Moving along...

I've been really slack in posting updates recently - the summer rather got away from me, and while it's all well and good that I can mentally compose a blog post while taking a shower, honestly the iPad isn't going to cope too well with that environment! I'll break the updates into separate posts (like I'd actually done them at the right times) to make the reading a bit easier!

Lets start back in August. Just 2 weeks after the sprint tri in Ottawa it was time to tackle the Toronto Island "Give it a Tri". This was the first race I'd even done last year, and this year's goal was to see not only how much I'd managed to improve my times, but I had the added encouragement of being a finalist in the 7systems improve 7% contest. The morning started out well - I met up with the other couple of girls, Heather & Katherine, I'd encouraged into doing their first tri that day, helped them lay out their things in transition and walked through the in's and out's of the course. We headed down to the beach to get into the water for a warm-up swim before the race kicked off.

While that water may look relatively calm behind us, I can tell you this was actually the roughest water to date I've had to swim in. I was getting pushed all over the place, and got several mouthfuls of Lake Ontario while expecting a breath of air. All in all I felt like I'd had to push far to hard to get through this swim, and the times don't show a huge improvement over last year because of it - that and the timing mat was moved this year from the beach to the transition area that was up the beach, over the boardwalk and across the grass! Still, it was an ok time, so now it was onto pushing through the bike course.

Toronto Island is probably my favourite bike course out of all the races I've done. It's completely flat the entire way, well protected from wind and sun, and of course, no traffic either. I'd fitted a cheap speedo on my bike the week prior to the race so I could get an idea of the speed I was doing to make sure I had a higher average than last year. This actually helped me out a lot, and gave me a great improvement on my bike time, knocking 2 minutes off from last year, and boosting my average speed from 28.7km/h up to 31.6km/h. Taking into account the hairpin turn right near the end that you pretty much have to stop for, I'm really happy with that average speed.

Of course, what's any triathlon without my beloved run at the end of it. Thankfully this is a nice short 2.5km run - theory is you should be able to go all out on a run of this distance. Obviously I'd pushed hard on the bike, so the first few steps out into the run were challenging. This run starts on an uneven grassy field before you get onto the road - I found the grass to be remarkably tiring, and wasn't able to pick up some speed until hitting the run course. No speedo for the run, but I know my running pace is better than last year where I ended up walking some of the 2.5km. I also had Ian out there running with me shouting out words of encouragement and generally making sure I kept going. The photo is coming down to the finishing chute, and looking remarkably strong for how I was actually feeling at the time!

It was done - and I'd managed to hit my mark for improvement - I'd taken close to 6 minutes off my time from last year and put me at around a 9% improvement over last year - that'll do for the contest! Hanging around the finish line it wasn't too much longer until we saw Heather and Katherine come over the finish. Both of them feeling good, and so happy to have completed their first triathlon - both already talking about what races they were going to do next year now!

Standing around afterwards waiting for the official times to come up we were chatting about the race, talking about the challenges of the swim, and Ian came walking back to us after seeing some of the times go up - big grin on his face, holding 3 fingers up in the air and shouting "You came 3rd!". This took a moment to sink in - I what now? I'd come 3rd in my age group... at this point I'd like to go back in time a bit and lets pull up this blog post from last year - if you scan right down to the end of this post I was talking about having been entered in the Athena class (that's women 150lbs and heavier) and looking forward to racing in the Athena class again this year and hoping to place - the exact quote was "Looking at that same triathlon series for next year, it’s certainly going to be more than one triathlon for me next year - I want to do the sprint triathlons next - but I have a goal. That try-a-tri on Toronto Island, I’m going to do it again, and this time I’m going to be the one walking away with a medal for my age group." Now then, lets get this straight - I've just raced not in the Athena class (The series dropped the Athena and Clydesdale classes this year), but in with my age group of women 30-34 (I'm 34 which puts me right at the top of this age group also), and I've just gone and placed 3rd... I nearly fell over.

Everything from that point until the awards was a bit of a blur, and amazingly I was able to give a coherent interview afterwards for the 7systems contest. I tell ya, if you'd told me 100lbs ago (or any time in my life for that matter) that I'd be standing on a podium collecting an award for an athletic effort I'd have laughed for a month. But still, there it is - there's a bronze medal hanging on my wall. I see it every day reminding me of what I can accomplish - and what there is yet to still be accomplished.

National Capital Sprint Triathlon

Well, another race weekend gone by, and another triathlon completed! Ian and I travelled to Ottawa to take part in the National Capital events - me in the sprint triathlon, and him in the sprint duathlon - his first duathlon ever! We'd both set a time of 90 minutes as a goal finishing time, and both managed to beat that time! Ian beating it by 5 minutes, while I beat it by 2 minutes. I'm quite pleased to see another 5 second per 100m come off my swim time and a whole 30 seconds per km come off my run time! I know I can do better in the swim also - I misjudged where I started from in the pack and was reasonably far back and spent the entire swim finding my way around other people's feet - the race started the men off 5 minutes before the women's pack, and I managed to pass some of the men in the water. There's nothing like the boost you get from passing the guys when you've started that far behind them - even if they are very splashy swimmers and what was supposed to be your gulp of air turns into a mouthful of water... still lessons learnt! The Toronto Island try-a-tri is coming up in under 2 weeks now, so at I know for that one, get into the front of the pack for the swim, and hold it there! I'm going to be training on intervals from now until then - this is the race I need to eek out as much speed as I can in to be in with a chance of winning the grand prize from 7SYSTEMS. The goal is for at least 7% off last year's time - I've got designs on a percentage much higher than that... always the overachiever and all ;-)

I won't be on my own out on the Toronto Island course either - I've been hearing a lot from folks over the past 18 months about how I've inspired them, and a few are putting their money where their mouth is and joining me in the Toronto Island try-a-tri. I've written more about this on the SUGOI Brand Champions Blog.

With any luck I should have some nice big numbers to post here after August 14th with the try-a-tri results!

Things I have to remember...

I'm a bit compulsive... anyone who knows me can attest to this, when I take to something I don't just do it as a hobby - I want to be the best at it. It's good to be compulsive at times, but can be quite deterring at times also. I forget sometimes how long other people take to get good at something, and wonder why I'm not excellent at it right off the bat. Let's take running for example! I haven't even been running for a year yet, and yet when I look at my results from my Welland triathlon I focus in on my results from the run and compare them to the rest of the field - it's slightly depressing... I know I'm not a fast runner, and I really should accept that and resolve to train more at running, and remember all those other people I'm looking at have probably been running for much longer than me, but these are things that are forgotten when looking at a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet. Thankfully though, I have a husband that can put these things into perspective for me, and this is the result:

Welland is my most recent race, and T.O. is the race I did in August last year on Toronto Island. So, lets look at those pace times shall we... I haven't been doing much swim training at all recently, and I knocked 30 seconds off my swim pace, on a course double the distance - amazing what a bit of strength training can do for the swim - of course now that I'm swimming with a masters club through the summer I expect to see that drop even further now (incidentally, my first masters swim may well have been the hardest swim I've done since University - ouch!), the bike was only slightly faster, but take into consideration a course 3x the length, and I know coming off the bike on Toronto Island I was hurting, whereas on this race I know I was holding back knowing I had a 7.5k run ahead of me, so I'm pleased with that also. Now, lets take a look at that run pace shall we... an even minute knocked off the pace... yes, and entire minute per km faster over a course that's 3 times the distance from the Toronto race - okay, so while I may be a sucky slow runner, how cow what an improvement over the shockingly slow runner I was last year! Now if I can keep that kind of improvement up....

It'll be interesting to compare my results at the end of the Ottawa tri I'm doing at the end of July - it's a bit shorter on all the distances, so I'm hoping those paces are going to look even better then.

As for the "race report" - not much more than what I said above other than giving a lecture on checking your gear well before each race and when you do find something wrong - do something about it! Now speaking from experience - 4 minutes before the race starts is not the time you want to discover the nose piece of your goggles breaking... least they were old school goggles and the nose piece was string, so with a lot of help from the husband, and shaking fingers we were able to get them into a useable state - but that was officially their last time out - I bought a new pair 2 days after the race and before I next got in the pool - to put some perspective on the goggles though - I'd been looking at them over the past month and thinking I should probably get a new pair - I'd even vocalized the fact that I probably needed a new pair as they were looking a bit worn and I'd bought them as a student when I lived in the UK - and well, I worked in the UK after being a student, and we've been over here for nearly 10 years now... those were some well used goggles! Now if only all my gear could last that long.

Now of course, what would be talk of a race without photos of the race!

Hanging in out in line waiting for the time trial start...

Just out of transition and getting on the bike for the 30k ride

About 500m from the end - still running!

Upside-down Metabolism....

Back in December I posted about being diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. At the time everything in my blood work was within normal ranges and they were just going to monitor future blood tests and see how we go from there - well, wouldn't ya know it, things changed. While my T3 and T4 levels are still ok, my antibodies and TSH have shot up through the roof, and so in an effort to combat my thyroid gland looking like it should have it's own path to orbit, I've now been put on meds to control everything. Now, I'll admit by endocrinologist did mention that I'd probably see a change in my metabolism, I kinda shrugged it off - having lived with myself for long enough now I know my body doesn't do fast change, and well, I've always just had certain habits that have never changed... This past week has thrown me for a loop though - I'll be starving hungry, and then eat something but be stuffed within a few mouthfuls - and then starving again an hour later.... and then there's the sleep schedule. I've never been a morning person - let me just emphasize that fact - NEVER... anyone who's had to get me up before about 8am can attest that you don't talk to me, you find the nearest jug of coffee and just lay low until I come out of the fog and join civilization (and frankly, people closest to me will laugh at 8am even...). This past week I've had to be at a client office every morning for 9am, and I've been bike commuting, so leaving the house at 8am, which leads to my alarm being set for 7am... fine, I know I'm going to be grumpy, but by the time I get the the client site all should be fine right? Now riddle me this - every morning this week I've woken up at 6am bright as a button... nothing's been waking me up - the dogs in fact groan at me getting up and rolls over and fall asleep again. Come on, seriously? 6am? What good can come of this! Oh, and I've lost 3 pounds this week.... that's something I may have done over a year ago, but I'm lucky to lose a pound in 2 weeks at the moment.

I imagine things will settle down again once I get a bit more accustomed to the medication, but if you'll excuse me now, after getting full from my 6 mouth-fulls of dinner an hour and half ago, I'm now starving again....

Help me Win Stuff!

I've been selected by 7SYSTEMS in their contest to improve a race time by at least 7% over your previous year's time. While I did a couple 5K races last year, the race I really wanted to improve my time in is the Toronto Island Try-a-tri. The votes now will select the final 3 athletes to compete for who can knock off the largest percentage from their race times - and honestly, with the training I've managed to put in over the past year, and knowing how much I've learnt over the past year, I really feel I've got a good chance of pulling this off!

The voting does require registration so that each person is only voted for once, but consider it a favour to me that I'll be eternally grateful for! You can register to vote here.

Please pass on the word, and thanks for the encouragement and votes to push me to my goal.

Less than a month...

Well, May has been a hectic travel month for me culminating in trips back and forth across this great country using as many forms of transportation as I could find (I missed taking a boat anywhere - perhaps I'll have to take a ferry to Toronto Island this weekend!) - and of course writing this while on a train heading home. In total I've managed 1 week at home this month which has of course wrecked havoc with my training schedule - as much as I'd like to, I wasn't about to pack my bike a carry-on! Things have picked up since the dismal start to the month regarding running, and I'm finally starting to feel comfortable again without worrying too much about if my body is going to revolt. I had a fantastic run in Montreal this week discovering parts of town I'm now making mental notes to go back to when I'm not all hot and sweaty. I've not had much time out on my bike obviously, but the little I have done has been at a good pace, and I've clocked a significant number of miles on spin bikes over the past while. The swimmng however - this is where I need to step it up. I really don't like hotel pools - 3 stokes per length doesn't work for me... And trying to find a decent pool while you're on the road and working the pool schedule into the hectic work schedule just doesn't pan out either. So I'll be spending more time proportionately in my local pool this month getting ready for Welland on June 26th, heading out on the bike whenever I can grab the time, and just keeping up the pace with the running. Welland is a sprint distance tri, so the run portion is shorter than the road races I've been doing recently - and frankly I'm rather looking forward to a shorter run!

Oh, and can't forget that I need to practice getting on my cycling shoes and clipping in... Still so aware of how easy it'll be to crash and burn in a heap on the floor by getting that wrong!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's working...

So I've been working out in Vancouver this week - it's such a short visit that I haven't managed to acclimatize to the time zone change, so this morning when I woke up at 5:30am what else is there to do at that hour other than go for a run!

The hotel is right on top of Stanley Park, so it's the obviously place to run - I've run along the sea wall several times, but usually got for a few km, then turn around and head back. I've never done the entire wall around the park other than on a bike! Given I had some extra time this morning I set my Nike+ workout for a 5k, which is quite a bit longer than my gradual runs I've been doing recently, but I was interested to see how things were working out with the extra short runs and the digestion issues I'd been having on longer runs. I knew the entire wall was around 10k, so I figured I'd run the first half then enjoy the view walking the final 5k.

Around 3k in I knew I wasn't going to run 5k this morning - I felt great, no issues, great views, fresh salty sea air, I decided right then that I was going to go further than the 5k - in fact, it was time for a bit of redemption - this morning was a 10k day. The other thing that was different this morning, was I forgot to put my HR monitor watch on as I left the hotel - so no clue where my HR was at today and I had to pay a bit more attention to how I actually felt rather than just looking at my wrist to see what it was telling me. I got to 5k really easily, and just kept on going - none of the 5k issues I'd seen the Sporting Life 10k. It wasn't until 7k rolled around that the digestion kicked in, but no where near as bad as I've had in the past - none of the entire abdomen cramping up, just simply needed to stop, and as if it was perfectly timed, there was an open, clean, flushing public loo right at the 7k mark. So with that out of the way, on with the remaining 3k - still no issues, no cramping, just a nice easy run all the way to the 10k mark. And what do ya know, I got it done in 1hr 6 minutes - which is a good 12 minutes taken off the Sporting Life 10k from a few weeks ago - much closer to where I expected my 10k time to be - with a head wind off the water no less!

So it's working then - all these short runs building up and getting my body used to all the shaking around. My next few races now are all triathlons, the longest of which will be the Olympic distance in September - I was getting a bit concerned about the runs in the races given the issues I'd been having, but knowing that even after just a few weeks of working on it I've managed to add a couple km before my body cries out at me is certainly good news.