My First 70.3 Ironman - Mont-Tremblant

June 26th 2016 was marked in my calendar for a year. It was the day I would line-up for my first Ironman 70.3. It just felt huge at the time.

I volunteered for Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant in 2015 so I can grab a priority spot to participate the year after. My tri club was assigned to a run course aid station, at KM 16. We were at the perfect place to witness athletes in pain, wanting to stop, dizzy, alienated by the heat. Finally, I decided to still pre-register for next year on the basis that I still had a few weeks to change my mind and choke. The thing is, I had time to erase images of fading athletes from my mind and I rarely choke once I have something on my mind.

I officially registered some time mid-August. Then, all I had to do was to train. Being an avid reader and fan of the sport of triathlon, I read a lot about training for long course triathlons. I build my training plan by myself. It was more of a skeleton since I am too new to the sport to commit to a rigid training. I didn't know how my body would react to the increased training load at the time.

To be honest, I trained a lot less than I planned for. But I felt I did a great job every training session. I did not get hurt; my subconscious knew when it was too much for my body and I stepped back whenever I felt the rubber band was tight.

I was confident I was ready when I glanced at my Chronic Training Load curve in Training Peaks.

Swim

The swim went well. I entered in the water 25 minutes before my start to warmup and get used to the water temperature. Gun! As I planned, I entered water almost last of my wave. I swam the interior of the buoys (except corners one) to swim almost alone. This was legal and depends of the race venue. That is why it is important to assist to pre-race meeting where this type of info is given.

I swam straight, my sighting being efficient. I did not push the swim, just trying to find and respect my rhythm as I had never swam 1.9K continuously in open water yet. No story here, it just went smoothly. Not fast at all (1:55 min/100m), I will keep working in the pool to increase my speed.

Bike

This is where I am a bit disappointed. It was a really hot and humid day at Mont-Tremblant and I was afraid to explode during the run. I was repeating myself I need to save my legs. Unfortunately I saved too much, getting a Intensity Factor of just 0.61 when I would have aimed for 0.75-80 on a day with decent temperature.

Anyway, I wanted to build on a great experience instead of trying to break a record. Bike went as smoothly as the swim. Volunteers made us slow down after a big crash on Chemin Duplessis leaving about 10 riders on the ground. On my way back to T2, I crossed 3 ambulances.

Run

This is where it paid off being savvy on the swim and the bike. Leaving T2 I was feeling fresh and ready to run a half-marathon. I respected my plan which was to walk every run aid station. I did just that, putting ice cubes in my cap, singlet and shorts. I ate at the beginning of the run: oranges and banana. Then, it was strictly fluids: alternating with Gatorade and water.

I felt the heat of the day around half point. At 18K is where the day really started to hit me as I walked a bit over the hills.

Conclusion

5h 28m. Without a crazy training, anyone can complete a 70.3 triathlon and feel happy at the end of the day. I understand it is a different story for competitive athlete reaching for a time.

I followed my plan and above all I did not let myself get excited too much and push myself over the limit.

Swim Objective & Action Item to Reach It

Now in my 2nd year as a triathlete, I know my weaknesses. As with lots of you it is my swimming. Since the beginning of the year, my focus has been on improving my swim. Not too much about speed but more in swimming with ease, enjoy swimming and build swim fitness. These are my OBJECTIVES

1. Enjoy swimming
2. Swim with ease
3. Build swim fitness
4. Improve my speed

In order to achieve them, I set as my main ACTION ITEM getting ***consistent*** workouts. This translates for me by getting in the pool 3 times a week, including once with my tri club. While in the pool, all of my thoughts revolve around reducing drag by trying to achieve the best body position and develop a feel for the water. Every lap, at the wall, I quickly assess my form and try to fix just one thing in the upcoming lap. For instance, I end a lap and before pushing the wall I give myself a 75% note on my last lap since I felt my feet could have pointed more and then I dedicate my next lap in trying to improve it.

Workout after workout, my REWARD is feeling improvement; better sensations, better SWOLF scores and in the end, more speed. Achieving (slowly but surely) confirmed that my choice of swimming more often works and it makes it easier to got back to the pool for my next workout.

Train of Thoughts

1. What is one of your objectives?
2. What is the very next action which will get you a tiny bit closer toward achieving this objective?
3. Just do it.

My Last Workout

300m crawl w/snorkel

300 crawl

100 kick

300 crawl

200 pull

200 free

100m kick on back

400 crawl

200 CD crawl w/snorkel

/2100m

Swim Consistently in 2016

I want to swim more consistently. And after viewing coach Gerry Rodrigues giving a clinique on "How to become a better triathlete swimmer", it reinforced my beliefs in CONSISTENCY. I have not been perfect in 2015 but I surpassed my expectations. Starting 2015, I could not believe I would swim 1500m continuously without wetsuit. Which I did in Magog doing my first Olympic distance triathlon. Starting 2016, I am planning on swimming consistently day in day out, week in week out.

This year, I will become an open-water swimmer. I will be working out at the pool. Some sessions will be ugly but that is part of the process: it is not a straight line to improvement. I will have bad workouts. I can accept that. I will admit when they happen. BUT I will also be back at the pool trying again to become a better swimmer. I will not swim to accumulate mileage, I will swim to be better than the previous session.

If, like me, you struggle with your swimming (compared to biking and running), do yourself a favor ;

1. Get a pen and some paper
2. Sit comfortably without any distraction
3. Launch this video series
4. In the comments below, tell me what you got from it. Did it inspire you? What do you agree or disagree on? I am curious to read your comments...

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Les détours de la vie

Jusqu'au 8 juin 2014, jamais ne m'était venue l'idée de me mettre à la natation. Depuis la fin de mes cours de natation, alors enfant, je n'ai jamais été un fan de l'eau. Même en vacances, je préfère lire autours de la piscine que de sauter dedans. Depuis ma participation au triathlon en équipe 5150 de Mont-Tremblant pour la cause de la sclérose en plaques, quand j'ai vu les nageurs courir dans la zone de transition en dézippant leur wetsuit, ça m'a frappé : je veux faire ça!

Après avoir joint un club de triathlon, je me suis donc mis à la nage la semaine suivante. Aïe, que ça a été pénible au début (ça l'est encore, mais de moins en moins). Juste faire des bulles la tête dans l'eau a été un apprentissage. Ça paraît anodin, mais c'est tellement contre notre instinct de survie! Par la suite, j'ai appris la technique de respiration bi-latérale. Puis, le catch et le pull (que je travaille encore). L'obstacle ultime pour le moment est de vaincre cette attaque de panique injustifiée qui m'arrive quand je suis essoufflée. Après, sur ma liste, viendront l'apprentissage des autres nages : le dos crawlé et la brasse, surtout.

J'y vais par petite bouchée sinon j'abandonnerais tout de suite. Je ne me vois pas nager 1500m en continu le 20 juin prochain (triathlon olympique 5150 Mont-Tremblant), mais je suis inscrit et je travaille pour être au départ.

En ce 30 décembre 2014, je reviens d'une séance de 2250m en 25m. Il y a un an, jamais je n'aurais pensé nager cette distance ou nager tout court. C'est fou les détours intéressants que la vie peut nous réserver !

Triathlon : update!

Bon, ok, ça fait un peu trop longtemps que je n'ai pas posté de billet sur mon blogue. La dernière fois était à l'approche de mon premier triathlon. J'étais fébrile, stressé, apeuré par la portion nage. Le résultat a été meilleur que mes espérances. J'ai terminé au pied du podium, en 4e position. De mémoire, il y avait un peu plus d'une cinquantaine de participants à ce triathlon super-sprint.

Nage

Comme je pensais, la natation a été laborieuse. Je n'ai pas réussi à nager en crawl l'entièreté du parcours; après 3 minutes, avec tout le monde autours et le stress, je suis passé à la brasse. Même en brasse, j'ai dépassé des gens! Je suis quand même sorti de l'eau parmi les premiers. Surprise!

Vélo

Mon arme de destruction massive! J'ai dépassé presque tous les participants (sauf 3) sur le parcours vallonné. J'étais dans mon élément, prêt à écraser tout ce qui se trouvait sur mon chemin!

Course

Les jambes lourdes; surtout que les premiers et derniers 300m se passait sur une plage de sable fin. Après, le but était simplement de gérer ce qui restait dans mon réservoir. J'ai approché le gars en 3e position sans être en mesure de le dépasser au fil d'arrivée.

Entraînement

Présentement, je fais le bilan de ma première saison en triathlon. Ce ne fut pas vraiment le cas, j'ai commencé à m'entraîner après une révélation au Ironman 5150 à Tremblant en équipe où j'ai participé à la portion vélo. Donc, entraînement débuté officiellement le 9 juin en mode triathlon. Bon, comme je disais, l'heure est au bilan. De ce bilan découlera des objectifs clairs pour la prochaine année ainsi que les actions concrètes pour atteindre ces objectifs.

Triathlon : je me lance !

Je me suis lancé sans trop savoir dans quoi je m'embarque, un triathlon Super Sprint à Ste-Agathe, 3 août :

Nage : 300m

Vélo : 12 km

Course : 2 km

C'est une formule d'initiation au triathlon.

Il me reste à me présenter à la piscine 3X semaine et pratiquer, pratiquer, pratiquer...

2014 Winter Vacations Playlist Preparation

Before going on a trip, what a joy is it to build your musical playlist! Today, the day before New Year Eve, I am building my playlist for a nice and long Winter holiday South. Here is what it looks like :

• DJ Champion - Chill'em All
• DJ Champion - Resistance
• Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
• Nine Inch Nails - Things Falling Apart
• Nine Inch Nails - [With_Teeth]
• Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
• Miles Davis - Ascenceur Pour L'Échafaud
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Ma vie avec Mozart
• Them Crooked Vultures
• Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
• Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
• Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies To Paralyze
• Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
• The Offspring - Splinter
• Muse - Absolution
• Muse - Hullabaloo
• Moby - Destroyed
• Martin Léon - Les Atomes
• Louise Attaque - À Plus Tard Crocodile
• The Lost Fingers - Lost in the 80's
• Led Zeppelin - Mothership (Remastered)
• La Vie La Vie
• Jonathan Painchaud - Qu'on se lève
• Jean Leloup - Mille excuses milady
• Tool - 10,000 Days
• Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire
• Radiohead - Best Of
• Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
• The Postal Service - Give Up
• Portishead - Portishead
• Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation: The Best Of Pixies
• Niagara - Best of
• Alice In Videoland - Maiden Voyage Plus
• Audioslave - Audioslave
• Bad Religion - All Ages
• The Beastie Boys - The Sounds Of Science
• Blur - The Best Of

My Holiday Readings

During my winter vacation, I plan on reading a few practical ebooks such as:

The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential by Leo Babauta

From an hyperlink to the other, I found myself discovering this author, Leo Babauta. He is an active blogger on the subject of efficiency and being zen at planning, organizing and especially executing.

Amazon book

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

I am reading this ebook on my Kindle for the second time. Context is more or less the same but having done more steps toward what I want to be since my last reading, words of wisdom seem to sound differently in my head now. This book is a must.

Amazon ebook for Kindle

Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory

I will be reading this book for the third time… or is it the fourth? At every reading I find something I can directly apply with my coworkers. Of course, book advices are often a utopia but the principles are valuable. I feel reassured upon reading almost all development teams hit the same walls. Reading this book is kind of a therapy to not stop trying to improve/change my approach at agile testing.

Amazon ebook for Kindle

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

As an agile tester, I have seen a lot of people trying to substract themselves to processes by handing high over their head the first principle of the Agile Manifesto :

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Sometimes, I admit, a process has been introduced for a reason and when the reason is gone, the process stays and everybody follows it blindly by habit. More often than not, a process has been introduced to fullfill a need that human interactions can not address. Human interactions do not leave a trace when one of those humans involved is sick, on vacation, leaves the company or is fired. Tools also address flaws human interactions can't.

It's all a matter of common sense. I wish people would stop complaining about a small overhead (document a story properly, update specs or designs, ...) which has been introduced for the whole project to be successful.