My biggest challenge Yet

So far this year has been full of so many surprises, unexpected and incredibly low lows and brilliant highs. It really has been impossible to predict what will happen next. I started the year building my body for a string of running road races in the spring time. After I seemed to find something in the fall of 2015 training and racing consistently with the cross country team at McMaster and at the same time building towards the Houston Marathon in January, it was all for nothing as my hip, low back, and tibia was in shambles after a race at Queens in late October. In November, I was back to putting in big mileage training for the upcoming Houston Marathon capped off with some runs in the high 30s (38.5 km was the longest), some big long workouts and tempo runs, but by December 6 I had to call it quits after the pain (stress fracture) in my tibia was too much to run on. Again I took a few weeks off and by December 21st I was back running - like an idiot I ran 100km in my first week back, and 120 km the next week. Problem was really that I was off school those two weeks so had a lot of time on my hands. Anyways, throughout the fall I continued cycling and doing indoor trainer workouts, and then when I was injured in early December my bike volume really shot up. After doing alot of swimming in the summer of 2015 when cross country season started in September I had stopped, and didn't get back in the water until January where I would only swim 2x/week on the weekends. In January, although Houston was off the schedule, I was building nicely once again, this time I was following along with the Jack Daniels Running Formula for some direction. Although I didn't know it at the time, my self-coached program that I developed over the years was actually very similar to his that he describes in his books, we just used different terms. For instance he would describe workouts as I (interval) pace where I used to call them 5km pace, or T pace I would call half-marathon pace, or M pace I would call uptempo. Anyways so I started strictly following his program with his terminology and January was a fantastic month of training. I ran a very consistent mileage at around 135, 136, 137, 139 kilometers, was biking 5 days per week, and swimming like I previously mentioned on the weekend. On the weekends I would do a double run on the Saturday where I would swim then run 10 miles back home from the pool, and then jump straight into the car to run another 10 or 11 miles on the AlterG treadmill at about 83% of my body weight to reduce the impact. After those 4 weeks I picked up a knee injury that forced me to take a week off running, and again my bike mileage amped up. After a week I was back and running strong, stronger than ever actually and was destroying my workouts. I continued to bike regularly now following the trainerRoad plan I've discussed in previous posts, and swim on weekends but the thing is is that at this time I was still really only biking and swimming as a mode of cross training - A way of building my cardiovascular fitness without the impact of running. I still 100% identified myself as a runner and nothing else. I had a great race at the Achilles 5km where I ran 15:27 in crazy windy conditions, and then a great race at the Race Roster 8km with a 7th overall finish and 25:55 on a very hilly course with frigid cold and windy conditions. I figured it was equivalent to about a 24 high or low 25 which would by a breakthrough run. After the race though on my long run the next day half way through I felt something very strange in my left knee, and my regular blog readers will know that it went downhill in a hurry from hear. I had described the pain like a barb wire wrapping super tight around my entire knee and the back of my leg. I couldn't run period. Biking did not hurt it though, and now my swimming went from 2x/week to 7x/week. I was now training for a cycling time trial and then would be doing some Aquabike (Swim/Bike) races after that. I was unable to run for pretty much 2 months straight, and then built it back very slowly as I competed quite regularly and was winning Aquabike events all over Ontario. I had some incredible performances in Milton, Guelph where I won on back to back days in the Olympic and then the Sprint event the next day, and then a huge win in Welland over the Long Course distance. After my race in Milton, I contacted a swim coach Sheryl Ross who really has helped me more than words can describe. She completely turned me swimming around from where early in the year I would never have even imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be able to swim as fast as I am now. I mean just last week we did a set of 100s leaving on 1:20 coming in at 1:15. Early in the year I couldn't swim a 1:20 let alone a single 1:25 period. Early in the year if I was swimming 1:30s it was a good day. Under her direction my swimming continued to improve, and my biking was incredibly strong. July I had a massive training month added 2 more wins at Niagara, and in Kingston. Slowly but surely my mindset was starting to change. I was started to think more and more about going after triathlon full-time, instead of merely just doing these events/disciplines in times where I'm injured from running. In August my running was still very slowly coming back. I was up to about 80-100km per week, but the knee injury from April was still lingering and my biggest issue seemed to be overwhelming stifftness in my legs at the beginning of runs. In Orillia, where I would run off the bike for the first time of the season, the stiffness was almost overwhelming enough for me to pull out of the race. I got off the bike and what I had feared happened in that when my legs hit the ground I felt like it took every ounce of my strength to pick them up and keep on running. I told my Dad I'm done only a couple hundred meters in because I literally felt like the tin man. But I kept going and finished with the fastest run split of the day by two minutes, and only finished third and not in second because of horrible transitions. The stiffness/pain plagued my running throughout August, and then the week before my next race at Guelph my other knee started acting up. I had been needing to take boat loads of Advil to get through runs and I think early in the week before the race my stomach had enough. I couldn't stop throwing up, got a fever, and ended up needing to go to the hospital. After a late night, and a rough couple of days afterwards, I went to Guelph on the weekend with the intention of switching in the swim/bike, but I decided to do the full Triathlon, and really had what I consider the best win of my career given the circumstances going into and throughout the race. I then went to the Provincial Championships in Welland, and won the Aquabike event with a great performance, and then my focus was entirely on Miami. I did a 10k in Burlington the second week of October and won easily with a decent run, and then this past weekend did the Niagara Falls Half Marathon where I placed 9th. I was not trying to go to the well in this race, and ran pretty conservatively using it more as a big training workout for the Half-Ironman National Championship race in Miami November 13. After the race, my calves and legs in general were absolutely shredded due to a poor choice in footwear on my part (I picked one of the Skechers models that is more geared to 5km/10km unless your Meb Keflezighi when I should've used the other Skechers racing flats that I'm more used to). The last couple days have been a little rough for running, having to battle unbelievable stiffness in my legs (stiffness probably isn't the right word, more full on pain), but I'm keeping going. I have been running on a stress fracture in my right tibia for the last month and a half, but at this point nothing will stop me from competing in Miami. In fact, based on my performance in Miami I may apply for my Professional Card to compete as a Professional Triathlete next year. I really would never have thought early in the year, that I would even be considering this, crazy how circumstances change. Miami will be the longest race I've ever competed in, and probably the toughest, but still despite all the challenges my body has thrown at me this season I am so excited to push myself like I never have before. This year has been a struggle I'm not going to lie, and yes there have been many many times throughout the season where I've balled my eyes out and said I'm done, I can't take constantly being in pain when I'm trying to do what I love most, and yet even with all that I will go to Miami and give it my all not to prove anything to anyone, but instead because persevering through countless challenges is what makes me who I am, and there is nothing that give more pleasure then pushing my body well outside of its comfort zone and reaching new heights.

Barrelman Pronvicial Championships

I'll jump right into this post right from where I left off in my last. So Guelph Lake was a heck of a day and really took a long while to sink in to think about what exactly I was feeling after the race. While I've had some great performances this year, it was definitely my biggest, and one that changed my mindset from thinking I'm a runner dabbling in triathlon, to I'm an elite triathlete, and believing that I can go far in the sport. Following the race, I had two weeks to go until the Provincial Championship in Welland for the Barrelman Half-Iron distance. Earlier in the summer I was intending on doing the full half-ironman and making my debut in that distance, but with the recurring running injuries which lessened my run mileage significantly, I decided that doing the Swim/Bike (which was also serving as the Provincial Aquabike championships) was the way to go. I had lots of great competition in the division, including a few elites, and the field for the swim bike would be much bigger than usual since it was the last triathlon in Ontario of the year and many people after already having a long season didn't feel like slogging out another Half-Ironman. So the race would be a 2km swim, following by a 90 km bike finishing in Niagara Falls. In the couple of weeks before the race, I didn't do much running at all, mostly water running, and a bunch of bike workouts. Despite having the amazing bike leg in Guelph, I was feeling pretty insecure on the bike for doing a 90 km distance at a good pace. I had been seeing some of the workouts that my competitors had been completing and they were doing a lot more long sustained efforts, and long rides in general in the 3-5 hour range. For me on the other hand I had not done a long ride over 100 km since August 20 (and that was only 110km in 3:10 up to Lake Simcoe and back). I wouldn't have time in the proceeding weeks with work to throw in another long ride, and didn't want to make the mistake of stressing myself out so much to do a billion workouts before the race that I end up burning out and not performing well at all come race day. So I focused on short and a little more intense efforts, and then one epic sustained 2 hour effort on the trainer at my target wattage exactly one week out from the race. It was the most critical workout, and I can say now that the race is over that it was what made the difference 100%. Without this workout I may have not even raced since with the illness only a couple weeks before, I was still feeling a little out of sync and out of rhythm with my training. Even with this workout there was definitely a change in my mindset and strategy: while at the beginning of the season, my intention in the water was to keep my deficit to as little as possible, with the help of my amazing coach, I now feel swimming has become one of my strengths and I can use it to put time into my competitors. In the weeks leading into the race, I was having some truly epic, pb setting swims which I won't divulge out do to them being her intellectual property. Going into the race my main competition were two other very strong cyclists, one who was the UltraMan World Champion, and the other who competes regularly at the 6 hour Time Trial World Championships and has finished 2nd there. For these two 90 km at a high pace would be a walk in the park, not to mention the fact that this was a pancake flat course where absolute wattage would be the more important number compared to W/kg***. For these two they are both much bigger, and taller guys than me, and would have no issue pumping out some huge wattage numbers. If it was a hilly course it would be in my favour since I can produce more W/kg than most people in which case my light frame gives me the edge going uphill. So my mindset in this case was simple, put as much time as humanely possible into both of them during the swim and hang on to whatever lead I had. One issue would also be that there wave started a couple minutes after mine so I would not be able to tell where there were in relation to me unless they came right up alongside me, which given my headstart would mean I was losing.

***Training Terminology and Tips: For those not familiar with cycling lingo let me break down a couple key concepts when it comes to training. When you pedal you produce power with each pedalstroke. Power, measured in watts, is the combination of force multiplied by velocity meaning to increase the amount of power you produce you can either pedal at the same cadence (revolutions per minute) and change into a higher gear, or stay in the same gear and increase your cadence (pedal faster). When you measure your power two metrics are the absolute power and the power/kg. So if two people are producing an absolute power of 300 W, but one is 60 kg versus 80 kg, the 60 kg person is producing 5 W/kg, whereas the 80 kg individual is producing only 3.75 W/kg. Now W/Kg is often thought of as the most important metric in cycling. Most professional cyclist in the Tour de France for example could sustain 5 W/kg for around an hour, and to win the tour de france it is estimated that you need to be able to sustain 5.9-6.0 W/kg for 30-40 minutes at a time, 3-4 times per stage (in the high altitude mountains). In other words you need to be an aerobic monster, or pay good enough doctors to make you one ;). While its true W/kg is a crucial value, the higher your number the faster you can climb mountains since the lighter you are the less weight you need to hull up the side of a mountain, it really depends on what terrain your racing. For example if a course is dead flat it 300 W is 300 W whether you are 56 kg or 80 kg. My latest FTP suggests that I could sustain 5.5 W/kg for one hour, however the fact that I'm 56 kg means while 5.5 W/kg is a big number it is only 308 W, a number some elite cyclists like those in this race could take apart on a flat course. 

So that's exactly what I did. Despite a really rocky opening 100m where I was tossed, kicked, and pushed around in the water, I put together a PB setting swim and the second fastest swim of the day in the field including all the professionals in the half-iron field: 27:22 for 2km (1:21/100m). I had no clue I could swim that fast, and this would set me up beautifully for the bike with a big lead. That swim was more than 1:30 faster than a couple months before on the same exact swim course in Welland. Then onto the bike. My intention for the race was to push 240+W and keep the power as consistent as possible. First 10 km I pushed 262 W, then settled in and rolled along at 242 W for a while. As we entered the loop section of the course on the most western end of the course, for those of us out front we hit a major storm, torrential rain, wind, and some hail. It was brutal for a little while, and then strangely as soon as we made the turn around back towards Welland it was sunny again. Going into the race like I previously mentioned I hadn't been on a long ride in a while, and I had not been outside at all on my bike since Guelph so I wasn't sure how staying in my aero position for so long would go. Oddly though, I managed to stay in my aerobars non-stop for pretty much the entire race except to grab a bottle at the bottle exchange and on a couple turns. I passed 40 km at 59:42 which is a PB for me over that distance, and then the average speed only went up from there then next 5km splits the average speed was 42.7 kph, 41.1, 42.5, 42.2, 41.3 and I actually managed on the last 5km to average 44 kph and 245 W. For the entire ride I averaged exactly 241 W the exact same wattage that I average on the 2 hour ride the weekend before, and completed the 90 km course in 2:09:48 for 41.6 kph average. I won by 2 minutes thanks to my swim, and am officially Provincial Aquabike Champion. It was a perfect complete race without any flaws. I felt strong in the water, and strong on the bike, and afterwards still felt pretty good to jog over to the tent to get my medals, and finishing memorabilia.

After the race with the latest couple of wins, I set out to find another sponsor, specifically a nutrition sponsor. I've always valued my nutrition so highly, and with my next big race the National Championships in Miami in the Half-Ironman distance (2 km swim, 90 km bike, 21.1 km run) coming soon on November 13, my coach has stressed that narrowing down my race-day nutrition will be critical given the distance of the race. This is the type of distance where you can't out-train your nutrition, and if you fuel poorly during the race, you will be left wobbling and seeing stars on the side of the road watching your competitors fly by. So with her recommendations and lots of research I sent out a few emails, and I am now officially sponsored by Infinit Nutrition. I'm so stoked to work with this company given there highly scientifically based approach, and being able to work with the company one on one to develop a custom nutrition blend specific to my needs. I've already had a nutrition consult with my coach and with Infinit and we've develop my own blend where we upped the carbohydrate content and sodium content to match my sweat rate, upped the amino acids, added a tiny amount of protein to help kickstart recovery early on, and gave it my own flavour. The companies post-workout formulas are incredible too with a Repair mix for highly strenous sessions with a 4:1 ratio of Carb to protein, and rescue mix for more strength based effort with a 2:1 ratio, a straight whey protein isolate mix to up the protein content of some everyday meals, or add into smoothies or what not, and a night-time mix to wake up recovered for the next day's work. So next up all my focus is on Miami. I will post soon about how my training is going, and how my nutrition is coming along.

Thanks again to my Sponsors Skechers Performance for the help this year, Sheryl my amazing swim coach for helping me swim faster than I literally ever imagined, and Infinit Nutrition who I am super excited to work with in the future.

K-Town, Orillia, and Guelph Lake #2 Reports

Been a while since my last update so let's get right to it.

K Town (July 31)

A roller coaster of emotions. That pretty much sums up the Kingston Race where I was competing in the Swim/Bike once again. The race was the exact same distance as the Welland Long Course race a month and a bit before hand: 2 km swim followed by a 56 km bike. Although the distance was the same the swim course made the race a totally different monster. In Welland the swim took place in the Pan-Am Flat Water Centre where you were essentially swimming in a massive outdoor pool so the water was beyond calm. In contrast, kingston's swim took place in the Kingston Harbour where the St. Lawrence meets Lake ON. The water here is known for being choppy, and the wind to be fierce. The first few hundred meters I thought, "puff this is nothing," then all of a sudden once we turned  south and we now out of the shelter that Fort Henry provided from the waves/current it became like swimming in a wave pool. Kept it together and had a fantastic swim other then the last couple hundred meters. As I neared the swim exit I got confused, and accidently kept going towards and around one of the other bouys nearby (it was the start bouy), and turns out you weren't supposed to go that way. Anyways, what it meant was that I swam probably an extra 150m or so meters. Then into transition. Here the chaos ensued. I pulled my wetsuit off as quick as I could, and ran out of transition with Elektra poised to smoke the bike course which had some rolling hills. I really like rolling hill courses since I find it helps break up the mentally into various segments, and then physically it means I can get up out of the saddle which helps relieve the tension building in my neck and shoulders when I'm tucked into my aerobar position, and with that also helps switch up the muscle demand in my legs to keep the muscles fresher. About 5km to the turnaround, I was really feeling it, and pushing a good amount and a steady amount of wattage. All of a sudden I looked down at my ankle for some reason, and saw my timing chip was not on my ankle. I had a complete meltdown. I got up out of my aerobars and sweared and yelled like I never have in my entire life for a good 10 minutes. I was so angry at myself. I was slowing down to a crawl, because I figured I'm out here killing myself, giving everything I got, and I'm currently not being timed for it which means I can't win no matter what. I was ready to stop at the side of the road and pull out of the race, until I figured I'll just finish the race, and since I have my garmin still running which was on since the gun sounded at the start, I'll just keep my finishing time for my own records and then maybe compare it to what the winning time was just to see where I would stack up. I then re-motivated myself, focused, and put down the hammer at the turn around. I put in a massive surge going past 2 or 3 riders, and passing them like they weren't moving. Then about 10km to the finish I thought, hey wait a second I have the watch on, so why don't I just give the watch to Sportstats (the timing company) and they can verify that I did infact do the correct bike course, and they already have my swim time since they got my time when I entered transition from the water (since the chip was still on at that point), and we'll see if they can still count my time. I pounded to the finish. The second half of the race avg speed was well into the 40s km/hr (43 km) and the last 8km was 45 km/hr. Not bad. I gave my watch to Sportstats right after the race and they very nicely verified my route and time, and counted the result. I won by 5 minutes. What a day.

Orillia (August 14: 750m swim, 33km, 7km run)

Leading into this race, I put in a massive volume of training thanks to being off for a couple of weeks following the conclusion of my last academic unit of my Master of Physiotherapy Program. I had one of my biggest mileage training weeks to date 2 weeks out from the race, with more than 30 hours of training, 25 km swimming, 500 km on the bike, and 80 km running. Yes, I said running. Leading into Kingston I started running about 4 days from the race and started with 15 minutes. I added 5 minutes every day until by the end of that big week following Kingston, I was up to 65 minutes. I was relatively pain free. The week before the race I did two pretty simple workouts at a steady pace: one was a tiny 10 minute tempo, the other was 3x5 minutes at a tempo type pace. The week leading into the race however my biggest issue was widespread tightness/stiffness at the beginning of runs. I would describe it as though for about the first 20 minutes I felt like the tin man. In fact, I had multiple runs that week where after about the first 10 strides I would turn around because the stiffness and widespread pain in my legs was unbearable. I would go inside and try to psyche myself up telling myself after a few kilometers that it will get better. This was mentally very difficult, but powered through continuing to run until race day. This would be the first time all year where I would do the full triathlon with the run leg on the end of it. It was only my second time doing the run portion (one last year) and with this extreme stiffness to start runs I did not know what to expect. Not to mention I had only been running again for 1.5 weeks leading in the race, done minimal pace work, and ran off the bike (brick style) once. That once was the day before the race where I was doing a simple shakeout type of workout just to practice my transition. It was an extremely humid day, and as I pulled into the driveway from the bike, I had my shoes on within 15 seconds or so, and was going to do only about 30 minutes of running. I've run without socks before with little to no issue, but this time with the humidity by about 15 minutes my feet were throbbing and squishing along with water building up in the bed of the insole. Soon irritation on both feet on the medial side of the midfoot started to build, and by the end of the run I had egg sized bloody blisters on both feet . The rest of the day I was unable to put with foot down without extreme pain. So that factor was added on. What it meant was that after a truly phenomenal swim: 10 minutes flat for 750 m, and a good 33km bike (not amazing) averaging 270 W (approx. 5 W/kg) on a hilly and rough road course, I had to take an extra chunk of time in transition to put on a pair of socks. I was down to the leaders by just a bit (there were two pros in the race) but after transition that deficit grew. I started the run and within 100m started saying to my Dad on the sideline I couldn't do it, and was going to pull out. Not only was it the blisters, but even more so my legs were beyond stiff. I was running like the tin man, and was kind of side shuffling along unable to make a half-decent stride. But kept going and somehow managed to have the fastest run split of the day by more than 2 minutes (24:30 for 7km - 3:30/km). Unfortunately despite running almost 2 minutes faster, and biking about 1 minute faster I lost to 2nd place by 12 seconds. How - he was about a minute and a half faster in transition between the two transitions. A beyond frustrating way to lose a race. My problem in T2 was that I trying to move so quickly to catch 2nd, I ended up fumbling around even more trying to put the socks on. Still 3rd aint bad, 1st in my category, and for only my second time ever doing full tri I was content.

Guelph Lake 2 (September 3rd - 750m swim, 30 km bike, 7 km run)

Leading up to this race training was pretty much going flawlessly, until August 29. I woke up that morning and was feeling very nauseous, and had a stomach ache. Biked to work (placement at physio clinic) as I normally would and the nausea, and stomach pains continued and worsened. I kept thinking the feeling would pass, but it didn't. I went for lunch didn't eat much, came back and threw up. It was the first time I've thrown up for as long as I can remember. The nausea and stomach pain was now unbearable and told my boss that I had to go home. I was going to take the bus but the nausea was so bad I figured it would not go well being trapped in a bus, so I biked back to my apartment. Pretty much as soon as I got in the door I threw up again, and continued throwing up for about 3 hours. I felt absolutely dreadful, and could not stand up due to both weakness and without the need to throw up. I crawled into a ball on the floor and cried due to the pain. Soon the pain became just completely too much to handle and called my parents to come down. I continued to throw up, and now had a fever, and a pounding migraine. When the throwing up continued they took me to the hospital where I waited until past midnight to see the doctor who said it was some stomach virus, and gave me bunch of drugs. In the hours leading up to seeing the doctor, I've never been more uncomfortable in my entire life. They were not allowing me to drink anything, so at this point I hadn't had something to drink for pretty much the entire day, so I was completely dehydrated and out of it. Eventually when they had seen me and got me on IV fluids, among other drugs for the severe migraine and nausea, they did not tell me that one of the drugs has a side effect of making people very agitated. Within a couple minutes of getting the medication I lost it. From what I've been told i was wanted to get up and rip out the IV, and was swearing like a sailor. They gave me something to calm down and finally I closed my eyes and actually feel asleep despite the hospital bench I was on causing extreme pain in my back. I woke up and felt half decent, and we went home. Eventually once we got home, I started having diarrhea (sorry if this is so graphic but it's the truth and needs to be told). I did get some sleep and the next morning woke up and felt decent, but the stomach pain (it was more pain than nausea at this point) was still there. I ate a minimalist breakfast (first thing I had eaten in 24 hours) and eventually made our way back to hamilton. The nausea was gone, stomach pain still there, but manned up got on the bike and did an hour and half of tempo stuff. For the most part I was on and off the bike to the washroom, but made it through somehow, I then went to the pool and powered through a tough/fast workout. I still don't know how I had managed to do all this.

 Throughout the week the stomach pains continued, and was not eating very much because of it. In addition, my half decent streak of running was over. While I had a great couple runs the weekend before at the end of one of them I started getting a bad pain in my right knee and was unable to run on it at all. I did some water running during the week, but was unable to run period for an entire 7 days leading to the race. I went to the race that Saturday morning with the sole intention of switching into the swim/bike category. I got out of the car did a super slow jog to the trees to go pee, and thought maybe I could try to do the full race. I did a tiny warmup and the knee pain was definetly there, but I thought maybe just maybe if I went completely all out on the bike and built a lead the knee could be somewhat decent to allow me to coast it in for the win. 30 minutes out from the race I decided to give it a go. My main competition in the race was a pro triathlete who was a fantastic swimmer (a varsity swimmer at guelph), and a solid cyclist, and also the one who beat me in Orillia a couple weeks earlier thanks to his phenomenal transitions. My goal was to keep my deficit in the water to less than a minute then to bike harder than I ever had. I had a great pump up speech with my Dad before the race where it started quitely with me saying "What's my name," (for some backstory the name tag on my wetsuit says "Frank the Tank") and my Dad responding quietly Frank the Tank. Then I would say it a little louder, and louder, and louder, until we shouted "What's my name, FRANK THE TANK." Then gave me 3-4 real good slaps on the shoulders and I was psyched. The swim started with an in water start. Because of the amount the water had receded thanks to the dry summer it would take about 3-4 dolphin dives before you could get swimming. The gun sounded I did my first, came up for my second, and the competitor behind me essentially tackled me. I fought them off, did another dolphin dive, and got swimming. Instantly, I felt something might have been wrong. My wrist felt a little lighter than usual and I managed to see down to my wrist underwater only to see my 700$ garmin was not attached to it. I got really pissed, but could not exactly stop to go pick it up from the start with hundred of other swimmers coming behind me. I kept swimming, and after this commotion, the other pro was way up ahead already. I fought and fought with no one to draft off of, and managed to catch up well enough to about 45 seconds to probably one of the top 3 swimmers in the triathlon scene in Ontario. But once again he put another 40 seconds into me in the transition to the bike. At this point I had no clue what my time was, and would have zero data to give me a guide on the bike, no power, no speed, no timer, nothing. I would literally only be able to judged how fast I was going by the burn in my legs. And boy did I make it hurt. I pushed and pushed and pushed, and was essentially time trialing the bike. Eventually I saw Jessey, the leader, up the road, gave myself another pep talk, and put the hammer down. I wish I had some data to now see how many watts I was pushing. By about 14km (1 km before the turnaround) I caught and passed Jessey on one of the many hills, and passed in full on time trial position and didn't say a word, or look over. I hit the turn around and poured on more power, more leg speed, and felt more burn in my legs. They were absolutely screaming at this point to slow down, but I just kept pounding. I didn't look back, didn't do anything expect go into a bigger, and bigger, and then bigger gear until I had no more pushing harder and harder on the pedals. Remember I had no idea what would happen on the run, considering the 100m jog to the trees was the most I ran in a week and really it was probably just faster than walking pace. I entered back into the conservation area and kept pushing hard all the way to the dismount line. In fact, I was going so fast at the dismount line that when a braked to get off the bike my back wheel came up right off the ground like a nosedive and I practically went sailing over my aerobars.

Next I shuffled into transition, had no clue what kind of time I just biked on a hilly course but knew it was pretty fast feeling, and was now onto the run. This would be the first time in my entire running career I would run without a watch of some sort. In fact, I'm kind of known for being probably a little too obsessed with the numbers, in that I have countless amounts of race pictures of me out on course looking down at my watch. Since I have never, even when I first started running, run without a watch I really do not really have a good ability to judge my pace on the run. I guess you could probably go with the same idea as I had on the bike on run so hard that it hurts, but the probably was that I was injured going in so even just shuffling hurt. It hit the 1 km sign and was absolutely convinced I would be caught before I hit the turnaround at 3.5 km. I really believed and felt like I was running 5 min/km. I felt incredibly slow. In addition, in transition when I had put my shoes on, a rock the size of montana lodged into my left shoe, and with every step I took I could feel the rock digging deeper and deeper into my shoe. When I hit the 2 km sign I was sure I was probably running for around 10 minutes, based on both the fact I wasn't breathing particularly hard, and also the speed at which the trees I was running past were going by. My foot was also in agony at this point. Eventually I made it to the turnaround at 3.5 km and figured I would see Jessey momentarily. I kept running and running and still I didn't see him. It was all the way until about 4km when I saw him and figured that meant I had 3 and a half maybe 4 minutes on him and only 3 km to go. I calculated in my head if he kept running 3:40 or so kilometers to catch me I would only need to run about 4:40, and felt that may have been what I was running at this point. Eventually around 5.5 km my legs started feeling half decent and my stride opened up ever so slightly, but the stomach pain started up again, and my foot was just throbbing. I made it to the finishing chute, realized that I was about to win for the first time in the race, and was more shocked than happy. I broke the finishing tape in 1:23:50, almost 4 minutes faster than last years winning time, and won by 4 minutes. I found out afterwards that I had actually run 24:11 for the 7 km which is 3:27/km pace which is pretty darn fast for a triathlon, or any running race period. I was completely shocked when I found that out. I was sure I ran like 30 minutes if not more. When I crossed the finish tape, and didn't even really celebrate. I didn't really know what to do. I was so surprised, shocked, and had a whirlwind of emotions going through my head and body. I had no clue I could run that fast given the week I had leading into the race. I guess maybe the rock helped in a weird way in that my left foot hurt so much because of it, that it took my mind off my right knee. This was undoubtly not only a huge win at a prominent race, but undoubtedly the best win of my career, it terms of both overcoming adversity, and giving everything I had from start to finish. I went after the race to look in the water for my watch but no luck. But the situation was quickly solved as my Dad bought me another one just that afternoon. That'll about wrap up this long post.

Until next time have a good one. In my next post I talk about my race at the Provincial Championships, and a new Sponsorship signing!

Niagara Triathlon

Couple weekends ago, I competed in the Niagara Sprint Triathlon (Swim/Bike). The race included a 750m swim in Lake Ontario, and a 25km bike which included an incredibly steep 2km up the escarpment. The hill was slightly shorter than the one in the Milton Tri earlier in June, however it was much steeper. Going into the race my swimming was continuing to improve and my goal for the swim would be 10:30 which would equate to 1:24/100m. My wave was the third wave to go. In hindsight, I wish before the race I had asked to go into the elite category who would go first, however I started two groups back, which would mean needing to meander through the water passing people, and having to significantly slow down at the turns to get around people. I felt my goal time was reasonable considering the times I had been hitting in the week leading into the race, however, I failed to take into account the effect of swimming in a big lake like Lake Ontario, were the water would be much more choppy than both a pool, and Guliver's Lake, where I have been swimming on a pretty regular basis, which is only 1km the whole way around. In the previous 4 races, I have averaged 70, 72, 72, and 74 strokes per minute respectively, however this race owing to the choppy water averaged 78 stroke per minute, which may not sound significant, but for the first 5:30 of the swim my stroke rate was in the 80s and topped out at 96 stroke per minute ---THAT's my hand entering the water every 0.625 seconds which is very quick for me at least. Even though the overall average isn't probably hugely different from the previous swims, this one in the water just felt like the only way I could move forward was to spin my arms as quickly as possible, and didn't feel like each stroke was taking me very far. This will definitely be something I will look to work on in the coming months: being able to sustain a high stroke rate to make up for the choppy water conditions, but at the same time maintaining a good catch and pull in the water. In any case, I managed to finish the swim in 10:58 seconds which is slower than I wanted, but I was content with it. What I will say is that after the last two days' swims that time is in need of some serious revision. Yesterday I averaged approximately 1:20/100m for 22 100s, will minimal recovery (in some cases leaving on 1:25 [less than 5 second recovery]), and today I did 4 800s and did 2 of the 800s in 11:25 with what I would consider an easy perceived rating of exertion (in other words on a scale of 1-10, 10 represented all out effort, I would rate this around a 6). As 750m that pace time equates to approximately 10:30 for the 750m, and I did that twice. So I'm still feeling very optimistic for the future.

Next was onto the bike, which I where I feel most comfortable. My fixed power meter (brand new spider) was not yet installed on my bike so once again I would be going entirely by feel. This was not optimal considering the hill we were about to face very early on in the race, since helping with pacing up a climb is probably one of a power meters best contributions. Nevertheless, I stormed out of transition and immediately hit the gas. The first 4 minutes before the hill I averaged 43 km/hr. Once I got to the hill the pace significantly dropped, averaging 23 km/hr for the next 4 minutes, however considering many of my competitors were having to walk their bikes up the hill (it was really that steep), I was pretty happy with the effort. I did feel like I probably didn't get my gear selection quite right for that climb, feeling that I could probably have been in a bigger gear - that is another aspect a power meter can help with since it also measures cadence, and my cadence was likely well into the 110 RPM range, which is probably too high. I will say despite the indoor trainer being the best training aid I've ever purchased, the only drawback to it is that you don't get to practice gear selection as regularly. Half way up the climb I considered going up a couple gears, but at that point I was on the steepest part of the climb, and thought that changing gears under this amount of tension could spell disaster so I stuck to it in the gear I had chosen, and got up it nicely. Was putting exhausted  for the next 20-30 seconds, but was right back at a high pace quickly. The final 20 kilometres of the race I averaged 42.4 km/hr with a few good stretches in the 50s. I had figured on the downhill back to the start (it was an out and back course so you would go down the same hill you went up) I could make up the time I lost going up the hill to get my overall average above 40 km/hr however the twists and turns in the descent, and a car going up the hill in the middle of the road which forced me to grab my brakes hard and do a pretty significant fishtail to avoid it, meant that it was difficult to blast my way down the hill and get that average above 40. Nonetheless, managed to complete the 25 km bike in 38:50 for an average of 39 km/hr. Overall I won the race by more than 10 minutes, and in all the day's race including the full Sprint Triathlon I had the second fastest bike split, and fifth fastest swim, so it was a pretty good day.

Next up is the K-Town (Kingston) Long Course Triathlon (Swim/Bike). This one will hopefully draw out some good competition, and will be a good test with a 2 km swim, and a 56 km bike. In the Welland Tri which had the exact same race distance my time for the whole race was 1:55:19, so that will be the time to beat. However, I am realizing that times in Triathlon are very difficult to compare for a number of reasons. One, weather plays a much more significant role than in running race, due to the effect on both the water, and the major effect that wind has on the bike. Also, all races have different transition set-ups, and locations of the timing mats, and locations for mount/dismount lines for the bike leg. For instance, in Guelph the timing mat for the swim was about a 200m run up the beach to the entrance of the transition area. In Niagara, the timing mat was right at the exit of the water. In Welland, you had to go up a flight of stairs to the transition, and then run your bike approximately 200 m out to the road to where you could mount your bike. So it's very difficult to measure improvement by time, however, this week I will have a fully functioning power meter on my bike (it is beauty) therefore it will help judge how good I am really getting on the bike, and then serve as a comparator for future races.

Rose City and the Plans for the Future

The next race on the schedule was the Rose City Long Course Triathlon in Welland, ON on June 26. This was a 2km swim followed by a 56 km bike on a flat course. Heading into the race, I was so pumped about my swimming starting to come back to form thanks to starting to work with a swim coach from Milton, Sheryl Ross. She is amazing, and knows her stuff so well. Her background as a kinesiologist really makes the approach very scientifically based, and has been putting together my swim program which I will be following through the summer, and into the winter. After only 1 session with her I felt my stroke had become that much more efficient. The game plan was to work on basically lengthening out my stroke, so that I'm completing the stroke fully with complete tricep extension, and starting my pull slightly earlier. Also, I've been working hard on maintaining core stability in the water, bilateral breathing, and not lifting my body vertically in the water as I pull through the stroke, so all my power is dedicated to forward movement through the water. So far the workouts have a great mix of drills, and pace work, and it really makes the time fly in the pool, being able to shut down and focus on only my form, and not having to think about what interval I should do next, or combination of intervals to do each day.

So now onto Welland. My swim wave of (ages 18-39) started 1 minute after the 15 pro/elite group. The swim course was amazing. It was at the Flatwater Centre in Welland where they held the rowing events for the paralympics last summer, so it meant that the water was very clean. The course was a simple rectangle swimming about 900 meters out then across to the other side of the river, 900 m back and then back into the swim transition for 2km. Initially, when planning out how long the race would take, my goal time for the swim was 30 minute or 1:30/100m. After the pros went, my wave was sent off. It started at a furious pace, according to my watch I averaged 1:12/100m for the first 200 meters! I reached the 1km mark at 13:46. By approximately 600 meters I caught up to the tail end of the pro/elite group who started a minute before, and began passing. By about 1200 meters I caught a second pack of the pro group and passed them. I completed the 2km in 28:59 for a solid 1:26/100m average pace. This was the sixth fastest swim of the day among all racers in all categories. I'll explain later why I'm especially happy with this result. So now onto my girl Elektra. There was a very long run up to the transition up a set of stairs, and then an even longer run from the transition to the road where we could mount our bikes. Out on the course, the first half was entirely into a headwind (17 mph steady gusting to 30), that was hurting slightly from the left side as well. This meant gearing slightly down to keep my cadence nice and high. I saw up ahead after about 5km a rider slogging it in a big gear, and knew I would catch them shortly. Picked them off pretty quickly and according to strava's estimate, my surge to past was at 816 W, and had been averaging about 300 W for the first 10

kilometres, which is 5.4 W/Kg. After another few kilometres I saw my next victim up ahead by a good margin. It took a while but eventually at about 21km he was within striking distance. I tried to make a move to pass but about 10 m away from him I decided it was not going to be a clean pass so dropped back to a legal distance, regained some energy, then yelled at myself to let er rip. I averaged 340 W (6.1 W/kg) for the next 3 kms, and took a quick look back at the turn, and had him beat. So my position was looking even better. Past another competitor a little later and now made the turn back to the finish. The wind had changed slightly, it was helping a little but was now more of a straight south wind which meant a crosswind. I kept my cool, geared up and pounded it back to the finish. The final 20 km I averaged the highest power average I ever have with 352 W for about 27 minutes. That is 6.3 W/kg!! Tour de France numbers. Over this time I averaged 44.5 km/hr, meaning I completed the 56.5 kms or so in 1:23:13 for an average speed of 41 kph. It was one of the best bikes I've ever done, and my overall time was 1:55 for the win (four in a row). Was hurting bad into that headwind on the first half, but just took it 1 minute at a time. What I was most proud at was that another elite cyclist in my division was neck in neck with me in terms of my bike split, meaning that my swim won me the race, since I was out of the water 4 minutes faster than him. This gives me confidence that I'm not a one trick pony with just being able to win races on the bike, but being able to go toe to toe with some of the better swimmers in the sport which bodes well for my future.

So the game plan is now to do the Niagara Triathlon on July 17 and try to pb the swim. After that I'm hoping my running is back to form, and I'm able to compete in the National Championships which I've qualified for in Nebraska August 14, and then do a half ironman in August as well. After that will likely do Guelph Lake in September, and then another half ironman (Niagara Falls Barrellman) later in September which will be the provincial championships. After that the race season is not quite done, as I would like to do the US National Championships for the Aquabike in Miami in November. Luckily, doing these crazy tough bike workouts right now in the heat of my apartment is probably pretty similar to what weather I can expect in Miami. Today's workout was no joke, 2x7 minutes at 110% FTP, 2X5 minutes at 115% FTP, 1x3min at 120%, 1x 2minutes at 125% FTP. My apartment was 90 degrees Fahrenheit at the time, and with the intensity of the intervals after the fourth interval, I was no lie in tears from the extreme discomfort I was in. I have no idea how but I was able to dig even deeper for the two subsequent intervals with my heart pounding along near maximum, and legs absolutely searing from the lactate surging through them. But how did I make it through, I kept repeating over and over I KNOW I CAN DO THIS. I actually think letting out that emotion stirred up some more adrenaline and helped carry my body through the last two intervals. Forgot to mention that I was carrying a huge amount of fatigue into this workout with a number of difficult workouts in the days prior, including a 172 km long ride from Thornhill to see my grandparents on Canada Day in Trenton. For that ride the final 92 kilometres was completed 2:30 hours for 37 km/hr average speed. It was a beastly ride, and I felt like I could keep going for much longer afterwards which is re-assuring for my future plans to one day compete in Kona for the Ironman World Championships.

A Lengthy Update

It's been a while since I last updated my blog but I wanted have something more positive to write about than what I left you with after my last post. This was becoming a super long post so I split it up into two separate ones the second of which I'll post in a couple days I promise. Since it's been so long I don't even really know where to begin. First a quick recap. So as you recall the day after the 8 km race in April, I sustained a very bad injury to my left leg. I was unable to run or even walk without severely limping due to pain around my knee, radiating down into my lower leg and foot. If I had tried running it would be tolerable for a few seconds before feeling like a pressure was building in my lower leg, until feeling like it was going to explode. If I tried to walk slightly faster, the pain would be so gross my whole leg would give out from underneath me. I was convinced it was compartment syndrome, however this injury was the strangest injury that I've ever sustained in that the pain was never consistent. Some days it would feel as though it was my knee that was the problem, and other days it would feel as though it was my lower leg that was the problem in the anterior compartment of shin. Sometimes it would feel similar to a stress fracture at the medial part of my leg. And other times it would feel as though it was a hip problem. I had seen a therapist here at McMaster, who thought it was a problem in one of my hip muscles as well that was impinging on the nerve specifically the femoral nerve that was causing the pain to radiate Down into my knee and into my lower leg as well. He worked on my hip, and I kept up my homework that he had given me to work out some tightness in my glute minimus specifically, and the posterior side of the vastus lateralis (one of the quad muscles) near my ITB band. The homework consisted of a lot of painful active release techniques, and balance exercises to improve the strength of my hip muscles. I also did a lot of work simply stepping forwards onto the left foot and bringing my hips forwards as I did so, while keeping my abs tight, and my pelvis in a slight posterior tilt. Essentially, for a solid 2 months my core/strength workouts essentially had been aimed at re-inventing how I move. I've always known that I run with quite a severe amount of lordosis in my lumbar spine couple with an anteriorly rotated pelvis. Overtime this has given me a plethora of frontal hip problems and lower back problems. Specifically my hip flexors, since they have been needing to work so hard from an anatomically disadvantaged and lengthened position. Within the first couple weeks I saw my knee pain disappear, however the pain in my lower leg persisted. Like I said before this was the strangest injury I've ever had, and the most debilitating in terms of gross pain. I can't remember how many times I said to people yes it's compartment syndrome, to then less then a week later saying yes it's 100% a deep stress fracture in the tibia, to no it's a stress fracture of the fibula, to it feels like a high degree ankle sprain.

Throughout this time, I had been putting in monster weeks on the bike and in the pool. I had been averaging anywhere from 25-35km in the pool, and 450-550km on the bike per week. As I mentioned before in my last post, I have been following an intense program provided by TrainerRoad for the indoor trainer, and was in the midst of the build phase of the program (there are three phases: base, build, speciality). Whereas the base phase consisted of many sweet spot workouts or workouts about 10-20% below my threshold, with a focus of increasing the amount of time I could tolerate at a sub-threshold power, the build phase, in my opinion, was much more demanding in that it consisted of weekly VO2 max workouts, and bi-weekly over-under workouts, and well as a bi-weekly long ride. The VO2 max workouts consist of 6-10 shorter intervals in the 3-4 minute range at 120-125% FTP with the aim of increasing my aerobic and anaerobic power. The intervals are setup in a way such that you are supposed to be barely able to finish each interval. Overtime, I could start to see the improvements and felt my VO2 max was beginning to respond. For example, one workout which was 10x3minutes at 115% FTP saw my Heart Rate climb up to 196-197 which was the highest heart rate, other than my VO2 max test in my undergrad, that I ever achieved on a bike. Subsequently, two weeks later I did 9x4 minutes but this time at 120% FTP, and my heart rate didn't get above mid 170s indicating that my VO2 max had likely increased. What I found even more demanding than the VO2 max workouts, were the over-under intervals. These consist of longer intervals in the 10-12 minute range where you go from 95% FTP to 105%, and back to 95, then back to 105 and so fourth. This means that as you increase to a %FTP where your muscles begin to flood with a combo of fatigue and lactate, you stay there for a bit, and then the "recovery" though is still at a very high intensity of 95%, so essentially you are forced to try to work through the mounting fatigue and burning in your legs while still pedalling and working at a very high intensity. Essentially, these intervals work to increase your ability to better buffer lactate, increasing not only how long you can work above your FTP but also increasing your FTP itself. I just realized that I've been throwing around the term FTP a whole lot in this last paragraph, and for those of you who do not know what FTP stands for, it means you're functional threshold power which is representation of the maximum power you can sustain for one hour.

The results were incredible. I felt so good on the bike, I built up the confidence to enter into my first ever bike race, which was the Grey County Time Trial in Blue Mountains on May 27 at 7pm. So many new things to take in at this race. My first bike race, my first time trial in any sport, my first time facing professional cyclists in a UCI World Championship Qualifier. A time trial, in case you don't know, is what they call the race of truth. You may have seen it on tv in the tour de france for example where the cyclists have on the skin suits, aero (pointy back) helmet, big disc wheel on the back of the bike, and riding solo at very high speeds on a closed course. Basically, riders go off in one minute intervals, so it is an entirely a solo effort against the clock, and then against competitors to see who had the best time. Now normally, since speed is the name of the game in a time trial they are normally done on flat fast route. Stupidly this was done in Blue Mountain, with categorized climbs, one stretch on a gravelly road, and many turns. Not exactly built for speed, which was frustrating not only to me, who was going to test and push my limits on the bike, but to the professionals who flocked here for the UCI World qualifier. This course was be no means a proper time trial course, it was a road race course which they slapped the name time trial onto. Still it was pretty cool to start on a start ramp to be unleashed onto the course. This one would definitely be challenging for me, considered the gearing on my bike (with an 11-23 cassette) was not build for the hills, and also I was one of two of the only competitors who didn't have a disc or aero carbon wheels on their bike. I had heavy alloy rims on my bike, since the new wheels which I purchased had not yet been delivered, which would again hurt me on the climbs and on the flats. But I tried to keep my mindset such that it was a race against the clock, and an opportunity to push myself into a new realm of pain on the bike. The course was 33.5km long and in such a short amount of time had 1400 ft of elevation gain. Within 1 minute and 8 seconds may heart rate was at 180 bpm. I forgot to mention, unfortunately the week leading into the race my power meter on my bike which itself is worth 3000$ stopped working out of the blue. I have relied on power data throughout my training with TrainerRoad, and was intending on holding a specific power plan for the race course, which was critical to my pacing strategy. Since many readers following along may be runners and not cyclists, to put it into more relatable terms, think about it as though going into a marathon you have trained for 16 weeks and intended on sticking to 5 min/km to run a 3:30 marathon and then in the week before the race, your watch stops working and you need to race without it. So I had no data to go by except for heart rate to judge my effort, which can be incredibly unreliable since so many factors affect it. Anyways back to the time trial, so after the first couple turns, by 4 minutes when the road straightened out and turned into the wind, my heart rate was up at 186 and was travelling 44-50 km/hr. On the category 3 climb, according to Strava which can make a rough estimation of power output based on speed and the gradient of the climb I averaged approximately 400 Watts (almost 8 w/kg) for 3.5 km and heart rate peaked at 190 bpm. It really is a totally different feeling then running in a race, where here it felt literally like my heart was beating out of my chest and legs were absolutely burning. Anyways to skip a little ahead. I conquered that climb, then pounded it to the finish with a couple more hills to get over before then. On the gradual descent back to the finish I peaked at 80 km/hr which was a big confidence booster for me. I'm not going to lie, fast descents scare the daylights out of me, but to hit this speed on one and not touch the brakes gave me a lot of confidence, confidence which I would need in my next race up, the Milton Triathlon. But before I get to that, to sum up the Time Trial, which in warmup based on the look of my competition who were mostly professional category 1 and 2 cyclists and the fact that everyone had bikes with light carbon wheels and aerodynamic discs, along with 1000$ skin suits for aerodynamics, I thought I was going to come dead last, but actually managed a mid-pack finish, and averaged 39km/hr for 51 minutes on a hilly course with garbage roads. So I was very pleased with my effort, and according to Strava which again gave a rough estimate of my power it said my estimated power averaged was 300W. This would have been a new FTP. The next morning after staying over in Blue Mountain, I biked back to Thornhill. I was initially thinking this was going to be an easy downhill ride back since I had a 4.5 hour ride scheduled at an easy intensity on the trainer road plan. It wasn't. It was crazy hilly especially when in the cliffs in Mono, and climbed almost 4000ft. Not to mention this was on a day with an extreme heat alert with the temperature in the low 40s with the humidex, and o ya to add to things was into a headwind start to finish, with the south winds bringing in the hot air. So I would say it far from a recovery ride, but again I pulled through and sucked it up to finish strong. About 2 hours in I wanted to give up so badly, my heart rate was very high throughout and was breathing very hard start to finish thanks to the heat. Going up one monster climb in Mono which was about a 15 minute long steep climb I was struggling, but I tried to convince myself that I did not have a phone in my back pocket and that this was the only way home. It worked. I was able to re-focus, and grind away the miles.

Now onto Milton. But before I get there, I should mention that biking was not the only thing I was up to. In early May I started swimming with 4 elite triathletes at Mac on a regular basis, all of whom are better swimmers than me. But I figured I would never get better by continuing to swim random workouts on my own at my own pace. Initially, I was needing to go all out just to stay near their feet in the water. For example, we would have sets in the beginning where they would say okay so were going to do 12x50m leaving on 45 (meaning the repetitions start every 45 seconds, so if your finished in 40 then you get 5 second recovery before the next interval, if you finish in 45, then you just keep swimming hoping you can pick up the pace to get some recovery before the next one). They would say 12x50 in 45 just building into the set. I would say sure and instead of going easy would need to go flat out start to finish make the pace time. The problem was that this was a building set into the main set which was supposed to be much harder. Well I was already going flat out. After about a week of flogging myself, I started seeing huge gains, and basically was setting new personal bests every day, and now was able to keep up and do the sets the right way.

So the Milton Triathlon was a sprint distance triathlon, meaning it was a 800 meter long swim and a 30 km bike. This race is part of the Subaru Triathlon Series, which always attract high level competition. Since I was still not running consistently and pain-free at this point I was entered in, into the Swim/Bike Division. Meaning exactly what it sounds like, there is the same swim, same bike, and your finish is at the end of the bike. My wave went approximately 6 minutes after the first wave, and 3 minutes after the seconds. By about 1 minute into the race, there was no one near me in my wave, and a couple minutes later I caught the second wave. I meandered through this wave of swimmers, and after a few more minutes caught up to the first wave of the race. I had a great swim doing the 800 meters in 10 minutes and 40 seconds. Then I ran out of the water, and got it going on Elektra. The race is known for a very long steep climb up the escarpment, and again my bike wasn't really built for this, but I passed countless numbers of riders, and was beginning to dominate the competition (remember the people I was passing had started 6 minutes before me). Eventually I was passing some of the elite cyclists in the sport as the rain began to fall. The roads were starting to get wet, and we still had to go back down that same hill that we previously climbed up. Again I went down it with no fear peaking over 80 km/hr on wet roads, with a hard left hand turn right at the base of the hill (gulp). Got through it, and finished the race incredibly strong. I had won my race by a huge margin, and had the fastest bike split of the day, and very close to the course record. I covered the 30km in 45 minutes for 40 km/hr average speed.

Next up was the Guelph Triathlon, also part of the Subaru Series, where I would be doing the Olympic Distance Swim/Bike on the Saturday (1.5km swim, 40km bike) and then the Sprint Distance Swim/Bike (800m, 20km) as well on the Sunday. Going into the race my swimming was not quite as strong (I was just not feeling as strong in the water in the workout leading up to the race) but still managed to hold a pretty good pace of 22 minutes for 1500m (1:27/100m). I got out of the water in a great position, and got onto my deadly weapon of a bike Elektra, which was now equipped with awesome deep carbon wheels. Once again I dominated the race, and won again by a massive margin. This time I had the third fastest bike split of the day, in a much deeper and more elite field which included a number of professional triathletes. I completed the 40 km in 1 hour 1 minute on a windy day, and rolling course which a couple major climbs. On the way back (it was an out and back course) I averaged anywhere from mid 40s to 65 km/hr. Next day right back to the course, and familiar feelings winning the race once again propelled to victory by my bike split completing the 20 km in 29 minutes flat. This was a pretty tough feeling race to start with on the bike, as about 5 km in I was thinking trying to double on consecutive days was a bike idea as my legs felt a little flat, but battled through and broke the race up into 1 minute segments, focusing on holding a consistent cadence, and not dwelling on the pain mounting in my legs.

Here's a post-race photo with my beast of a bike, and new stunning wheels:

So three consecutive wins, and next up would be my toughest challenge the Rose City Long Course Triathlon in Welland with details in my next post. 

To sum up this post though, one quote comes to mind from the great Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest, "Never give up, never surrender." When everything seems to be going wrong, and there is seemingly no answer, trust in your abilities, and believe that you will overcome whatever obstacles that face you. Hard work pays off, and those times where you think you can't keep going, or need to slow down, believe that your work ethic and your perseverance is what will set you apart from your competition on race day and in life in general. I constantly say to myself in training one of my favourite quotes, "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." (Aristotle)

Thanks for reading, and until next time, get outside, and enjoy the day pushing your so called limits. 

Race Roster Spring Run Off 8 km and Post-Race

Last weekend (April 9) I lined up to compete in the newly named Race Roster Spring Run off 8km, formally the Harry's Spring Run off. Post-Achilles 5km, the 4 weeks of training leading up to race day could not have possibly gone any better. I was carrying zero injuries, and my stride felt completely free during workouts. Free to surge as I pleased, and for the first time in ages it seemed, I was able to just walk out the door and start running without having to get myself mentally psyched up to push through any injury and the accompanying pain. As I mentioned previously I've been following a plan by the world's best running coach, Jack Daniels, who has coached numerous Olympians and national class runners. The only minor alteratation I made on the program would be on occasion pushing the Thurs workout to a Friday (Good Friday) so I could prepare better, and one other case where I changed the date of a workout to accommodate for weather. Over the 4 weeks my training looked like this:

March 14 - March 20: 142 km Running (over 6 days, 1 day off); 290km Cycling (over 5 days), 9 km swim (over 2 days); 3 hours strength training

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: 6x5min at I pace (3:12/km);
Thurs: 25 min T pace (3:21/km) then 4 x 200m at R pace (33 seconds);
Sat: 60min M pace (3:30/km)

March 21 - March 27: 152 km Running (over 7 days), 290 km Cycling (over 7 days); 3 hours strength training

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: 2x10min (T/I pace) on 1 minute recovery followed by 10k easy, then 2x10min (T/I pace) same recovery -- pace was between 3:12/km-3:16/km (total of 40minutes at T pace);
Friday: 30 min M pace straight into 5 minutes T pace straight back into 30 min M pace --> ended up with 12 miles in 1:06 flat which is 3:25/km for 19.4 km and 1 more mile for 1:11 half marathon on my own in ice storm

March 28 - April 3: 133 km Running (7 days, 1 just 10k shakeout), 380km cycling (over 7 days), 3 hours strength

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: Track Session: 2 sets of 1,2,3,2,1 min R pace intervals on 1 min recovery, 5 minutes between sets pace ranged from 2:48/km to slowest of 2:58/km
Friday: 20 min T pace, 10 min T pace, 5 min T pace (averaged 3:18/km for 10.66 km) 5 minute recovery between intervals

April 4 - April 10: 140 km Running (7 days, 1 just a shakeout, 1 race), 170 km Cycling (4 days Recovery week in base plan, last week before enter build phase), 3 hours strength, 5 km swim

Key Run Workouts that week: Mon: 30 minute M pace straight into 20 minutes T pace --> overall 15 km in 50 minutes which is 3:20 per kilometre continued on is 1:10 half marathon (route including 8 turn arounds since only a 2 mile stretch where there wasn't any ice on road and that would put it into 1:09 high range)
Thurs: Pre-Race Workout: 2-2-3-2-4-2-3-2-2-2 minutes on 30 seconds recovery overall 7.64 km in 24:00 (3:08/km)

Saturday: Race Day

Was feeling very confident that I would be able to lay down a good race given the weeks of great workouts leading into race day. Unfortunately the weather wasn't exactly cooperating, and combined with the hilly nature of the course in high-park, I knew I would need a more a cross-country directed mindset on race day, where time was irrelevant, and it would just be all about placing and effort. There was a strong north wind making the -4 degree air temperature feel -14. Damn cold for my split shorts and singlet. I had never been in high park before, and about 1 km into my warmup realized it was very hilly. There would be only 1 stretch along the course which would be close to flat for about 800 m, and up and down and twisting around for the rest of the course, with two bigger hills at the 3km and then the final 8 km where the race featured a #killthehill challenge - They put a timing mat at the bottom of the hill and the finish was right at the top of the hill, and whoever went up the hill the fastest would get an additional prize. This race always gets a stacked field and this year was no different with approximately 25 elite male runners, including myself.

During my warm-up I ran into Paul Rochus, another great runner who has competed on McMaster's Cross Country and track teams for the last few years, and who teamed up with me this fall to do our long runs together. While the rest of the team would go do there long runs going up and down hill after hill and scampering around rocks, roots, and trees, Paul and I preferred our long runs to be at a little faster of a pace and all about locking into a pace and into a rhythm, so we would keep our long runs on the rail trail and pump out more distance in less time. Paul also recently joined the Skechers Performance team, and debuted in the half marathon at the Chilly Half this March with a sizzling 1:09:40.

At 10:15 we were off, and the race got out crazy fast. For the second race in a row I was kind of sleeping at the wheel so to speak, and slow to react to the leaders moving out very quickly. I took way too long to recognize the situation and I knew given the conditions it would be paramount that I get into a pack. We turned up the hill at the 1km point and I was in a group that I knew I had to get out of soon. So despite turning now back into the strong N wind, after a lot of thought in such a short period of time saw Paul's way up ahead and decided I needed to try to split this long gap solo to them. I cut to the outside from behind my pack and surged up. I calculated in my head that based on the size of the gap this would be about a 7-10 minute long effort to get up to them so I made sure not to completely go into the red early in the long effort. Fortunately about after a couple minutes 2 of the runners from the group fell back and I picked them up and used them for some assistance for then next 2 minutes. After the hill at 3km was hurting a bit, but by 4km I had narrowed the gap to 9 seconds and just kept repeating over and over in my head that I would catch Paul's group. I kept repeated over and over that with each stride I was gaining and would eventually get them. At 5km I got another one of the runners who had fallen off, and at that point it was only Paul and Matt Loiselle (a 1:04 half marathoner, and 2:16 marathoner) left up ahead. Right after the 5km point there was an incredibly steep twisting downhill, no more than about 30 m long, which I did not see until I got within a stride of it, thanks to a big tree at the top of it. It took me by surprise and entered the steep drop at about 2:50/km and almost fell head over heels, and I had to brake very hard in a hurry. Thankfully there were no cameras/recorders there since I actually swore pretty loudly when I braked really hard. But continued on, and now there was a decently flat stretch near the bottom of the park. I had past Matt soon after the descent, and Paul was next in my sights. One runner in front of Paul, pulled out of the race, and now I figured I must actually be in a decent placing. From 15:30 into the race until 18:00 my pace didn't drop below 3:04/km and could feel I was putting myself back into a decent time. Was now less than a few seconds back from Paul and heard at 7km we we in 7th and 8th.  My goal heading into the race was top-10. Leading up to the #killthehill hill I put approximately a 15 second long (not very long I know) surge in and made a clean pass on Paul. Shouted a word of encouragement to me teammate as we made our way onto the base of the hill. Powered up it but was trying to save the slightest amount of energy, because I had thought that at the top there would be a plateau and then a couple hundred meters to the finish line. I figured with Paul close behind me that final couple hundred meters would be a grind sprint to the finish with a guy who has much more track and cross country experience than myself, so I tried to conserve a little energy for that effort. Unfortunately, this is why it pays to see a course in person before-hand because right at the top of the hill lay the finish line. While I crossed still in the lead over Paul, was marginally disappointed since had I known the finish came up so soon I would've given a much harder effort on the hill. Regardless, it was a fantastic race, and result, finishing 7th overall in such a powerhouse field, finishing on this course and with the cold and wind in 25:55 (which on a flat course I would think is in the 25:20-30 range (in fact the grade adjusted pace on strava puts it at 25:28)), and also managed to nab first in my age category for a nice shiny gold medal. What I was most pleased with was how I battled. After missing the boat on the first kilometre to get into the fast group, I could have easily coasted with the second group and run 27 or something, like I did last year after missing the lead group at Around the Bay 5km. But I didn't, I said to myself, I didn't come here to coast, and even if this is going to take a huge solo effort to get up to the first group I'll try my best, and battled and battled for the better part of 5.5km solo to finally make it up to the group and then go on to finish ahead of them. Was very pumped, and figured given my current fitness level, and beating runners who have run 1:09 half marathons, and 1:04 half marathons, that come May 1st in Mississauga I would dismantle my pb of 1:11:03.

The next day I got up early and was super motivated to continue on this great stretch of training. Got to the pool nice and early, had a good swim and was pumped to get out and tackle a steady easy pace long run (as the program suggested). Throughout the first 10-15 km or so I was just thinking about my race, and Mississauaga coming up. Kilometers were rolling by. Until after about 75 minutes I felt something weird in my right leg. It felt like my right whole leg got really heavy, and my knee gave out 2 or 3 times. Based on where the pain in my knee was I figured it was a minor irritation, some patellar-femoral pain (runner's knee), continued to the finish of the run and actually ended up finishing quite strong. However, now and again the knee/leg would get this feeling. It's very hard to put into words but it felt like a vice going around my knee joint and making the rest of the leg below feel very heavy and like it was wanting to give out. I iced the knee afterwards however, the leg continued to hurt throughout the rest of the day, not crazy 10/10 pain, but it was definitely sore and causing my to have a very minor limp. On Monday, that limp was a whole lot worse, and decided to take the day off running. On Tuesday, the pain was definitely still there is the morning, but as the day wore on the pain improved and by the evening I felt ready to run again. I had a workout scheduled for that night, and decided I would warm-up and after about 25 minutes warmup decide if I could go on with the workout or not. After the warmup I could feel it but it was nothing crazy. It was more in my mind than anything, and didn't feel my stride was affected. The workout was 3x5min T pace on 1 min rec, then 3x3 min I pace on 2 min rec, than 3x400m R pace 400 m rec. Got through the first 3 5 minuters at 3:15/km and thought that was that, minor blip no big deal. First 3 minute at 3:08/km, second 3 minute got to 1:30 in and within a stride or two after the halfway mark of the interval stopped dead in my tracks. It felt like barbed wire wrapped tightly around my entire knee. I stopped, and tried to hobble home. Wednesday, I could barely walk, Thursday was not much better. By Sunday I felt like the worst had past and after jumping up and down in the basement here at home, I thought I was good to give it a go. I tried to be smart, and would run about 45 minutes very slowly along and would re-evaluate then and give my usual pace a go. After 45 minutes I could feel it but I guess the slow pace was never putting my leg into that same position that caused the major issues and when I ran up to my easy pace, same thing from the Tuesday night, and had to walk about 1 hour back home. Now here the bizarre thing, after the run, and the day after, and now here 2 days later it is not my knee that I feel at all, instead it feels like my tibia has a stress fracture in it. Completely baffled how a stress fracture would be able to come up so suddenly since it's like like I've being running through this at all, and why on Sunday, and Tuesday I felt such severe pain around my knee not my lower shin bone.

At this point this is seeming like a pretty severe injury, whatever it is, and Mississauga is off. Likely Ottawa Half Marathon which was my back-up incase I didn't hit my goal time in Miss. is off as well, as well as Barrie. Overall, looks like my season of racing is over. The pain is actually so bad that in the pool I'm unable to kick, which would also mean my Half-Ironman plans are off. At this point nothing is on the schedule, nothing looks remotely doable. So this long stretch of injuries just keeps seeming to continue, on a on. With past injuries I could feel them coming, and I'll admit my stubbornness helped to precipitate them. For instance in December when I stopped running due to a stress fracture, I had been dragging myself through runs for more than a month and a half at that point. With this what sucks the most is that I went from the best training and racing in my life to not being able to get up easily out of chair, go up or down the stairs, or take a pain free step, within a 1 day span. I was believing that I had turned the corner, and could finally start legitimately improving again. I can't improve by training 1 or 2 months at a time before getting injured for a month. It takes 6 weeks alone to reach a new level of fitness, but that's assuming your starting from your baseline. The last 3 years it usually takes 4 weeks before I feel I'm even at my baseline again, then I'll get a couple weeks at the most out of it to increase my fitness level before getting another injury, and having to start from ground zero again. Based on 2:34 marathon in 2013 which really seems like a lifetime ago now, I should have been already well on my way to being on the cusp of breaking 2:20 in the marathon. I was thinking this fall I would run Scotiabank again, and rock a mid 2:2x:xx, but it is actually impossible for me to even sign up for races anymore that far in advance because I'm unsure whether I'll be injured or not come race day. It really seems as though right now it's not even a question of will I get injured or not, and instead what will get injured. I'll try to update you on my status, but I won't promise it will be soon as I don't want to write blog posts about such depressing topics. I would like to someday write posts about the future, and improvements, and goals, and dreams being accomplished. Instead right now, I feel like I had this fire burning within, and it's been extinguished. I don't feel any hope and desire is left in my body or mind to go through this again. And I'll admit that while I enjoy biking, and sometimes enjoy swimming, nothing and I mean nothing in the world makes me feel how I feel out on a run. It's not like this magical thing out there from start to finish of a long run or something, of course there are times out there mid-interval where I feel my heart pounding, and breathing becoming out of control that I'm not enjoying it, but it's every now and then for a few short moments out on a run, that I feel happy and like whatever is going on in my life doesn't matter. Soon the moment will pass, but it's that feeling that I'm in search of each and every time I go out the door to run. In a way it's because it's so brief that make it that much more special. And why I'm addicted to it. It's why I don't just give up, and finally say enough is enough. Because despite the horrible lows that I've experienced due to injury over the past few years, it's that short short moment of happiness and satisfaction that makes it something I need in my life, and why I will not give up.