Swim

2 swim sessions, both Walton sessions. Feeling pretty good so far. No shoulder pain from re-incorporating using swim paddles. If you’ve never swam with swim paddle before, it’s the best. It builds strength, and lets you swim so fast. It’s a joy to be able to blow past people in the fast lane. I’m not a fast swimmer… YET. So swimming past people brings me great joy.

BIKE

2 sessions, a heavy intervals and a 2-hour long ride. Feeling pretty good here. Starting to hit some new resistance ranges on the bike, which is really encouraging. I look forward to all my bike sessions, and I hope I can say this in a few months still. It’s the most important part of the Ironman, and I want to be strong and be able to enjoy my day out there.

There was a 5 minute section on my 2 hour ride that did test my mental strength. It was the second 5 minutes hard at 60-65rpm, 3 minute easy section. Right before the 15 minute cool down, and more than an hour and a half of riding. I wanted to give in and turn down the resistance, but I was riding along to a Peloton class and the instructor said something along the lines of needing to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, because that’s when new neural pathways are created, and where growth happens. It message came at the perfect time. It reminded me to hustle and get the work done, and I was pretty happy to put out a consistent 200+ watts through that last 5 minute segment.

RUN

2 sessions, Fartleks and 90 minute long run. Inner thighs felt a little sore after the Fartleks session, but can’t complain. I’ve been diligent with doing my glute activations with resistance bands. The 90 minute run was a bit tougher than I expected. It was a hilly run, and I had to walk a couple of times. Not long, like 20 seconds or so, mostly to stop a side stitch from happening.

We’re doing a bunch of specific run workouts through the week (even in my long runs) which I used to do haphazardly back in 2017. It turned out well for me then. And even though it was all over the place, I managed a 2:02 half marathon. I’m very excited for what’s to come this year, because now I will have greater consistency to my overall training plan, and I should be able to run a sub 2 hour half marathon.

Reflections

Still feeling great this week, and reflecting on the month, feeling great about the month too as reflected in my Ironman Canada training recap. I love streaking challenges, where you do something like every day of the month kind of thing. So I jumped on the New Years bandwagon and  started off with a bunch of 30 minute bike sessions to ease my way back into training. Then I finally messaged my coach to get started with triathlon training again, and I think we’ve made great progress so far easing me back into the swing of things. This week did have a jump in volume, which I didn’t really realize until my coach told me so. Overall, still feeling good and strong.

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SWIM

Swam twice, two 900m swims. My first swim back after taking some time off, we just did a buoy-only swim. The second was a couple days later and we started incorporating paddles back in.

BIKE

2 bike sessions for a total of 1h140m. One was a heavy intervals session, and the other was big gear work. Both sessions felt great. I felt strong.

RUN

I had one run session and could have had one run session but traded it for a snowshoe with Justin. It was short hill reps, which I love. I started incorporating them in my training in 2017, and I attribute that as one of a couple of key types of sessions that helped build my run speed.

OTHER

2h17min of snowshoeing! It didn’t feel like much at the time, but I was pretty tired that evening, and my legs were sore the next day. Especially my calves! I also did a couple of abs sessions to build on my core strength.

Overall, I feel pretty good so far. 31 weeks feels close, but I’m being reassured by my coach that we have plenty of time.

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I hired a coach in September. Other than the obvious goal of finishing, I would love to have a respectable swim time, a strong bike, and then just jog/walk the run. Everything was going along really well. I was getting a bit of swimming in and even started looking forward to my open water sessions. I was spending time on the bike as well as a treadmill. All of it ground to a halt when my mom got sick in October, and then training stopped altogether.

There’s this huge movement at the moment with regard to self-care and making sure you take care of yourself before assisting others. I really tried to follow the philosophy of putting your own oxygen mask on first. I was sticking to some of my workouts, and then I gradually reduced my workouts to simple runs at 30 minutes in duration. I found that I was much kinder when I did that. But when the going got really tough, and my mom got sick, I just couldn’t justify to myself getting away to work out anymore. Thankfully I had the full support of my coach, and we decided to go on a pause. She said I had plenty of time. And looking back now, maybe my opinion will change when I’m 120km into the bike segment at Ironman on August 30th, but I look back now and I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Putting on my own oxygen mask wasn’t strictly working out, and it looked like other things too… like sleeping in and having a quiet cup of coffee.

This post was sitting in the drafts, and I realized that I never finished writing it! However, it makes sense to be writing it now in the new year. Because of everything that had happened in our lives. And because there was an option do to a payment plan for my registration, so I took it (it didn’t appear to me that there were additional fees or penalties to do that) and ended up paying for the race over 3 payments. And it was only on January 1st that I received the familiar registration confirmation email from Active. That was my visual cue.

Well, I’m ready. I’m excited that I committed myself to this journey of becoming an Ironman finisher in 2020!

The post I signed up for Ironman Canada 2020! appeared first on The Lifestyle Of Us.

Ironman Canada 70.3 was such a challenging and awesome race!! It was a sufferfest for me, because I had some pain and nutrition issues, but I’m still going to sign up for this race again in 2018. We got to explore Whistler in the summer time, and have a mini race vacation, a race-cation. It was a Team Betty takeover, with 15 of us racing. A few friends were also racing, so it was awesome to have so many familiar faces.

The 70.3 shared the same course as the 140.6, and it was so awesome. We had amenities like wetsuit strippers, change tents, and sunscreen applicator volunteers. It was so luxurious! The race is also very spectator friendly, I saw my hubby 8x over the course of the day. Seeing Justin, our friends, as well as so many of my team mates was really special. Special thank you to Betty Designs for making sure we look amazing out there on the race course.

Pre-Race

I was thrilled heading into this race. I felt fresh, I felt strong, I felt ready!  Transitions were in separate places and had to be set up the day before, so there wasn’t much to do on race morning but bring nutrition and swim gear.

Race Morning

We got up around 530am. I felt so rested and ready to go. Since we weren’t racing until 9am, I thought I’d be able to manage 2 breakfasts. On a regular day, I have breakfast and am hungry again at 9am. So I started with oatmeal. I didn’t feel like eating, and I should’ve listened to my body. It was such a mistake. Eating created a huge knot in my stomach which ended up bothering me all day. Thinking it would pass, we packed up to head to T2 to catch the shuttles that would bring the athletes to T1. Justin then walked from T2 to swim start.

I dropped my favourite running hat into my T2 bag, and went to get body marked. I ran into a friend and we chatted on the bus all the way to T1. So happy we had that conversation, because I didn’t get a chance to preview the back half of the course so I had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be hilly, but I couldn’t visualize it until after our chat.

Since the 70.3 didn’t start until 9am, we bummed around T1 for so long. Put my food and water bottle onto my bike. Chatted with girls who were racked nearby. Watched the full 140.6 athletes start their day. The 70.3 got some time in the water before the race, so I made sure to get in and swam to the first buoy and back. Alta Lake was the perfect temperature, and the water was so clean and fresh. The lake was pretty calm, but it would change quite a bit during our race.

Swim Start

The swim is a rectangle. I started closer to the back, around the 40 min swimmers. I was hoping to find some fast feet to hang onto for a better pace than my own. It took a few minutes to get into the water, and I was feeling pretty calm. I swam straight out towards the yellow buoys, and found myself swimming close to the inside line the entire time. Got caught behind slower people a few times. Laughed at myself because I saw one person backstroking faster than I was front crawling. I generally enjoyed the swim out towards the first turn. I got a couple mouthfuls of water but thought it was due to poor body rotation. I hadn’t noticed yet that the waves were picking up.

Once I hit the first turn, it got a little choppy. Once I got to the next turn, I peeked at my watch and saw it was at 30 minutes. Then I looked around me and noticed it was a little quiet, and how wavy the water was. I kept swimming and I could feel every wave. I was starting to get nervous about my time, so I picked up the pace. Then the buoys started to feel farther and farther apart, so I got a little more nervous. Reaching the last turn buoy was a huge relief, because it looks like a short, straight shoot to the finish. But this is where the swim got really interesting. The water was super choppy and it was really windy. It was my hell.

Luckily in training, Leana and I went for a horrible swim at Kits. It took us forever to get to Kits Beach because of traffic, so I committed to swim at least an hour even though I just wanted to go to splash around and get some open water time. The waves were huge that day. It took us 40 min to swim 400m. I’m sure Leana could’ve swam a lot farther, but she’d wait while I panicked every 10 strokes and stopping to tread water and calm down. So while the last turn at the swim in Alta Lake sucked big time, I told myself to HTFU and keep going because I had been through worse.

T1

It was all smiles on the swim exit. I gave someone a high-five, and proceeded to the wetsuit strippers. I didn’t wear the straps on my bib shorts during the swim, so I held onto my pants to make sure they didn’t come off. I got my bike bag headed into the change tent. It was pretty quiet inside the tent so I had a volunteer all to myself. As I exited the change tent, there were sunscreen applicator volunteers, so I let them spray me down. I hurried over to my bike, and headed toward the exit. The mount line was surprisingly a bit busy, so I made my way to the left side and peddled away.

Bike 

I left my bike geared down, so that I would take it easy out of T1. It was a scenic ride past Alta Lake out to Highway 99. Popped some Tums, hoping it would sort out my stomach, and then later sipped on my liquid nutrition. As we got onto the highway and headed towards Callaghan Valley, my hips and deep in my hamstrings started to hurt. I tried moving around on my saddle and stretching on the descents. When it didn’t seem like the pain was going away, I started to get upset because now I was distracted from enjoying the bike course and scenery.

The pain in my hips and hamstrings finally ended after about 30km, but my stomach pain wouldn’t let up. Any time I sipped on my liquid nutrition, my stomach would protest and hurt even more. So I picked up some course nutrition. Managed to get down half a pack of Shot Bloks and a vanilla gel. After debating on making myself throw up, I attempted to around the 70km mark, with no success. Then I just dumped my liquid nutrition and decided that Gatorade and water would have to do. Always for fun, I packed Ghirardelli chocolates in my bento box, and I was so happy I did. I was able to get down a small square of caramel chocolate. It was only 60 calories, but it was a great pick me up. There were some great descents on the north side of Whistler towards Pemberton, so I made sure to enjoy them because they wouldn’t be so fun on the way back.

All in all, I managed to get in maybe 600+ calories by the time I finished on the bike. I was aiming for 1,100+ calories. So that calorie deficit had me on the verge of tears quite a few times. At one point, I actually started to see stars and my vision got a blurry. So that wasn’t fun but I survived. Since the bike course is 2 lollipops, it was so nice to see so many of my fellow Team Betty girls and other racers coming and going. It was uplifting to see so many familiar faces, and it made the time go by much better. I also saw Justin and our friends quite a few times too! So despite the pain, I really loved the bike course and experience. It was pretty hot and windy too, but I didn’t notice because my stomach hurt so much.

T2

It was really quick to get myself out of my cycling kit and into my tri onesie. I threw on my favourite racing hat, shoes, and race belt, and I was off. Justin was cheering me on out of T2, so I went over to give him a kiss and told him I’d still be a while until the finish.

The Run

I didn’t pack any nutrition because I was planning on Coke and water. When I made my way to the first aid station, I immediately grabbed a coke, and that made my stomach hurt too!! I was really counting on the familiarity of Coke on my stomach. It was settled, this day would stay hard. The beginning of the run course was pretty quiet without many spectators, so I sniffled and ran/walked, trying to hold back tears of frustration. My fellow team Amelia was out cheering, and she jumped up to give me a hug and I just started crying. I was so happy to see her, but so upset in that moment. She gave me a huge hug and sent me on my way. So I ran a bit more, and when I was far enough away, started to cry again hehe.

Eventually, something clicked and I decided to buck up and finish strong. The course finally got more busy, with more racers and people around. The run course was gorgeous, and went past Lost Lake and then up to Green Lake. Part of the run course was on dirt trail, and some on concrete. On some parts we ran alongside the highway, so we could see the full distance Ironman racers heading back into Whistler. I took ice at most aid stations to put down my trisuit. and it was divine. I ended up being able to get in tiny sips of Coke and water. Some people said the run course was pretty hilly, but I really didn’t think so.

THE FINISH

As I started to approach the finish line, all my pain went away. I high-fived people and soaked in the finish. I couldn’t find Justin, but he got this great photo of me!

OVERALL

Loved this entire experience!! I woke up Monday morning and decided I’d be racing this one again. Ironman 70.3 Canada was a great character builder. I wish I hadn’t got upset so much, but I didn’t give in and kept soldering on. Even if you are suffering big time, you can fake it til you make it. I made sure to smile all day, especially when it got tough. And guess what, it totally works!! I’m already making plans for Whistler 2018, can’t wait.

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I just had the most fun I’ve ever had in a race at Ironman 70.3 Victoria. The training cycle for this one was pretty rough and not a priority at times, so I’m pretty happy how everything turned out. I had raced BMO Vancouver Marathon 6 weeks prior, and also wanted to have a great time at the Rock n Roll Seattle Half Marathon that would be 6 days after finishing Victoria. So with (the lack of) training, I was banking on my riding my marathon fitness, and seeing what I could pick up and cram in from a well-timed triathlon camp in Vernon that I attended three weeks prior to race day.

Athlete Check In/Bike Drop

Ironman Victoria 70.3 had the worst check in I’ve ever experienced. In previous years, all activities were held on the other side of Beaver/Elk Lake, and they moved it all this year so there would be more parking and space available. It was awful, so I can’t imagine how it used to be. When we arrived at Beaver Lake, the road by the highway was really crowded, so we decided that we should hop out and walk in with our bikes. It. Was. So. Far.

When we finally arrived at the Athlete Village area, there was a huge line up to check in, and I stood in line with our bikes before space finally cleared up on nearby racks. I needed to pay one day race insurance fee, and got diverted to the slowest table to even though I had exact change. Then we had to go to another table to sign waivers, and give permission on if our names could be shared in case of accident. Then we went to another table to pick up bibs and swim caps. Then another table for our chip timers. It was in a really small crowded tent, and I disliked the process here compared to other races.

The Athlete Village was kind of nice and had a few vendors. As a pre-race ritual, I went to go buy a new pair of goggles at the Aquasphere tent. I did like how there was a huge swag tent, there was lots of swag to look at compared to Ironman Calgary. I bought a bunch of race branded water bottles because it looked like they were running low, and planned on returning to the swag tent once I finished. We put the stickers on our bike, dropped off our bikes in transition, and walked by the swim start before leaving for the day.

Pre-Race

Since the race started around 6am, we woke around 4am so that we could get to transition early without rushing. I opted to eat a Clif bar for breakfast, which I took with me and ended up eating while setting up at transition. I was going to have a gel before the swim, but totally forgot.

Swim

With the way I swim, I really have no business participating in triathlons. But I really wanted a 70.3 finisher hat. I didn’t do any pre-swimming at the venue because everyone had nasty things to say about Elk/Beaver Lake. I didn’t do any open water swimming before this race, because the waters were still too cold. I was only swimming about 1x/week.The outdoor pools had just opened for the season. I didn’t even try on my new wetsuit until before athlete check-in/bike drop. The odds were really against me.

On race morning, we learned the swim was officially shortened due to lake weeds. Yay! Shortened swim should mean auto-PB. It didn’t take long to set up at transition, and I rushed so I could get in the water for a small warm up. I wore a one piece Sugoi trisuit, and quickly put on my wetsuit. I made sure to Bodyglide the back of my neck, around my elbows and knees. Walking barefoot from transition to swim start was honestly the hardest part of the entire day. The swim start was really far from transition and I should’ve brought flip flops.

The lake was warm and there was no visibility — perfect! All my triathlon swims have been in murky water, so this is all I know and I think I prefer it. I let water into my wetsuit, swam towards a buoy and got back out to get in line. It was a self seeded start and I put myself in the last 1/4 of the crowd. The swim start area felt like a cluster. The corral was too small, and there was not enough space to wait by the signs for your expected swim times. I’ve only ever experienced wave starts, so this rolling start was new to me but it felt very much like a running race. The gun went off, and you gradually make your way through the starting arch. Everyone started getting into the water, and I waded in until about waist deep and started swimming. Some people walked in until up to their neck. I swam a little bit and then started to get jostled. Nothing major, no punches or anything. But in the first 100m, every time I got bumped I would completely stopped and then I started to panic and get scared. But I couldn’t quit because I wanted that hat. And I was too close to the shore and the crowd. So I forced myself to keep going. I exhaled extra hard and counted my strokes to keep myself busy. After I passed the first buoy, I felt better. When I passed the second buoy, I was over the moon. I was suddenly having THE BEST SWIM EVER. I was having the best time ever. I just kept counting my strokes and enjoyed the swim. It was magical. Until it was time to turn back. The turn buoys switches sides (which was really confusing, I thought we kept all buoys to our left) and we got into the lake weeds. I didn’t love that. I didn’t know what to do so I started to swim weird. Then a weed landed on my face. But it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I thought that if you were to get into the weeds, it would start pulling you down into the depths of the lake and stuff. Nothing like that happened. The lake weeds were also nowhere as scary as people bumping into me.

We got pulled out of the water at the swim finish, which was a floating plastic dock thing. The volunteers form a human chain to hoist you out. No wetsuit strippers. I literally skipped and ran with joy into transition. I’ve never felt like I was having fun in an open water swim until now. I hope this is my new normal. My swim time was still pretty awful, 42:19 for either 1500 or 1600m, I’m not really sure what the distance was. I lost some time with the buoy confusion. I need to work on sighting, getting comfortable in crowds, and swim strength. So, basically everything.

T1

I was able to run to T1, which is a first for me. I had tucked the end of the zipper string into the velcro part on the neck of my wetsuit, so it was really easy to reach and start unzipping myself. I took off my swim cap and goggles and held them in my left hand while I pulled off my sleeve so they got safely stowed away. I sat down in transition to wrestle the rest of the wetsuit off. I rinsed off my feet using an extra water bottle, and put on my hot pink Betty Designs cycling jersey and Sugoi cycling shorts. Yes, on top of my one piece Sugoi trisuit. I like extra padding. It was overcast, and my jersey has SPF, so I skipped sunscreen.

BIKE

I had a great time on the bike, but I am so embarrassed by my time. I felt really strong and rode in the big ring for almost all of the ride. Compared to where I now currently ride and train, the Victoria course felt pretty flat, other than 2 major hills. I spent a lot of time with my head turned looking the at scenery. Not aero at all. I planned on riding by HR but couldn’t because the HRM I brought with me ended up being a dud. So I decided to go by RPE alone, and not check my time.

The course was really beautiful, but I felt like there were too many cars for my liking. There were also a few accidents. One was at an aid station, and I think I saw at least 2–3 ambulances over the course of the ride. But maybe that’s par for the course when you’re back of the pack like me. I rode with concentrated Infinit and water, and my nutrition felt bang on. I will ride with one disposable water bottle on future races, so I don’t have to fumble with water re-fills.

When I got back to transition, I finally looked at my time and was shocked! 4 HOURS?! I was so annoyed at my time, and got little disoriented so extra T2 time was wasted by trying to exit out the wrong corner of transition. 4 hours?! 4 hours. Boo. My RPE is a liar. I was hoping for at least 3:25 or under, and ended up being 03:45:13. I learned my RPE is a liar and elevation charts are greatly exaggerated. Next time, I’ll be sure to ride with a working HRM and most obviously, check my time.

T2

I was pretty upset at my bike time, so I forgot to take off my cycling shorts. I changed into my sneakers and threw on my race belt. I opted to run in my cycling jersey because the weather was still cool and I still didn’t want to bother with sunscreen.

RUN

The run was pretty flat, 2 loops around Elk/Beaver Lake. The aid stations were every 2km, but felt a lot farther than that in some places. Normally I run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute, but since I never do any speed work, I decided to try a new ratio of 4:1 and see if I could get free speed. I stuck to cola and water, and ate half of a peeled banana for some reason. Pre-peeled bananas are weird. It was pretty hard having to run by the finish line to start the second loop. I thought about how hard that would be on a 140.6. My second loop got a lot quieter. I also stopped for a bio break, and I’m convinced it was the reason why I did not PB (in reality, it was many things). There was a younger guy whose left leg didn’t seem to be cooperating, but he was limping faster than I was running. Just like how there were people who were backstroking faster than I was front crawling on the swim. We leap frogged a bit and chatted some. I lost him when he stayed to walk with a couple girls in really cute Zoot kits. It got a little warmer near the finish, so I started throwing a cup of water down my chest. I’ve seen plenty of other people racing in what look like cycling jerseys, and I loved racing in my hi-vis Betty Designs cycling jersey for so many reasons. It was easy to spot me. It kept me comfortable. It had sun protection and covered my back and shoulders, and I learned it could keep me cool when I needed it.

Overall Thoughts

I was pretty undertrained going into this race. I was getting into the pool once a week. Barely running. I was focussed on getting stronger on the bike (and I was getting there) but never doing any speed work. If I was racing in July, I would’ve been in much better shape. Especially with everything I learned at this awesome training camp. Regardless, it’s pretty cool to see what my body is capable of. Victoria won’t be the top of my list for next year, since it’s really early in the season for me and I don’t like taking the ferry from Vancouver. But I’m excited to race another 70.3 and see what happens. Thanks to my husband and family for being really supportive, and thanks to my friends for all your messages and encouragement.

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