Last year, like other years that we’ve done IronMan Lake Placid, we experienced our traditional Panic Sets In moment. That can’t happen this year. It simply can’t. We need to avoid that at all costs. In 2009, Kathryn wasn’t able to complete IronMan Lake Placid—whether it was her work, or that things needed to get done around the house, or that she just wasn’t that into it, something else always got in the way that prevented her from training. And that hurt, come race day. I’ve said this before… for some reason, I still have to train much harder than her in order to be able to compete. Yes, I’ve gotten faster than her on the bike. But still, overall, the ROI (return on investment) for her training seems to be much better than mine. In 2008 I felt that even if I trained for hours and hours…

This past year of triathlon was amazing. I improved my overall fitness, and my cycling tremendously and that had a significant impact on my overall results. IronMan Lake Placid? Better by 90 minutes. IronMan Muskoka 70.3? Better by about 20 minutes. And, while it was amazing, it was very difficult. There were times when i wanted to throw it all away—training every weekend with Kathryn, with my brother and his wife, with Greg, with whomever… I was ready to give it all up on at least one occasion, and I know that Kathryn was too. In fact, we did give it all up, at least once. I think I’ve figured out at least part of the reason why. 2009 saw Kathryn and I compete in IronMan Lake Placid on July 27 and IronMan 70.3 Muskoka on September 13. I won’t get into the results—those are somewhat…

Annual tradition. That’s all I can put it down to. Annual tradition. Spring arrives and we panic because we haven’t been training enough for the races we have planned. We have gone through this every year since 2007. Every spring we freak out and panic that we are not going to be ready. That we’ll fail. That we’ll hurt ourselves. That we won’t finish the race. And then, we train. And we look at what we did the year before, we realize that we made it happen last year, and we’ll make it happen again this year. Spurred on by our realization that we’re toast if we don’t get a move on, we kick into high gear, and get the hours in. And so it goes. I’m logging all of my training miles at Daily Mile—a service I found that connect me to other athletes from around the…

Here’s how 2008 went down. I got through IronMan Muskoka 70.3 but I was a little disappointed with my result. I wanted more from myself. I felt like I peaked too early in the season—probably at this year’s Tupper Lake TinMan. I trained hard last year—personal trainer, triathlon coach, weights, flexibility workouts, spent a lot of time on the bike, teaching classes, all of it. I felt more ready for one of our training races than I did for the one that counted, and that just doesn’t sit well with me. By the time the race that mattered came around, my training had already started to dwindle, weight slowly crept back on (partly because of my speaking schedule—delivering talks at conferences with awesome food, and still trying to work on client work back home, means that my workouts suffer and I put on the…

“I want to cross the finish line of the IronMan world championship in Hawaii with Lisa Bentley.” Paraphrasing aside, those are the words of Carter, a young boy with Cystic Fibrosis who, despite his health struggles, keeps a very active lifestyle. It was at that precise moment that eleven time IronMan winner Lisa Bentley, who, like Carter, also has Cystic Fibrosis, moved me to tears as we all listened—riveted—focusing on her stories and unparalleled positive outlook on all aspects of racing and life. She goes on to tell us that Carter was her inspiration for racing IronMan Hawaii in 2007. Her theme that kept her moving forward was simply doing the best that she could to get across that finish line with Carter because that was his wish to the Make a Wish Foundation. His wish had been granted, and she was going to deliver despite the struggles every IronMan…

Very early on in our work with coach Dave Harju, he suggested that we do the half iron distance triathlon in Tupper Lake, NY. I thought he was nuts – we were training for the half IronMan Muskoka in September 2008, so there was no way we’d be ready for a half iron race known the Tinman in Tupper Lake, NY in June. As it turns out, he wasn’t exactly nuts. We did it, enjoyed some awesome time away from home (we rented a wonderful cottage in Tupper Lake and stayed there for a week of pre-race preparation and post-race solitude!), and feel really good about where we are. My wife hasn’t trained nearly as much as I have. And, as usual, I still only beat her by a little bit. h4. The Swim I’m fairly certain I pissed a few people off in the swim. I couldn’t swim straight…

As I mentioned not too long ago, my wife Kathryn and I have decided that we will do another IronMan triathlon. Despite some serious concerns about the health of my ankle after completing IronMan Lake Placid in 2007, we are committed to doing more. There was something about finishing an IronMan race—perhaps it was the combination of exhilaration, exhaustion and raw emotion that makes me want to do it again. Or maybe it is something simpler like getting better; seeing how much I can improve. Armed with the knowledge of what it takes to just finish the race, we are now embarking on a long 18 month journey to complete IronMan Lake Placid in 2009. We know what it takes to get by; now we want to see what it takes to do well. So, we’ve taken a number of steps to see exactly what we can…

Last year, as part of our IronMan training, I set a goal. After the 2007 Ottawa half marathon, I wrote:

I’m hoping that the next half marathon we do, we can get our times down to 1hr 45 mins – I’m not exactly sure how fast I can go, but I definitely want to find out

And with that, I had the seed of a plan in place—to hit 1h 45min as a time in a half marathon. Based on the way everything has gone this year, that goal should have been achievable. I had a plan in place to run faster for each 5km split of the race and then really run hard for the last 2 or 3 km. And then the gun went off. Plans must change. While I had in mind the perfect race, my body didn’t agree. I’ve been sick…

We’ve spent this weekend in Lake Placid – Kathryn and I, with Gavin and Michelle, William, and Greg and Lynn. No hanging out with the kids, or just enjoying the long weekend, or spending Canada Day with our friends at their “used to be all day long but is now more like 6 hours since we all have kids” party. It has been a long weekend of difficult training in Lake Placid. It hasn’t gone as planned. Sure, we’ve been here since Friday night, and we’re leaving tomorrow on schedule. But, the original plan was: * Friday night: swim 4km * Saturday: swim 2km; bike 160km * Sunday: bike 90km; run 20km * Monday: swim 4km With all the best of intentions, we just haven’t been able to get all the training in. The weekend has been more like this: * Friday night: eat, sleep * Saturday: swim 2km; bike…

In cold and blustery January 2007, my wife and I ran our first half marathon – 13.1 miles/21.1 km – on a very cold -20 degrees Celsius day. We had never run farther than about 16 or 17km before, it was ridiculously cold for the entire 2 hours and 8 minutes that it took us to run that race. We were happy with the fact that we had finished the race at all. Fast forward 4 months to May 27, 2007 and we were ready to run our second half marathon as part of Ottawa Race Weekend. We knew we felt better, but weren’t sure how much faster we’d be able to go – most of our other training runs that we’d done were not at a race pace, but at a long, slow, sustained pace. Our goal was to finish in less than 2 hours. We had a great…

I ended up taking last week off – the whole family ended up sick with that flu that was going around. It didn’t hit me as hard as others in the family, and I’m wondering if I was able to better fend off the bug given that I am a bit healthier and generally more fit. I recall lying there in bed, feeling like I was going to get it – my stomach starting to feel queasy and a bit rumbly. I remember thinking to myself: “fight it, it won’t get you; don’t let yourself throw up” and for some reason, that is what happened. Could be a combination of several factors, really – but I do think that will power had something to do with it. Straight up control of my physical function. So, with that bug going around, the regular Wednesday morning swim time arrived and while I…

What do you do when you know you’re going to be away? For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been at swimming religiously every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Now I find myself in the position where I’m wondering if I’m going to lose the momentum. The whole family has been sick for the last three days (it hit me last) so I’m not keen on going Monday morning, and I’m going to miss Friday morning as we’ll be travelling to see family and friends for Christmas. The week after, I’m also likely to miss Friday. So – how do I avoid that momentum dip? I’m really happy with my progress, but I don’t want to fall behind and lose the progress I’ve made. The thing is – there will be no pool where I’m going to be and the weather won’t be nice enough to run, and biking is out…

For the past 4 weeks I’ve been swimming regularly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6am to 7:15am. While difficult waking up that early, it has been excellent and I’ve noticed a big difference in my swimming ability – both technique and endurance. That might be because I’m still new to swimming – any swimming is better than none. I still swim in the slowest lane of 8, but I’m ok with that – it is more about my own improvement and competing against myself than competing against others at this stage of my training. Today, I literally fought myself. During that hour and 15 minutes, I wanted to quit at least 6 times. I just felt heavy. Like my arms and legs were moving but I was not going anywhere. I’m a bit worried, only because if I can’t make it through 75 minutes of swimming, how am I…

The first post, getting the new blog up and running. Chronicling our journey to IronMan Lake Placid 2007. There is something exciting about fresh starts and trying new things. In this case, it is a new blog, and a new sport – triathlon. My wife and I have done three triathlons to date. The first two were “try-a-tri” distances (The Canadian, Sept 2005, Ottawa, Cornwall Transit, August 2006, Cornwall) and the third was a sprint distance (The Canadian, Sept 2006, Ottawa). We consider ourselves novices but are taking it pretty seriously – we’ve committed to completing IronMan Lake Placid on July 22, 2007. This new blog will chronicle that journey: our training and workouts and our thinking over the next 8 months working towards our goals.