Swim Swim Swim!  On Thursday I did an open water swim with the team at Lake Summerside. It was great fun. I swam with the team back and forth, 4 times and I felt quite comfortable in the water.
  I had to work Saturday and so Sunday I went for my long swim and I did it! I swam 3.8K! Sure it was in a pool. but this was the first time I have ever swam the Ironman distance ever.  I counted out the lengths and as I swam at the YMCA pool I ended up swimming 152 lengths of the pool in 2:05 which would put me in a finishing the swim portion of the race on time.

The most important workouts

I really needed to get in some miles.  I have been working a lot of weekends and not able to get out for the team rides.  I was working the Indy race and then up to Ft. MacMurray for a few days so I was missing the most important workouts leading up to the Ironman race. Right now I should be getting in the long distance sessions to be ready for the race.

The climb up Keilor road is always tough.

The long run for this week is planned to be a 2 and a half hour run. Since I was traveling yesterday I chose to do the run today.

I put together three gatoraide and one water bottle and set out for the run.  Today the Iphone came along for the ride to shoot a few video segments to help demonstrate the run. Some times it does not flip around properly so I apologize for the orientation on some of the clips. I think they are still worthwhile.

It had been raining all morning, but right now, the weather is great.



As I continue along on a trail beside the North Saskatchewan. It is time for a drink.

The climb up Keilor road is always tough.

It was going pretty good as I crossed through the University farm property.

I ran South towards 23rd Ave. and then back along a path just north of 23rd Ave. still feeling pretty good.

The run finished after the scheduled 2 and a half hour and I burned about 3700 calories.

I hope you have enjoyed going for a run with me. Now it is time to make some dinner.

Not even a stop sign...or a curve.

I set out to do a 4 hour ride.  Now that it is getting closer to the "A" race the long distance training is becoming more important than the technique training.  My goal for this weekend's ride is to do a 4-5 hour endurance ride. I am still in Swift Current and I know a lot of my teammates are up and at it early in Edmonton for a long ride. I felt the importance of getting this workout in, so I had no intrepidation getting on the road.

I woke early and quickly picked my gels and power bars for the ride after a quick breakfast of Kashi cereal with skim milk (not sure that I need to worry about low fat milk but that is what I usually have).

South out of town on highway #4 towards Cadillac.  I was flying along pretty good and it seemed like a pretty nice day.

Coming on to two hours and 50K I decided to that was far enough and turned to head back.
I thought it was a cross wind but when I turned around it seems that it was a norwester.   About 25km norwester that was a bit of extra work for me coming home.

My GPS watch battery died after the first hour and 20 minutes but I had the bike speedometer and it registered 101 K and  4:15 for the trip.

The fun part was that it was easy to get in a good, long ride without any interruptions.
Not a one, not even a stop sign...or a curve.  You gotta love Saskatchewan.

It was a crosswind from the West.

Today I am in Swift Current, SK and I brought out my bike to get in some training while I am here.  I rode out of town to the North, up the hill past the TV Station and to the tree. The idea of the ride was for a hill training session and did I ever get a surprise.  There were 56 kph wind gusts that tried to blow me off the road. It was a crosswind from the West that helped me as I was climbing the hill. I road up to the tree and stopped to enjoy the view.
I parked my bike under the tree so you can see the scale of it.

I road the hill a couple of times but it was so windy I couldn't stay down in my aero bars. I was going slower downhill than I did on the climb up! Deb and Darlene were out for a drive and grabbed these shots of me in action.

Later in the day, I went for a swim at the outdoor pool. I was cold, wet and raining.  The good thing was that once in the pool, I was pretty comfortable. The rest of the week I will be doing my swim workouts at this pool. It was kind of different and kind of fun.

People would look at me funny because of the snorkel

Today's schedule has a swim, run and bike on the plan. I got out to the YMCA and put in an hour at the pool. I mainly worked on my technique using the swim snorkel and a pull bouy.  People would look at me funny because of the snorkel, but it was a good workout and I swam a pretty good distance.

I felt tired from the swim and I was not really excited about an hour and half endurance run. I headed out and ran towards the river valley, past Ft. Edmonton park and up Keilor road.  It was a tough run. Even though is was tough I actually enjoyed it. I pushed extra hard and took on some big hills that were not part of the program.  The other part of the day was suposed to be a half hour bike ride but it was not in the cards for today. The run wore me down and I will have to get in the bike another day.

My own private hiway.

Eight weeks to go to IMC and I need to get in every scheduled workout.  I was working out of town for a few days so when I arrived home later today I needed to fit in a three hour bike ride. I didn't really feel like going out and I wasn't sure where I should go.

About 5 PM I headed South and West towards Devon. I took some country side roads and then headed straight West past Devon on to a very quiet and well paved road that is really just a township road and not even a hiway.

It turned out to be a great ride and I rode past a lot of canola fields in bloom.  After an hour and a half I turned around and headed home. I was riding where they held the Canadian cycling championships time trials last week. The chalk markings were still visible on the road. It is always fun to go out exploring on the bike. The great thing was a new road and after burning up 4000 calories, I am ready for some dinner.

You are going to need shoes if you are going to run a half marathon

Wow! What a day! My first half iron distance race!
The day started with Deb and I meeting up with Rob Thirlwell at Stony Plain and heading out to the the start of the swim course at Hubbles Lake.  As we arrived at the lake, there were a lot of people arriving and Deb asked, "What would people have in those plastic bags?"  I said those are for the second transition and they would have their run....  I forgot my running shoes. OMG!

We parked and checked with the organizers and it was OK if Deb went home and picked up my running stuff and brought it to the second transition zone for me. She saved the day!
OK I need a check list.
It was all set to go and I left my running bag sitting at home. (it is the white plastic bag that I showed in my previous entry).
I need to do a check list and use it.





The swim started,  I kept to the outside of the course and that allowed me to make sure I had swimmers on my right hand side. I was able to stay pretty straight and felt good in the water. Not that fast, but I was feeling comfortable.  After 49 minutes and 18 seconds I ran across the beach and into transition 1.




They had a volunteer there to help me off with my wetsuit. I sat down and he pull it off the suit with one mighty swoosh. I was up and running to find my bike in a maze of 650 bikes. The harsh reality is that 562 of the bikes had already left and were on the way to the finish line. I slipped on my bike shoes, helmet and ran to the red line where I could hop on the bike.

I passed Deb as I climbed the hill from the lake, she was headed home to get my runners. I figured she had about three hours to get home and back, otherwise I would be showing up at the next transition and my race would be in jeopardy.

As I made the turn onto HWY 16 I was surprised that as I started to ride I was passing a whole bunch of people. Hmm.  OK, I was being very careful not to draft as there was a motor bike marshal watching for drafting and as I was passing I would be sure to pass in the allowed 15 second window. There was a pretty strong head wind as I headed West towards the turn around point 45 kms away.

 I saw Deb at the side of the road as I turned the last corner, I was heading for T2. Feeling pretty good, but not pushing too hard, I finished the bike in 3:03:48.   When I arrived, I had my run bag waiting for me. Whew!

My run went pretty good as I was able to keep a steady pace going.  Along the run course there were a lot of team mates that kept shouting out encouraging comments. We would call out to each other as we passed and would cheer on each others efforts.

As I headed toward the finish line I saw Deb waiting for me and when I crossed at 5:54:10 a lot of my team mates were there,  cheers and high fives followed. It was a great feeling.

My final stats:
390th place out of 646
44 of 82 in my M50-59 group.
562 in the swim
397 in the bike
301 in the run

Swim, bike, run,  love it!


Now to do double that... I think I'll make a check list.

The day before the Great White North

Tomorrow is a big race I feel good and ready I picked up my race package and I am ready to go.

Watch the video to see about the race package.  Later today I went to the first transition area and dropped off my bike.  8AM tomorrow I start on my first half Ironman distance race.