Monday, August 22, 2011

Happy Birthday Isla

It is summertime and I have not posted in ages on this blog, but what better topic to blog about than our little sweetheart's birthday! Isla turns four today, that is very hard to believe, and even harder to believe is she will be starting school this fall!
Here are some photos from the all four (five if you count the day she was born as a "birthday") birthdays:
The day that started it all:
Isla_Birth18
First Birthday:

Second Birthday:
Third Birthday:
IMG_1500
Fourth Birthday:
Happy Birthday Isla!

Take Care 
Ewan

Monday, August 01, 2011

National Capital Triathlon 2011 Race Report

I have done this race three years in a row and have improved my time each of those years. This year I was hoping to continue the trend. I thought I was in 2:12-2:13 shape and maybe close to 2:10 if all went really well.
This was also the first race triathlon race of the year (I had hoped to do some earlier races but it didn't work out). This year I am racing on the Planet X USA Tri Team and it was the first race for the new bike my Exocet, which I have called "Darth Velo"

Week leading up: Hard to describe but I felt a little off. Had a headache and felt fuzzy, and tired and legs were heavy from Tuesday on, workouts were not up to par, took Friday off totally.
Morning of: woke up at 5:30, slept pretty good woke up at 4:30 for a pee. Found it hard to eat and ended up that I didn't eat all of breakfast(SHOULD EAT MORE NEXT TIME), left home @7:00 and biked in to race venue.
WU: biking in felt good, just nice and eazy,  got in set up and went out for a run (about 3.5km) strides, bum scratches, and strides, back to bike final check list for bike and nutrition, gel before heading down for swim. Very short warm up as I didn’t have much time (go down a little sooner)

SWIM: gun went off, and I dolphin dived 4 or 5 times and settled into swimming, swam strong until the break in the buoy line. I seemed to be in with more people this year. In the past I have swam off to the side by myself as I have had some panic attacks before. This swim was the most contact I have had in a while, but wasn’t really a lot maybe five or six contacts with one kick in the face. I really slowed down  after the buoy line break (not really realizing it) I did make a conscious effort to go out hard and then back off, but looking back I backed off too much. I just sort off plodded along. The swim seemed long but maybe it was just I was swimming slower than last year. Swam wide around the turn around buoy and made my way back.  Swim back was much of the same, plodded back (but not realizing I was). Stood up at the beach when I was done and heard the announcer say 26min…WTF that was slow! Not the start I was hoping for.
SWIM Lessons Learned: need to have a plan for the rest of the swim, esp for an oly swim: set hard sections. Also training needs to have some hard longer sets (i.e. 3*500m hard, 4*400m hard)
T1: running up the beach I ran past a guy that I worked with several years ago, weird place to run into him! T1 went really well very quick and efficient
BIKE: Plan was to bike it HARD as I could, which I think I did. I passed a lot of people and was only passed by one person at the very very end of the ride. I knew I was having a good ride by gauging my progress against the other riders (who were ahead of me) as they not gaining time on me and I was gaining time on them). I felt great the whole ride. Took sips from my nutrition bottle at the back turn of each lap (maybe a little light on nutrition only drank about 2/3 of bottle … about  100cals). Just before the turn back to the transition area someone past me, I had actually passed him on the last “out” turn
Ended up with a time of 1:05 here is the bike output:

 T2: quick and efficient, I think my transitions were really good this year, I put about 15 secs on the guy who passed me on the bike
Run: the plan was to take the first 5km not full out(around 20min for 5km). The course is two 5km laps. felt good coming down the hill to the turn around, but after the  turn around I had weird stomach cramps, which made me decided to back off (mistake) the back part of the run loop is mostly uphill. And my pace slowed to 4:15s 4:20s. Ended up with 20:47 for the first 5km. after that I tried to pick it up but  could never get the sub 4:00 pace I wanted even on the downhill sections. After the aid station at 6.5km took water on my head and eload drinks, which made me feel better.  When I checked my wacth at 8km and saw 33:xx I was a little disappointed and mentally/physically slowed down . At 9kn I saw 37:XX  I was very disappointed cause I new sub 40 was out of the picture. I tried to pick up the pace up the final big hill but was still a slow pace. with about 500m to go the same guy that passed me on the bike ran by me, I tried to but in a big effort to go with him and took 5 or 6 good strides but my left hammi said NO and cramped, slowed really down and made my way to the finish line. Jogging down the chute I saw 2:18 and was pretty disappointed.
RUN Leasons Learned: A little more cals and electrolytes on the bike. OLY runs should EFFING hurt was not willing to go on the pain train. Need to race more to get used to hurting more and teach the central governor to deal with it!
Run output:


Overall: still dispite the slower time I still enjoyed myself, and enjoyed racing again.
Overall Leasson learned:
Even if not an A race still need to have plans for swim and run.
Ended  1st in my age group and 6th overall
That is all for now
Take Care
Ewan