Testing

Today I did some testing with Cliff on the computrainers at Multisport Zone. We did a ramp test I believe it was called where we started at 125w and increased it by 25w every 3 minutes. It was killer, and I was feeling good until about 250w then once I hit 275w I was done. It was great to get my zones, and I'm going to try to start using my heart rate monitor more on rides. It looks like testing could become a permanent thing at Multisport Zone so keep checking it out. Just a short post because I have to get back to trying to be Canadian and watch some hockey.

Downtown 5k race report

Today was a beautiful day in London, ON . . . not it was about 5^oC with pretty strong winds. The course was a 2.5k loop with 2 gradual climbs, one in the first k for about 400m and one in the last 500m. After looking at the results from the last couple years and seeing numerous guys sub 16 and a couple sub 15 times I decided I was just going to go out with the leaders tuck in and let them do the work. If I enter a race I am entering to win it, and I am not going to go out there with my watch and pace the whole thing. I would rather blow up in the first k running 2:30 and at least say I did what I could to try and win then go out run 3:25 and maybe end up with a faster time.

I'm not sure what the splits were, but blow up I did. I went out with Kyle "Real Deal" O'Neil and Aaron Hendrikx for the 1st 2k. They were able to drop me we when we turned back to the finish line and were going up the little bump. For the next 500m I just cruised along with Suda who dropped back a little earlier than myself. He passed me at probably around the 3k mark. This worked perfectly for me since this is when we turned into to the wind a went back up the other little hill. I tried hanging on for as long as I could but he dropped me just at the top of the hill. Now I was stuck in no mans land listening to the thud thud thud of a guy trying to chase me down as a began to truly suffer. At 4k I decided I was close enough to the finish line and kicked it up a gear hoping it I would get enough of a gap to make it to the finish. With 500m to go I felt like I was going to throw up, and I was really starting to pay for the fast early pace. I'm glad the race finished when it did because another 100m and I was going to lose my breakfast.

I finished up 5th in a time of 16:25 which was a :25s  5k road pb. I can't complain about that at all since I have really been focusing on my swim and bike. My knee felt fine during the race, but was a little sore during the cool down. I will probably take it easy for the next week and do a lot of biking. I want it to be 100% for Knoxville and the rest of the summer season.

Suda and I at around the 2.5k mark. Thanks to Brandon from Brandon David photography for taking some excellent pictures at the race today. Check out his website at http://www.bdvphoto.com/brandondavid/index2.php#/home/

It is official I am a triathlete not a runner

The triathlon season has finally arrived with my first race now in the books. I will write a race report once I get emailed the official results, but I was first and I believe my time was 1:01:4x. It was an excellent weekend with all of the University of Western triathletes having excellent races and an fun time.

After an excellent result in which I finished approximately 20 minutes faster than I did last year I have decided there is no more messing around and I am 100% triathlete. This means that come September I will not be trying out for the University of Western Cross-country team unless something drastically changes. I was looking forward to running with this excellent group of guys again in the fall, but there were a couple things that just did not sit well with me about the coaches and their philosophies. They should have an excellent year with 6 of their top 7 runners returning.

With the UMS championships over all my energy will be focused towards preparing for Knoxville which is about a month away. Wow time flies and thank god it is starting to feel like summer. This means that I will be biking as many hills as southern Ontario allows. The next couple weeks of running will see a small cut in mileage as I cut my long run back a bit to freshen up the legs for hard intervals during the week. I will probably do a couple track sessions with some 400s to get the legs moving quick.

I am off to write my first of five exams and I will write an official race report once I get the results.

Cheers

New Shoes, Injury, and Spring Fling

I'll start with the new shoes. So I picked up a pair of the Bont sub-9 tri shoes last weekend and I am really pumped to race in them. They are custom heat moldable to an extent and this is supposed to help with comfort and the stiff carbon fiber soles are supposed to increase power transfer. After a week of riding I really enjoy the shoes and they are super fast to slip on and off for transitions. However, a warning to anyone that purchases them, do not try to ride in them with shoe covers. The shoe horn in the back will be pressed into your calf by the shoe cover and caused me to develop blisters just above each of my Achilles. 

Now for the injury part. Being so pumped to ride in my new shoes i quickly screwed on the cleats and hoped on the bike not even thinking to make sure everything was right. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I put the cleats on but they weren't even close to being in the right position. This caused added strain to be placed on one of the tendons on the outside of the knee leading to a bit of inflammation. I made it 8 minutes into Sunday's long run before calling her quits and walking home. I have since fixed the cleats and had no problem doing Monday's bike workout, but Tuesday's run was a bit sore from 30 minutes on. I have decided to take Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off to make sure it is better before I attempt to run or bike again.

This might not be to bad since the UMS Championships/Queen's Spring Fling are this weekend and this will allow me to be recovered and ready to hammer when previously I was just going to train through the race. Hopefully my knee will hold up, and I can be back to scheduled training next week as Rev 3 Knoxville is quickly approaching.

Twitter

I am finally on twitter and you can follow me at alex_tri_winning. Maybe this will be a way to get more followers on my blog. My goal is to get more people following me then the number of people I am following. This is going to be very difficult, but maybe I can just make outrageous and dumb tweets until I get people attention.

Training has been going well starting to cut back the mileage and up the intensity as I get ready for Rev3 Knoxville. There is just over one week to Spring Fling which is the first "tri" of the year even though it has a pool swim. I have been feeling pretty good so hopefully it goes well. Repeated my 10k TT this week and was 30 seconds slower than what I did in January. I'm not to worried about it because I negative split it and my second half was slightly faster than the second half of the previous time.

I wish I had something better to talk about then training so I'm going to do some blog brainstorming after I finish my last essay.