Monday Musings: And just like that, it's over..

Hello!

This time next week I will be writing from my living room couch back in Toronto.  We are in our last few days of our time down south and I feel like I only scratched the surface of all the things I wanted to see and do.  8 weeks seems like a long time but in the grand scheme of things, it isn't really.  Throw in a week of training camp + a week with a guest for said training camp and time flies quickly.  That being said, I had a BLAST these last 8 weeks.  I went to Disney, we hosted some USAT athletes, toured around the Gulf Coast, met some internet friends, ran my first triathlon camp and rode my bike A LOT.  As of today, I've ridden a total of 1,775km during my time here and I still have 4 days left.  I've averaged over 200km a week on 2 wheels.  Suffice to say my running and swimming have suffered a little bit.  But I figured they would when the riding here is SO good and all I want to do is be out on my bike.   I will be doing an FTP test as soon as we're back to see how much I've improved and if my Garmin head unit is accurate in it's predictions.

Selfie at the Leafs / Lighting Game in Tampa.  The Leafs blew a 3-1 lead and lost 4-3.  Still a good game though!

The old pier at Anna Maria Island

IG / FB meets in IRL:  Alison a.k.a Racing Tales and I met up for a hilly ride.  

I am very sad to be leaving.  I love it here.  That's not to say I hate Toronto, because I don't.  It's just different here.  The pace of life is much slower and I generally feel much more relaxed.  Seeing the sunshine every day probably helps with that immensely.  That and the fact that EVERYONE here is so friendly.  All that being said, it will be good to be home and back into the land of our regular health care providers.  Both G and I have beaten ourselves up pretty well.  Even though Clermont is touted as a great training place, they don't have the sports therapist staff to back it up.  We found a great RMT but there isn't anyone in the area that practices ART or FST.  We'd have to go to Orlando for that.  It's mainly because the athletic population is actually quite transient.  People come in to train from January to the end of April and then they go back to where ever home may be.   Clermont is growing at a rapid rate as evidenced by all the new homes that have appeared over the last year but it is a suburb, so it's attracting a lot of young families.  The demand for the athletic care just isn't there yet.  But perhaps it will get there down the road.  I'm pretty surprised that I've managed to hold up to the volume.   Things are just starting to get cranky and sore, probably because I had a 3 week period where I hardly did any of my physio exercises (sorry Lauren!) Life happened and I fell off the wagon.  But I'm back on it now.  I'm still going to need some good old fashioned manual therapy when I get back to get me back to 100%.

Even thought I'm sad to be leaving Florida, I do have some fun things lined up for when I get back home.  I will be leading a free run clinic for beginners at Lole Yorkville on April 18th.   I've also signed up to do a cycling skills workshop on April 7th, which will be really helpful in improving my bike handling skills and passing along those skills to others.  And, on the really fun side of things, I'm going to see Franz Ferdinand on April 8th.  I'm shining up the dancing shoes already!

And PKPC athletes, keep your eyes peeled for an email from me in regards to a new partnership with Xact nutrition.  It's all about helping you guys #fuelyourgoals 😀

Catch you all back in The Six....

~ Coach PK

Monday Musings: A Magical Week

Happy Monday!

The dust has settled and the house is quiet once again.  This past week was a big one!  We hosted some elite triathletes for the weekend, I went to Disney for the first time and I celebrated another trip around the sun.

Last December, one of our coaches here, Sarah McClarty, posted in the Clermont Triathletes FB group that another USAT coach was looking for a home stay for 3 athletes that were coming in to race the draft legal race in Lake Louisa State Park.  It happened to be the same weekend as my birthday.  Gary asked if I'd be ok with having some athletes stay with us and I said sure why not.   The girls emailed us shortly after to introduce themselves:  Sophie Chase, Ellie Abrahamson and Mary Alex English.  They were arriving on the Wednesday and staying until the Sunday.   Fast forward to January and I book a trip to Disney for the day with friends of mine that were going to be visiting.  I booked it on the same day the girls were arriving.  Oops.  Turned out that they weren't going to be arriving until much later in the evening.  That meant that I could stay and watch the fireworks at Disney and still make it home before they arrived.

WHEW.

I never went to Disney as a kid so I never really understood what all the fuss was about.   I always thought that adult Disney fanatics were a bit crazy.  Now that I've been there, I totally get it.  Especially if you went as a kid.  It is a pretty amazing place.  I am thankful that I went with my friends David & Elyse - they are fanatics and they know all the ins and outs of the various parks.  I trusted my trip to them completely and I had a blast.  I'm not a big ride person, mostly because they scare me, but I went on Space Mountain and another roller coaster and I was totally fine.  Space Mountain was a bit disorienting at first because you're in the dark but it ended up being a pretty fun experience.  And none of the rides are terribly long so even if you are a bit freaked out, you know it's not going to last very long.

I got there just after 10 and we were in the park by around 11.  I was given two buttons to wear, one that said it's my first time and another that said it's my birthday.  Sure it was a bit early but whatever.  I was celebrating all week, ha ha.  Every single staff member  (or cast member as they are referred to here) wished me happy birthday.  Definitely made for a fun day.  I wasn't sure if I'd last until the evening fireworks but the day flew by.  There is so much to see.  They even do a full on parade at 3:00 pm every day.

Yup, that's a fire breathing dragon!!! 

We saw some shows went on a bunch of other rides and wandered around.  Surprisingly the park wasn't that busy.  Yes, there was a lot of people around but it wasn't as insane as I had imagined.  Thankfully!  Knowing that our guests were coming in later in the PM I stayed for the fireworks.  I wasn't disappointed.  Disney definitely knows how to put on a show.

Pre fireworks

I was back home by 9:45 pm, totally sweaty and exhausted.  I really wanted to go to bed but I knew the girls were coming so G and I stayed up until they arrived around 11:15.  We met them all, along with Jarrod, their coach and got them settled.  They were still on west coast time so they stayed up for a bit while G and I went to bed.  G got up to swim the next day but I opted to skip that and hang with the girls in the morning to make sure they were a-ok.  They had to go pre-ride the course but before they could do that, they had to assemble their bikes.  They had no idea how to really do that so G would come in and check on them from time to time.  Their coach told them they had to have their bikes assembled and ready to go for 9:15 am.  I headed out with a couple of friends to do a ride before he got there but I heard he was a little annoyed with them when he arrived.

The girls were racing on Saturday but G and I had committed to doing a charity poker ride that one of my other friends here had told me about.  It was leaving from Winter Garden and was finishing at The Crooked Can which is a great local brewery.  Any ride that ends with a beer is a good ride, in my books.  We got to Winter Garden at about 7:15.  It was COLD.  And by cold I mean 10 degrees celsius, which, when you've been used to 28 to 30 degrees celsius, that feels cold.  My toes were frozen and I wished that I had worn full fingered gloves.  We collected our score card and rolled out with the group.  There was a lot of chit chat.  Again, one thing I've noticed here is that people don't know how to ride in a group properly.  And they wonder why cars here yell at them.  There were a few guys trying to maintain some order and give directions but, it was a bit disorganized.  We did stick together which was nice as there were all levels of riders.  I figured it was going to be an easy ride for me so that was perfect.  Last week was a hard week of training so it was nice to just cruise for a change.  We collected all our cards and headed back to Winter Garden.  I had a crappy hand, but not the crappiest so I didn't win a prize.  There was a prize for the best / worst hands.  G and I sat around for the draw prizes and then went to get a beer.  Well, I had a beer.  We then hit a patio for lunch and after lunch we headed home.  I am not a good day drinker so I was ready for a nap.  But I rallied an managed to keep my eyes open, ha ha.

The girls came back and filled us in on their race.  We were checking their progress online.  We had figured that Sophie would probably win but she wasn't showing any splits after the swim so we figured something happened.  When she got back we found out what went down.  Her top tube snapped.  So, she was out.  She was PISSED.  But Ellie and Mary Alex rallied and came in 4th and 3rd respectively.  Ellie is an insanely fast runner.  She ran a 16:35 OFF THE BIKE.  That works out to 3:19/km.  WTF.   She was so nonchalant about it too when we told her her split.  She had no idea, ha ha ha.  

It was so awesome to have the girls with us for the weekend.  On the Thursday night I made dinner for everyone and we sat around and chatted for a long time.  They told us about their experiences so far.  All of them are VERY new to the sport.  This was only their second race.  They were recruited from various track programs.  They weren't necessarily the fastest or highest ranked but they fit a certain body type that USAT is looking for.  They had to pass a swim test and a run test to see if they had potential.  The cycling they would learn.  All 3 of these girls are swimming 750m between 10-12 minutes.  They're averaging around 35-37/kph in pack as this is draft legal and then running anywhere between 16-18 minutes OFF THE BIKE for a 5km.  So amazing.  What I found really interesting was their mindset.  For them it's a job.  They had no real feelings about the sport like age groupers do.  It was kind of strange.  They thought G and I were awesome because we went out and trained on our own vs. being told to.  I thought that was funny.  It's just normal for us.  I suppose if I had started at a high level in the sport, my mindset would be different as well.

L to R:  Ellie, Mary Alex and Sophie

They left us yesterday to take over an Airbnb in downtown Clermont for the next few days then they're off to Sarasota for another weekend of racing.  We'll be cheering for them for sure.  Before they left they gave us a card and a signed USA Triathlon cycling jersey, which I thought was super sweet.  I'm SO glad we got the opportunity to do this!

Even with all the goings on, I still managed a solid week of training.  I'm working my way up to a 400km week of cycling.  That's my goal for our last week here.  So there will be plenty of time in the saddle over the next little while.  I'm trying not to neglect other things as well but there is only so much time in the day.  This is how last week went down:

Monday:  OFF - when Training Peaks suggests you may need an extra day off because your form is so low and you're not feeling so awesome, you take the day off.

Tuesday:  2650m swim in the a.m., followed by an 80km  hilly ride to the Yalaha Bakery with fellow TTC'ers Kim Robinson & Halley Georgas.  I got the eclair I didn't get last year.  All is right in the world.

Wednesday:  9.7km run with 4 at tempo pace.  My legs were feeling pretty heavy after the previous days ride but I still managed to nail my paces.  Then off to Disney where I spent all day on my feet.

Thursday:  83km on the TT bike with Halley on the Van Fleet Trail.  It was SUPER windy out.  Definitely a good day to be on the TT bike.  And I did my second brick of the season, we ran 12 minutes off the bike.

Friday:  OFF.  I had planned on doing my long run but I wasn't feeling so hot when I got up so I decided to give myself the day off.  I woke up with a headache that was bordering on a sinus attack so I chilled out.

Saturday:  72km ride

Sunday:  16.5km long run with 4x2km race pace repeats followed by a 36km spin along the trail for coffee.

Totals:

Swimming: 2,650m (UGH)
Cycling:  271km
Running:  26.2km

Total time:  13h 17 minutes.  My TSS this week was 742 vs 801 and I felt pretty good for the most part.  Accumulating this much fatigue is new for me so I'm trying to be careful and really listen to my body.  I don't know how far I can push things, but I don't think that I want to dip much past -35 in form.  I've gotten down to -28 and I felt pretty tired but not totally smashed.  I was toeing the line for sure though.  A few more negative points and I think I would have been toast.

Tomorrow Eric is flying in and we're getting ready for our first camp that starts on Saturday.  The weather is looking like a roller coaster ride for the next two weeks so I'm crossing my fingers that the rain stays away at least!

Anyone else been to Disney World?  What was your experience like?  Have you gone back again?   I'd go back again but I think I'd go to Epcot instead.

Happy Monday!

~ Coach PK 

Monday Musings: Goodbye Summer, Hello Race Week!

September.  Here we are.  Summer flew by and despite the less than stellar weather, I have to say, it was a good one.  I felt I had a really good balance of fun and work.   Yes, there was some stressing about getting some training done but for the most part, I managed to get things done.  Training never felt like a grind.  These last couple of weeks, I did kinda wish I was done racing but that was just because I didn't want to get up at stupid o'clock to do a workout, ha ha.  Yes, I know I have a flexible schedule but I swim with a club and ride with a club and both of them workout in the wee hours of the morning.  So, I drag my butt outta bed and do the work.

If you follow me on Instagram and have watched my stories this past week, you will have seen me allude to some exciting things coming.  Both of them are still in the works, but I should be able to fill you in on one of them after Lake Placid.   The other one may take a bit longer.   That's all I'm going to say about that for now.  :)

This is the first week I've started to feel excited for Lake Placid.  This past month it was just some race in September that I was training for.  But now, I'm really starting to get pumped.  I know what racing in Lake Placid is like.  You finish on the Olympic Oval.  I mean seriously, how awesome is that???  It really is an amazing place to race so I have high expectations for this event.  I've been watching the weather the last few days and right now, it looks like race day is going to be amazing.  The days leading up to it, not so much.  It is going to be cold and rainy so here's hoping that Mirror Lake doesn't get TOO cold.   It was cold and windy this past weekend in Toronto so I got the opportunity to test out some layers for race day.  I definitely think I'm going to need armwarmers and a vest and I'll have to put socks on for the bike, which I don't normally do.  My feet were freezing as were my hands so it took me a while to get my socks on.  I may have to re-think my sock choice for race day.  By 40 minutes into the ride I felt much better - I was actually kinda warm so we'll see.   I know I'm going to be bringing all the layers because you can't control the weather, but you CAN prepare for it.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want my off season to look like.  I am toying with the idea of running the Hamilton Half marathon but part of me wants to take things to the trails and slow things down.  I also want to work on refining my running form and realistically I know I can't do that and train for a race.  So we'll see.  I know I will also be spending a lot of time in the pool doing drills.  I really need to improve my feel for the water.  I will also be bringing strength training back into my life, but not in the way I'm used to.  That's a post for another day.  I do know that I'll be giving myself the month of September, post L.P. to just do whatever I feel like.  There won't be much in the way of structure.  I think that is such a necessary thing at the end of one's season.  The key is to not let that lack of structure turn into skipping all the workouts so you loose all the fitness you've so hard at building.  Successful athletes give themselves a set period of either time off or easy training and when that time is up, they get back to structured training.  Why?  Because consistency is what yields results.   I could go on but for now I'll step down from my coach soap box and get on to what went down this week.

Monday:  OFF

Tuesday:  Double ride day:  29.5km with MGCC in the a.m and 23.9km with the TTC crew in the p.m.

Wednesday:  2500m swim, followed by a Total Body conditioning class <---stupidest thing I've done during taper but, it needed to be done.  I was sore for 3 days after that course.  My hamstrings are STILL feeling it today.

Thursday:  Skipped my morning run and ride and opted to ride in the p.m with G.   23.3km done

Friday:  2000m swim.  This was a tough set.

Saturday:  1300m open water swim, 40km bike, 4km run.

Sunday: 11.8km run

Swim:  5804m
Bike:  118km
Run:  16.1km

Total time:  8h 34 minutes

I'm feeling pretty good.  I do need a massage but that will be happening later.  I've been geeking out over my Training Peaks data this past week, comparing it to my data pre-Tremblant.  The numbers tell me that my fitness has improved and I'm looking to be in pretty much the exact spot I need to be to have a good race.  I will make sure I get enough sleep and eat well this week and I should be good to go!

Now I'm off to enjoy the Holiday Monday and the rest of my taper.

How was your summer?  Are you done racing or are you planning any fall races?

Monday Musings: Short and Sweet

Have you ever gone on a trip that seemed to be longer than it was but also went by too fast?  I know that sounds weird but I can't think of any other way to explain this past "long weekend".   I went to Lake Placid and spent 5 days with 12 other likeminded women that I had never met before.   In fact most of the women there didn't know each other.  Groups like that can go two ways, either everyone gets along or, you have a group of opposites that just don't mesh.  I can safely say that this group got along really well - it was like we'd all known each other for years.  There were different levels of ability but that didn't matter.  We all supported each other and learned from each other.  I am so glad I decided to go to this, even after my girlfriend canceled.  I feel like I've gained a new network of ladies who love to ride.  Not to mention our awesome hosts in Lake Placid, Brian & Karen from High Peaks Cyclery.  I'm so excited to go back there in September to race the 70.3 and see them again, along with my new pal, Liz who is also racing and turned out to be the best roommate ever.  Brian will be racing as will one of the other guides, Karen (we had 3 Karen's in the group!) so it's going to be a big reunion, ha ha.  I had forgotten just how beautiful Lake Placid is.  It's changed a lot since I was there last in 2013 but the rugged beauty remains.

I will probably do a separate post on the camp itself and what to expect when going to a training camp but for now I will just say that it was a super fun experience!

Suffice to say this week was all about the bike.  I knew I wasn't going to get much swimming in and I had hoped that I might get at least one run in while I was in Lake Placid but sadly that didn't happen and it was probably for the best.  It's been a long time since I had done back to back to back days of riding and I think had I thrown a run in the mix, my legs wouldn't have made it to the end of the week.

Since I'm going to save the camp details for another post, I'll get right down to the nitty gritty and fill you in on how my week rolled out.  Literally, ha.

Monday:  2900m swim.  I knew I wasn't going to get any other swims in this week so it was off to the pool on Monday morning.

Tuesday:  FTP Test (30.2km on the trainer).  It had been over a year since I buckled down and did one of these and holy crap, I had forgotten just how much they hurt.  Thankfully I was rewarded with a shiny new FTP.  I'm chalking it up to all the riding I did in Florida.

Wednesday:  This was our first ride in LP and it was an easy spin to have Brian, our guide assess our skill levels.  I had forgotten to turn my watch to outdoor mode until about halfway through the ride so I missed a fair bit of the distance.   I think we covered about 30km or so but I only captured 18km of it.  Grr.

Thursday:  86.3km This was the climb up Whiteface and around some of the back end of Wilmington and Lake Placid.  The last time I climbed Whiteface was probably in 2005 and I remember suffering through it.  This time it hurt but definitely not as much.  I was very happy with how I climbed it.  I used to surge and fall back, surge and fall back, now I am a much steadier climber.  I get into a groove and I just chug along.  It also helps to have the right cassette on your bike!

Friday:  100km on the nose.  This was a ride around Saranac Lake which is somewhere I've never ridden before.  It was an "easier" ride in terms of elevation so we managed a nice steady pace.  We practiced pace line work both two up and single file, which was so much fun.   We pulled into the parking lot with about 700m left to cover so myself and two other ladies rode in circles around the parking lot until we hit 100km.  Yes, we have a problem.   This was followed up by an hour long yoga class led by one of the girls came to the camp.

Saturday:  101km +  This was supposed to be a shorter harder ride but I think our guides got us a bit lost.  This ride featured my nemesis, the descent into Keene.  It's an 11km descent that has some wide sweeping turns and I have white knuckled it every single time I've gone down it.  We were also going to climb it on the way back into Lake Placid.  My legs weren't feeling terribly fresh at the start so I was happy to just spin them out as we climbed out of Lake Placid.  We climbed a lot that day and I was concerned about climbing back up Keene.  But as usual, my body was capable of so much more than my mind led me to believe.  I crushed the descent with NO tears or fear or panic and I ate the climb back for lunch.  Steady effort all the way up and I felt strong the entire time.  If I had actually remembered to start my Garmin when I started the climb, I would have known how long the climb took me.  But alas, I didn't.  UGH. I think I missed about 2-3km of it.  So annoying.  So really I probably rode closer to 105km on the Saturday.  I was smart about the climb back.  So much so that I had enough energy to hammer it back into Lake Placid and spin around the lake to make it to 100km.  This was the best ride of the camp for me.  I burned every single match I had left on the way back in to Lake Placid and had a blast doing it.   This was the elevation for the day.  Yup.  All the climbs.

Sunday:  12km easy spin.  I had hoped to do a bit more than this and had I looked at my mileage for the week, I would have found I way to ride the extra two km to take me to 350km for the week, ha ha.  This was a very easy spin around the Lake and into the back areas of Lake Placid.  My legs didn't feel great but they were happy to be moving.  If I hadn't done this, I'm pretty sure they would have been super stiff after the drive home.

Totals for the week:

Swim:  2900m
Bike:  348km
Run:  ZERO

Total time:  15 hours and 2 minutes.

So, this week will be a bit easier.  I really want to get back on my bike tomorrow but I think I should probably give myself another day and go for a bit of a longer run instead.  Last week's TSS was pretty high so I need to dial things back a bit.

Have you ever gone to a training camp?  If so, where?  

What are your goals for the week? Whatever they are, tackle them at 150%!

Happy Monday peeps!

~ Coach PK

Monday Musings: Adventure is calling!

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend.  It was a big race weekend here in the GTA with the Goodlife Marathon and the Mississauga Marathon taking place yesterday.  The weather didn't look awesome but it turned out to be some pretty darn good racing conditions.  Cold, but good.  I had athletes racing in both races.  Everyone had good races, with one of my athletes completing her first marathon!  (YAY STACY!)

The sun has finally come out in Toronto but the temperatures are still lagging behind normal.  I am hoping things start to warm up soon!  It's hard to believe that I'll be racing a half ironman in 8 weeks. Apparently there's still SNOW in Tremblant.  That's not good because that means that the lake is probably still very cold.  It's a big lake that will take a while to heat up so it will be interesting to see what happens come June.  But I'm not going to worry myself about things I can't control.  I'm just going to make sure I've got my neoprene cap, ha ha.

Speaking of cold weather, I'm off on a bit of an adventure on Wednesday this week.  No, I'm not going skiing, ha ha.   It's the Morning Glory ladies trip to Lake Placid.  The weather forecast there is looking pretty darn crappy.   I've packed every single last bit of thermal clothing I have for the 5 days of riding.  I was really looking forward to this trip but my girlfriend that was going had to cancel so now I'm going solo, which is a bit of a bummer.  I'm not going to know anyone which would normally make me uncomfortable but this year is all about putting myself out there so I'm looking at this as an opportunity to meet a bunch of like minded women and potentially come away with a few more riding partners.  Here's hoping this forecast changes!  It is in the mountains so if there's one thing DO know from my many trips there, it's that the weather changes from hour to hour so, who knows!  My goal for the week is to log about 400km so we'll see if I can make that happen!

Knowing that I was going to be putting in some serious time in the saddle this week, I opted to dial things back a bit this week.   I had plans for some solid work but this week ended up being a bit of a gong show with a failed FTP attempt (power meter wasn't working), missing my Wednesday swim and dealing with a massive sinus headache / migraine on Thursday.   The crappy weather didn't help either.  So, the FPT test is going to happen tomorrow and I"m going to try to get at least two runs in while I'm in Lake Placid.   I'll miss about a week of swimming so I'm sure I'm going to pay for that when I get back.   Oh well.  At least this is the last trip I'll be taking before Tremblant so I will have time to get back into the pool on a regular basis.  I also found a brand new pool near our place that is FREE.  Yup.  FREE.  So, I know that is there as an option if I want to get some extra swims in.

With that being said, let's see how this past week rolled out...

Monday:  2500m swim.  My swim bag wasn't in the car so I ended up having to borrow goggles, a swim cap and fins from some of my teammates.  Not wearing my own fins ended up causing blisters on my feet and they were totally chewed up by the end of the swim.  OUCH.

Tuesday:  28.7km ride on the computrainer.  After spending about 3 hours trying to find my ANT stick to update the software on my pedals, I gave up on doing my FTP test and just decided to ride.  I chose a hilly course and made sure I worked the climbs.   By the time I got myself sorted, it was late afternoon and the rain had also started so there wasn't going to be a run either.  #trainingdayfail  I at least managed to get 25 minutes of upper body and core work in.

Wednesday:  Missed my swim so I could take G to the doctor.   The sun finally came out and the temps were actually quite nice so I went for a very easy run in the afternoon + 20 minutes of core & physio work after.

Thursday:  25.8km bike + 8.5km run.  I dragged my butt out to ride with Morning Glory.  I was totally overdressed and I felt like crap.  I managed 3 loops of Ellis before I called it a day.  I rode around the top of the park until I hit 25km and then went back to the car, grabbed my run stuff and went to meet my friend David for a run.  We ran trails and hills in High Park and stopped to visit the capybaras in the Zoo (because that's what you do!).  It was a tough workout and I felt horrible by the afternoon.

Checking out the capybaras

Friday:  2550m swim.  I still had lingering sinus issues when I woke up on Friday so I skipped my masters swim and waited to see how I felt.  By mid morning I felt much better so I opted to go to the brand new York Rec centre.  I had a lovely swim in an equally lovely pool, despite the fact my Garmin ate 25m of my swim for lunch.  

Saturday:  17km run.  This was a bit of a struggle.  My legs didn't feel great.  I really tried to focus on keeping my HR low, which wasn't that hard given how crappy my legs felt.  I think I'm training in the wrong zones these days.  I should have had my HR / V02max tested at the beginning of the year once I started running regularly again to establish my zones but I didn't.   I think I'm going to do that when I get back from Lake Placid.  

Sunday:  OFF - CHEER SQUAD DAY!   No good pics from the day because I am the worst at capturing any sort of running shots on my phone.  I need a real camera for that, ha ha.  I have to say that watching everyone  race yesterday and seeing the smiling faces, the medal pics, the tales of PR's all over the place really lit a fire in me to get my running mojo back.  It's been missing for the last few months.  So it's time to find that speed again.  Onwards and upwards!

Swim:  5050m

Bike:  54.5km 

Run:  31km

Total time:  7 hours on the nose

Congrats to everyone who raced this past weekend!   Enjoy your achievement and your recovery!!  

~Coach PK

Monday Musings: Marathon Monday

It's not just any Monday, it's BOSTON MARATHON MONDAY!  My Social Media feeds have been all Boston all the time since Friday and I've loved every minute of it.  I know what the excitement and anticipation feels like and it's so awesome to see it through other people's eyes.   It's also Easter Monday so to those of you that have the day off, enjoy!  Speaking of which, I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Weekend.  Ours was spent with family eating, riding, running and eating some more.  It was a lovely weekend.   It was just what I needed to get me out of my funk.  Yup, I've been a bit down in the dumps for the last week.  I was feeling a bit out of sorts and very unmotivated.  I think it might have been the weather.  It was pretty grey and rainy this past week and I was worried that I had done something to my glut and hamstring again, which weighed heavily on my mind.  I had an appointment with my ART guy on Wednesday and all seems to be good.  Yes, things are really tight (surprise!) so I have to keep on top of that.  It may require another appointment but everything seems to be fine.   Ironically, it's coming up on the one year anniversary of my injury so staying on top of any issues is definitely in the forefront of my mind.   I do not want to piss away any more race entries!!!  Nor do I want to miss the Morning Glory ladies camp in Lake Placid coming up on the second week of May.  I'm SO EXCITED for that.  It will be excellent prep for Tremblant and Lake Placid 70.3.  I seem to have chosen all the hilly courses for my races this year so I should work on finding my climbing legs.  That is part of my next month of training....bring on all the hills!

Speaking of training, despite my low motivation this past week, I still managed an alright week of training.  I'm chalking that up to our 3 day weekend and the nice weather we had.  This is how things rolled out...

Monday:  1850m swim + 30 minute upper body & core workout at home

Tuesday:  8.2km easy run part of it with my friend David who is running his first Boston marathon today!

Wednesday:  2500m swim.

Thursday:  18km easy spin along the trail + 30 minutes of upper body, core and balance work.

Friday:  68.5km around the GTA with G.  It was a beautiful day for a ride!

Saturday:  15km run in the pouring rain.   I thought it was going to suck but it was actually quite nice.

Sunday:  78.5km ride with Morning Glory.  This was part of the development ride so it was a very nice easy pace.  Just what my legs needed after a 15km run.   I think I will be back out with MGCC this week, the mornings are looking warmer and rain free so that means all systems go!

Totals for the week:

Swim:  4350m

Bike:  165km (getting back on track!)

Run:  23km

Total time:  10h 45 minutes

How was your week of training?  Are you tuning in to watch the Boston Marathon this morning? I will be firmly planted in front of the TV for the next couple of hours!

Happy Monday folks, make it a good one!

~ Coach PK