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