My Welland Half Iron - getting faster, and stupider

05:07:26
111/403 OA
7/35 AG

Bottom line: Really happy to have not over-cooked the 90k bike portion, allowing my 1:40:XX run time to come in just over 6% slower than my stand-alone half-marathon PB - 2nd out of 35 in my AG!

Overall I enjoyed myself quite a bit on Sunday in spite of my struggles with a passive-aggressive semi-conscious ambivalence for the swim that saw me forget yet again to pack my goggles. I usually rotate between a few pairs of ordinary, unremarkable goggs that are well broken in, straps just right, etc etc. You know the types:
This time around, as I scoured the expo for a quick fix, I decided I'll live life on the edge and spice up my growing collection of emergency acquisitions. I'd heard good things about the Aqua Sphere line, and when one merchant passed me his Vista model to try, I shoved it against my face and immediately heard a comforting farting sound as air whooshed out (not what you're thinking)(that was later, on the run) et voila! they stuck firm. I was sold - they stayed put without even their straps, plus the wide contact perimeter promised less vivid raccoon eyes, how could I go wrong?! I quickly donned my wetsuit and dove into the lake minutes before the start to see about setting the strap tension and getting in a brief warmup. The Vistas worked wonderfully... until I took a few strokes.

It would seem my cadaver-like lack of cheek meat meant these impostors just perched against my face in perfect conditions. Once I added in head rotations and sideways leans, the enchanting suction washed away in a flood of water.
A little (masochistic?) thrill of panic ensued. The shoreline of the canal was fairly steep, rocky and slimy underfoot, so I could hardly remain steady as the Race Director held up his tiny air horn like an executioner's axe and called out "Two minutes!" Each time I feverishly rammed the now-soaked Vistas against my face that same farting sound occurred but it was amplified by the wetness - as any self-respecting 11 year-old boy with a wet palm and open armpit would know - resulting in all sorts of offended looks from those treading water near me. They mostly swam closer to the start line, no doubt to avoid the risk of following me, just in case.
The horn blew. With a final shove-n-seal I gingerly took off, hoping against hope that "this time," if I was really clever about it and careful with not changing the shape of my face, and promised to do more volunteer work during holidays, things would hold together. That lasted all of about three strokes. I tried to convince myself it wasn't that bad, but the water sloshing against my eyeball told me otherwise. I instinctively closed my left eye and carried on stroking, evaluating my situation on the fly (as if I had a choice). It appeared that if I gave up bilateral breathing and continued to only roll to the right, my right eye might just stand a chance by remaining above the water surface the entire time. So Popeye the Sailor Man it was: I resigned myself to an overly-exaggerated roll, to one side only, for the entire 2000m. Once again, a whack of swim training sort of goes out the window, though I am sure if it weren't for the base fitness of all those laps I would have been in quite the dire straits. * To be fair to Aqua Sphere, I am certain that taking a reasonable amount of time to set these up right they'll be a fine pair of goggs.

Otherwise things went well enough. Lots of pelotons formed on the bike portion, helped in part by the flat course and the mass start, but at least the officials were doling out time penalties left & right (maybe next time they can be for > 2 mins. because the benefits could be seen as outweighing the drawbacks) The run was mercifully shaded along the canal, and when coupled with some overcast spells I think we collectively dodged a big hazard; nevertheless many many folks were walking by the time their second loop came around.

Great event, the volunteers bent over backwards for us, traffic control was tops - kudos to Multisport Canada, the organizers for this. But a note to them: Next year, please time it or route it differently from the Welland Rose Festival Parade. After queuing up for more than a half hour watching Shriners peeling around in their little go karts, and hearing the approaching thumps and tinkles from yet another marching band, I found myself wanting to tackle the next crowd-flashing clown blocking my exit from the parking lot.

Had I known, I might have climbed out from the start, tightened up my Vistas for a dry-eyed swim, and finished 10 minutes later.

IM Training update #3 - 1st Century Ride

On the heels of a 2.5 hour long run Saturday, I managed to sneak out the door extra early on Fathers' Day (thanks, boys!) & comfortably log about 163 hilly kms on Sunday morning. I quite enjoyed the experience. My home brew of maltodextrin kept me fueled with no apparent side fx, and it all fit into a still-squeezable 750ml bottle behind the seat... very likely I will go with this for Mt. Tremblant. Now if only I could figure out how to carry enough hydration on training rides to skip finding more every two hours I could avoid the nuisance of searching & stopping!

The new FLO wheels are excellent. I found them to be very true, stiff - thank heavens - and decently stable in cross winds. Only downside: the Conti Attack/Force tire combo was a bear to mount; I'll need to be doubly careful with any roadside repairs so as not to pinch the tubes (latex ones, at that = $$!)

Post mortem: the recovery was excellent! Lucky, lucky man. Now to gear up for the half-iron event in Welland this weekend...

How Slow Can I Go?

PROMENADE AUPRES DE LA SEINE AVEC NAGEUR LENT - the Impressionists understood swimming. Can you name even one who had a pair of goggles?

With swimming, I don't know if I've yet plumbed the lowest depths of the slowest speeds. I was reminded of this yesterday while thrashing thru my 2500m workout. Doing laps in the outer lane at my pool put me beside some large picture windows that gave out onto the parking lot. Well, yes... technically the majestic Niagara Escarpment filled the backdrop, but from water level all I could see were car bumpers. And unfortunately, I could also see all of the pedestrians walking between their cars and the gym. And they were, all of them, walking much faster than I was swimming. Really good swimmers will cut through the water at a rate you'd need to jog to keep up to. Decent swimmers can match an average walker. But yesterday, my fears were driven home by the steady parade of Joes Public who were inadvertently handing me my Speedo-swaddled butt; no matter who they were, I was swimming uphill in a silent race they were all unknowingly, uncaringly, winning. The toddler who slowed down, fascinated by his reflection in the glass was bad enough, but the last straw for me came when I breathed to the other side and saw a water-walking blue-rinser in the lane next to me with a noodle tied around his waist, putting time on me. Clearly, an attitude shift was due. I had reached bottom. (Figuratively speaking, of course, being in a pool and all, with another 800m of intervals still to do.)

Luckily, while drifting into and out of hallucinations, as I am wont to do when in oxygen debt, I had an epiphany, and suddenly life became much simpler: rather than constantly fight my years-long current of frustration with my swimming speed, I realized I could just choose to accept it. For instance, I will never again refer to my swim speed, as that loaded word just sets me up for disappointment; henceforth I will call it my swim pace. It makes it sound more like it is a choice... no one needs to know that I have the needle pegged while people on crutches saunter past me - at least not until I come up spitting and gasping for breath at the end of the lane. And rather than see myself as slower than most every other hominid on the planet, I would imagine myself transported to where walking means something else all together. And what better place would that be than the City of Lights, Love, and Locomotion: Paris, France. I recalled - yesterday, just before my 4x200m on 30 secs. rest - that some people actually walk slower than I even swim, and I took solace in that. I remembered back to that time in 1984, in Paris, when I sat on the wall of the Seine, and watched as idle strollers, couples arm in arm, were taking in the romance of that magical city. No doubt they had just finished a multi-course meal at a fine restaurant, a shared bottle of Cote du Rhone coursing through their bloodstreams, and they were just sort of... moving along. You could call it walking, sure, because if you compared their position at any given point from a half hour before they were definitely in a different place. Good enough for me... I now have my new standard to meet. I am no longer slower than absolutely everyone else on earth. I might not be faster than they are, but I think I could match them. Especially if the river's current is flowing in the right direction...

IM Training update #2

I made my own gel on the weekend... and it worked! (I shouldn't sound surprised, right?)
Some details:
- I managed to stuff about 1500 cal. of mostly maltodextrin into a 20oz. bottle for a five hour ride.
- included a few tablespoons of Gatorade for flavour, a half teaspoon of sea salt, a teaspoon of calcium carbonate, and... not quite enough water to make it easy to squeeze (more experimenting needed)
- it tasted nice, nowhere near as sickly sweet as packaged gels, was a fraction of the cost, gave me a consistent dose of energy and, most importantly, it earned my GI tract's Seal of Approval.
- in order to ensure the gel's isotonicity with my blood I calculated I'd need to quaff about 1 litre of water/hour, which is more than the 750mls I often get away with in the garage on the trainer. Will need to see what being outside, in warmer weather, under the stress of a race does to that volume.

Now here's one for the books... the five hour ride I did was on the trainer. You heard me correctly. Trainer. Five. Hours.

Pros to doing this:
- I'd never be more than a few steps from home in case the new malto brew didn't work out
- avoided some nasty winds and rains as well.
- got to see a few feature films and numerous episodes of Top Gear on Netflix.
- confirmed my Castelli bibs are divine. No chamois cream, yet no shower screams.

Cons: other than the profound restlessness of being on a fixed bike?! Not too much; even then it was better than staring at a line on the bottom of a pool!

In all honesty, I can confirm my suspicions that riding a trainer is harder on the body - the core, especially - than being just out on the road and my theory is that it is the absence of what I'd call "micro-adjustments." When on a trainer, we have no reason to move besides pedalling, whereas I think the fluid nature of cycling outdoors would engage/relax all of our body's other muscles just enough to break up their monotonous tension.

Looking forward to my first bike TT of the season this evening, a 20k route in a quiet area with a few good hills. It is nice to be able to sprinkle some events into the schedule to keep it exciting and intense.

Running's gone very well (knock on wood) and I must even say that the moments of good swimming "feel" are occurring more frequently and lasting longer. It doesn't mean I am getting faster, but if it means arriving @ T1 as less of a basket case than I was expecting to, I will be a happy camper.

Random thought that occurred to me as I sat today scarfing down a bowl of my favourite blend of GORP: once the IM is over I am going to be lost if I can't eat like a horse any time I want to. Oh, and the GORP blend? Salted peanuts, roast almonds, raw sunflower seeds, raisins, and dark chocolate chips. Come to think of it, I haven't had any for over an hour... excuse me a minute, will you?