Recovery? Ride

After the Chinook Olympic race on Saturday it was time to keep rolling on the road to Ironman.  That meant that a recovery ride was on the schedule!  How about a nice, easy 4 hour ride?  We rode out Highway 8 to Bragg Creek, then out towards Elbow Falls, aiming for a 100K ride.  My legs were feeling great!  Had I really raced the day before?  The last time I rode this route my legs were yelling at me on every uphill, this time I barely noticed those uphills.  Perhaps part of the reason for that was the great tail wind we had on the uphill out of town?

For this ride I carried my Infinit bike formula plus I also carried some sandwich wraps.  Kelly has turned me on to this concept – sandwich meat (turkey, ham), some cheddar cheese, all rolled in a corn tortilla.  We stopped in Bragg Creek an hour in and I had my sandwich.  We also ran into Angie out there so I was able to chat with her a bit about my race quickly.

The ride out to Elbow Falls was busy.  It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon so there were plenty of drivers on the road.  After we turned around the road got even busier with massive RVs as they vacated the campgrounds.  Some of them were so large and there were some crazy drafts off of them as they blew past us.

We also managed to see some great sights along the way – a deer and a group of wild horses including two foals!  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me though.  At first I thought they were horses that had gotten loose and were crossing the highway, but the girls later confirmed that they were wild.

The head wind on the way back was wicked…  I was really tightening up between my shoulder blades.  I had to stop and stretch it out, but otherwise the ride went well.  Thanks to the wind our 100K ride was a bit short of the 4 hour goal, but we called it good for the day.

After the race I started noticing that I had some painful spots on my neck that were turning really red.  Check this one out: Wetsuit bite from Saturday’s race?

Recovery Ride..??

Well...I am back home in Calgary after a 7 hour drive through the Rockies. Before I left Kelowna today I had a recovery bike ride that I wanted to get in. Kelowna has an amazing network of bike lanes and bike paths. I mapped out a route that would be reasonably flat that should take me somewhere around an hour. The first half of the route was not too exciting. A bit of uphill here and there, but not much scenery out there. Until I hit the top part of my loop that is! All of a sudden it was nice and rural and the scenery was beautiful! Should I mention that this was also the part of the ride where I realized that my cell phone was sitting on my bedside table...at home..??Lots of green and a few orchards around here and there. Beautiful.It was time to head back into town and it was pretty well downhill. I hit one section that was a 5-6% grade downhill and picked up some speed. I tried to keep it reigned in...but... I turned a corner and there was a set of railroad tracks to go over. And there was a huge rut right at the track. I hit the rut, then the tracks and got some air...then landed. I looked down and no surprises...flat in the back tire. Hey...this would be my first time changing a tire...by myself...on the side of the road...fun! I swapped out the tube, filled it up with CO2, then struggled to get the back wheel back on. All said and done it took me about 16 minutes. As I started away there was a funny sound. Something wasn't right... It kind of sounded like thump, thump, thump... I pulled over, felt the tire to see if there was still air in there...yup. I started off again, same weird sound and within 30 seconds the tire then went BAM!!! I obviously had caught the tube under the tire bead right by the valve stem. Bugger... Luckily I had another spare tube and CO2 cartridge, but now I was shaken. If I made the same mistake again I'd be screwed as I was still 5 miles away from my car. And did I mention that I'd forgotten my cell phone at home?

I swapped out the tube again and made sure to check that it wasn't caught anywhere, especially by the valve stem. I filled her up and put the wheel back on. Just then a fellow walked by and asked if I was okay. He mentioned that there was a bike shop about two blocks away if I needed anything, so that was good to know. If I had another blowout in a minute at least I would have somewhere to go!

As I got back on the road it looked like things were holding...sort of. When I looked down it would look like there wasn't a lot of pressure in the back tire, but then I would stop and feel it and it felt just fine. Let's just say that I was really happy that I made it back to the car without another flat!

Um...so yeah...just over 18 miles of recovery riding in the bag...plus a little flat changing experience to go with it!

Police Half Recovery

After the hilly Police Half it was time to head home and take care of recovery! First things first, I stopped off at Tim Hortons to grab a little sustenance. Then it was time to hop on the bike for a 30 minute recovery spin. I grabbed a stool to set up near the bike so I could have easy access to my Tim's coffee.
I strapped on the new Shimano shoes to test them out.Spinning and hot coffee, with double milk. Yummy!After the nice and easy recovery spin was done I went upstairs to scarf down my lunch from Tim's - a turkey bacon club on whole wheat.After I was done eating I ran through some stretches and spent some quality time with my foam roller. That thing still makes me cry...!!

After that I knew my legs would thank me later if I took an ice bath. One of the benefits of living here is you don't actually need ice for an ice bath. The cold water that comes out of my tap is absolutely freezing! I set up some music for a little distraction...Plus a little light reading...***By the way ladies...Philosophy body washes are amazing! You can find them at Sephora. They smell so much like the real deal and come in some fantastic scents related to desserts and beverages.***

After spending some quality time in some chilly water I pulled on the Zoot compression socks and some super comfy Lululemon sweats.There we go folks, there is my recovery from the Police half in pictures!

Supplementation and a Long Run

After running intervals on Thursday the stiffness and soreness set in to my legs almost immediately. Friday I hobbled around the office looking like I'd just gotten off of a horse. Running on 17.4 mi* on Saturday was going to be interesting...

I spent my Friday evening at a sports nutrition seminar. The talk was divided in to two parts - the first focusing on food choices, the second focusing on supplementation. The talk focusing on nutrition was fairly interesting. Some of it I knew already, but I did take a few interesting things away. The part focusing on supplementation...well... I can barely remember to take a multi-vitamin on a regular basis, but it was interesting to hear about how certain deficiencies can play a role in fatigue, muscle cramping and inflammation. What are your thoughts on supplementation? Does it play a key role in your nutrition strategy, or do you try to eat as well balanced as possible? Where I didn't agree with the speaker was when he talked about what he eats on a daily basis...and most of what he eats is some form of supplement as opposed to real, actual food. My attitude towards food has always been that I think you can have something as long as it is in moderation. Take that out and consume a bunch of powders or bars for your main meals and somehow that makes eating seem a lot less enjoyable. But different strokes for different folks, right?

Luckily by the time Saturday rolled around my legs weren't quite as stiff. I wanted to take it easy on them so I purposely tried to start my run at a slower pace - a good 30 seconds per mile slower than where I was at on my last long run. This time I tried a couple of new Gu flavours on my run too, to see if it made a difference from Hammer Gel. I brought Lemon Sublime and Triple Berry with me. Both tasted...not too bad. I thought I would head out to the Glenmore Reservoir, one of my favourite places for a long run. The pathways were pretty quiet out considering how nice of a day it was. I was keeping a fairly consistent pace for the first bit, but then around the 6 mile mark I slowed down a bit... Then with a mile or so left to go on my first loop around the reservoir I hit a patch of pathway covered in snow and ice. I gingerly made my way across the ice, and then once I started running again I could feel the fatigue in my legs. As I finished up my loop I tried to not look at my car for fear that it would tempt me to stop running and head home instead. I didn't want to navigate the icy part of the pathway again so I opted to do an out and back on the second loop. I alternated miles between feeling good and feeling fatigued. So much for starting slowly with the idea that I might speed up later! No doubt it was relative to running a hard race the weekend before... It felt good when I finally hit 17.4 miles and I could stop running. I wouldn't label this run as terrible because despite the fatigue in my legs it didn't go too badly. I kind of viewed it as good preparation for how I would feel in the later miles of the marathon. I think I still need to work on my pacing strategy though... When I got home I spent about 20 minutes spinning on my bike at a nice high cadence to try and work some of the stiffness out of my legs. It helped immensely! The weather was nice enough that I could have ridden outside, but truthfully I didn't feel like riding any of the hills around my neighborhood so I opted for the trainer instead.

Well, that's about it for me! I hope everyone else had a great weekend!

*Why such an oddball number for my long run? My coach gives me my long runs in either kilometers or time. In terms of distance and pace I can really only think of it in terms of miles though..! So 28 km, or 17.4 miles...

Catching Up

Wow, sorry it has been a few days since the last blog post. Things have alternated between boring with nothing to talk about, to not having time to talk about anything. Now that I have a few minutes here is the lowdown:

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Monday:

Ah, Monday was a rest day... The 30 min bike ride Sunday afternoon really helped my legs recover as I barely felt any soreness or stiffness the day after the half marathon. Was I tired though! I was ready to fall asleep around 8 pm...

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Tuesday:

Tuesday was Remembrance Day here, so we had the day off of work. That also meant no swim or spin class. Coach gave me a swim workout to do on my own and it was some of the most fun I've had in the pool. Why? FLIPPERS! The point of the workout was to improve my kick and body position in the water and it felt like I flew through the 2000m. When I got to the pool I opted to take the fast lane. There was only one other guy there and we looked about the same speed. The medium speed lane already had three people in it and I was worried that once I put the flippers on I'd be a bit of a nuisance in that lane. So yeah...I went in the fast lane... And it was all good until a couple of superstars showed up. They got in the lane and made a big to do about blowing past the two of us in the lane and they intimidated the other guy enough that he cut his workout short and left the pool. I stuck with it in the fast lane since the medium speed lane was still pretty crowded. Then the superstars spent most of their time standing around and chatting in the shallow end of the pool. When they did swim they didn't blow past me anymore either. I'm guessing that they really just wanted a lane to themselves...

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Wednesday:

For my first run since Last Chance I just had an easy 30 min run on the schedule. The weather was amazing and I finished up with just over three miles. In the evening coach had a make up spin class. She gave those of us who ran Last Chance permission to sandbag but for some reason my legs were ready to work. It was a fantastic class.

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Thursday:

I had to miss swim class in favour of a breakfast seminar, but I fit in my 3 x 10 min steady state run over the lunch hour. When I left the office it was about 4°C (39°F) and it felt kind of cool. As I ran my warm up and then eased in to my first interval it started to warm up and the sun came out. All of a sudden I was wondering if I had overdressed! As I was starting my second interval it started to get a bit windier and the sun was going away. All of a sudden white stuff was flying around in the air. Snow! It amazes me how quickly the weather can change around here. The intervals felt good and I wound up finishing up the run with 6.29 mi. Time to hurry back to the office, scarf down a bite of food, then off to a meeting for the rest of the afternoon. Tonight...I plan on relaxing!

Facing Down My Nemesis

I hope you guys all had a great Halloween. Mine was pretty low key. I hung out with my family to see my niece's first time to dress up and go trick or treating. She was the cutest little elephant!

I can say that all common sense went out the window on Halloween. Mini-chocolate bar? Don't mind if I do... Orange Halloween shortbread cookie? Sure... Once the little elephant was off to bed the rest of us hung out, chowed down on some Papa John's and some Big Rock Winter Ale and watched Run Fatboy Run.It was the perfect combination of carb loading and motivation in the form of a movie. I love me my Brit humour and I rather enjoyed the movie. I was ready to face down my 15 miler...

The 15 miler would seem to be my nemesis. Both times I have run that distance it has turned into a serious gong show. The first time was a year ago down at the Glenmore Reservoir. The last part of my run was fuelled purely by adrenalin as I was freaked out about the bear warning signs. And it was freezing. 15 miles...3:05:08...12:03/mi. You can read the run report here. It is truly a tale of what to not do on your long run...

The second time I ran 15 miles was this summer. It was crazy hot out, my bladder was on overdrive, I had some weird hip pain (that hasn't recurred since, knock on wood) and I just really had a hard time mentally getting through this run. 15 miles...2:57:30...11:50/mi.

By all rights today wasn't entirely a 15 miler. I had 25K on the schedule which is 15.5 miles. A totally different ball game, right? And Calgary was in line for an amazing fall day. It was 10 deg C (50 deg F) already when I woke up and we were forecast to get up to 16 C (61 F). I didn't feel like just running around my neighborhood so I headed out to Glenmore Reservoir. Yup, the scene of last year's bear run. I had been assured by a coworker who ran out there last weekend that there were no bear warning signs up right now though. I planned to run two shortened laps around the reservoir which I figured should get me to the right distance.

I felt amazing as I started out. Everything was in sync. I was running low to sub 10:00 miles and my heart rate was just hanging out in zone 2 with no issues. The sun was shining and the mountains in the distance looked beautiful. It was one of those days were you just felt so grateful to be healthy and alive and out there doing this. At 5 miles I stopped to walk and down a vanilla Hammer Gel. Once I got back to running my rhythm felt like it had been thrown off. I was struggling to hold my pace and my heart rate was shooting in to zone 3. It felt like it took a good mile and a half to get back in to it. What happened to my great run? I finished up the loop around the res at about 8.6 miles in. I dropped my long sleeve top off at the car and opted to rejig the route since a second loop would give me more mileage than I needed. I ran an out and back along the north part of the res instead. At 10 miles in I downed an espresso Hammer Gel. I didn't get quite the same reaction on this one, so I'll have to see if vanilla poses a problem or if it was just some weird anomaly. Or if it is just blood being diverted to help digest the gel and that makes my heart rate rise?

I was still holding an average of a 10:00 mile for the whole run so I figured this would give me a good idea of where I should aim for pace wise at my half marathon next weekend. Once I hit the half marathon distance my legs were feeling like they were done with it. The last couple of miles were a real struggle and I slowed down a lot. It just felt like my hip flexors were really tightening up and my knees were hurting. I was ready to be done...

15 miles done in 2:31:37.
15.5 miles done in 2:37:16. A 10:09/mi pace.

Not a bad improvement from July, eh? So anyhow, this run was definitely a learning experience for me. I need to hold back a bit in the first few miles. I know I can hold the pace over the distance, but if I hold back in the beginning I'll have more left in the tank for the rest of the run. And if I can do that I may be able to hold this pace or better on even longer runs.

After that it was time to head home...with a couple of detours along the way. I stopped off to get a hot chocolate for a recovery drink and popped in to Linen's n Things which is going out of business here. I needed to get a new coffee maker for when my parents come to town next weekend so I figured this was a good opportunity. Once I got home my day wasn't over yet though! I had a 30 min recovery ride scheduled. I grabbed a bite to eat, then changed into some cycling capris and a short sleeve cycling jersey and took off to explore a new route out from my house. I headed north along a country road that I had never been on before. It must be a pretty popular cycling route though because I'm sure that I saw more cyclists than cars on my short ride. The ride was beautiful and the weather was fantastic. I was almost sad that I needed to turn around so quickly. Except this was supposed to be a short recovery ride, not an all out endurance ride so I needed to head back. I'm looking forward to exploring around here a bit more next spring.

All in all, a fantastic day. Too bad this amazing weather is going to be pretty short lived!