I am spoiled now

After last Saturday's ride outside I got spoiled, I have a ride to do today and I want to go ride outside. I am not too sure yet if the weather will cooperate though. We had some melting snow this morning, didn't look like a day to go ride. But it is supposed to be 4C this afternoon with sun, if I leave work not too late I could probably get an hour or so run in before the sunset.

If I can't get out then I will ride my new Trek on the trainer, which is not a bad idea either. But I am just tired of the trainer after 5 months on it 3/4 times a week. It is amazing how riding a bike outside can be so wonderful and doing the same thing in your basement can be boring :p

At least I do not run inside, I will never understand how people do to run on a treadmill. Even at -40C I always prefer to go run outside than on the treadmill. This remind me of a picture I took somewhere in January or February, that was a cold day to run ;)

Training is everything

Today was long run day, well long for me since I had to cut my running after my right foot injurie. I had to run 20 minutes three times with a 1 minute break between each. As usual I walked 5 minute as a warm-up then started running, everything went really well. I tried not to push too hard since I still feel some pain in my right foot sometimes.

Here are my splits
20m 00s - 3.75 kms - 05m 20s /km
01m 00s - 0.13 kms - 07m 37s /km
20m 00s - 3.83 kms - 05m 13s /km
01m 00s - 0.13 kms - 07m 43s /km
20m 00s - 3.82 kms - 05m 14s /km

When I got back home I checked my times and realised that I beat my 10k PR during that run. I ran 10k, including two walking breaks of one minute in 53:25.

This made me realise how much training makes the difference. Last year I started running on July 7th and I ran my first 10k race on August 24th in 58:14 and I thought I was about to die. I ran a half mary later last fall and kept training during the entire winter.

It's nice to see that I improved that much over the winter, 5 minutes on my 10k time and I was not even racing. I know I can push a lot more then that during a race, I kept my heart rate mostly in zone two during my entire workout today.

Now the real question is, can this count as my new personal best even if I didn't do it during an official race. I will have to think about it.

First ride of the summer :)

Here are a couple of pictures of my first ride of the year.

This is my Opus in front of the house, can you believe we're about to go ride?


And here's a picture of my friend Martin, doesn't he look happy?


Riding outside reminded me how much I love riding my bike, this has nothing to do with riding on the trainer all winter long. It's like two differents sports, one is long and boring and the other one is so cool you just don't want to stop. I will let you decide which one is which ;)

Today's run was 1:32 for 45km, the weather was something like 9C or so. The sun was hot, it was just amazing :)

Just got back from a quick run

I am just getting back from a quick 35 minutes run, the weather is just awesome and all that snow that we got yesterday is gone :)

As of now it's about 6C and it should hit 10C after lunch which means that I will be able to go ride outside for the first time in 5 months or so. I just can't wait, this should be wonderful to ride in such a amazing weather with snow everywhere ;) I will take some pictures and post them here when I get back.

On my run this morning I realised something, well I did realise it before but it seems to really be a pattern and I don't really understand it. Today I was running 15 then walk 1 and running 20, still trying to heal that right foot so I do have those walking break here and there for another week.

Here are the splits from that run.
15m - 4m59s/km
1m - 7m28s/km
20m - 4m39s/km

I don't get it, everytime I go out for a run where I have a walking break I always have a faster split after the break. Last time I was doing something like 5 run/1 walk 5 times and every 5 minutes split was faster than the one before.

I need to understand why I always have that kind of split, and especially when I take a walking break. Maybe I will have to look at my long run pace and try to see if I do have negative splits like that when I don't take a walk break during the run too.

Anyway, I'll go get that bike for this afternoon ride, cya all later!

I might have to change my plans

For the last couple of days the weather was supposed to be awesome for tomorrow, it was supposed to be a nice sunny 12C. I had in mind to get out and have my first outside ride of the season, I was really looking forward to it. All of you who read me in the last months know how I am getting tired of riding on the trainer, even if I love my Tacx Fortius.

So I woke up today, around 6h00 I'd say, thinking about tomorrow's ride, and I decided not to ride this morning. This decision made me stay in bed a bit more than usual. When I finally got out of bed I went downstairs just to see this ...



And this



Before I start swearing like a pirate I decided to check the weather for today. It is supposed to be 4C this afternoon with a little bit of rain, this should take care of the snow. But I won't be sure before tomorrow morning I guess. While I was on the weather web site I checked tomorrow's forecast, they changed it from 12 to 7C. I am pretty sure someone somewhere doesn't want me to ride outside tomorrow.

I will wait until tomorrow before changing my plans, but it sure doesn't look good from what I can see for now.

Back in the pool

Yesterday night I went to the pool, I didn't swim in two weeks prior to yesterday. I got a surgery and because of that and some infection that I got afterward I couldn't swim until yesterday. I was a bit scared that it would be hard to get back in the pool, but it was actually nice and it went really well. For my first swim workout in two weeks I did 200 breast, then 10 * 100 free style and finished with 200 breast again. So I did 1.4km to get back on track, and I was actually really pleased with how it went. And no shoulder pain this morning, which makes it even better.

The only problem is that the pool was so crowded it was unbelievable. I just don't get it, people go to the pool to stand at the end of the lanes and chat together, I mean if you want to chat go to a coffee shop not in a pool where people actually try to get a workout.

It has been a while since I went to the pool on a Monday night, and honestly I will do my best to not do it again ;) Or maybe I just had no patience at all yesterday night and it will be better soon, who knows.

It's oficial

It is now official, I just got the confirmation by email.

Payment has been received
Robert Lejeune is Registered for
Triathlon des Iles

I amnow registered for my first Triathlon, I have been training for this for so long and now I know it will be in two months. Now I need to find a way to do at least one open water swim in my wetsuit before the triathlon. I have never swim with a wetsuit, and besides when I was young swimming in a lake I have never done an open water swim. I know I need to do at least one before the triathlon, but my main problem as of now is that the lakes around here looks like this


























I am not sure I'd go swimming in there tonight.

Talking of swimming, since I forgot my bags at home this morning I will head to the pool for a swim tonight. It's been two weeks since I swam, might be a bit hard.

Last week totals

Another week with nothing impressive as far as total. With the fact that I still couldn't run and that I can't run as much as I usually do it hurts my overall totals. I also skipped a bike ride Friday because my trainer wasn't working.

With the spring coming, I will get out more on the bike. I should also restart running more slowly and I restart swimming this week. So normally my totals should be back to normal this week :)

Running
Time - 2:56
Distance - 29.8km

Riding
Time - 1:32
Distance - 52.25km

Double workout day

Yesterday I went to get a fit on my new bike, I got some really good references from a friend and I decided to try him. Since my bike store is not specialized at all into triathlon I couldn't ask them to fit me.

He worked on my position on the bike for over 2 hours. Changed almost everything, from where my feet are on the pedals, raised the seat, moved it back. He then changed the entire aero bar setup and cut them a little bit. I wasn't too sure but I must say after all those tweaks I just love the fit.

Since I got that fit yesterday I had to try it this morning. I tried to choose a flat track on the Fortius to have a real idea how I would feel in aero. So I choose a track with 0.1% slope and nothing more then 3% climb. I must say I was impressed, I have beenin aero the whole session, which was 48:36, and I never felt any pain at all. Overall I rode 30km, for an average of 37km/h, which was impressive. I can't wait to try my new baby in race :)

The weather was really nice in the afternoon when I went out for my longish run. I am now running 15 minutes then taking a minute walking break. I can't wait to be done with that and to restart running for longer distance. I ran 9.15km in 55 minutes, I was trying to slow down a little bit since I feel like my easy run are too fast lately.

New home

After looking at the possibility that Blogspot had to offer I decided to switch over here. Only sad part is that I lost all the comments since Blogspot doesn't offer anything to import from other blog site.

In the upcoming days I will work on the look and field of my blog and I hope you'll enjoy it.

She's finally here :)

Yeah! I got my new ride yesterday afternoon, she's so sweet and looks damn fast. So as soon as I got home I switched the back wheel and fit her on the trainer. An hour or so later I am really happy with my new baby, but I discovered a couple of new muscle ;) I was hurting in a couple of new places that I do not hurt usually. My neck was hurting a bit, my wrists were hurting too not too sure why. Maybe I need to get a real fit to make sure everything is in place. My quads were also hurting more than usual, this might be the fact that I push a bit harder since I had my new ride and I wanted to make sure I would get a good result too. So I choose a track I rode last fall with my Opus, a simple 30k with a couple of hills. It starts with a 5k climb to get warm up and then goes down then back up for another 7-8k and down again. Kind of a nice track to push then relax a bit. What is cool with the Tack Fortius is that it keeps an history of every ride I do and I can race against myself whenever I redo the same track. So yesterday that is exactly what I did, I put the new bike on the Fortius and choose a track where I rode last fall. I am kind of amaze with the result, and to be honest I don't know how to analyze them. Last year I did that track in 1:19:21, for a 30.1k ride that means I had an average of 22.76km/h which was not great. I guess that I took a night off that time and that those results can't be used for a real comparison, but still. Yesterday I did ride the same track in 54:46 for an average of 32.99km/h. By the time I crossed the finished line I had an advance of over 10K on myself in last year ride. I guess that means two things, yesterday I pushed way harder than last year, and I did improve during winter :)

Disappointing time last week

Looking at last week total time I am disappointed, I used to train around 10 hours a week and last week was almost 5 hours. The fact that my doctor asked me to cut the running by half to let my foot heals and that I can't swim because of the surgery doesn't help my training time but still, it's disappointing to see this at this time of the year where I should start to push to get in shape for the summer.I went for a quick run this morning before going to work, I am at 5 minutes run 1 minute walk for now. I am really happy with how good my foot feels after each run. Tomorrow I will go for a 50 minutes or so run to try to keep some kind of long run while I heal. That half marathon is coming quickly, so I need to do as much as I possibly can to keep my fitness.

Running
Time - 2:47
Distance - 12.8km

Riding
Time - 2:01
Distance - 64.4km

The spring isn't here yet!

Lately the weather has been more than nice around here. The snow is melting, the pavement is visible again, and a lot of the time it's over 0C. So I got kind of used to it, I started getting dressed more in a spring way when I was heading out to run. Today was something else though, the weather was -17C or so when I woke up and with windchill it was -27C. It seems like I was getting used to warmer weather fast, because I really felt the cold today. I went out for a 40 minutes run today, I am on a 4 minutes run and 1 minute walk program now and my foot is doing really well. Normally Saturday I will go for 5 and 1 and test it out, I am happy to see that I can add more running time fast because with that half marathon coming on May 3rd I have to get back to at least one long run per week fast. I got a call from my bike store yesterday to tell me that my new Equinox has arrived, it's still in the box though. They should prepare it today or tomorrow normally, I can't wait to see it for real.

Back in dark

Last week end we changed back to daylight saving, I guess it's awesome for those of you running at night since you have the sun for a longer period of time. But for those of us running in the morning that means that we're back in the dark. It was harder to get up this morning since it was so dark outside. I got used fast to wake up with some light outside. But once outside I saw that full moon at the other end of the street, the view was so beautifull, the moon was so huge it was amazing. Yesterday I had an appointment at the hospital for a minor surgery. Everything went great and I was out of there in no time, which is great. The doctor told me that I can still run and ride no problem but swimming is out of the question for ten days or so. If I knew that I would have went swiming yesterday morning one last time. I haven't been updating the blog a lot lately, so here are my training times for last week Running Time - 1:14 Distance – 11.7km Swimming Time – 1:20 Distance – 2.8km Riding Time – 2:10 Distance – 73km

Spinning in the morning

Since my doctor told me that I can't run more then four days a week I decided to play with my usual schedule. So instead of running on Wednesday morning I decided to ride the trainer. This is the last week of a 16 weeks plan I have been following for the entire winter and today was the 20 minute power test. A simple way to explain this is that you warm up for 15 minutes and then spin as hard as possible for 20 minutes. Let me tell you that this is really painfull and that after that it's hard to climb the stairs out of the basement ;) Last time I did that test my output was 287 watts, when I did it today my output was 316 watts. That would give me an improve of 10% over the last six weeks. I am pretty happy with that improve and it proves me that following this plan over the winter was a really good idea. I am using my Tacx Fortius to calculate the power and I am not sure that it is that accurate. But my guess is that even if it's not accurate to measure the watts it should always measure it the same way so my output might be wrong but my improve should correct. I will be doing the five minutes power test on Sunday to have my FTP, I really can't wait to see it :) Now lets hope that it will show during my triathlons next summer ... Riding Time - 0:40 Distance - 20.6km

Back on the road!

Oh yeah! I had an appointment with my doctor yesterday night and he gave me the go to restart running. So being who I am I went out first thing this morning ;)It felt so good to run again, nothing big as far as running goes, but just being out there and run was really cool. He gave me a plan on 5 weeks with run and walk to get back on the track slowly, best way to make sure I won't hurt my foot again. So today was a huge 2 minutes run followed by 1 minute walk and that for 10 times. To be honest I came back home and I sweety, but to slowly get back on it was nice though. The best part is that I went out and ran for 20 minutes overall and I didn't feel any pain, which is great news. Now I just have to make sure I don't go too fast and that I follow the plan.

Normally the plan should look like this
Week 1 : 2/1 for 30 minutes twice, then 3/1 for 32 minutes twice
Week 2 : 4/1 for 30 minutes twice, then 5/1 for 30 minutes twice
Week 3 : 5/1 for 30 minutes twice, then 15/1/15 for 31 minutes twice
Week 4 : 15/1/15 for 31 minutes twice, then 15/1/20 for 36 minutes twice
Week 5 : 15/1/20 for 36 minutes twice, then 20/1/20 for 41 minutes twice

I don't know how this will fit with my half marathon at the beginning of May, I might have to change the plan a little bit to have a longer run on Sunday eventually just to make sure I won't have to increase too fast after those 5 weeks to get ready for the half marathon. But how well my foot will feel over those 5 next weeks will be what dictate me how to handle the plan I guess.RunningDistance - 5.7kmTime - 0:36

Slow week end

The fact that I still can not run doesn't help with my overall training. Last week end was ok, I did ride my trainer twice and went for a swim, but nothing big. I can't really explain why, but since I stopped running I don't feel like training as much as I usually do. When I went to the pool Saturday I swam 1.4km or so and then I was out of the pool. I just didn't feel like swimming forever, maybe I am getting bored with winter too and I want to go out. I think I am just missing running, that time alone with myself as always been nice. Talking of going outside, I can't wait to try an open water swim, to try my wetsuit and see how it fits. Riding outside will be nice too, those trainer rides are getting harder to get done lately. At least, when I run, I run outside so I am not as bored with that part ;) Anyway, I am heading to my doctor's tonight and he should normally give me the go to restart running. Well that will probably be a run/walk program to make sure I don't hurt myself again. But still, at least I will be out there moving! I will go swim during lunch today, I hope that the pool won't be too crowded. It's spring break here, so everyone if off this week. I wonder if that means more people will go swim, or less ... I will see soon enough ;) Week-end totals Riding Time - 0:53 Distance - 30.25km Swimming Time - 0:40 Distance - 1.4km