide me with some workouts and review the resulting data to assist my efforts towards improvement. We'll see how this idea will unfold in the future.