Tuesday 22 September 2015

Niagara Falls Barrelman Triathlon Post-race Report

My first half-iron distance triathlon


       This one had all the ingredients for an interesting experience. After Wasaga Beach, although I was signed up and looking forward to Barrelman, I had contemplated ending my season there because the race didn't go well and I had no idea why, I had felt burnt out and on top of that I was getting REALLY busy with trying to finish my Master's degree. So Mark and I decided that for the next 3 weeks leading up to Barrelman I would take some time off to focus on my thesis and just do what training I could and give Barrelman a go anyway. Over those weeks I had essentially become a narp. Although, a lack of training leading up to a big race is both an excuse for performing poorly and a reason for performing well. I think in this case I really needed the rest and it benefited me quite a bit to take the time off. Although I wasn't as sharp as I would have been with a proper taper I was very well rested and I think it paid off... for the most part.

Emma and I setting up transition before the race

     The set-up of this race is unique in that there are 2 transition zones (you swim in Welland and essentially bike to Niagara Falls and run around the falls). I was worried that this would make things confusing but the system put in place by Multisport Canada to get gear from one transition zone to the other was easy to follow and worked well.

      I am a big advocate of proper nutrition and smart pacing in longer distance races, I think they make all the difference. If you don't pay homage to the pacing or fueling gods in a half-iron distance race you are invoking their wrath and they are pleased to deliver. That's why I engineered a state of the art, long-course fueling enhancement system onto my bike as seen on the left; I taped a ziplock bag to the front of the frame and put jujubes in it. And although it may have made my bike look like the village idiot of the pro rack, it did the trick.

     I was able to get into the open water twice in the 3 weeks after Wasaga Beach leading up to Barrelman and this gave me the opportunity to work on what went wrong during the swim at Wasaga. Spitting in my googles worked like a charm to fix my vision problem and I was able to practice light kicking. The primary goal for the swim at Barrelman was therefore to swim with a very light kick and of course, be able to see out of my goggles. Both of these things went very well during the race and I left the water after the 2k swim feeling great, swimming in 33:33 which is similar to what I swam at the K-town tri earlier in the season.

You get a little glimpse of the Welland canal behind me that we swam in which was really cool.

     My goal for the bike was a fairly ambitious 36kph average over the 89km course. I knew this was possible because the course was flat, however there was a net headwind heading to Niagara Falls which may make this quite difficult. This is where training in Kingston pays off because the wind didn't feel that bad and I ended up averaging 37kph over the course and felt great doing it. I started hurting at about km 60 and almost bonked at about km 80, but considering it was my first half-iron race I think I paced it very well. This was probably my most successful bike ride from any race I've done to date. Here is a video from midway through the course.


    However this is where things got a little rough. As soon as I dismounted my bike and started running it to transition I started to feel some pain in my right knee, similar to my injury from earlier in the season. Not a big deal though, sometimes my knee hurts a little after a hard bike ride and goes away quickly once I start running, and I knew I was in a good spot in the race so could afford a couple slow kms to ease into it a bit. But it just ended up feeling worse and worse. I had to walk-jog most of the run. I had serious thoughts about dropping out at about km 4 but dropping out of races isn't something I've ever done and wasn't something I planned on starting today so I hobbled around the falls twice with lots of walking breaks and finished the race almost an hour slower than I had hoped for.

     I've been getting a lot of 'sorry to hear that' or 'you must be so disappointed's but I actually think my experience with this race was a positive one. Being my first half-iron distance race it was essentially a 'see how it goes' kind of race and I am happy with how I performed on the swim and the bike, and the problems on the run are something Mark and I have all winter to figure out. Overall I am very happy with where I am right now and am looking forward to still improving a lot and having an even stronger season next year.

    Thanks to Multisport Canada for putting me on the 2015 ambassador team, it has helped in more ways than I can explain. And to LPC for having me as a Hurdle Project athlete. It's been a great season. Next up is Multisport Canada's Recharge with Milk Woodstock Triathlon 2016.

Monday 31 August 2015

Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon Post-race Report

A difficult day of racing


      The Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon was one of my premiere races this season because it was both the Triathlon Ontario Club Championships and my final MSC series race of the season (and therefore last chance to get some series points). Since this one didn't start until 10:30am on Saturday I left Kingston at 8pm the night before and made my way up to Collingwood to spend the night with Emma and her parents at her grandmothers house (who is also the newest team LPC supporter).


      I got to the race nice and early to scope out the course and get a good swim warm up in. We (LPC) had a solid line up of strong athletes in this one so my plan was to try and get a good draft off of one of them in the swim. I lost them right away, this was just the beginning of what ended up being a really bad day. I hadn't really noticed until now that my goggles consistently fog up really badly, to the point where I can't see 3 feet in front of me. I spend a lot of time in races just trying to figure out where I am in the water and this has to change because it is difficult to focus on good form and going strong when you are constantly worried that you are going off course. This one started to feel less like a race and more like I was just trying to get to the shore in the right spot. Something else I've noticed is that I kick way too much when I race. I am a light kicker in the pool and when training in the open water, but when I race my legs are thrashing all over the place, possibly partially to keep my head above the water when I try to sight. I really noticed it this time because my calfs and hamstrings started cramping up near the end of the swim, to the point where I had to just kind of lie there and wait a couple seconds for it to go away. The run up to transition was interesting (and I think a lot of people felt like this because of the waves during the swim) but I was pretty certain I was going to throw up all over my bike, but luckily I didn't.


       I was ready and excited for a strong, partially tapered bike ride after the training for the bike has gone extremely well this season. It didn't happen. My legs just didn't have it. It felt like I was pushing REALLY hard but just couldn't go fast, like my legs couldn't produce the power despite the effort I was putting in. Anyone who has experienced this will know that it is an extremely frustrating and demoralizing feeling, the kind of which I'm not sure I've ever experienced before as an athlete. The only way I can think to describe it is like something was holding me back, like an invisible rope attached to the back of my bike. There are a few potential reasons I think may have caused this: 1) I am iron deficient again, which I really hope not because I've been vigilant about eating foods with lots of iron and my body doesn't handle the supplements well, 2) I am burnt out after a long XC, track and tri season (in addition to the stress of trying to finish my masters taking a mental toll), or 3) that my over-kicking in the swim tired my legs out (I hope its this one because its easy to blame all of life's problems on the swim). My calf cramped up as the bike progressed as well to the point where I had to slow down a couple times to stretch it out.

       I always have hope that I can still have a strong run and still have a good race. And I knew that I had some really strong teammates to try and chase down which provides me with good motivation to really go for it. One of them being Ryan Power who I saw walking around in transition when I racked my bike, I am still unsure what happened to him that caused him to drop out of the race before the run (an incident with a car I think?). In the first few steps of the run my right calf cramped up badly and I had to stop and stretch it. When I started running again I got a big stomach cramp and hobbled my way to the first km marker in 4:30. At this point I pretty much knew my day was done. I did my best to hold pace and wait for my cramp to go away and try to nail down a decent finishing position still to get some series points. In the end it just wasn't my day, but it happens. Hopefully others can read this and relate and maybe learn something from my experiences.

      Another one of my LPC teammates (and coach) Mark Linseman missed a turn in the run and ended up going an extra km or two, so needless to say it was a bit of a rough day for some of us LPCers.


     Now enough complaining, there were many of us who had a great day. Jackson Laundry won the race with a really impressive 33:30 10k off the bike, Nick Kolodzie held me off for 4th overall and there was an epic sprint finish between Emma Plater and Lauren Heinken for 3rd and 4th on the women's side. Plus many more in the olympic and lots of success in the sprint the next day. I had a good time at Boston Pizza after the race hanging out with the Plater family and some of my LPC teammates and hope to see a lot more of them when I move to Guelph this year.

      Next up for me is figuring out what went wrong and gearing up for Barrelman. I am tired, demoralized and extremely busy trying to get my thesis done so I am taking a week completely off and hoping to get back into the swing of things next week. The race was well organized and Multisport Canada even got the weather to cooperate for us. I am thankful for all of the support from LPC and their Hurdle Project initiative as well as Multisport Canada and their ambassador team program.

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Toronto Island Sprint Triathlon 2015 Post-race Report

Big City Race


       The Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Toronto Island sprint triathlon started with a 4am wake-up in Guelph to get to Toronto and catch the ferry to the island. But this is the life of a student triathlete. I find getting up really early for a race doesn't negatively impact my performance as long as I sleep well in the days leading up to it. Luckily I was able to spend the night in Guelph on Saturday or else I would have had to get up and make the trip from Kingston Sunday morning. It was pretty cool driving through Toronto at 5 in the morning with virtually no traffic, it felt kind of like a scene from The Walking Dead. But then of course after the race you get off of the ferry and there are people everywhere and you don't go more than a few seconds without someone honking their horn and realize you are indeed in a very lively Toronto.

      Despite coach Mark's advice to catch an early ferry Emma and I missed it and caught the 7am departure, with a race start of 8am. It was a bit of scramble to get to the start on time, but at least the run from the outhouse to the beach was a bit of a warm-up.

      The swim felt pretty short compared to the long course race in Kingston a few weeks earlier. However a quick skim of the race results from this race indicates that the swim is an obvious weakness of mine and will be a major focus in my off-season over the winter.

       The bike felt good and ended up being my strongest leg of the race. It was a 2 loop course with lots of turn-arounds, but it was nice and flat making it possible to put out some high speeds. It got a little hectic on the second loop with the other waves entering the course but it was worth it to be able to see who's in front of you throughout the race. With 4 turn-around points I was able to get an idea of who I was gaining on and who was pulling away.


       The run at this race is very fun because it is a 4 loop course, so you are almost always in check with where everyone is in the race. Like the bike, you see everyone multiple times throughout the run (pretty much every few minutes) so you get a good idea of the ground you have to make up on those in front of you and who is coming up behind you. My run was 17:03, which was a little slower than I was hoping for but I don't think I could have ran it any harder than I did. I crossed the line in 5th and ended up getting bumped to 6th by my LPC teammate Lee Rantala who was in a later wave. We've had a lot of close back and forth races in the past couple of years and I am looking forward to a rematch this weekend at Wasaga Beach, where we will be competitors as well as teammates going for the Provincial Club Champs title. Despite not getting the finishing position I was hoping for, in the end I felt that I had a good race. It was also nice being able to race my former Queen's XC teammate Adam Doxtator again, and even though he beat me I'm glad his season is going well.

Me gasping for air like a fish out of water

     I found that this was a really well run event as always by Multisport Canada and it wouldn't be the same without the Recharge with Milk crew out there either. Next up is the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon, which as I mentioned before is home of the Triathlon Ontario Club Championships. Team LPC has a large group coming out and we are looking to repeat as club champs. Most of them I have not seen for a few months so I am looking forward to a bit of a reunion. In addition to the club champs I am looking to pick up some crucial series points this weekend, so as nice as it will be to see everyone, once the race starts it will be all business.

Monday 3 August 2015

Kingston Long-Course Triathlon 2015 Post-race Report

The Hometown Race


      I had been looking forward to the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk k-town tri all season and it did not disappoint. The weather was great, the volunteers were awesome and the support from friends and family at the race was amazing. I can safely say I have never before been chased by pac-man to start the run while his (her in this case) ghosts ran beside me shouting encouragement. I'm pretty sure this did actually happen and I wasn't just hallucinating after 2k of swimming and 56.2k of biking.

Oh wait, there it is... do you see it too?

     This was my longest race to date, and the first one where I had to undergo some serious carb-loading. I went from trying to pack higher carb lunches to shamelessly eating muffins and poptarts to reach my goal for carbohydrate intake. In the end it was noticeably more food not all that difficult to do, and I made sure to not eat to the point where I was stuffed or bloated.

       Because I live just north of Kingston I had no trouble getting to the course early and getting in a solid warm-up. The swim felt strong and the wavy lake Ontario waters didn't bother me at all because I am used to Kingston's antics by now having trained in these waters and on these roads quite frequently. Despite that, my swim ended being comparatively very slow to the leaders, which is a weakness I am going to have to work on this off-season.

      I was a bit frazzled (do people still use that word? Frazzled?) in T1. I ran to the wrong side of the bike rack, snuck under the rack and put my helmet on backwards. After sufficiently embarrassing myself spending over a minute in T1 I thankfully decided to stop doing stupid things and head out on the bike. The first bit of the bike felt terrible. My legs were tight, energy-less and it felt like I couldn't produce any power. At that moment I remembered something I read on what I think was Cody Beals' blog (this is why reading blogs is a good thing!) It was that you don't have to feel good to race well. So I decided to test that and see what happens and just go for it. It ended in one of my best bike splits ever. I averaged a faster speed over the long course than I did at the short course last year.

       The goal for the run was proper pacing. This can make a major difference at this distance. It ended up being one of my best paced and well executed runs in recent memory. My first km was exactly on pace, I adjusted the pace going up and down the hills and finished 10s/km faster than my goal.

       I was extremely happy with my performance crossing the line in 4th knowing how many strong racers there were this year. Unfortunately 2 of the guys ahead of me missed a small portion of the bike course and ended up getting DQ'd. Although this bumped me up to 2nd, I would have rather gotten 4th in a more competitive race than 2nd in one where 2 of the strongest guys made a mistake and were DQ'd. But rules are rules.


     Multisport Canada put on a fantastic event. It was well run and the volunteers were great. I am marking this event in my race calendar for many years to come.


Monday 20 July 2015

Gravenhurst Olympic Triathlon 2015 Post-race Report

My first (full) Olympic distance triathlon


       Gravenhurst 2015 was both my first full Olympic distance triathlon (technically the Garrison Triathlon two weekends ago was but the swim there was shortened due to the weather) and was my first race as a Multisport Canada Ambassador Team member.

       It poured rain in Gravenhurst the night before but luckily the day of the race was nice. The Gravenhurst triathlon is unique in that they drive you out into the middle of the lake in a big boat, push you out and tell you to swim to shore. That's how I remember it anyway. My swim felt strong and steady the whole way through. I had some trouble sighting, I think I did some zigzagging and may have added a bit of extra mileage. That stems from a lack of swimming experience I think and I will continue to work on it. I find it can be tough to know where you are in the water and swimming straight just comes with practice.

        The bike went well. The course was different from previous years due to road construction but Multisport Canada did a great job mapping out a new course for this year and making sure it was well marked and safe with traffic. It consisted of mostly small rolling hills, there wasn't much wind (not compared to the constant never-ending monsoon that is Kingston Ontario anyway) and the temperature was ideal which made for a fast course. I was delighted to average almost 40kph. My bike has come very far since last year and I am learning to translate what I can do in practice and on the trainer to race situations. I believe there is quite a large learning curve with longer distance racing and being able to translate your fitness into race performance is a skill in itself.

       The run was on a challenging hilly course. I wasn't happy with my run while I was doing it because it was much slower than I was anticipating, but learning after the race that everyone felt the same way helped and considering that, I was happy with it. During the Garrison Triathlon I got a stomach cramp about midway through the run. So for Gravenhurst I made sure to drink my full bottle of Gatorade throughout the bike, sacrificed a couple seconds in T2 to take a couple swigs from a separate Gatorade bottle I placed in transition, and used most of the aid stations on the run for water or sport drink. This worked well as I did not cramp at all on the hilly 10k run. I finished 2nd overall behind fellow Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Ambassador team member Andrew Bolton who blew me out of the water (pun intended) in the swim and pulled away further on the bike. I look forward to trying to close the gap on him in the upcoming Recharge with Milk Triathlon Series races.

       Overall it was a very successful day. The Olympic distance was very manageable, I was finally able to make my mark in the Multisport Canada series points standings, and most importantly I completed the entire race with no knee pain whatsoever. The event was very well organized, there was a tonne of support from spectators, and the area is beautiful. I really like the Canadian cottage-country atmosphere.


     As always I am grateful to be on the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Ambassador Team and the LPC Hurdle Project Team, both of which are key to my development. I have a bunch of Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk races coming up this summer culminating in the Niagara Falls Barrelman Triathlon. Next up is the K-town Long Course Triathlon in my backyard, Kingston.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Multisport Canada Training Article

Gluteus Medius - an endurance athlete's best friend


       My inspiration for writing this post is that I am currently dealing with an injury that has overstayed its welcome and worst of all could have easily been prevented. It is running related and is (of course) knee pain. I don't know the exact diagnosis, runner's knee, patellofemoral syndrome, iliotibial band syndrome? It doesn't really matter because the culprit for all of these, and many, many... many other running related injuries seems to relate back to the same thing: a weak or underused glut med. I'm not trying to oversimplify the diagnosis or treatment of these injuries, just reporting on my experience and the experience of other runners/triathletes who have encountered similar struggles. I would still recommend seeing a physiotherapist, I am currently getting fantastic treatment at K-town Physio in Kingston and would not be as far along in my recovery as I am if not for them. But that's not the point of this post, I believe that common injuries like this can be prevented by working in the right exercises to your gym routine.

        First I want to convince you that the glut med is the most important muscle for you as a triathlete, duathlete or runner (I suppose the anal sphincter is quite important as well, but I am going to focus on running specific muscles). I'm not going to pretend to be a biomechanics expert (or even competent really) but the primary function of the glut med with respect to running is hip stabilization. When you take a step, your glut med activates (unless you are me), and this prevents the femur from turning in, thus maintaining alignment of the leg and most importantly facilitating smooth movement of the patella within its joint. If the glut med is weak and/or does not activate when you take a step during a run, your knee bends inwards (known as knee valgus), and depending on the severity the patella rubs up against surfaces it's not supposed to within the knee joint. This can cause inflammation and pain, and I am told is very sensitive and difficult to heal once aggravated (and I am beginning to believe it). Other muscles in your body attempt to correct for your glut med not activating, and in doing so become over worked, tight and just augment the problem (TFL & IT band anyone?). This next point is important, once your body gets used to running this way, it is difficult to change the neural patterning. You are trying to re-teach it to activate the glut med while you run, after it has become ingrained in your brain for however many years to run the way you currently do. This style of running then continues and unbeknownst to you, you are putting yourself at risk. Everything is going great, you are running proud that you have been injury free for years, laughing at your friends water running in the pool (oh ya, me again), and eventually something sets it off. It could be new shoes, running on a different surface, increased mileage, running off the bike, anything really. And instead of being proactive with this problem, you are forced to rehab an injury. I would like to add that a weak glut med does not only increase risk of knee injuries, but improper alignment stemming from the hip can cause all kinds of problems. This all sounds like a headache, but not to worry, there are exercises to strengthen the glut med and teach it to activate while you run.

        Glut med exercises aren't difficult to do, but can be difficult to do correctly. Probably the most difficult thing is to actually get it firing/contracting. The best way to learn is to get someone who knows what they're doing show you (like a physio). Although this isn't always practical based on your budget/coverage, time constraints, physio availability. What I found helped me was to look for images of the glut med so you can see where it is, where it attaches, and the movement it facilitates. This will help you to visualize moving it when attempting to activate it during exercise. What really helps me is placing my hand over the area that should be contracting and feeling for a contraction when I do the exercise. This is a controlled movement with emphasis placed on getting the muscle to activate. It may take some time and focus at first to get it to activate, but once you've got it, it becomes much easier. This won't happen in a single session, it'll take weeks.

        An interesting theory I have recently come across (I'm not sure how valid it is, but interesting nevertheless) is that people who sit a lot during the day (like grad students) are most susceptible to having this problem. Like I mentioned earlier, the glut med is a stabilizer muscle, it's active when you are standing or walking. Therefore, if you spend large portions of the day on your feet the strength and muscle memory of the glut is maintained and you are better able to activate it while you run. On the flip side, if you spend most of the day sitting at the computer watching trailers for Jurassic World and playing Clash of Clans the glut gets weak and feeble. A 'use it or lose it' type of situation. That's why I have designed a standing workplace at my desk in the lab.


Now I can play Clash of Clans and activate my gluts all at the same time - productivity.
I know the ergonomists in the department will be cringing at my neck posture... but anything for my gluts.


        In conclusion, try to use your gluts frequently during the day and work some targeted exercises into your gym routine to ensure your body remembers how to use them. Hopefully this will drastically decrease your risk of getting runner's knee and other related, very preventable injuries. I'm willing to bet that if every runner and triathlete regularly, properly worked on firing and strengthening their glut med, physiotherapy clinics would see a lot less of us.

Tuesday 26 May 2015

First race recap

Race recap #1


As I compete in the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk triathlon series this season I will be providing post race reports on all of the races I do within the series. As I mentioned before my season schedule is on the LPC hurdle project page.


In the meantime I've been busy racing XC and track throughout the fall and winter and wanted to use this post to pick a race to recap from this past season. No doubt it's been a very successful year, probably my strongest ever with undeniably some of my best all-time performances. Despite all of that it was clear to me which event to choose. Some say it's not a real race. Some say it's the only real race. Boasting a field more competitive than some of the open T&F meets, I am of course referring to the coveted1 annual Highway 2 McDonald's Challenge (or H2MC as the regulars call it). Complete with video and all.

The rules are simple: begin at the JDUC at Queen's (naively known to most of campus as the University Center, but correctly known to us as the official H2MC start/finish line). Proceed to run through downtown Kingston using any route you see fit to the McDonalds on the base (a trek slightly under 4k), eat a double big mac meal, and run back. On the line is pride, respect and dignity, all of which are lost pretty quickly into this one. For your viewing pleasure I included the leg of everyone indulging in their McDonalds, and removed the sections in which some of those people, umm, resurfaced that McDonalds. The footage is taken via a GoPro from a headmount attached to one of the competitors:

me

I'm not a very talented video editor, but it gets the point across.

Official results are still being complied by the H2MC task force. In the meantime check out the video here.

1 I'm not kidding when I say this is coveted. It is taken quite seriously.

Thursday 30 April 2015

Introduction and background

There comes a time in every athlete's life when they decide to start a blog. I've come to learn it's as inevitable as shaving your legs or peeing in your wetsuit (other kinds of athletes do these things too right?). I was skeptical at first, about the blog I mean, but I now see it as a great opportunity to share stories, experiences, lessons and expertise with like-minded individuals. My first post will be a short one but it will set the scene for who I am and where I'm coming from.


The following is a disclosure of my life in a few bullet points:

- I was born in the (unofficial) baseball diamond capital of Ontario, a small village just outside of Kingston known as Inverary. It is said that there are enough baseball diamonds within the village to field its entire population. Although this fact is irrelevant, and for that matter completely made up, the point is it's small. Small enough that I have a single running route, and naturally know which houses own dogs the entire way.

- I attended LaSalle high school in the east end of Kingston, which is where I saw my first bit of athletic success with a trip to OFSAA XC in grade 10.

That's me on the right with bowl hair cut, which was cool back then (it wasn't)


- The next stage of my life took place just a short trip down the 401 to the city of Guelph (or Kingston 2 as I call it), where I attended the University of Guelph. This is where I met my soon to be coach Mark Linseman and teamLPC owner James Loaring in 2012. I have been a member of LPC ever since and am fortunate enough to be on the Hurdle Project team for elite and up-and-coming triathletes.

- I have since returned to Kingston to complete my Master's in Clinical Exercise Physiology at Queen's University. I do my running with the varsity team which has helped more than I could have imagined. Most recently, I am one of the lucky few to be named to the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Ambassador Team. As a result, this summer I will be competing in various Recharge with Milk Triathlon Series races for the coveted series prizes. My upcoming races can be found on my LPC Hurdle Project page (linked above).


Simply enough, my goals for this blog are to present what I have learned through my time as a triathlete with the hope of providing helpful and relevant advice to fellow endurance athletes of all levels. I will do my best to make the posts informative, entertaining and most importantly relatable.