Niagara training camp

Picture taken from Sheri Fraser Coaching Facebook page

So it was the Canada Day long weekend and what comes to mind of most triathletes when there is a public holiday? More training! Coach Sheri organized a 3 day training camp over the long weekend in the Niagara region. Li-Ann decided to come along and it turned out to be quite a writer's retreat for her. We stayed in the Welland Residence and Conference Centre along with the others. We had just over 10 units booked altogether, each unit has two bedrooms. The place is a residential college but it's pretty decent, with complimentary breakfast and room cleaning service. And for $170 per unit for two nights, we had no complaints!

The journey to Welland was about 2 hour 15 minutes drive. The first session on Saturday was a swim in the Welland canal. It was a refreshing swim and for once we get to see past our hands underwater, a pleasant change compared to the murky water of Lake Whittaker which we are used to. We had to be careful and watch out for rowers and paddlers as they have their back facing us, so they can't see us! After a quick lunch, we then head out for a nice and easy 60km ride in the St Catherine area. We did the infamous Effingham (what an apt name!) hill twice. The average gradient is 11% with most of it at 14-15%, peaking just over 16%. Dinner was a pot luck BBQ where plenty of laughter from funny and some embarrassing race experiences were shared. Li-Ann baked chocolate brownies which were an instant hit.

The next morning, it was quite a fight getting breakfast in the dining room. As if having 20 over hungry triathletes in a small room wasn't bad enough. Becasue it was the long weekend, the place had plenty of other visitors including a tour bus from USA and a conference group from Bangladesh. Still, I was able to get my two servings of bagels and cereal in very quickly. We had a long day ahead of us. Only a few of us were training for Ironman, so the rest had shorter rides but we had to ride for 6 hours. We rode to St Catherine again, to Balls Falls and did the second half of the ride by doing laps of Effingham hill - we climbed that hill about 8-9 times, I lost count! One of us had a flat resulting from a cut tyre, 100km into the ride. But with a bit of sealant from the support station, we were good to go for the remainder. We finished 160km in just over 6 hours and did a 8km brick run to the canal and back. Yes, we did sleep well that night!

Final day of the camp, everyone had tired looks on their faces at the breakfast table. Another 1 hour swim in the canal was on the program. But not before the trademark pyramid photo for every Sheri training camp! After the swim, we checked out of the residence and drove to one of our locals for our long run. She had a nice big field of grass in front of her country house, where we could park all of our cars. It took me a while to locate her house though. I was a bit late as I dropped Li-Ann off at McDonald's, and the rest already started running. I wasn't sure where we were meant to run but I remembered Sheri saying something about Short Hills park. So I ran to Short Hills and did the trails.

Boy, was I in for a shock! Some of the trails were pretty technical and you know how much I hate getting my shoes soiled. There were some parts where there was more than one direction to take and it wasn't clearly marked. I was glad I came out alive! I ran back to the car to get some water, it was already almost 18km by then. I was tempted to stop at that but as the weather was quite cool, I decided to head out to make it at least 30km - on the road this time! But that doesn't mean the route wasn't challenging, there were some climbs which we rode the day before. Finally, I finished with 31.2km in 2 hours 45 minutes. Sheri was just driving out as I was running back in and everyone had already left!

A quick lunch at Pizza Hut (yes, you can say I'm not the best example when it comes to my nutrition) and then it was the drive home. Over the 3 days, I swam 7km, rode 220km and ran 39km but shared many moments of fun and laughter. I'm glad I have an off day from my training schedule today as I'm feeling pretty sore and tired. Still have to work though...

Anniversary

It was our first wedding anniversary and our 7th anniversary since we've got together. Still being quite new to the place, we weren't sure where to go. After much discussion, we decided on Fellini Koolini's. And we weren't disappointed! $20 per person for an appetizer and main meal, the food was good and the place had some pretty interesting decor.

Our appetizers - deep fried calamari and baked brie baguette

For mains, I had the pork rotini and Li-Ann had the lobster linguini. Both were equally delicious.

We visited the international food fair at Victoria Park, which was a short walk away. The weather got a bit hot (yes, it's actually hot here now!) and I was sweating profusely, so we quickly adjourned to Chill Frozen Yoghurt. A bit pricey for my liking - you pay by the weight.

The next day, we visited Opa Greek Festival sometime later in the evening as it was again another hot day. I still was sweating profusely and we seek refuge in the air conditioned hall for the cooking demonstration although I wasn't paying much attention haha. But we did have a try of some great Greek food - gyros, saganaki and a dessert, which I couldn't remember the name.

It was a simple weekend, but we both enjoyed ourselves. And had a bit of Monday blues the next day. 

Happy anniversary, darling! Here's to many more enjoyable ones to come! Love you... muaks!

Guelph Lake triathlon photos

Taken off FinisherPix. Somehow doesn't look that wet in the pictures. More of them here.

Guelph Lake Olympic Distance triathlon

So my first race in Canada... and also my first race this year, actually. I was really looking forward to it. Coach Sheri even gave me the day off the day before the race, just so I could go really hard! She did drop a bombshell though - I was not to use my watch! Now if you know me, I'm not a high tech gadget person, but I do like my timing splits. I'm a habitual watch-looker, even when I'm not working out. Anyway, she wanted me to focus on my form and technique and I guess the Olympic distance is short enough for me to go really hard without having to worry about the time.

Guelph is about 1 hour 40 minutes drive away. As the race start was a late 8.50am, I was able to leave on the race morning itself without having to spend the night in Guelph. It was pouring heavily as I was driving down. I hoped that it would stop when I got to the race venue but it didn't. I arrived at about 7.30am, did the usual race pack and timing chip collection, bike racking, last minute toilet visit etc. It's been a while since I've gone through this ritual.

If you look closely enough, you can how wet my bike was. After I came out from the swim, that yellow towel of mine was brown with mud!

I bumped into Sheri right before the start of the race. She's competing in the women's 55-59 age group and we were starting in the same wave. Now, don't be fooled by her age. She is one fast lady! Apart from trying to get a PB, deep down I was also really afraid of getting beaten by her!

The swim was a one loop - rectangular course, going clockwise. The water was pretty calm and visibility extended up to the end of my fingers. For some reason, I was swimming mostly on my own. I thought I swam pretty well - I kept close to buoys.  Although my time wasn't really a reflection of what I felt. I came out of the water in 25:22 but looking at the results, only one person swam under 20 minutes today, so I guess I wasn't too bad. Sheri was hot on my heels coming out in 26:12!

Into the muddy transition area. Had my helmet and sunglasses on without much drama. Onto the bike, it still hasn't stopped raining. It took me a while to get on the saddle as the road out was a bit bumpy. It stayed rough for about 5kms or so. We had a couple of sharp corners before the 10km mark. With the slippery roads, I played it conservatively and really squeezed on my brakes far before the corners. I was feeling pretty good up until the turnaround point. I was clocking over 35kph on my bike computer, it was the only digital feedback I had for this race! Hey, she didn't say anything about not using a bike computer.

But in the second part of the ride, I started feeling really cold. And the chill I was getting from the rain water on my arms were causing me to shiver so badly I couldn't steer properly. It didn't help that I noticed Sheri coming in the opposite direction just shortly after the turnaround! I eventually got back to transition in 1:10:34 and true enough the emcee announced Sheri coming in just seconds after!

And I bolted! Probably started off the run a bit too quickly but I soon got into a rhythm. One by one I was overtaking some of the guys ahead of me. I was feeling warmer and much better now. The rain stopped too. I managed to extend my lead over Sheri a few more minutes. Finally, I crossed the finish line with run split of 41:43 and overall time of 2:20:19 - missing out on my PB by 1 minute. I was 37th overall out of 297 and 9th out of 29 in my age group. And Sheri? Well she finished just 5 minutes after, 2nd overall female and almost an hour ahead of the next person in her age group! Full results here.

Looked like as though I went for a trail or adventure race!

The finishing area was great - I had active release therapy and Subway was one of sponsors and we each had a 6 inch sub along with a bowl of salad, crackers with cheese, Powerbar Harvest and many other snacks. Sheri was really nice to give me her one of her prize - a headsweat cap. The carpark was really muddy and most of us had trouble driving out because our wheels were getting stuck.

Hopefully better weather next year!

Week 7

Another foodie picture just to start off this post. This was taken at Dawghouse Pub, a quaint little place like those Texan bars you see in the movies. The marmaduke burger - 12oz beef patty, bacon, fried onion rings, lettuce and tomato. Only things missing are egg and cheese! After this week's workout, I think I deserved this monster :)

This week's training wasn't too bad actually. I had two full days off - one was planned, the other because it rained so I postponed the afternoon run to the next day. So Monday was an off day. Tuesday was an afternoon 3 hour ride to Lakeside and back. I'm glad I was able to push myself despite the strong headwinds and crosswinds in some sections. I averaged 31.7kph, which is my best outdoor ride in London so far.

Wednesday was the Splash N Dash in the afternoon at Lake Whittaker - 1600m swim 5.2km run. It didn't hurt as much this time. Both my swim and run were quicker than last week, but I fumbled a bit in transition as my wetsuit sleeve got stuck in my watch. So overall, only a 10 second improvement. Thursday I had an hour and 15 minutes run scheduled in the afternoon but as it rained, so I postponed it to the next day.

Friday was the only day I had to wake up at 6am - I sleep in until 7am the other days. I had a morning 3.5km swim session. In the afternoon I ran two loops from Western campus from Western Rd to Oxford St, coming back on Richmond St. I did 16.7km averaging 4:29 per km, which was a bit quicker than I planned, so that was good.

Saturday we had a Megaday session, starting with a short swim in Lake Whittaker. Then we went for a ride towards Port Stanley. Matt and I were the only ones that day who are training for Ironman, so after the rest went back, we did hill repeats in a small town called Sparta. After close to 5.5 hours and 150kms, we returned to Lake Whittaker and did a 30 minute or 6km run off the bike. Workouts here tend to start later and by the time we were done, it was already past 4pm.

Sunday I slept in until 8am and Skyped with my parents and siblings before heading out for a swim. The Western pool was closed for a competition so I swam at the Stoneycreek YMCA. It was a long set - 2km swim, 1.5km pull buoy, easy 200m. Did it in a 25m pool so there were many turns! The pacer clock was pretty difficult to read and I didn't set a timer so I was just reading it off the clock function on my watch. In the afternoon I ran for 2 hours 15 minutes with some tempo work. Clocked 29.3km - which was 400m more than last week. I was happy but I was pretty drained by the end of it.

This coming weekend I'm taking part in the Guelph Lake Olympic Distance triathlon. I don't do Oly distance often and my personal best of 2:19 was close to 3 years ago in Port Dickson, Malaysia. So I aim to do better this time. Also, I hope not to get beaten by my coach, who's competing in the Women 55-59 category! Wish me luck!

A little help...

I've entered this contest of sharing my Ironman Cairns story on the Hooha Asia Facebook page. The winner with the most 'Likes' gets a mystery hamper gift. So here's a shameless plug to all my blog viewers, if you could kindly click HERE and click 'Like' on my picture/story, I'll be very much grateful!

Thanks a million, much appreciated!

Re-fuel

I thought I'll start off this post with a picture of me digging into the deluxe vermicelli at Que Huong Vietnamese Restaurant. We decided to have something different than our usual western diners... although we did have dinner again at Maxwell McCoys nearby on Friday night where I had another serving of a full rack of BBQ baby back ribs :)

So on Saturday I rode with Peter and Greg from Lambeth to the Fingal and Shedden area. A superb ride with a mix of flat roads and undulating terrain. We even had a couple of scares from un-chained dogs chasing us. We shared the load well, there were times when the winds were blowing against us. 114km covered in just over 3.5 hours, with an average pace of 31.5kph.

The guys were baffled that I only had a 600ml bottle of plain water throughout the whole ride... and I even had some water left - at least a quarter of the bottle, after the ride. Yeah, I guess I don't drink much... probably not enough too. It's not that I don't sweat. You should see me on the indoor trainer - my towel will be soaking wet after just an hour.

On the bike, I usually take a sip every 20 minutes or so. For some of my longer runs, I've done up to 2 hours without drinking. Of course on hotter days, I'll be drinking more frequently. And lately it has been pretty humid so I'll definitely be increasing my fluid intake. I'm not advocating my method or style of taking in fluids or nutrition. It's just something I've gotten used to. More from a lazy habit of taking the time to drink during workouts. . But I do drink plenty of water throughout the day, everyday. Ask my wife, I'm constantly filling up the water kettle to boil!

This week's training was pretty fun. Though it doesn't mean it wasn't hard. We had the first Splash N Dash for the season - a swim of about 1600m at Lake Whittaker, followed by a 5km or so run. The run hurt like hell, I've been too used to running long and slow. Still, I was glad to run a 4:08 per km pace average - good preparation for Guelph Lake OD in a couple of weeks time. The next day, we had a group ride of 40km and Coach Sheri came out to join us. Riding under the watchful hawk eyes of the coach always adds a bit of pressure.

And I had three pretty long runs back to back from Friday to Sunday - 1 hour 15 minutes / 1 hour / 2 hour 15 minutes. Glad I survived that, clocking 16.6km, 13.6km and 28.9km respectively.