Swimophobia? Not!

You see, this is why I haven't gotten back in the water (pool, freshwater or otherwise - bathtubs excepted) since August. My stroke looks like this!


YouTube - Grant Hackett Front Crawl Technique

Yeah, whatever. I wish. Check out the stretch and the "glide". Also, check out the fact that by the second half of the video, nobody else is in the frame. Shazam! He is just crushing and cruising - doesn't even look like he's working hard...

Working up the run frequency - the goal for next week is five runs. Now that it appears as though outdoor bike season might be dead ...sigh... I'm going to focus on the run in the dead winter months. Managed to get in three good ones this week (including a solid hill session yesterday) and meant to get out for the fourth, a long-ish run today, but with the Santa Claus parade (in Streetsville) and the usual weekend stuff, along with buying my first pair of non-athletic shoes in probably three years, the day just got away. Today is exactly 14 weeks away from the 2008 Chilly Half - still plenty of time .... hee, hee.

Random thoughts (weekend smorgasbord)

No real unifying topic this weekend - more like channel surfing of the brain....

No pancakes this weekend - heard there might have been 15cm of snow in the Orangeville area this weekend - wonder how the cross-country, 25km trail run went?

Thought the CFL was supposed to be a run 'n gun league, full of offence? The Argos have offence, all right...as in, they're offensive to watch. Talk about "letting the air out of the ball" - if you can only score one touchdown per game in this league, you don't deserve to win.

Big cheer out to my nephew "K-gun", after spending most of last week at THSC - little dude is home and chillin' - hopefully his parents are exhaling again...

Xmas decorations are out already....nothing like getting a month-and-a-half head-start. Really now, is that necessary? My own "house rule" is nothing before December 1 - everybody gets wired enough with radio stations playing nothing but carols and the stores and malls filling up without constant stimulation at home...

My son went back out on the ice for his first hockey practice and first time on skates, in a month. He broke his left arm at school (fell off the playground) - now he's got the complete set. He fell off the monkey bars at home a year ago, and broke the right arm. He even refers to himself as an accident waiting to happen. On the bright side, he made it through the practice with no incident. Woo-hoo!

Inspired by a previous post from Cliff, I'm considering starting a run club, or maybe a "learn to run club" at the office. I know there's interest - a couple of people have mentioned it. I think they're assuming that since I'm the resident "fitness expert" (only IronMan on site) I would be good at it. This is probably a topic for a future post, but I'm giving it some thought. I am the black sheep of my family - the only non-teacher. My father, mother, brother, sister, brother-in-law and sister-in-law are all teachers (to say nothing of the aunts and uncles I've no doubt forgotten).

Gonna enter the IronMan World Championships lottery this year - why not? For those who don't know, it's in Kona, Hawaii, in October. I've got as much a chance of winning that lottery, or any other lottery as I do of seeing the Leafs parade the Cup down Yonge St. before I die. I remember telling my wife once, years ago, that I'd be taking my son out of school the day that the Stanley Cup parade was scheduled. She agreed - she must have known, even then. Maybe it'll be the parade to take my grandchildren to.

Season is coming together

The schedules are starting to come out, so next season is starting to come together. The Chilly Half (a tradition) is March 2. Then there's a big gap to Peterborough on July 6 and Ironman Muskoka 70.3 September 14. Those are the first events filled in to the calendar. I'm also interested in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a 2-day, 200km ride over the weekend of June 22.




I need to work on my run endurance, definitely. I want to go sub-1:30 at the Chilly Half, which would be at least a five-minute improvement over my current record. I'd like to also run another marathon next year, but can't really decide whether to put one into the schedule early (Mississauga, in May) or late (PEC, or Toronto, both in October). Maybe in a non-full Ironman year, earlier is an okay option. Another reason that later is probably not better is my wife's plan for January 2009 - the Goofy challenge, as in "you have to be goofy to attempt this".



Later!

Canoeing in the snow, run plan, swim plan

Okay, so that's a slight exaggeration...but not by much. The famous "team building exercise" earlier this week involved canoeing on a tiny lake on the edge of Algonquin Park, in November. It was 3 degrees, the wind was howling and raining sideways. So the facilitator asks, "how many of you have had some experience in a canoe before?" There were ten of us, and two of us put up our hands. He immediately starts to reassess his plan - caught between the need to go with the plan that he's already made public ("we're going to take out the canoes today!) and the need to bring ten people back alive. And it really did snow the next day.

So, I'm working on the run plan - actually, just trying to get a level of consistency from which I can maybe squeeze out some more speed (any speed at all would be good). I'd like to get up to four runs a week, with one of them being an hour or longer at this time. The first "check-in" on the run progress will be the Chilly Half in March.

The swim plan is still really a work in progress. Having an awful time getting myself out of the house and into a pool in the morning, in the dark at this time of year. Self-motivation is tough in the morning, although I did drag myself out for a run this morning. I swam one night a week last year with the local masters' , but couldn't get back in with them this year - they filled up too fast. It's especially tough to get out in the morning without waking up the kids. My wife's usual price for swimming at 5:30 a.m. is one XL Timmie's. Small price to pay, that's for sure. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll hit the pool.....

As for the bike plan, it's been raining and snowing for the past three days here. The bike is on the trainer in the basement :o(. Not ready to give up on the roads for this year yet, but the weather is not playing fair.

AP

No ride, heading up north, laying out the training plan

Had big plans to ride this weekend, which unfortunately fell through. There's some bug in circulation around here - it's hit both kids and my wife, and it also took out Darren, the sometime riding partner. Tried to make up for it on the trainer on Saturday, but it's just not the same. I just can't get into riding inside, not yet, not even with good DVD selection (I went through five seasons of the Sopranos last spring in training for IMLP).

And what about the US men's marathon trials this weekend? I've heard about "weekend warriors" dropping dead when they get in over their head, but the elites? 28 year-old Ryan Shay walked off the course, five miles and 30 minutes into the race, and collapsed. Cause is as yet unknown, but suspected to be heart-related. I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us - I do know it's probably not enough to get me to stop.

Out of the office for the next couple of days - heading up north for some winter "team building". We're going up to a park on the edge of Algonquin Park, in Northern Ontario. Weather, although not always reliable, is calling for rain both days with chances of snow. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to this. I think this could be interesting.

As for the training this year: the A priority race is Muskoka 70.3 - that's ten months away. I'm hoping to build through the year to be able to: a) not overtrain and burn out, and b) hit a finishing time of 4:30 in Muskoka. My PB at the 70.3 distance is 5:26, at Peterborough in 2006. Might as well have an ambitious target. Working backward, I need a stronger run. The stronger run only comes from not over-fatiguing on the bike (which in turn means a stronger bike). The bike comes from not flaming out in the swim by going out too hard. Lot of work ahead, through the winter and spring. Details to follow - I'm working through "The Triathlete's Training Bible" by Joe Friel, which so far is excellent - I recommend it.

Park weather report to follow - if I make it back. Like they say, if a bear shows up, you only have to outrun one other person. I've seen the guys in my office. I'm not worried.