Week 19 of 26

Monday was the Civic Holiday and the final day of the Niagara Camp. We started with an hour's swim in the Welland canal. Ben Sayles - Zoot rep for Ontario (and one freakishly fast triathlete!) had some Zoot wetsuits for us to try. I thought might as well, saves me from having washing my own later hahaha. It felt great. But I'm not looking to replace my wetsuit for the moment. After the swim, we did long run on the footpath along the canal. The rest were already tapering for Ironman Mt Tremblant in a couple of weeks, while I had 2.5 hours in my program. The footpath seemed to go on forever, I started with an 16km out and back, had a few minutes stop at the feed station, then a 10km, another stop, and the last 6km I sorta struggled. But glad to have clocked an overall 4:39 per km average for the entire 32km.

Drove back to London right after and glad that Tuesday was a day of rest. Wednesday was Splash N Dash in Lake Whittaker. We had something different this week - balloons! I had mine tied to my waist as I figured that was the best place to put it, without obstructing my stroke. Did a two loop warm up swim and it wasn't too much of a distraction. It made drafting and sighting easier too. I got dropped off the front pack but I had two others with me for company. Started the run with those in front way too far to catch. Still, I worked pretty hard and finished with overall time of 46:49 - 26:12 for the 1.6km swim and 20:37 for the 5km run.

Thursday was the usual 90km ride to Lakeside and back. Slight tailwind on the way back which was a nice change. Friday morning was a long swim set - 2 x 2km - 1st swim (34:00), 2nd pull buoy (35:46). Saturday was 5.5 hour long ride starting to Thorndale and back, and down to Talbotville and back. My legs felt good and despite the headwind for the last 15km or so, I managed to keep the ride to just over 30kph average. The 30 minute brick run after too felt pretty good and I managed a 6.7km in.

Sunday morning I caught up with home through Skype. My dad at 59 years young, did his first ever sprint triathlon in the classic Port Dickson triathlon in Malaysia. He's hooked and aiming to do the Olympic distance next year. My sister and a few of my coached athletes did the Olympic distance - everyone did well. I went to the gym for an hour for some weight training - alternating arms, legs and core, 30 repetitions each.

In the afternoon I did my 2 hour long run, started at about 4.30pm. It was still pretty sunny and the sun was directly above me. Legs felt pretty good and I kept it to well under 4:30 per km pace until the last 15 minutes or so where I had to slow down about 5 seconds per km. Managed to clock 26.7km.

A somewhat easier week next week with lower mileage during the weekend but weekdays keeping pretty much the same.

Week 19 of 26 statistics:

Swim 10.3 km (3 hours 2 minutes)
Bike 265.0km (8 hours 25 minutes)
Run 70.4km (5 hours 20 minutes)
Gym (55 minutes)

Total 336.8km (17 hours 42 minutes)