Internal Mono(b)log

Hey Folks!  Slightly off-topic and I promise not to bore you with many of these, but..

In early June I’ll be riding again in the Heart and Stroke foundation’s Ride for Heart.  It’s a fund raising event that annually raises over $1m for heart disease research and education. Last year I set my fundraising goal at $5k and together with your help surpassed it!  This year I doubled that goal to $10k but haven’t even crossed the 25% mark yet.

Please anything you can afford is welcome: it all helps get closer to the goal. Of course, it’s also tax deductible and you will receive a tax receipt for your donation.

Here’s the donation link.  Please be generous and think about this when giving: 1 in 4 will suffer a heart-disease related malady in their lives.  1 in 4 means you, or someone in your immediate family or closest friends.   The statistics are too high to ignore, but together we can make a difference!

Thanks!

Yesterday Finis officially announced their newest underwater MP3 player: the Neptune

Neptune is a waterproof MP3 player that provides the highest quality sound in the water without the use of ear buds. Neptune uses revolutionary Bone Conduction audio transmission to transmit crystal clear audio through the cheekbone directly into the inner ear.

My player is through customs and should be here shortly for evaluation and my review.  Stay tuned for updates.

The Neptune definitely addresses one of my (very minor) irritations with the SwiMP3: no way to select tracks/playlists.  It also appears to have potentially addressed some of the fragility around the wire connections to the earpieces.  From the literature it looks like Finis may have revised/improved upon the bone conduction speakers as well.  These and other questions will be answered soon

For now: Just Keep Swimming… Just Keep Swimming…

This week the City of Toronto is planning to aerial spray for gypsy moths.  Thought they say the spray is safe for humans, we’ve all heard that before.

Aerial sprays will begin on Thursday morning between 5 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. in seven Etobicoke areas including Humber Valley Golf Course, Valecrest Road and North Drive, Royal York Road and the Kingsway, Thorncrest Road, Herne Hill, Princess Margaret Boulevard, Kipling Avenue and The Kingsway and Edenbridge Drive.

The second spray will take place on Friday morning at Moore Park, Cherry Beach Park, Toronto Island Park and Tam O’Shanter Golf course.

http://globalnews.ca/news/576093/two-aerial-sprays-planned-to-combat-european-gypsy-moth/

Please spread the word and everyone train safe out there!

Day 3 brought us a 50ish KM time trial on the bike and then some short tempo runs with video analysis in the afternoon.

Here’s my TT.  Was pretty happy with it, especially given the baked feeling my legs have at the moment.

Was definitely channeling Jens Voigt for portions of this ride.

Fuel today for the TT was EFS Liquid Shot and a big portion of my continual ability to push this hard day after day is definitely thanks to ExtremeEndurance.

Plan for today was a big brick.  Here’s the bike before the ride.

My legs were pretty smoked from hill repeats yesterday and my power file shows it.  Saddle sores starting to be a bit of an issue, which sucks, but my tea-tree oil will hopefully help remediate that.

My back started to cramp up in the last 45 minutes and so I scrapped the run and did water support for the folks who did the 21k run.  I may still run tonight but my back is still kinda angry, so gonna play it by ear.

My fueling today was PickyBars and Gu Rocktane Drink, used some EFS PreRace to help push through the fatigue and ended the ride with a First Endurance Ultragen.

Hill repeats today on the Lac Superior segment.  Here’s my TrainingPeaks data.

Good Times!  Easy recovery spin planned for this afternoon.  Fueled with a flask of FirstEndurance EFS liquid shot and a couple of PickyBars

Most people are here, still waiting for a few to arrive tonight, but those of us who are here start punishing ourselves training today.  We’re doing hill repeats ad nauseum today.  Currently it’s a bit cool 6C, but it’s looking like it’s going to be a nice day.

People are drinking coffee, eating breakfast and generally waiting for the temps to come up a few degrees.  We’re probably going to head out around 9am, so a few hours to kill.

Individual athlete goodie bags containing ExtremeEndurance, a Finis swim cap, PureProtein bars, socks from TrainingPeaks and 1st Endurance Water bottles were a hit and our nutrition buffet with 1st Endurance, GuEnergy, Pickybars is setup.

Good times!

I’m getting pretty excited about the next 6 days! Tomorrow morning I leave for our annual spring Ironman (and 70.3) Mont Tremblant Training Camp!  2 of the 6 days are pretty much travel days with light training to workout the car-time if scheduling allows, but the 4 interceding days are gonna be all about pushing the body hard and taking full advantage of the following super-compensation training effect

Last year the water was warm enough to swim, but we won’t be so lucky this year, so we’ll be taking 5 days off swimming and just focusing on bike and run.

Unlike last year, this year we “splurged” on a chalet: yes!  Showers… real beds.. a real kitchen… internet… LUXURY   There are also more of us this year, which makes the chalet much more affordable.  Along with the dozen of us crazy triathletes who are going to put our bodies through the ringer, we’ll have 3 or 4 mountain bikers who are in Tremblant for a weekend race.

Like last year, we’re very well supplied.  Socks from TrainingPeaks, swim caps from Finis, water bottles, fuel and recovery drink from FirstEndurance, gels, energy and recovery drink from GU, bars from PureProtein and from Pickybars and lactic buffer from ExtremeEndurance.   Our athletes will definitely have no excuse when it comes to fueling their workouts and recovery!

Big thanks to all our generous sponsors!  You all are amazing!

More blog-entries and photos coming from the camp (hopefully nightly).  BOOM!

I’ve been meaning to write this review for almost a year(!), but having waited has given me more training and racing experience with this kit.  So rather than doing a review and a subsequent follow-up, I can now roll it all into this one post.  So… yea it was intentional… really    So lets get into it!

Finding the Pro In-R-Cool Tri Set

I first heard about the In-R-Cool clothing from an article about Pearl featuring Angela Naeth and wind tunnel testing. The results of the testing showed a drag reduction similar to what you’d expect from a set of race wheels.  I needed a new suit and I was “sold”.  I started looking, but to my surprise, I couldn’t find the set in my size anywhere (online, brick-n-mortar, distributors, etc.)  Eventually the folks at Shimano Canada who are also the Pearl Izumi distributor up here found me a display set, in my size, AND allowed me to pick it up on my way to Ironman Mont Tremblant.

Tremblant was a great 1st test for this kit: we got it all, hot, cold, windy, still, rain, sun, overcast, even a double rainbow (sure the clothes had nothing to do with that, but it was still pretty amazing).  I’ve since also worn it for gallons of training and for the Leadman Marquee 125 in Tempe, AZ (yes, it was very hot there ).

Comfort and Fit

The In-R-Cool tri set just feels fast.  Kind of like the 1st time you wear a speed suit swimming, this suit just feels like it moves through the air better.  Unlike many tri sets, the Pearl Izumi In-R-Cool set is also super comfortable.  The tri-top has no zipper to rub and chaff.  I was concerned about the inability to open the zip for cooling, but in practice I was cooler where the tri-top covered than where it didn’t.

The tri-short chamois is, minimal (as you’d expect):

As minimal is it is though, it’s pretty darned comfortable.  Would I want to race RAAM on it?  Well, no, but I wouldn’t do that with a tri-short at all, so yea… for its purpose in life, its well done.

I was a little skeptical of the claims that the suit is cooling and reflects UV but, in practice, it was definitely proven true.  I do wish there was a men’s “shrug” (to cover the arms, shoulders and back of neck where the tri-top doesn’t cover), but unfortunately these are strangely only available for women.   When I raced in Tempe I actually only wore the shorts and wore a cooling long-sleeved shirt to prevent sunburn on all the exposed skin.  I wish I’d had some sort of solar protection in the In-R-Cool materials because I’d have loved to wear the full kit.

Finish and Durability

Pearl warrantees all their clothing with a lifetime guarantee!  That’s confidence in your product and having put a lot of hours into this kit I now understand that confidence.  This kit is bombproof: all the seams on the tri kit are welded and have no threads to pull loose, break or fatigue over time; the materials the clothing is made of feel “space-aged” and super technical, but rugged.  Again, when I first got the kit I was a little nervous that the technical nature of the material would make it fragile, but it’s tough… really tough.  Like, survives road-rash tough!

Conclusion

Pearl Izumi make many pretty outrageous claims about this clothing line.  I approached the claims with a skeptical eye, but was proven again and again that they were true.   Does the tri-suit save me as much time as my Madfibre wheels or my disc?  I can’t say, but it sure feels fast  Beyond that though, the suit feels good, cool and comfortable and has proven itself to be very durable.  Nice job Pearl Izumi! 

Nice article from FirstEndurance talking about fueling for intense training.

Nutrition During Intense Training | First Endurance.

Especially well timed as a small hoard of us are heading to Mont Tremblant for a 4 day training camp very very soon now

(Yes, I’m getting excited about the spring training camp ;0 )

I was visiting my folks yesterday for Mother’s Day. I love my folks and don’t see them near enough.

Anyhow. Soon after I got there, they asked me if I had seen my picture from the Toronto Marathon in the National Post.

!!!

Well, no I hadn’t, but here it is. That’s me at the bottom, in the forefront. Too bad it was a not great day for me otherwise but fun to make the national press