Welland Long Course Triathlon 2016 Post-race Report

     My feet hurt. And so do my legs, and my sunburnt skin, and pretty much my entire body. The Welland Long Course Tri, despite being a flat and fast course, was tough. Mother nature certainly took its toll. Do I have any regrets about racing? No way.

     Apparently when making summer plans I can't tell the difference between June and July. I found out on Friday (June 24th) that a daylong outdoor concert I got tickets to wasn't July 25th like I thought, but it was June 25th, aka tomorrow, aka the day before Welland. I didn't want to miss the concert, and there was no way I was missing Welland, so I went to the concert and was 'that guy' sitting in the shade, drinking water and eating a carb-loaded beaver tail. I may have been a buzz kill to a few rowdy fellow Billy Talent lovers, but I was able to not get too much sun, stay hydrated and take in a bunch of carbs from the various food vendors. And yes the show was awesome.

     After a solid 4.5 hours of sleep it was off to Welland. I was feeling strong and ready to go. The Welland Long Course Tri (and the Kingston Long Course Tri) is a unique distance: 2k swim, 56k bike, 15k run. Although I've only done this distance once before in Kingston last year, and although my body doesn't currently agree right now, I think it is my favourite. It presents all of the aspects of long course racing that I enjoy, but doesn't actually take all that long to do, relatively speaking of course. Not to mention the Welland venue is fantastic. Smooth swimming in a canal, a super flat and fast bike course, and a 3 loop run along the canal.

      My swim is certainly not my strong suit, and this is a long race. Therefore, the goal for the swim was to not start too fast, maintain a smooth relaxed rhythm, and try and catch some feet to draft. I never really found anyone to draft, but stayed smooth and relaxed (maybe a little too relaxed) and came out of the water feeling fresh.

     The goal for the bike was to stay strong and relaxed. It's a fast course and I wanted a fast time. The first half of the bike was into the wind and I was moving well and felt strong. On the way back we had the wind at our backs so it felt a little easier. I was moving well and was on pace for a fast time. Nothing was going to get in my way. Except for a freight train. Not metaphorically. With about 3k to go in the bike there was a train sitting across the road. Luckily the driver must have realized there was a race, so he backed up to let us by, and I didn't end up sitting there for that long. According to my watch I biked 1:26:50 (38.7kph), whereas on Sportstats my time is 1:27:54, so I must have been stopped at the train for about a minute. Despite this unexpected incident, it was handled well by Sportstats and the race crew, they just ended up subtracting the short time we were stopped at the train from our overall time. Overall it was a strong ride and I felt good heading into the run.

       The goal was to open the first 3k no faster than 3:50s, then build throughout the race. In a long course race, especially when it is almost 40 degrees out, the first 3k of the run are in my opinion the most important part of the race. It's easy to take them too fast and doing so will make the remaining 12k much slower and very painful. I opened my first 2k exactly as planned, but at that point I got a sharp cramp under my right rib. I slowed it down a bit and ran a 4min k, and it went away so I picked it back up again. But at the 10k mark it came back and stuck around for the rest of the race. I'm still not sure what caused the cramp. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I drank a bottle and a half of sportdrink on the bike, although I guess it's possible that wasn't enough. It could have been because I was riding hard in the aero position for so long and it made my ab muscles tight. Or it could have simply been an unavoidable consequence of the heat. If anyone has experienced anything similar please share.

     Despite being broken, beaten and scarred by mother nature and my first long course race of the season, I had a great day. The race was really well organized, the venue is awesome and I love the unique distance. If there's one thing I can say for sure, it is that for as long as I am doing triathlon, I will be racing the Welland Long Course and Kingston Long Course races. Thanks to Multisport Canada for putting on a great race and having me as an ambassador for the sport, and to the LPC hurdle project for the continued support. Next up is the Multisport Canada Gravenhurst Olympic Triathlon, after of course the Canada Day fireworks at the LPC time trial this Friday.

June 2016 Multisport Canada Training Article

It's all in the little things

I wanted to make one of my Multisport Canada training articles on all of the little things you can do in your daily routine that can actually end up having a significant effect on your performance and training. Small habits that are easy to incorporate but are often overlooked by athletes (myself included). Somehow it took me years to get these very simple things figured out, maybe because I didn't realize collectively how large of an impact they would end up having on my performance (and general well-being), or maybe because I wasn't sure how to implement them. Regardless, I now consider these simple habits essential components of my training, and hopefully I can convince you to incorporate some of them into your routine.

1) We'll start with the easiest and most obvious one, notwithstanding my opinion that its importance is still vastly underrated. The first tip is staying hydrated. And I don't mean hydrating properly during exercise (although this is obviously important as well, and something that I mess up more times than I don't), but I mean staying hydrated throughout the day, every day. This is an important distinction. About 6 years ago when I first started triathlon, and had been running somewhat competitively for a few years prior, my legs felt like they were ALWAYS TIGHT AND TIRED, both during and not during exercise (quiet grammar police). I had no idea why. It turned out the issue was a result of not being properly hydrated. The simple fix was to carry around a reusable water bottle, everywhere, and sip on it throughout the day. This is one of the simplest but most effective tricks I've ever incorporated into my training. There's 4 items I bring with me pretty much everywhere I go: my phone, my keys, my wallet and my water bottle. I dare you to try and catch me without it this summer.

2) The next point I want to bring up is a CONSISTENT core/strength routine. I already did an article on exercising the glut med, so I won't talk about it again, aside from reminding you that it is the most important exercise you'll ever do as a runner/triathlete. I just wanted to highlight the importance of performing a consistent gym routine. This doesn't have to be in a gym however. For the past year, I've been doing 20mins 3x/week of simple, mostly body weight exercises in my apartment. 20min strength workouts are probably the shortest that I've ever planned into a gym routine, but I've been able to do them consistently week after week, month after month and have seen better results than I ever have while trying to do longer gym sessions, less consistently.

3) Next, I want to bring up something that I think a lot of endurance athletes simply don't realize may be an issue. And that is iron levels. I think low iron and/or anemia effects more endurance athletes than you may realize (yes, guys too). It's something that I constantly struggle with, as do many other runners and triathletes that I know. Something you can always try to do more of as an endurance athlete is incorporate iron and vitamin C into your diet, and if needed maybe consider supplementation.

4) My final suggestion is making small, sustainable changes to eating healthy. This is more about developing the habit than anything else. I find something that worked really well for me is making a goal to get 2 servings of fruits or vegetables every day. Canada's Food Guide recommends closer to 8-10. But starting by making sure you get 2 every day, no matter what, is a good start and will build the habit of incorporating them into your routine.

You can catch me at the Multisport Canada Welland Long Course Triathlon this weekend. If you see me at the finish line and I am still conscious, make sure to say hi.

Woodstock Sprint Triathlon 2016 Post-race Report

The weather forecast the night before the Woodstock triathlon was wild. Not only was it insanely hot, there were thunderstorms all day. Luckily, the thunderstorms held off and it actually turned out to be a nice day... for the spectators. Humid and windy is not exactly great racing conditions, but compared to thunderstorms cancelling the race, I welcomed it with open arms.

This was the first race of the season. After a longgg fall/winter/spring of really solid training, I was ready and excited to finally get the race season underway. This was the first year that I spent the entire 'off' season training with no racing (aka no cross country or indoor track season); just training all the way from October 2015 until, well, now (aside from the Around the Bay 5k in March). The combination of a long winter of training, not having to worry about my thesis this summer (I'm finally a real person with a real job) and because I'm feeling really fit, I have decided to do a lot of racing this summer. Because I enjoy racing local, I'm able to fit in a lot more races because travel time is relatively minor and inexpensive. I am therefore excited that I am back again as an Ambassador for Multisport Canada and the Recharge with Milk Triathlon Series, I will be competing in many of their races this year.

This was the first race that I decided to implement caffeine (a known, legal performance enhancer) into my pre race routine. I stopped at a Tims on the way to the race site and got my medium coffee, which contains 205mg of caffeine. I know from testing this out during workouts (once), that if I finish my coffee 1 hour and 15 mins before the race start, I won't have to go to the bathroom during the race, but the benefits of the caffeine will not have worn off.

My swim has historically not been my strong suit, and this season is no different. The goal therefore for the swim today was to stay relaxed, maintain good form and not kick too much, so I could have a strong showing on the bike and run. The goal was to swim 12:00, which is a reasonable pace for the training I have been doing and one in which I would hopefully not drop too far back in the race. However, I got to the transition zone in about 13:30. This was disappointing but I wasn't going to let it ruin me because I knew I had the potential to post some fast times on the bike and run.

Despite the tough winds on the bike course, I thought my bike went really well. I felt strong and was able to catch and pass about 15 people, which put me into the top 10 heading into the run, my strongest leg of the race.

As soon as I started the run I knew it was not going to be as fast as I was hoping. Maybe it was the tough winds on the bike or the humidity that had developed, but the run was tough. Luckily, I think everyone else in the race felt the same way. I was able to run down a couple more people and finished the race in 7th.

Overall it was a very solid first race of the season. I would like to thank the LPC hurdle project for their ongoing support, as well as Multisport Canada for having me back as an ambassador this year.

Luckily, along with chocolate milk, they had pepsi post race instead of coke.

Next up is the club champs at Guelph Lake next weekend and then Multisport Canada Welland Long Course Triathlon the following weekend.