Praha Deconstructed

I had some fun with my Prague travel photos! I created an album called Praha Deconstructed.

2K Swim After Christmas

Back to the pool after Christmas. It's been a while and my cardio kindly reminded me. Often out of breath after a few laps, I think technique was faulty. I found it easier when I focused on resting my head on the water rather than forcing it to turn to breathe.

Workout

Warm Up

• 200 WU w/frontal snorkel

Main

• 200 Free
• 200 Kick
• 200 Free
• 200 Side Kick Drill
• 400 Free
• 200 Pull

Cool Down

• 200 Free
• 200 CD w/frontal snorkel

= 2000m

Tainted Joy

My TT bike has finally arrived to Squad Cycles headquarters for final assembly.

What a joy to see the once-a-design project taking form. The bike looks awesome to me... until I was told there was one painting error. Can you figure it out? (The answer below the pictures)

 

The seat post is red on both sides. This is my Mirror Project; all colors should have been reversed on the opposite side. Bummer. Being anal with details, I need to figure a way to lower the impact of this mistake : decals, ...? Any suggestions welcomed!

Running Prague

I'm surprised I only crossed one runner on my 8K run around Vtlava river, Prague, yesterday morning. The view is magnificent, the path easily runnable (watch your steps on the pavé). All the ingredients for a great run recipe are put together. Still, no runner in Prague. Not true, on our way back to the hotel, we crossed a small group of 3-4 runners, probably elite Czech runner since they were wearing team sports jackets.

It's hard to eat only healthy food in Prague. Running revert my culpability so I can indulge more czech dessert offered in the Christmas Markets.

My Off-season Plan

I have been quiet since Philly. Sorry if you've been waiting. Off-season can now begin! That does not mean no training. To me, it means training by feel.

I am poor at... 

• ...swimming, so I'll try to stick to a 2-3 swims per week schedule;
• ...core strength, so I'll do 2 Focus T25 per week;
• ...balance on the bike so I'll keep going to 53x11 Cyclerie for training on rollers;

Running

I will try to commute to work once or twice a week by run. My left knee is still injured; I'll keep it easy on the run.

Bike

• 53x11 Cyclerie on rollers
• TrainerRoad Base Training program (2-3 times a week)

All this off-season training by feel. If I don't feel like, I don't.

That's my off-season plan which will more than likely change if I am tempted by an event during the winter : half-marathon or else.

PR Beaten by 12 seconds!

I'm currently in Philadelphia Fish Town district. Done and dusted is my 2015 season of sporting events with the completion of the Philadelphia Half Marathon this morning.

Before

Before the race I had zero expectation, none whatsoever :

• I did no training for this race, 
• my left knee is still not 100%, 
• my last two nights of sleep were too short to my likeage. 

But still, I showed present at the start line and would run with the flow and the feelings.

During

The first 4-5 km was crowded and I passed a LOT of runners. Being in a corral perhaps a bit too slow, there were definitely runners overestimating themselves in this corral.

I felt great up to about 12K. That's where I decided I might go and try for a PR. Then came km 16 and this long (it felt horribly long!) hill (nah, but I suppose I dropped to around 6 min per km). I realised it was too far reached to aim for a low 1:40.

I adjusted my pace to feel just a bit uncomfortable. I crossed some Quebecers on the way; the guy letting his woman go because he can't sustain the pain. It was theatrical!

With 1K to go, I emptied the tank; giving all I got until the finish line.

After

I beat my PR with 12 seconds (1:44:41)! That's cool given the no preparation I had and the sleep deprivation.

Consistency & Humility

Back in the pool last night with a program coming off my swim coach; a mix of accessories: paddles, fins, pull-buoy, kick board and free style. Great swim workouts are uncommon occurences and you thank the Universe when it happens... as yesterday! I swam 2300m, an hour with no breaks longer than a minute. I had good sensations in the water. Next training might be different but for now, good swims happen more often than not.

Consistency in going and practice the sport you are more struggling at is key. It is very tough mentally as I would rather ride 90 minutes because I am a strong biker and it fulfills me. Doing more workouts in your weakest discipline takes humility.

Tough Ride Dedicated to France's Victims

I was glued staring at my computer screen. I couldn't believe what was going on in France. Should I be in Paris I would surely be at Bataclan that day attending a concert of one of my favorite band, Eagles of Death Metal. So much barbary in the world these days. Sport is a great outlet in those crazy moments.

Bike

After a hard slept night, on my morning schedule was a long ride on the trainer : TrainerRoad Eclipse. Consisting of a warm-up followed by 3 long 20-minute intervals at sweet spot. The last one was mentally hard, 20 minutes pass so slowly after you already spent a previous 40 minutes close to your FTP. Today I was commited, dedicating my ride to victim's families. My pain was nothing compared to theirs. I toughened up and finished following on-screen form instructions. Let me tell you one thing; focusing on form after a long time in the saddle and fatigued legs is hard as hell... but the reward is big once build season kicks in.

TrainerRoad Eclipse

Ironman World Championship

With tri club friends, we spent the afternoon at LaSalle's Cage aux Sports watching recap of 2015 Ironman World Championship. Frodeno and Ryf still won as they did a month ago!

Swim Evaluation

Bike

Soon to be mine (same model with a custom paint job) which Squad Cycles owner, Patrice Lemieux, calls MIRROR. I shall wait a few more days and it should be mine!

Swim

A filmed swim evaluation of every member of ZEUS Triathlon tri club was going on at the Olympic stadium Sports Centre pool. Every athlete was lucky enough to be scrutinized from front, side, bottom and top! Nothing will escape the eye of the coaching staff!

The Power of Drills

Swim

Working from home means a lunch time swim at LaSalle's Aquadome. I swam a 1000m continuously and am happy to see some progress. I then drilled. Do not underestimate the power of drilling. I remember practicing arpeggio and scales when I used to play guitar. Nothing sexy about it but it pays big time when you play songs. I was at 1750m when I remembered reading in a magazine: "In a swim workout, never swim below your target race distance". So I added 250m to make it a round number.

Swim Workout

Bike

I then continued on my base training home trainer program (TrainerRoad) which is conceived toward improving my FTP. The hour left my legs feeling like big piece of woods and all I wanted was rest for the remaining of the night.

TrainerRoad Carson

Perfect TT bike

Squad Cycles Hornett

An unplanned 90 minutes ride on a Squad Hornett hooked on a CompuTrainer at 53x11 Cyclerie.

Why? Well, I am in the process of getting my 1st tri bike. I chose a Quebec company called Squad Cycles, located in Laprairie, which owner, Patrice Lemieux, emailed me yesterday hesitating on the frame model to choose from : Aero TT which is more comfy/forgiving meaning bars can't be lowered too much or Hornett which is the top of the line aggressive machine but obviously less comfy if your lower back is stiff.

So I spent 90' riding a Hornett and I felt fine given it was my 1st ride on a dedicated TT bike. I have to wait until tomorrow and see what my body thought of the ride (sore back?). Then, I will contact Patrice to make the final call on the perfect frame for me. That's what I am looking for : the PERFECT TT machine for ME.

Squad Cycles Aero TT

Here is the CompuTrainer data generated from the ride

Here is the paint job I got designed on September 19th. That is a long time ago! I can't wait to have it and show it to you!

My personnally designed Squad TT machine

Rest!

Today = Rest.

Best Swimming Tip for Beginners

 I went swimming during lunch time and had a breakthrough workout. Swimming right requires you to discover some keys and collect them as you move forward in your journey into master swimming. Today, I collected one of them which I would resume as:

Unlink your head from your shoulders. 

Relax your head and focus your attention on not putting any tension into your neck. You must not feel the weight of your head, just let it float. As your body rolls left and right while swimming, make sure your head is not part of this rotation. All it does is floating, looking 2-3 feet away and rotates every n strokes (bilateral or not) to breathe.

I know we all read SO MANY comments on how to swim right. It resonates to my ears but might not to yours. Just give it a try for 50m; repeat yourself "Unlink my head from my shoulders". It might work! By repeating this sentence, I went from swimming 1000m 2:15 min/100m down to 2:05 without any effort (My times look slow as I do not push hard from the wall and no flip-turn).

Home Trainer

Tonight, I pursue my quest on improving my FTP with TrainerRoad Monitor, a 6x6-minute intervals at sweet spot.

TrainerRoad Monitor

Perfect November Weather

I definitely felt tired this morning from my ride on the trainer yesterday; having the sniffles. As the day progressed I felt more and more strong. I had a great run during lunch time under a perfect weather in Montreal city. I really hope November reserves us more of this warm temperature. Everybody was outside at lunch time. I met one of my previous coworker and also running, ZEUS Triathlon swimming coach!


Did you run? How was it?

Goddard Cooked my Legs!

Gees it was a hard time spent on the trainer this evening. An hour of all sorts of form work including Isolated Leg Training (ILT), Form Sprints & Cadence Spin-Ups. 

I can't find anything else to add to it. I am cooked! Need to go to sleep and recover for a lunch time run tomorrow.

Goddard workout graphic

Previously, bike commute to work pictures taken this morning :

Montreal skyline view from canal Lachine

Griffintown

USE YOUR CORE

Shaun T repeats it and wears it :

USE 

YOUR 

CORE! 

That's a top ingredient of the recipe in triathlon and we don't hear it enough. Stop reading, dress in your gym clothes and follow this video, it's ONLY 5 MINUTES of your time. You can do this and it's good for your body.

Surprise!!!5min AB WORKOUT
Publié par Shaun T sur 31 octobre 2015

Open-house at 53x11 Cyclerie

Trial day on CompuTrainer at 53x11 Cyclerie training centre by the owner of Squad Cycles, Patrice Lemieux.

Training on CompuTrainer

Training on rollers

All pictures here!
Training data here!
...and Happy Halloween!

Recovery Run

Running during lunch time at work is a great pill against stress. When things are starting to get hectic at work during the morning, I am looking forward my run to unload all the accumulated stress. This is just like a second start of the day and allow me to be more effective in the afternoon as some ideas might come out of my head during the run.

This Friday run was a particulary slow one since I was running with my scrum master, a beginner runner (no offence). But it was still great to be outside, out of the franctic rythm of work. I was apprehensive as I had pain in my hip on my last run, a pain I never ever had before. All in check now!

Training at Olympic Stadium

One of the best shot ZEUS Triathlon tri club achieved so far is booking the Montreal Olympic Stadium Sports Centre for swim trainings! This place is so great and has the spirit of the 1976 Olympic Games. We swim in a 25-50 meters convertible pool (which is not the main pool visible in the picture below). Upon leaving work, I can grab something healthy to eat then take the metro to the pool and all the way back home after. Logistically, it is heaven for me!

Yesterday night I had one of my best swim sensation. I just felt great and fast in the water for whatever reason.

From the top of my head, it was :

Warm Up

400 Free

Main Set

200 (Torpedo push)

200 (no breathing 1st 5m)

200 (breathe 3-5-7)

Pyramid 100-200-300-200-100

Cool Down

Plank challenge is going well : con-sis-ten-cy! Small but repeatable gains. Rince & repeat! Have a great day!

Montreal Olympic Stadium where is located the Sports Centre

Main pool

1 Plank a Day Keeps the Doctor Away!

It's in the core!

Core strength is the core (!) of the game for a triathlete (or any endurance sport athlete). So... I challenged myself to succed in the 30 Day Plank Challenge. Doing a 60 seconds plank is not hard. What is hard it the mental part which consistently doing it EVERY DAY. And that is where a triathlete will or will not succeed : con-sis-ten-cy! You cannot compensate a lack of training by squeezing a 120 minutes run when you missed an entire week of training. The body doesn't work that way. See all the posts out there about injury...

Swim Workout

I took the opportunity of a day working from home to spend my lunch hour at the local pool. Not too many swimmers which I like. Just smooth swimming and some drilling. 

Another swim workout tomorrow night but with the tri club this time.

Beautiful Montreal & Mount Field

A walk outside around the office in order to store some sun during lunch time. A timelapse came out of it :

Things got serious once home. No dinner before TrainerRoad Mount Field training ride, that was my rule for the night! I did it with success... and a lot of sweat! I ended the ride cranking up the erg mode at 107% which means my FTP is probably higher than it was evaluated at. Good news!

Second bike workouts of 1st week done and still a LOT to come in the next 6 weeks. Follow my training journey and subscribe to receive my updates as soon as I post them (twitter subscribers get it later!) I call it a day!

Loss of Fitness Confirmed

I was expecting this result from my 2nd FTP test in more than a year. A crammed season followed by injuries and mental fatigue left me with a significant loss of fitness. Anyway, I did The Sufferfest Rubber Glove to assess my FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and 246W was the final answer. I used to train all summer with a 270W FTP. A huge drop!

So... next step is to work my way up the ladder with TrainerRoad Sweet Spot Base - Low Volume I training program. It consists of a 6 weeks foundation training plan.

My way back to the top starts with Mount Field tomorrow night if I feel fine. Fill the Follow by email  field on the right sidebar to find how much fitness I can recover in 6 weeks. Send me your comments/questions on triathlon @HUGUEStri on twitter (right sidebar).

Soaking Wet Run Workout

My Soaking Wet Running Clothes!

Tri Geek

Calendrier ZEUS Triathlon

Swimming: looking for speed

I started swimming less than a year ago. Actually, I already knew how to tread water and not drown! As a young boy, my parents sent me to swim class. I remember giving up during the crawl lesson: water flooding my goggles, could not get to breathe properly, feeling insecure, panicking, ... All those memories came back once I decided giving a shot at triathlon. I should explain the train of events leading me to where I am right now but this is not the topic of this post!

Looking for speed

Once the first step of the long staircase of learning how to swim for a tri event was covered: breathing in the water, the next item on my list was getting faster in the water. Big red light! Now being a tri geek, I believe I have read anything on the topic! My reading made me understood speed comes with proper technique and what I needed, after mastering side breathing was working on my swim fitness. If you are not born swimmer, you first need to develop those swimming muscles/movements and imprinting them into your brain. You need to know exactly your position in the water. Then, you can move on to swim technique by working on drills.

Currently, my speed is stuck at around 2:11-2:18 min/100m which is poor. Once I will consistently swim around 2:00 min/100m, I could say I'd got on the 2nd step of the staircase.

ToS done... back to Insanity Max:30

The 2015 Tour of Sufferlandria is done and dusted. I finished miserably with no power to put over the pedals but most importantly, I finished! Since Sunday afternoon I took it easy in recovery mode. Back to the pool last Tuesday, ran an easy 30' yesterday noon, did Insanity Max:30 Tabata Strength this morning and another visit to the pool in the evening.

Tour of Sufferlandria - Stage 1

First stage of Tour of Sufferlandria 2015 is split in two: Elements of Style fixes your form on the bike after a few weeks (months?) off-season and The Long Scream, a long, gruelling, never ending ITT.

I was pumped about riding a second ToS. Stage 1 now done, I feel I am coming from a long way without bike training. Instead, I have done a month of Shaun T Insanity Max:30 in order to improve core strength.

Let's take this challenge day by day until day 9 :-)

The Sufferfest - Elements of Style

The Sufferfest - The Long Scream

Quand on se compare, on se console !

Dans mon dernier billet, je disais que ma séance d'entraînement en natation avait été mauvaise. Ce matin, j'avais ma coach pour me filmer et enfin, j'ai pu observer les progrès effectués depuis le mois d'octobre passé. Ça met cette mauvaise séance en perspective et ça démontre tout le cheminement et mon obstination à m'améliorer comme nageur en corriger mes défauts un à un.

Avant, en octobre 2014

Aujourd'hui

Nage poche

Des séances beurk, ça arrive. Quand t'as pas l'impression d'avancer dans l'eau, le coeur qui veut te sortir du ventre, essoufflé pour rien.

Il y a des hauts et des bas. Hier soir, c'était définitivement une mauvaise soirée à la piscine.

Insanity Max:30 Friday Fight: Round 1

La série ne s'appelle pas Insanity pour rien! Ici, le mot fight prend toute sa signification; l'esprit doit combattre le corps en le convainquant de continuer jusqu'à la 30e minute.

Pour voir les choses d'un bon oeil, la première semaine du programme est complétée (après le Pulse que je ferai plus tard ce PM) sur un total de 8 semaines. Si on veut arriver au bout et être fier de ce qu'on aura accompli, il n'y a pas d'autre façon de voir ça. C'est dur, oui. On continue demain, oui. C'est clair qu'on sera plus fort physiquement et mentalement dans 8 semaines après avoir passé au travers du programme.

Un jour à la fois!

Aujourd'hui, c'est Pulse. Demain, c'est congé!

Fond d'écran motivateur

De la motivation jusqu'au fond d'écran de mes ordinateurs afin de me rappeler la raison de mon prochain entraînement :

Fond d'écran - Triathlon 5150 Mont-Tremblant