As most of you know this year will be my first year as a Triathlete, I am really thrilled about this. Every time I go out for a run, a ride of a swim I am always greatfull that I can do this, that I have the chance to get out and enjoy this wonderful sport that we all love so much.
For the second year in a row I decided to raise money for Leucan, a charity that helps the kids who have cancer. They help them and their familly to go through the sickness with different activities, they give money to the research and a lot of other things.
Today a guy with who I am working came to my office and gave me a cheque, with a really good amount of money. He then told me "Please remember Marie-Christine East when you will be out there training and racing, she died a couple years ago from Leucemia" She was his niece and she died 3 years ago, I have been really touched by this and she will be on my mind when I will be out there racing and training.
I have been raising money for Leucan for two years now, and I know that what I do helps others and I am proud of it. But it was the first time that someone that I know told me that a kid close to him had had the cancer, and that sadly she died.
Marie-Christine East, you'll be on my mind and you will be remembered.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A ride to test the legs
Yesterday night I went for a 50km ride to see how my legs, and especially my left knee, would react. There was some strong winds and I knew it would be a good test. I was hapilly pleased that my legs were feeling really strong, I was scared that after Sunday's half marathon they would be tired for at least a couple fo days.
My left knee bothered me a little bit after the ride though, nothing bad but I could still feel some pain in it when I stayed in the same position for too long. It's feeling way better today, and I hope it was nothing to worry about. I'll go for my first run tomorrow morning and see how it will feel after that.
With a Duathlon in 10 days I just hope that I won't start having knee pain like last summer. It seems that whenever I push hard in race situation my knee dislike that. But I can push hard during training and it usually doesn't bother them.
Last winter I went to see a sport doctor to make sure my knees were correct and that I didn't have anything that would cause me problems during this season and he told me that I had nothing to worry about. I still ope he was right, so far during my entire training for my half I never had any knee pain, left or right, so I was 100% positive that those problems were behind me. But now I am getting nervous about it once again.
Lets just hope everything will get back like normal and that I will be able to run and ride without any knee problem fast. I would be really pissed to have to take some time off with the season that is starting around here, especially since it's not that long.
Tonight I will go for a swim, at least I shouldn't have any knee problem there ;)
My left knee bothered me a little bit after the ride though, nothing bad but I could still feel some pain in it when I stayed in the same position for too long. It's feeling way better today, and I hope it was nothing to worry about. I'll go for my first run tomorrow morning and see how it will feel after that.
With a Duathlon in 10 days I just hope that I won't start having knee pain like last summer. It seems that whenever I push hard in race situation my knee dislike that. But I can push hard during training and it usually doesn't bother them.
Last winter I went to see a sport doctor to make sure my knees were correct and that I didn't have anything that would cause me problems during this season and he told me that I had nothing to worry about. I still ope he was right, so far during my entire training for my half I never had any knee pain, left or right, so I was 100% positive that those problems were behind me. But now I am getting nervous about it once again.
Lets just hope everything will get back like normal and that I will be able to run and ride without any knee problem fast. I would be really pissed to have to take some time off with the season that is starting around here, especially since it's not that long.
Tonight I will go for a swim, at least I shouldn't have any knee problem there ;)
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Half marathon - Done :)
I woke up around 5h30 after a really good night of sleep. Had some oatmeals, a yogurt, orange juice and a coffee for breakfast.
We left to the race around 6h45 since we had to be at the start before 7h30. When we arrived me and my wife splited, she was running the 10k and the start lines were in two different places. I had to take a bus to go to the start line so as soon as I arrived at the finish line I jumped into one of the bus and we headed to the start line.
We arrived there 1 hour prior to the start, so we just walked and relax for a while. I took a gel at some point with some water. I went for a warm up around 7h50 or so, during my warm up I heard the start of the 30k race. While warming up I found a gel on the ground, someone would have a bad surprise at some point today, but with over 500 people there no way I would find who lost it ;) I ran 2-3 km at a pace around 5:00/km (8:02/mile) or so trying to get my HR higher a little bit and warming up my legs.
After my warm up I tried to find the friend with whom I was supposed to run today, her goal was to run it under 1:50:00 so she could qualify for New-York next year. I didn't tell her yet that I would run it with her, when we talked about it earlier this week I told her that a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) split half mary was probably a bit fast for me. I finally changed my mind yesterday and when I told her that she would have someone to run with today she was really excited. We met around 10 minutes before the start and got ready for the start.
We had a plan to head out at a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) pace and do whatever it would take to stick with it. We knew that this would give us a 5 minutes to play with if needed, since Nicole needed 1:50:00 or less to qualify to New-York and that was the plan to run it in those time.
The start was a little bit crowded so we knew it would be a pain to get up to our speed right at the beginning. We tried to pass as many people as we possibly can, while I was looking at my Garmin all the time to make sure we were not going out too fast.
The course was nice, from the start line we had around 4k to run to the finish line, then we had a loop of around 17k to run to come back to the finish line. I was happy to see that when we got by the finish line I didn't want to stop and cross it already, that means I was not too tired yet ;)
According to the weather we were supposed to have a head wind to start with. But finally the wind was not too fast and it didn't really bothered us for the first 4k, which was good. After that we passed the finish line and started the loop we had a downwind and I was starting to regret those long sleeves. But it was a bit too late to change my mind on clothing, so I just HTFU and kept going.
When we reach the 10k point I realized that I just PRed for a 10k and it made me really happy. I then wondered if I PRed the 5k too. Now that I looked at the splits I know I did :)
My initial plan was to stick with Nicole at a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) pace as long as I would be able to and then let her go. I didn't want her to miss her qualification because she would have wait on me.
But the more we were going the more I knew that I would be able to finish in 1:45:00 or so. I knew I had it in me. My HR was good, I was around 90-95% LT for the entire race and I figured I could keep that pace for under 2 hours without too much problems.
When we crossed the 10k starting line we knew that we were about to turn around and head to the finish line. We did with 9km to go or so, but at this point the wind was hmm, lets just say stronger than before.
It was not that bad of a wind, around 12 MPH maybe, but after 12 kilometers we could have done without it to be honest. So we started to run with that head wind, at some point I thought that it would show in our splits but it didn't changed them that much.
I was starting to be a little bit tired, but I kept telling to myself that I wanted to be there to see her face when she would finally qualify for New-York. So far she has done Boston, London, Moscow and Berlin and she always said that she needed New-York to finish her top five marathons.
So I told myself to HTFU and she keep that pace. My left knee was hurting and I knew it was probably not the brightest idea of all to keep pushing through it but I had to. We kept going at that 4:58/km-5:02/km (8:00/mile-8:06/mile) pace that we had since the beginning, When I saw the sign 8km I told to myself to just keep going, only 40 minutes to go it was not that bad. And I kept going, after a while I realized that we were at the 4km sign which made me really happy because I knew that we just did half of what we had to do when we saw that 8km sign. And honestly it seems like it went really fast from the 8 to the 4km sign.
4 kilometers to go, only 20 minutes. I am starting to be really tired. I never pushed that fast for that long. My best time for a 10k as 52:14 and I did it not that long ago during a training run to test my speed.
I wanted to slow down a little bit, but I knew I couldn't do that and miss Nicole's finish and my 1:45:00 time that was really reachable. I never even dreamed about doing 1:45 for that half before three or four days ago. But now it was there, I only had to keep going and I would reach it.
So I did, I kept running with her, she was pulling me at that point. I didn't want to let her take any advance on me or I knew I would let her go. When we finally reach the 2km sign she told me that if I wanted to slow down she didn't mind, she knew that even if we ran the last two kilometers at a 6:00/km (9:39/mile) pace we would finish in time for her to qualify anyway.
But deep in my mind I knew that I would be really pissed at me if I slowed down with 2km to go and miss that 1:45:00 mark because of that. So I told her I was ok, I knew it was not true and she knew too, but we kept going at the same pace.
When we finally reach the park where the finish line was she had taken maybe 25 feet on me, so I sprint a little bit to reach her. When she saw me arrived a little bit faster she told me she nothing left in the tank and there was no way she could sprint the last 200 meters. I was happy about it, first because I didn't want to sprint that much and secondly because I knew we had done a hell of a race and we both reached deep to find the energy to finish it in that time.
That was her best half marathon lifetime, and same for me. From 2:14:20 to 1:45:20, which means a PR by 29 minutes, I am really happy about this :) I also got my 5k time faster by 30 seconds or so and my 10k time by over 2 minutes. All that during the same race!
We left to the race around 6h45 since we had to be at the start before 7h30. When we arrived me and my wife splited, she was running the 10k and the start lines were in two different places. I had to take a bus to go to the start line so as soon as I arrived at the finish line I jumped into one of the bus and we headed to the start line.
We arrived there 1 hour prior to the start, so we just walked and relax for a while. I took a gel at some point with some water. I went for a warm up around 7h50 or so, during my warm up I heard the start of the 30k race. While warming up I found a gel on the ground, someone would have a bad surprise at some point today, but with over 500 people there no way I would find who lost it ;) I ran 2-3 km at a pace around 5:00/km (8:02/mile) or so trying to get my HR higher a little bit and warming up my legs.
After my warm up I tried to find the friend with whom I was supposed to run today, her goal was to run it under 1:50:00 so she could qualify for New-York next year. I didn't tell her yet that I would run it with her, when we talked about it earlier this week I told her that a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) split half mary was probably a bit fast for me. I finally changed my mind yesterday and when I told her that she would have someone to run with today she was really excited. We met around 10 minutes before the start and got ready for the start.
We had a plan to head out at a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) pace and do whatever it would take to stick with it. We knew that this would give us a 5 minutes to play with if needed, since Nicole needed 1:50:00 or less to qualify to New-York and that was the plan to run it in those time.
The start was a little bit crowded so we knew it would be a pain to get up to our speed right at the beginning. We tried to pass as many people as we possibly can, while I was looking at my Garmin all the time to make sure we were not going out too fast.
The course was nice, from the start line we had around 4k to run to the finish line, then we had a loop of around 17k to run to come back to the finish line. I was happy to see that when we got by the finish line I didn't want to stop and cross it already, that means I was not too tired yet ;)
According to the weather we were supposed to have a head wind to start with. But finally the wind was not too fast and it didn't really bothered us for the first 4k, which was good. After that we passed the finish line and started the loop we had a downwind and I was starting to regret those long sleeves. But it was a bit too late to change my mind on clothing, so I just HTFU and kept going.
When we reach the 10k point I realized that I just PRed for a 10k and it made me really happy. I then wondered if I PRed the 5k too. Now that I looked at the splits I know I did :)
My initial plan was to stick with Nicole at a 5:00/km (8:02/mile) pace as long as I would be able to and then let her go. I didn't want her to miss her qualification because she would have wait on me.
But the more we were going the more I knew that I would be able to finish in 1:45:00 or so. I knew I had it in me. My HR was good, I was around 90-95% LT for the entire race and I figured I could keep that pace for under 2 hours without too much problems.
When we crossed the 10k starting line we knew that we were about to turn around and head to the finish line. We did with 9km to go or so, but at this point the wind was hmm, lets just say stronger than before.
It was not that bad of a wind, around 12 MPH maybe, but after 12 kilometers we could have done without it to be honest. So we started to run with that head wind, at some point I thought that it would show in our splits but it didn't changed them that much.
I was starting to be a little bit tired, but I kept telling to myself that I wanted to be there to see her face when she would finally qualify for New-York. So far she has done Boston, London, Moscow and Berlin and she always said that she needed New-York to finish her top five marathons.
So I told myself to HTFU and she keep that pace. My left knee was hurting and I knew it was probably not the brightest idea of all to keep pushing through it but I had to. We kept going at that 4:58/km-5:02/km (8:00/mile-8:06/mile) pace that we had since the beginning, When I saw the sign 8km I told to myself to just keep going, only 40 minutes to go it was not that bad. And I kept going, after a while I realized that we were at the 4km sign which made me really happy because I knew that we just did half of what we had to do when we saw that 8km sign. And honestly it seems like it went really fast from the 8 to the 4km sign.
4 kilometers to go, only 20 minutes. I am starting to be really tired. I never pushed that fast for that long. My best time for a 10k as 52:14 and I did it not that long ago during a training run to test my speed.
I wanted to slow down a little bit, but I knew I couldn't do that and miss Nicole's finish and my 1:45:00 time that was really reachable. I never even dreamed about doing 1:45 for that half before three or four days ago. But now it was there, I only had to keep going and I would reach it.
So I did, I kept running with her, she was pulling me at that point. I didn't want to let her take any advance on me or I knew I would let her go. When we finally reach the 2km sign she told me that if I wanted to slow down she didn't mind, she knew that even if we ran the last two kilometers at a 6:00/km (9:39/mile) pace we would finish in time for her to qualify anyway.
But deep in my mind I knew that I would be really pissed at me if I slowed down with 2km to go and miss that 1:45:00 mark because of that. So I told her I was ok, I knew it was not true and she knew too, but we kept going at the same pace.
When we finally reach the park where the finish line was she had taken maybe 25 feet on me, so I sprint a little bit to reach her. When she saw me arrived a little bit faster she told me she nothing left in the tank and there was no way she could sprint the last 200 meters. I was happy about it, first because I didn't want to sprint that much and secondly because I knew we had done a hell of a race and we both reached deep to find the energy to finish it in that time.
That was her best half marathon lifetime, and same for me. From 2:14:20 to 1:45:20, which means a PR by 29 minutes, I am really happy about this :) I also got my 5k time faster by 30 seconds or so and my 10k time by over 2 minutes. All that during the same race!
Friday, May 1, 2009
April training
There we go, another month is done already.
Swimming : 13400 meters, yeah I should have push more on the swimming part
Biking : 550 km, not too bad since spring is not here yet
Running : 165 km, considering the taper last week of the month I am happy with that volume
Now off we go for May :)
Swimming : 13400 meters, yeah I should have push more on the swimming part
Biking : 550 km, not too bad since spring is not here yet
Running : 165 km, considering the taper last week of the month I am happy with that volume
Now off we go for May :)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Three days to go
Three more days to go before the half marathon on Sunday, three mode days of taper. Three more days of wondering if I am losing too much fitness. This morning I went for a little 30 minutes run, just to keep the legs moving while tapering for Sunday. Only problem since I don't want to push too hard I ran slower that I usually do, and it made me wonder. Will I be ok on Sunday? Or will I be slower since I am running slower since a week or so.
I think I am starting to get nervous as the race approach, I know it's nowmal and I am pretty sure I will be fine on Sunday, but still I am nervous. As of now the weather should be perfect to run, a nice sunny 50 degree. There should have some winds though, nothing too much but still I would have prefer no wind at all, but I am not the one making those decisions.
Now I will go back into my head to think about how much fitness I am losing with that taper, see you all later. ;)
I think I am starting to get nervous as the race approach, I know it's nowmal and I am pretty sure I will be fine on Sunday, but still I am nervous. As of now the weather should be perfect to run, a nice sunny 50 degree. There should have some winds though, nothing too much but still I would have prefer no wind at all, but I am not the one making those decisions.
Now I will go back into my head to think about how much fitness I am losing with that taper, see you all later. ;)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Last long run before taper
Next week end I have my first half marathon for this summer. Yesterday I went for my last long run before the half and I am now starting my taper. This means that for the next 10 days or so my running and riding will go down to make sure that my legs will get stronger so I will arrive to the half marathon as ready as possible.
My goal for this year was to run a half marathon under 2 hours. Last year I ran my first half marathon in 2:14:04 and I wanted to improve that time as much as I could. But after last week end run, I now know that I can run the half under 1:55:00 if everything goes well next week-end. I might even get a little bit faster with the taper and the adrenaline of race day. But I don't want to change my goal as of now since it's my first race of the season and it's a C race. I also don't want to push too hard and injure myself right when the season kicks in.
Now I just have to make sure I take as much rest as possible during the next 10 days to make sure that those legs will be ready to kick ass on race day :)
My goal for this year was to run a half marathon under 2 hours. Last year I ran my first half marathon in 2:14:04 and I wanted to improve that time as much as I could. But after last week end run, I now know that I can run the half under 1:55:00 if everything goes well next week-end. I might even get a little bit faster with the taper and the adrenaline of race day. But I don't want to change my goal as of now since it's my first race of the season and it's a C race. I also don't want to push too hard and injure myself right when the season kicks in.
Now I just have to make sure I take as much rest as possible during the next 10 days to make sure that those legs will be ready to kick ass on race day :)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
One year later
Last year around the same date I was getting my bike out of the basement, at that moment I had no idea that later on I would get into Duathlon and eventually Triathlon. I was just getting my road bike out of the basement in an attempt of getting back in shape.
I remember my first ride, coming back home after a ride of 20 km and I was really happy about it, telling myself that if I could ride 20km three times a week for the entire summer I would finish the summer with over than 1200 km and I was pretty happy about it.
Today it was my long run day, two weeks prior to my half marathon that will start the summer, my goal for this summer is to finish a half marathon under two hours. So as I said today was my long run day, I had a 1h45 run planned.
I left home this morning and walked for 2-3 minutes to get some warm up and get the legs moving. When I hit my Garmin 305 to start the session I realized that I had no HR data on it. I had two choices, either I was dead or I forgot my HR strap at home. After checking, I made sure that the problem was my HR strap ;)
Since I wanted to have my HR for this run I ran back home to get it. I grabbed the strap and put it on then off I go. I realized pretty fast that my pace was a lot faster than I was intending. I had in my mind to try to run today's run at a 5h45 pace or as close to that as possible. Since my goal for this summer is a sub 2 hours half I know that if I could complete today's run at 5h45 or so I would be close to my goal which requires a 5h41 pace to complete it in 2 hours. But on the other hand I didn't want to go out too fast and that's why I needed my HR strap.
After my first km I realized that my first split was 5:04 or so, no way I could hold that pace for 1h45 so I knew I had to slow down. Easier to think that than to do it I guess because my second split was around 5:10. Once again I talked myself into slowing it a bit, I got my third split around 5:17 or so and I stayed around there for 13/14 kilometers or so. After that I realized that my splits were more around 5:30. I came back home with 19.6 kilometer ran in 1:45:00 with an average split of 5:22. Which assure me that running my half under 2 hours in two weeks should not be a problem.
After that run I realized that I ran about the same as last year first ride and that's when I saw how much that my last year of training helped me.
I also had some weird idea after that run, since my legs were really sore I did try what is call a Ice bath, or in my book a new torture tool for triathletes. It was worst than running the 19.6km to be honest but I felt really good afterward.
I wanted to go ride in the afternoon, but I finally convinced myself that doing some stuff around the house wouldn't be a bad idea. So I cleaned the pool, yeah no more ice in it, and got the stuff out of the garage. Now I am ready for the summer, so please send them the memo so they know that they can send it out way.
I remember my first ride, coming back home after a ride of 20 km and I was really happy about it, telling myself that if I could ride 20km three times a week for the entire summer I would finish the summer with over than 1200 km and I was pretty happy about it.
Today it was my long run day, two weeks prior to my half marathon that will start the summer, my goal for this summer is to finish a half marathon under two hours. So as I said today was my long run day, I had a 1h45 run planned.
I left home this morning and walked for 2-3 minutes to get some warm up and get the legs moving. When I hit my Garmin 305 to start the session I realized that I had no HR data on it. I had two choices, either I was dead or I forgot my HR strap at home. After checking, I made sure that the problem was my HR strap ;)
Since I wanted to have my HR for this run I ran back home to get it. I grabbed the strap and put it on then off I go. I realized pretty fast that my pace was a lot faster than I was intending. I had in my mind to try to run today's run at a 5h45 pace or as close to that as possible. Since my goal for this summer is a sub 2 hours half I know that if I could complete today's run at 5h45 or so I would be close to my goal which requires a 5h41 pace to complete it in 2 hours. But on the other hand I didn't want to go out too fast and that's why I needed my HR strap.
After my first km I realized that my first split was 5:04 or so, no way I could hold that pace for 1h45 so I knew I had to slow down. Easier to think that than to do it I guess because my second split was around 5:10. Once again I talked myself into slowing it a bit, I got my third split around 5:17 or so and I stayed around there for 13/14 kilometers or so. After that I realized that my splits were more around 5:30. I came back home with 19.6 kilometer ran in 1:45:00 with an average split of 5:22. Which assure me that running my half under 2 hours in two weeks should not be a problem.
After that run I realized that I ran about the same as last year first ride and that's when I saw how much that my last year of training helped me.
I also had some weird idea after that run, since my legs were really sore I did try what is call a Ice bath, or in my book a new torture tool for triathletes. It was worst than running the 19.6km to be honest but I felt really good afterward.
I wanted to go ride in the afternoon, but I finally convinced myself that doing some stuff around the house wouldn't be a bad idea. So I cleaned the pool, yeah no more ice in it, and got the stuff out of the garage. Now I am ready for the summer, so please send them the memo so they know that they can send it out way.
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