Racing in America

My America trip is coming to an end soon ... but not before the most exciting part ... we are off to NYC today for the weekend! I have never been to NYC so I am pretty excited about going there. We are staying right beside Central Park so the location should be awesome. We are only going into NYC today because the hotels there are a fortune, we can only afford a couple nights there considering that each room is going to be over $1200! OUCH!

For the time between the Mineaplois race and going to NYC we have been staying in a small city called Plymouth. It reminds me of being back home in Ontario with its hot and humid weather and the endless country roads. Plymouth was also just named the #1 City in America to live in for 2008. Quite the accomplishment!

Everyday we have been training out of the Life Time Fitness gyms that roam Minnesota.  These gyms are unreal!  They are massive and have everything you would want in a gym.  Hopefully Life Time will expand into Canada sometime soon.

We also got to meet a cycling legend a couple days ago.  After a ride that we did with the local triathlon club we were invited to a BBQ that Greg LeMond was at.  He has won the Tour de France three times in the past.  If you do not know much about him you should read up on him.  He is a pretty incredible guy and has accomplished a lot!  He was also shot with a shotgun in a hunting accident, lost 75% of his blood and survived to come back and win the Tour de France another two times.  WOW!

Time to finish up packing!

Another day survived

Yes, we endured and persevered through another day in the heat chamber. Today I came into the session "severely dehydrated" as I was told by Wendy after she analyzed my urine. I have been getting a little worse each day ... I just have to stay on top of it tomorrow and keep a bottle of water with me to get myself topped back up.

The session in the trailer was not too bad today. I felt better than yesterday and was able to keep my heart rate nice and controlled for the 90 minutes. Today we watched the movie "Jumper" which was entertaining. We try to watch a movie with a lot of action to keep our minds off the fact that we are in extreme temperatures. The other movies that we have watched in the other three heat workouts have been Terminator 2, The Incredibles, and Gone in 60 Seconds. Anyone have a suggestion for the last two sessions?

This morning I tried to go out for a run. I woke up with no discomfort in my knee but I was not able to get far without it starting to bother me again. So no running again for me. Just more Motrin and ice for me.

After the failed run attempt I headed down to Bastion Square for the Vancouver Island Olympic athletes sendoff. There was a little ceremony with a couple dragons for the 30 or so athletes that showed up to the event. It turns out that about 20% of the Canadian athletes heading to Beijing this summer train on Vancouver Island. We signed autographs for the kids that were there and the not so little kids (adults) that were interested. Pacific Sport even had made some Vancouver Island athlete training cards that the kids had for us to sign. Very cool!

After all that excitement we headed over to Thetis lake for an open water swim. This weeks training has been far from ideal for me with missing all my running and a fair bit of riding at the beginning of the week. I wanted to salvage this weeks training by having a good swim. During the big island warm-up loop I decided that it is about time that the big island loop record be broken and that today shall be the day. With the previous record of 14:50ish in my mind I went for it from the start. I was fading a little near the end but was able to come through in 14:34 for the new record. At least something this week went well.

Half way done heat training

3 days down, 3 to go.

Heat training has been going good.  The first day was really tough, yesterday felt like a piece of cake but today I felt like death again.  It does not help that I went into the session dehydrated this afternoon ... it makes for a miserable 90 minutes.

These next three days should be much easier than the first half.  Our bodies will have started to acclimatize to the heat and be better adept at cooling itself in those conditions.

So in the 4.5 hours that we have been in that trailer from hell, I have lost just a little under 27lbs of sweat (12.2kg).  Thats over 6 two liter pop bottles!  No wonder my body hates itself in there!  It  would be great for someone who wants to loose a couple pounds!

After every session I down a V8 to replenish some lost salts and head down to the ocean to ice the legs and cool down a bit.  Last night when Jordan and I were icing (we went a little later) we could see fireworks going off in Port Angeles, Washington across the Juan de Fuca straight for the Fourth of July festivities.  It was neat to watch and made the time go by a little quicker.

As for the knee buisness ... it seems to be getting better.  A little stiff, but other than that no real pain.  I have not tried to run on it yet since I put myself in a hole from that Tuesday run.  I did 60 minutes intensity on the bike today and it felt fine.  Maybe tomorrow I will try to run a little on it.  We will see what coach Joel says.

New blog and heat training begins!

My new blog is up on CBC.  You can check it out by clicking here.

My knee is getting better.  I took it easy again yesterday and went and got some graston and ART on it.  Feels better.  It may be stemming from a tight hip, or maybe not.  Not really sure.

Yesterday was also the first day of heat training.  I was not sure if I was going to be able to ride but I made through the 90 minutes of torture.  My knee was a little stiff but it got better as the ride went on.  Or maybe it was because I was not really pedaling the last 45 min because my core temperature was too high.

The first day is always the worst when we do this heat training.  We are doing it the same way that we did before the Cancun World Cup last year.  Pacific Sport has modified a trailer to make it a heat chamber.  We monitor our core temperatures by having rectal probes in us.  This makes it much easier to know when our cores are at its ideal temperature and when to back off when it gets too high.  The feedback is immediate and makes for a much more enjoyable session than not knowing how high your core is and not knowing when to back off.  As you can bet, none of us like to back off that much, we all think if 39 degrees core temperature is good, 41 is better!

This morning we have a swim workout at Crystal and I may try to run a little, seeing how the knee holds up.  Then later on in the afternoon it is back into the torture chamber for 90 minutes of misery.

Knee Pains

It seems like that little accident with that car has left some damage.  My left knee feels like it is getting a little worse everyday.  For the first couple days afterwards there was no pain, maybe a little soreness at the end of some workouts.  But since my run yesterday, the pain has not gone away.

So today I took some precautions to try to get this thing healed as soon as possible.  After the swim this morning, Joel and I decided that it would be best to take the rest of the day off and let it heal itself (I had a three hour ride and 60min run).  I got a massage, iced in the ocean, took some motrin, and put ice packs on my knee all day.

I am glad that it is not a sharp, localized pain.  Just a general soreness which I cannot seem to pinpoint where it is coming from.  It seems like the pain is coming from under my knee cap.  That is the best that I can do when describing it.

I am sure that this will settle down in a couple days ... maybe I should have gotten that idiots information when they decided to slam on the brakes in front of me!  I have to miss my work  because of this ... plus my pain and suffering has to be worth something!