This week has been good training wise so far...I managed to complete all the planned training and feeling okay. 
Today was hard though. This morning I woke up after 7 hours, feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. I forced myself to step out of bed and collected my thoughts on the side of the bed for several minutes before mustering the strength to start the day...After that, it didn't get any easier... I felt very tired on the long 45 min commute to the spinning class. 
The spinning felt difficult (even though it was an easy zone 3A day). 
On the run I tried to push the speed slightly and ran 9 miles in an hour, but every mile was a mind game to keep going. Thoughts to push the stop button kept trying to impose themselves from mile 2...I think I'm starting to get really bored of the treadmill. 
After the run, my left foot kept reminding me that it didn't agree with the treatment and I limped to my car. The slow 1.5 hour commute to work on the snow covered roads was tough as I still felt sleepy.
Later, I took a light lunch and went to the pool. The training plan called for 1000 yards but I managed only 700. 
However, it's at the pool that I got my first breakthrough in a while. 
I started slowly, trying not to push too hard with the legs and I managed 250 yards without stopping. I completed these first 250 in 5:50 (faster than my time  of the indoor triathlon race a couple of weeks ago!). I didn't try to go for speed, yet it is faster than I have been able to swim since I started. On top of that, 250 yards represents a great improvement in swim endurance for me. 
After the first 250 yards, I rested for about a minute, and completed another 250 yards! (6:02). The second interval felt much harder, but doing 2 - 250yards in a row is a first ever for me. After that, I did 2 x 100 yards, which again is more than the usual 50 yards at a time that I do.
This really encourages me to keeping pushing the swim. I am definitely going back to the pool tomorrow...
Tonight though, lights out at 7:30pm max!

Since the beginning of last week, I am starting to feel like my routine is easier to follow. As long as I can get in bed around 7:30pm and fall asleep around 8 - 8:30pm I feel pretty good and getting up does not feel like emerging from a 5 week coma.
The spinning class is great. It is starting to ramp up in difficulty and I am enjoying the challenge. I get 3 challenging workouts a week and 3 recovery ones. I like the structured aspect of this program, gently increasing the challenge and taking you to higher level of fitness gently without you even noticing it. After a few weeks though, I really do feel stronger and more confident in my abilities on the bike and I can't wait to take my Felt on the roads again.

On the running side things are going pretty well too. I finally got rid of the pain on both of my knees and I have been increasing the mileage again. Last week was my first week over 40 miles in 13 weeks! I have been running on the treadmill almost everyday of the week as the temperatures remain blisteringly cold out and the air pollution is Beijing-esque here in Salt Lake with the typical winter "inversions".
This week end however, I opted for an outdoors long run. My first 13 miler outside in a long time. I made a little video of the run. I might post it here a little later but it was so shaky I am not sure it is worth it.
I was worried that the low mileage and all the running inside would have really affected my running fitness. It may have to some extent, but after running 13 miles with relative ease outside I feel I can get back to the running shape of my life soon. 
The only real issue I have with my running at the moment is the persistent pain on top of my left foot. I think it originated from over-tightening my shoe laces and was only made worse by experimenting with the Yankz lacing system.
After an easy 10k on the treadmill today, I am limping in pain...

The swimming remains my biggest challenge. I am starting to feel a bit worried about my lack of significant improvements and I am seriously taking another round of coaching. I feel like my swimming performance is plateauing. In the last several weeks, I have not been able to swim more than 100m without stopping. It is pretty frustrating...

I went skiing again this week end. The weather was so bad that my camera caught little of the action. I'll post a video a little later.

Edit 2/1/13: The triathlon organizers re-examined my timing and published a correction to my T1 transition time. I ended up 9th/39 (male only)

Saturday, was my first triathlon ever! Sure it was a modest one (super sprint distance) but I signed up with the primary goal of learning...And boy did I learn!
Yes technically I finished last (official time), although it was due to a technical issue more than a performance issue.
about 35 - 40 min before the race, I accidentally stepped over the timing mat at T1 and my timing chip was triggered. This resulted in a very bad total time obviously... I am appealing the result to see if this can be corrected but regardless, I am more interested in the learnings of this first experience.


I started the event in wave 2. The swim consisted in a 10 pool lengths race, in a serpentine course along the pool. In the excitement of the start I started hard and after about 100 yards I really felt I was abandoning any notion of proper form, breathing every second stroke and just basically trying to survive the water. 
I completed the swim in 5:57 which for me is a pretty good average. I have never swum that fast before (even though this is pretty slow everything considered...). I was pretty happy with the result. 

I pulled myself out of the pool, ran over the timing mat to my T1 area. There I picked up my bike shoes and put on a t-shirt over my tri-suit (required to display your race number before entering the bike area).

The bike part was confusing to me. Frankly, I would call it even a bit stupid!
The spinning bikes were all set at the same specific (and very low) resistance and it was not allowed to adjust it. 
Once on the bike, since the resistance was so low I started pedaling like a maniac at ~140rpm. My heart rate was in the higher zones (4B ~ 175) . After about 5 to 6 miles, I noticed that the rpm counter on the bike was not moving. It was blinking at 120 rpm and whether I accelerated or not, it would stay at the same cadence. 
I called one of the staff to my bike and pointed it out, but she explained that beyond 120 rpm, it did not count. She said there was not point going beyond because the cadence meter would not register. 
This really did not make sense to me. A low resistance and a limited cadence? What is the challenge in that? Is everyone supposed to to the same bike time by absence of challenge??
I slowed down in the last couple of miles and indeed, every time I would fall under 120rpm, the cadence would display properly.
After seeing the results of the race, I am not convinced that the higher cadence was not registering the miles beyond 120rpm. There were better times than mine on the bike and I maxed out 120rpm pretty much the whole time.
Oh well... As a result, I think my slowing down towards the end really impacted my bike time by a minute or so.

When I reached 8 miles, I jumped out of the bike and ran to T2. There I struggled a bit...using bike shoes and then transitioning to running shoes was clearly a big mistake on such a short course. I lost about a minute switching shoes over the fastest guys. The right thing to do here was to use running shoes for the bike as well. But no matter. I learned a lot in T2 because of my misfortune.
The day before, I had installed this Yankz system on my running shoes that I thought would help me transition better by not having to tie my shoes. 
When I removed my bike shoes in T2, I was bare foot and tried to slide in my running shoes. My feet were still a bit wet from the swim or maybe some sweat and this turned out to be difficult. The insole of the shoe would fold and wrinkle under the foot as I was trying to slide it in.
I will definitely have to re-examine the T2 in future races. I clocked the slowest T2 transition of the race...

Then I climbed a couple of flights of stairs to access the indoor (mini) running track. 
We had to revolve 23 times (for only 2miles!) around it  This meant that the radius of the track was very small and the turns pretty sharp. As a result, I had to use the whole width of the track to be able to negotiate the turns  properly. Since I started in wave 2 of the triathlon (because of my expected slow swim), this also meant that I was running with much slower runners. I had to constantly switch lanes, slalom between runners, wait to pass some, and change rhythm frequently. My running time was pretty good compared to my competition but pretty slow for me over this distance (6:45 pace).

Overall this was an interesting race which gave me a good opportunity to learn about some of the things that can go wrong in a triathlon.
I am glad I participated in this race because it gives me great insight on things I need to work on, especially as regards transitions.

In the afternoon, I went to my spinning class and we had another of these killer weekend coach's special workouts. It involved lots of variations of cadence / resistance over constant high heart rate zones and I really enjoyed it.

 Sunday was more chill. I went skiing to Brighton Ski Resort for a half day with a friend. I taught him the basics of skiing (his first time). I did only 1 slope by myself at the end. 
I will post the video later, but on the first turn, my left ski came off (must not have been attached properly). And later, another quick fall on the snowboard park trying one of those (very) slippery ramps for the first time.

This morning  (Monday) was tough. I had a short 6 hour night and the alarm was not welcome at 4am.. However, once up, I felt good. I went spinning again (60 min) and ran for a good solid hour afterwards. 
More fun to come this week!

This week has been amazing so far. I have so much energy! Looks like I am finally turning the corner! The 4am wake up is not particularly enjoyable for a late night owl like me, but it feels more like a routine than a chore now. 


This week has been the heaviest spinning class workload. We're pushing beyond the VT (ventilatory threshold). 
The term “ventilatory threshold” refers to the point in a progressive work exercise test where a lactic acidosis begins to develop. Other terms for this transition include “anaerobic threshold” or “lactate threshold”.
This value was set at the beginning for each member of the class with a short stationary bike trial. This allowed the coach to establish everyone's heart rate zones in reference to that VT.
My heart rate zones are as follows (by memory..):

Zone 1 <127
Zone 2 127 to 140
Zone 3a 141 to 151
Zone 3b 152 to 160
Zone 4a 161 to 169
Zone 4b 170 to 179bpm
Zone 5 >179bpm

The class is currently in its phase 3 and we are exploring higher heart rates and training to maintain these higher values for longer and longer.

Today, the workout kept us 18 minutes in zone 5 and my heart rate maxed out at about 185!

Typically, I go to the spinning class 6 days a week, one hour each time except Tuesdays and Thursdays' 90 min which are also higher intensity workouts.
This week I followed these tough workouts with one hour of running on the treadmill at the gym. I find this particularly convenient because by the time I get to work I have completed 2:30 of solid continuous exercise. Also, with this schedule arrangement, I push the swimming to lunch time which feels a lot better. I still dread jumping in the pool at 6am...

This way, I've managed to fit all 3 sports in one day twice this week. That's about 3 hours of exercise each time... In the evening, I usually follow up with a quick core or weight lifting workout. Nothing that takes more than 30 min. Just enough to maintain tone in the right places...

Also, I signed up for a (small) triathlon race this Saturday. It is a super sprint distance, and fully indoors and will be the first triathlon I ever participate in!
The distances are very short (250yd swim, 8 mile bike and 2 mile run) which gives me the confidence that I will be able to finish the swim :)
The primary goal of this race, is simply to get exposure to triathlon racing and particularly everything that surrounds the race itself: how to handle the preparation of the transition areas, practice the transitions get familiar with the wave start process and basically get some sort of rough triathlon orientation by trial. 

Now I have to pace myself...The road to Ironman will be long and tiresome. It is only January and the intensity will only ramp up until summer time.
This will be very demanding on my schedule. Right now, my pool sessions typically are only about 20 min. I get out of breath and exhausted so fast! But later in my schedule I will have to train for up to 4000 yards at a time during the week.
 
Since my knees are feeling better, and the temperatures a bit warmer, I am planning to restart my long runs outside during the week ends. I have not run outside consistently for what seems like an eternity. With the Boston marathon coming up in April, increasing the mileage is going to be very important to do very soon...
Somehow, I managed to catch what seems to be another minor running injury.
The top of my left foot is sore after my runs. Probably an slight inflammation of the tendons that raise my toes. I'll have to watch that because it's not gotten any better in the last few days...

Last week end, I exchanged my GoPro silver edition for a black edition and this week I ordered a bunch of attachments so I am eager to play with it this week end. I am considering filming my entire triathlon experience with it, but I am not sure yet. I am also planning to return skiing this week end, and do another small video while skiing...

These last couple of weeks have been a bit tough on my morale. The swimming is not improving as fast as I had hoped, and getting up at 4 am has been particularly hard this week. On Wednesday, when I woke up, I was so tired that I almost didn't get up. I dragged myself out of bed and had some trouble keeping awake driving to the spinning class. In fact I did about half of the spinning session, left in the middle of it and went to sleep in my car. 
I am going to bed at 8 pm everyday, but waking up that early is still a challenge for me regardless...
This morning (Friday) I did not find the courage to go spinning. Instead, I got up at 5:50 am and went running for an hour at the gym before work.
On the plus side I have been keeping up somewhat with weight and core work out (even though I keep them fairly minimum in length...)
I was so tired this week that I could not force myself to go swimming in the morning. Instead, I took a bit of time during lunch to go swim for 30 min everyday (except today).
I did another video of my swim.
In my opinion what's improved is the following:
     -better symmetry. I am starting to train myself to breathe on both side every 3rd stroke (instead of every second). I am still struggling on the left side but eventually I should get it.
     -better head position in the water (looking down)
     - slightly better arm position (trying to bend elbows a bit more, and arms not crossing the midline)

What's not working:
     -legs still a bit out of control (need more controlled kick and legs still sinking a bit)
     -Still no endurance. I have to stop every other pool length to catch my breath.
This last point is what discourages me the most right now.  Since I have started swimming I have seen no significant improvement in endurance.

I am trying to re-sync with my routine after a couple of weeks of slow down and indulgences during the holidays. I am back to the 4 am wake up schedule and not liking it much. It will take a few more days not to get that jet-lag sensation in the morning, but right now I feel pretty horrible. 
This morning I had a tough spinning work out. Alpes d'Huez they called it... It should give you an idea how tough it was... Basically, after a long and strenuous warm up, it was alternating zone 5 (maximum heart rate) and zone 4B ( almost maximum)... I actually loved the work out. I love pushing hard otherwise I feel like I am wasting my time. However, I drove to the swimming pool afterwards and fell asleep in the parking lot in my car...
I still dread the swimming pool sessions. I feel weak and useless in the water. And at 7am, I am rarely in the mood to jump in the pool even though this is what I need to train most...

The temperature here in Northern Utah has not bulged from the teens or lower twenties for a few weeks. I do not feel comfortable running outside with these frigid temperatures. In addition, the air quality has been very poor lately. So this week end, I decided to stay in and exercise in my home gym...