Monday, June 28, 2010

Long run and ride

Saturday morning me and some friends from the triathlon club got together for a nice swim at the lake. Water temperature was really nice once again. We swam 2.2km or so in 45 minutes, nothing fast but I never said I was a fast swimmer so ;)

After that I had planned to go for a long run, so I headed back home put my running gear on and went for a 20km run before lunch. The legs were a bit tired from Friday's brick and the plan was to run an easy Z1/2 run, so that is exactly what I did.

Yesterday was the long ride of the week end, once again with some friends from the triathlon club. We went for a 100km ride easy once again.

Here are some pictures of our ride.


I always love riding next to the rivers, it feels like vacation every time :)



Saturday, June 26, 2010

Ramping the km for my HIM in July

Yesterday was a longish brick, nothing huge but still. I had a 70km ride in the mountain with a 2000 feet of climbing followed by a 10km run.

Overall it went pretty well, which is giving me confidence for July 25th :)

Here is a picture of the view at some point while I was riding.

Today I had a long run, and tomorrow is long ride day. I guess that going back to work on Monday will be good to get some rest :P

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Triathlon Lac Beauport - Race report

Yesterday was the first triathlon of the season, the Lac Beauport triathlon.


Since the lake is 15 minutes or so from my place I arrived there early and grabbed a nice spot in transition. Then I chatted with people from the triathlon club and with friends who were doing the race. At some point I went and rode 5km or so with Steve, then we went for a 2-3km run and after I finally got my wetsuit on I jumped in the water for a couple of 100 meters swim.


My plan for the swim was to do everything possible to beat last year's time. I placed myself in a way that I would be into the traffic at the beginning, and it worked ;) I got kicked, punched and grabbed in place that you wouldn't believe.

Sighting went pretty well, I have the feeling that I swam pretty straight versus last year. Since there was a lot of waves I swam with people from the start to the end. Trying to find a pair of feet to hold to, but no luck with that. I basically had to swim the entire km alone, oh well life is not always easy ;)

I got out of the water, and hit my watch when I reached the beach. Not a bad time, but not as fast as I expected. I thought that maybe today I would finally swim my km under 20, but no way. I still have to work on my swimming to reach that goal.


Then it was into transition one, I had some problems with my suit, it got stuck on my heels. Didn't lose much time on that though. I then grabbed the bike, ran to the exit and jumped on it. New bike and not a lot of practice this year made it a tough one. I lost times trying to get my feet on the pedals/shoes and then getting up to speed.


I had no idea how my biking would go today, and I had my new bike on which I rode a total of 35km before this race. I was a little anxious, not too sure how it would go. I was pretty sure that the bike wouldn't be where I would gain time this year, but I almost finish with a split 3 minutes faster than last year, which made me really happy!

I gave everything that I had on the bike, I couldn't see my speed since I didn't put my watch in the quick release (I was scared to lose it during the swim so I used the bracelet without the quick release) So I just push hard, and harder. At some point during the bike I got a cramp in my right calf, happened twice to be exact. Both time while going up a hill standing on the bike mashing the pedals as hard as I could.

It worked fine, bike felt really good. My legs were not at 100% though, I guess that 2 days is not enough I could still feel that they were tired. I got a peak of 65km/h which was not too bad :) The bike handled really good in the wind, and in the turn also.

Transition two went almost flawlessly, I jumped off the bike and passed like 10 person while entering the transition zone. When I got to my transition spot there was a bike in my spot, which made me lose a couple of seconds but not much. Put my shoes on, grabbed my race belt and there I went for the race.


Going into the run my plan was to get a faster run split since my running has been really good so far this year. WRONG!!

Dammit when I got out of transition my legs were sooooo dead, I couldn't get any speed. I tried to convince myself that it was only 8km, that it wouldn't be too long. I honestly wanted to stop and walk a couple of times but I just kicked myself in the butt and kept running.


Eventually I saw the first km sign, then the second and the third. At that point I was going up a hill and I was suffering. I tried to keep a good pace, 4th km was better, going down a hill helps ;) Then the last 4 were just survival, trying to stay with a not too bad pace to finish with a good time. I finally finished the run a little bit more than a minute faster than last year. I will take this with the legs that I had ;)


Swim Time = 20:34 (2:04/100 meter)
Transition 1 = 0:56
Bike Time = 42:36 (32.4 km/h)
Transition 2 = 0:49
Run Time = 37:17 (4:50/km)

Total Time = 1h 42m 23s (1:47:48 last year)
Overall Rank = 102/218
Age Group Rank = 14/28

Saturday, June 12, 2010

My new baby has arrived!!

Here he is, waiting to be finished in the LBS yesterday. I will go get him today and we will ride together for the first time :) I just can't wait. The new Trek Speed Concept 9.9

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Descente Royale - 10k race

This course is a really easy one, everyone always told me how easy it was to PR on it. I never really thought that it would be that easy though. Don't get me wrong, I pushed hard and at the end I was out of everything. But still, I don't think that I can hold that kind of pace on a normal course. 

Going down a false flat for 10k is great ;) 

Last Friday, I had a chat with a friend from work who is a speedy. I told him that his 43:12 time would fall this Sunday. So today's secret plan was to beat Alex's time. I honestly was not sure that I would be able to do it though. I analysed my 10k that I ran in May and decided that I didn't push hard enough, so today's plan was to push as hard as I could push. 

As soon as the race started I went almost all out, I was actually way too fast the first 500 meters and I slowed on purpose to not go too fast and run out of legs by the end. 

The first 4 splits were fast, 4:09, 4:10, 4:09, 4:06. Then the 5th was like 4:21. I got scared at that point because I thought that my legs decided to stayed at the 4km mark. 

The first 5k was still damn fast, actually faster than my faster 5k ever. At that point I knew that I only had to run 4:20 splits or so to beat Alex. So I tried my best to stay on that pace. 4:20, 4:19, 4:20, 4:17 and 4:03 to toped it off :) Second 5k was a bit slower, but I was just trying to find the energy to keep pushing that kind of pace at that point. 

At the speed at which I ran that first 5k I was not really sure what would happen on the rest of the race. 

For once when I actually saw the finish line I had nothing left in the tank, I tried as hard as I could to sprint the finish line, but my body told me to go f... myself ;)


Finish time : 42:43
Age group : 34/176
Overall : 142/1015