Cliff and Darren's epic Alton adventure, fried legs

Well, it's finally here. The morning after the day before. The day before, of course, was the famous, the legendary, the "without compare" 1st Annual Alton Half. As always, in an event of this magnitude, it goes without saying that thanking the race volunteers is necessary. And so, before anything else, a big thanks out to Darren, who spawned this semi-twisted brainchild, Cliff, who brought his own special flair (colour-coordinated shoes - nice!), Sally, driver of the sag wagon and award-winning "smoothie chef", and Sasha - even though she growled at me, it wouldn't have been the same without her.


Now, onto a brief preview, and the "race report", such as it is. The plan was to arrive at 7:30, set up the bikes and head off to the pool, where we were to put in an hour, starting at 8:30. We'd return to the trainers by 10 a.m. for three hours of Coach Troy love and then close it out with a leisurely two-hour "jog" through the rolling hills of beautiful Alton.


So, having never been to Darren's place I'm reading directions in the countryside in the dark, and manage to arrive more or less on time at 7:31. Darren's waiting at the garage door. We set up, I meet the dogs and the wait begins. The wait? Yep, the wait for Cliff. By reputation, Cliff is fairly, ahem, "flexible" with schedules. By 8 a.m., no Cliff. Darren's starting to pace the kitchen, worried about getting to the pool in time for our 8:30 reserved start time. Minutes later, there's a gentle tap on the window - Sally, Darren's wife has returned from walking the dog to inform us that Cliff has stranded his car, half-way up the drive (it was a little steep). In a flurry of activity, we organize ourselves outside, by which time Cliff has rescued himself. We descend upon his stuff, set him up in the basement, ooh and aah over his new bike (and the colour-coordinated shoes - still can't get over that), and head out for the pool.


The pool plan - 10 x 200m. Since it's early days in the swim schedule (this is Darren's first swim of the year, Cliff's third, and I turn out to be the class keener - it's my fourth), Darren has suggested a very modest 10 x 200m on 5:00 intervals. Fairly slack, at first glance. Turns out to be just about right - first few intervals were easy-peasy, and in the last 2-3, I was struggling to hold good form. It's always been said that when your form goes in swimming, it's time to call it a day.

Back to "the dungeon" for part two of the day - the ride. Having not gone through this particular Coach Troy video I had no idea what to expect. In a nutshell, three hours of (volume 13), "Tough Love". In the video, he says about 300 times, "pace yourself, you're in for a long workout today". Lots of intervals - high gear/low gear alternating every minute, then high cadence/low cadence, then high gear seated/high gear standing, and on and on and on... The ride for me was punctuated with what appears to be a near-complete front derailleur failure. It was very difficult to shift from big to small ring and back. At one point it finally appeared to give up the ghost in going from small to big, and I had to get off the bike and manually shift onto the big cog. This was all at about ~45 minutes in. The interesting part after this was trying to figure out gear ratios in my head, to approximate the suggested ratios on the screen.

After about two hours of Coach Troy, I think we had all heard enough about pacing ourselves, the sweat contest and the music from "those movies". An executive decision was made to switch over for the last hour to the DVD of the 2007 IronMan World Championships. An excellent suggestion. Even if you know the finish, it's still a beauty. Michellie Jones, Desiree Ficker, Faris Al-Sultan - nowhere to be seen. Normann Stadler, Natascha Badmann, Rutger Beke - nonfactors. McGlone, Wellington (?!?), Alexander - it's a new world order. To me the most interesting parts are always the back stories, partly because the broadcast is two months after the actual race so the results are known. Also partly because the "real person" stories are more interesting because they're closer to what is "real life", for me anyway.

Finally, the third part of the day: the run. Darren has laid out a lovely little jaunt through the countryside. Now, let me just pull out the "pre-race" notes and directions, so I can get my quote accurate here. His first comment, after the link to the route is, "You will curse me on the run, it's sort of hilly." Yeah, just a little. The ascent starts less than 1km from the start of the run, and just keeps on going up, for the first leg of the square. Overall a steepish, long ascent, especially after four previous hours "at work". I pulled the plug on lap 3, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. The achilles tendon was not singing - in fact was not even complaining loudly. It had, however, begun to clear its throat, so ~16km in, I called it a day.

Got back to the house to be treated to a fantastic smoothie from Sally the "Smoothie Master". I do recommend one, if you've never had one.

So, after a six-hour day what did I learn?
1. Swim focus needs to start - the form is in good January shape, but the endurance is a long way away.
2. Bike - just need more saddle time. Oh yeah, and obviously a derailleur tune-up.
3. Run - strangely, in decent shape. Now yes, the plug was pulled. I think there are two explanations for that. The first is perhaps a wee bit of overuse through December and the early part of January. The second is nutritional. Too much dried fruit earlier in the day and not enough water on the run contributed to the mixed signals. Live and learn

Okay, so the fried legs? Must be from the repeated "standing and mashing" intervals on the bike. Of course the hilly run course didn't help, but hilly running gets me in the hammies (sometimes) and the calves. This is just above the knees in the quads today - bike muscles.

Recap: fried legs, stiff neck, wonky shoulders, broken bike. When are we doing this again? Magic, baby. Thanks again, D, C, S, S.

Peace.

Run to the beat!

Okay, I had a whole post ready to go on running to music, and how since I run 95% of the time in town on pavement or on a treadmill, I have to run to music. Now, since the achilles is providing a "gentle reminder", I've shelved the running this week. No running until the Alton Half - everything before then is bike, core work and.....swim!

Instead of running with music (which I'll save for another post), how about running to the tune above? I dare you to not!

Peace.

The answer my friend...

...is blowin' in the ....

...four strong.....

...the summer...

..you are the ...beneath my wings.

Okay, get it? It's crickin' WINDY!!!!! Went out for a run this morning and it became a battle of survival. The newspaper called for a high of -12 today, with a wind chill factor of -26. I'm going to conservatively estimate that the winds gusted to a wind chill today of -30, at least. Ever hit that point on a long ride where the tank is empty, where you keep just calling for more and there's nothing there? When wind or not, you just put your head down, keep your legs moving, and hope that the end eventually comes? I can tell you exactly where I hit that point today, 12 km into a 20km run, making the turn north on Dorval, on the south side of the QEW. There were stretches where I thought that frostbite was a real concern. It turned out to not really be much, so that's okay. I suppose the other clue should have been when I had to chew ice off the top of my water bottle (twice) to drink.

Overall, a pretty low mileage week - 50km total run time, and with a 2-hr spin scheduled tonight the bike will be up to 4.5 hr for the week. That'll be the last hard work before the Alton Half next weekend. And the swimming, yes the swimming. Blew off two scheduled swims this week. No comment.

Peace.

Another week down

I am a little ashamed to review the training I've done this week. Still don't have much of a formalized plan, and it's showing. Without a written objective, and a plan to get there, it's awfully easy to blow off a 5:30 a.m. swim. I did substitute a 5:30 bike ride on the rollers earlier this week for a swim, but it was just a crappy ride altogether. HR was spiking all over the place, and I wouldn't exactly call it a quality workout.



So, in that regard, I'm putting down here, now, the "A" priority events this year:



Chilly Half - March 2

Peterborough half-iron - July

Muskoka 70.3 - September 14



Of these I'm registered for two (not yet for P'boro). According to my trusty rotary project manager the Chilly Half is seven weeks away, P'boro is 25 weeks away and Muskoka is 10 weeks later. It's right down to crunchtime for the Chilly, especially if I'm looking to PB this year. The current PB is 1:35:02. I'd like to hit 1:30:00 for the Chilly, which is going to take a lot of LT/speed work between now and then. Six weeks (with a one-week taper) between now and then is all that's left.



I'm also committing to writing down a plan to get me from here to P'boro, and then to Muskoka, starting tomorrow. It's time. I really need to start with a swim focus. I've been laying down the run base since November, and with the winter still upon us (although today would've been a day to take the ride outside), can't do much more than maintenance and form work for now.



As for this week in review, I got in, ahem, zero swims, two rides and three runs, including a long run with Darren yesterday. Now he's going to raise an eyebrow to this, but I think we went 15 miles. Even if it was only 14, it was a good "long run" day. One lesson learned: I probably shouldn't be running with him. Probably pushed it a little too much, and the achilles reminded me of that fact all afternoon yesterday. Seems to be back to normal today.

Let's see how it goes, starting tomorrow.

Aaauuuuggggghhhhh!

Rant warning: if you're looking for training updates/reports, come back tomorrow. This is a flat-out hockey rant, about everybody's favourite incompetent hockey organization, the money-sucking Maple Leafs. It's bad enough to be manhandled by the worst team in the league. It's bad enough to go 0-for-California. In an ironic twist, they also lost both ends of the back-up goalie battle. Last year's backup (JS Aubin) easily outplayed his replacement, "Shoot high" Raycroft. Then, hoping to reverse the revenge angle, Toskala went into San Jose, his team last year, and coughed up a 2-0 lead. Add to the the (alleged) rumours that the Leafs are shopping Jason Blake around the league, another classic example of a knee-jerk, buy high, sell low reaction. Who would want this stiff right now? Honestly now, though, does anyone expect any different from this directionless organization? They're now "headed" by a clueless, lame-duck general manager who, if possible, is now in even more of a no-win situation. He's in a position where he needs to win, and now, to keep his job. This collection has no chance at winning now. They're 28th in a 30-team league, and moving backward through the pack. The truest sign of lack of respect for this group around the league is the fact that opponents have consistently, regularly this year played the backup goalies against them. They keep playing backups and still can't do any better than 28th? Playoffs?!? Whatever.

Clearly this team needs to blow it all up and start building for two or three years from now. That would mean entertaining offers for the assets, including Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle and possibly Vesa Toskala. I've heard other names added to this list, like Alex Steen and Darcy Tucker. In reality, who's going to want to pay for any of that dead weight? The first three are tradeable, and probably in exchange for decent future-looking assets in return, but who's going to pull the trigger on those deals? Ferguson doesn't have the authority any more.

Last straw: Scotty Bowman was approached this summer to take over the hockey operation, and showed interest, but the morons in charge wouldn't give him complete control of the hockey operation, a la Bryan Colangelo.

It's time. Fire Ferguson and the whole coaching staff. Keep firing as far up the corporate ladder as possible. Go back to Bowman on bended knee and beg for him to take over this operation. Trade Sundin, Toskala and anyone else that anyone shows a mild interest in. Start the Stamkos Sweepstakes now. With any luck, they'll stay bad enough to bag Stamkos this year, and Tavares next year.

Until then, I can't watch this junk anymore.

Small world

Funny...found out the other day that my son's hockey coach is an Ironman - cracked off a sub-11 hour at Penticton a few years back. Has also run a sub-3:10 marathon. Geez, who knew? Last year, his hockey coach had multiple half-irons on his resume. Whaddya know? Maybe it's catching after all. Also stumbled across the blog of Crackhead, who I met last year at Lake Placid. To top it all off, played hockey this week with my triathlete buddy Chad. Now, Chad's an Olympic-distance triathlete, which to me just means he doesn't have the staying power to go the distance. He was looking for a ride this weekend, and unfortunately, never did manage to coordinate the timing for the weekend, or that would have been good. I've ridden with him before, and like a typical sprinter, he's all blown up early and can't hold it together for a long ride. Until that time though, he drops me repeatedly - uphill, downhill, on the flats, doesn't matter.


Big weekend planned, after a pretty low-key week. 25K run on tap for tomorrow with Darren - looks like a few laps around Heart Lake. Should be good - don't know if I can keep up with him, and since it's a training run, don't know if I should try. Going to follow that up with a 2 hour ride on Sunday - can't decide yet whether it'll be indoor or out - the weather has been just stupidly warm for January - any snow that was around (of course you remember the fun I've had with snowplows this winter) is long gone.


As for the swim, I do believe I've been making excuses for about two months now, and time's up. I missed an opportunity to get in with the local master's group, which leaves me "self-coached" for yet another year. Remember the saying about the man who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client? Yep, that's me in the water. For now, it is what it is. We'll see.

Peace.

Three of my favourite things

...but first, one of my least favourite things. Slow swimmers. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not by any means a fast swimmer. I'm certainly faster than when I picked up this sport three seasons ago, but that's the definition of what I'd call damning with faint praise, like being a better singer than Sanjaya, or a better parent than Britney.



I guess the rant today is more about an essentially wasted workout in the pool, spending nearly all my time stopping and waiting for a sliver of lane space to open up. Listen, when I'm using a kickboard, without flippers and still have to stand up and wait so as not to run over the swimmer in front of me, there's a mismatched speed problem. Part (in fact most) of it's my fault today. Picking the afternoon lane swim relegates one to swimming with casual, once-a-week or less swimmers, who don't necessarily have any purpose in mind, other than to noodle up and down the lane for awhile, and maybe stop and have a chat or two. Again, my rant is not with these people; in fact, the more people that come out to swim, the more lane swimming times the pool will have to open up. I'm afraid I'll just have to toughen up, and get back in the water at 5:30 a.m. again.


As for the week's workouts in general, an up and down week. On the plus, got in two swims (even including today's effort) and two rides. I'm really getting into the rollers - they require a certain level of mental focus that I just don't need on a trainer. I would find myself on the trainer sitting up to have a drink or something to eat, or just because I could, whereas on the rollers, one false move like that will put you into the kitchen chairs alongside the setup. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not yet ready for one-legged drills on the rollers. In fact the very idea of them puts me in awe of those who would even attempt them. Nor would I yet attempt any "get out of the saddle and mash" repeats yet.

As for the run this week, only managed to get three in. Burned a full day on Saturday with some, ahem, "gastrointestinal distress". Since this is a family forum (or at least this blog is hoping to keep a PG rating) let's just say everything was exiting from everywhere, and the whole day was spent in a zombie-like trance. On the plus, it seemed to be a 24-hour thing, as I got both my "swim" in this morning and a ten-mile run tonight to cap it off.



As for three of my favourite things, they were the only thing I managed to keep down yesterday, although it was close for a while. Chocolate chip cookies (actually, cookie - just one). It's all in the name. Chocolate. Chips. And cookies. And all conveniently contained in a three-for-one package. What could be better than that?

Week of firsts

First week of January. First snowfall of '08. First shellacking for yet another Leaf goalie (like this is new). First visit with the cousins in London. You get the idea. The turn of the year is the time of rebirth, of restarting, of revisiting and recommitting. It's time to add some structure and planning to the workouts, while not becoming so regimented at this early time that the brain rebels at the end of June, taking no prisoners but hijacking tubs of Haagen-Dazs, or cases of Steam Whistle.


Yep, the off-season is over. No more sleeping through the 5:30 a.m. alarm. Gotta hit the pool again. Gotta roll again. Off-season is one thing. It's understood and in fact recommended to "walk away" from the structure of the plan, in order to return with fresh mind and attitude. Having said that there can be too much downtime. Taking three months off in any sport is a recipe for disaster. It's possible to completely degrade the aerobic base to the point where form is lost, replaced by expending all energy just trying to keep afloat and hopefully moving forward. From all this, you can probably hazard a guess as to how my first swim went this week. Just have to keep going back to the Hackett video - stretch out, reach long, stretch out, reach long, repeat...


On the positive (?!?) my first ride in a few months went very much the same earlier this week as well. This is positive, you ask? Well, encouragingly, the next two have gone much more smoothly. I guess it's true what they say about riding a bike. Hopefully that info applies to swimming as well. Hope so - after all, the Alton Half is a scant 3 weeks away...


Here's an interesting bit of reading ("Weighty trends", Jan 02/08), found in my surfings this week. Has to do with the unrelenting, unavoidable advance of technology into our sport and whether progress is actually improvement. Certainly something to chew on. On the one hand, it's a vote in favour of the old school, carbon-and-ceramic-free approach to the bike. On the other hand, it's unlikely to stop me from lusting after a new P2C or TTX.



Peace.

Rollin', junior hockey

New year. Foolin' around time is up. I've been focusing up to now exclusively on putting in run miles (or kilometres if you prefer - over 60 of them last week), with the exception of one swim in December. It's time now to roll back in (pardon the pun) the ride and the swim.

Santa was good enough to bring me a set of rollers this year, so I've put a couple of rides in on them already. It's definitely not the same as cranking it out on the mag trainer. A lot more concentration is required, which is a good thing. Lose your focus, and you'll end up like this. One definite benefit is better balance. I can feel it after only two rides. Another benefit is the improved ability to hold a straight line. Sounds simple, yes, but a road bike with clip-on aero bars is a little twitchy upfront. Less snaking around means a shorter line from point A to point B - another source of free speed. I've added a 12" floor fan, and I'm good to go.

For January, I'm targeting, to start, at least two rides and two swims per week. Sheesh. With five runs, (and one added core strength workout), that's ten workouts a week. In January. That might be hitting it a little hard this early in the season. We'll see. First swim of the new year is tomorrow morning.

Unrelated note #1: just finished the Harry Potter series (what is a trilogy with seven parts? A septilogy?) I highly, highly recommend it. True, the first couple of books are targeted at a younger audience, and to be honest I started reading this to "screen" it for the kids. Around part four, however, it takes a serious left-hand turn and gets a lot more adult. Couldn't put it down. No spoilers here - just my $0.02 recommendation.

Unrelated note #2: the juniors put up a gutty battle in winning a quarter-final at the WJHC today. Took the leash off Tavares (finally) and outlasted a tough Finland team. Hope they've got something left in the tank for the Americans next.

Peace.