The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So this past week of workouts was a story of the good, the bad and the ugly.  Weather continues to be a bit of hit and miss but I can't really use that as an excuse.  On the Good side, went out with Heidi and Rick and did a strong ride on a good part of the Great White North course.  When we started the temp was relatively low and there was a reasonable breeze.  This was further compounded by a lot of smoke floating in from the wildfires in northern Alberta.  So there was a lot of "discussion" amongst the three of us about how seriously we wanted to undertake the ride but eventually no one had the guts to call off the ride.  At the end of the ride we were all good with the decision to go.

When we first started Rick scared me with the strength of the start.  It made me worried that I was completely behind the 8-ball with my Ironman prep.  Heidi was even more worried having even had less opportunity to train than I have.  As my legs warmed up, however, things got better and I had a really strong ride out to the Genesee power plant.  The only problems that I really had was with my Timex watch which continuously kicked back into regular time mode versus workout mode.  So I'll have to see what I can do to that.  I probably biked in a mostly Zone 3 level, hoping at lower Zone 3. 

On the way back in we really hit up against the headwind, especially when we turned south.  However, I still managed to make about 80 km in 2 hours, 45 minutes.  Heidi did very well for her first outdoor ride in many a year with probably a 60 km ride.

The rest of the weekend and the start of the new week was a bit more challenging with family in town and variety of other excuses. So didn't get in my weekend run as was part of the plan. 

And as for the ugly, not sure if it was my strong outdoor ride in adverse conditions (e.g., cold, smoky) that did it, but later Sunday and into this week I have now developed a head and chest cold that is impacting my aerobic capacity and my ability to sleep!  And, of course, work is a gong show this week with meetings set it seems from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on too many days.  And then again we have a U2 concert on June 1 as well!!

So now only about 8-10 weeks of workouts left before the big day at the end of August!!  Next big test is Great White North at beginning of July!

First Race of the 2011!

Well started to test my mettle in a formal sense yesterday with my first race of the year - the Edmonton Police Service Half Marathon - and did OK.  Heidi and I both raced yesterday in one of the windiest days we have seen in Edmonton in a while. 

At least I can say that it was warmer for this year's half-marathon than last year!  I still wore my winter running pants but quite frankly found myself more than comfortable (and not overheated) and certainly more comfortable than starting with shorts in the cooler start to the day.  I have to say that I felt stronger in the start of this year's race than last year's which I hope is a function of a full year of competition and training.  Heidi and I were able to start out together for the first bit of the run but we did eventually part company and I had to try to find some new pace bunnies in the pack.  I did manage to do that with various people and found it helpful to "tag on" to others to try to push myself along.  Still found the hills of Keillor Road and Laurier Heights to be a challenge.  Note to self - more hill repeats in the next few months are in order!

At about the 17 or 18 km point I did experience some dizzy spells but was able to push through.  Again felt I had good pace for most of the race and was hoping for a good outcome.  Even had one of the docs at the Misericordia who was also entered give me a bit of an inspirational speech at about 18 or 19 km saying that if we pushed it we could end up finishing in under 2 hours.  Unfortunately that didn't happen.  Was able to knock a couple of minutes off last year's time but didn't make my goal of being under 2 hours.  Regretably, neither did the doc who made the speech. 

However, it was good to get a little improvement on last year.  I say that because I don't feel that my training has been as intense or as frequent as I would have liked it to have been so far this year.  In addition, in the week leading up to this race I was in Denver at a conference with Jon Popowich - eating too much and probably exercising too little!  This was probably only the 3rd attempt at this distance so far this year, so good to know that I can actually do it under race conditions.  I also came off the race in good shape - one blister and some sore muscles but otherwise no injuries of note.

Next up is the Great White North Half Ironman slated for July 3rd.  Reasonably confident at this point about a 6 hour time there.  Would like to get in under 6 hours which means perhaps a little better than 43 minutes in the swim, hopefully just under 3 hours on the bike, and try to get in a 2:15 or less run.  Keep training and get the nutrition in on race day!