FCH Life and Triathlon

Luge Doubles

2010-02-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

I got sent this today -thanks Alan!- and eventhough spandex does not scare me* I though for the average man - "I cant wear spandex because it takes my manhood away" - this conversation would be pretty funny...

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/luge/story/2010/02/18/spo-luge-s.html

*as a matter of fact I would actually wear spandex to work if I was allowed to...

Facundo

Ps: I will be posting my recovery/olympics week shortly!

Recovery Week!

2010-02-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

Finally its recovery week! I have been “craving” for one of these for the last 10 days or so and starting today I am finally going to get it =)

Its been a while since I posted last, which in combination with my “need” for a recovery week must hint that the last couple of weeks have been tough to say the least. If I remember correctly last time I posted I was water running as well as getting back into jogging/running to test my foot. Basically that was the first week of my “at home” training camp... During the camp I still worked full time every day, still lived in my house, was still subject to Vancouver weather, but I logged a substantially higher amount of training hours from the regular (which some say its pretty high already).

Week 1: 25 hours. Some of the highlights were my 2 hours of water running and 2hours of actual running / jogging achieved in 6 healthy doses of 20 minutes. The foot felt alright by the end of the week so I kept on going as planned for Week 2.

Week 2: 26.5 hours. It started off with a “no intensity” day on Thursday and then Friday I did a Threshold test with the Powertap. In 7 weeks my threshold went up significantly (partly because I had a better starting point for the test but partly because I trained hard) so I was quite pleased to see psychologically motivating numbers. Some other highlights were a 3:15hr ride in the pouring rain with the Speed Theory athletes, and the 3 hours of running / jogging. These were once again achieved in 6 healthy doses this time of 1/2hr each. Not pushing the pace, not hitting the slopes, just getting on the treadmill and keeping 100% alert for any negative feedback coming from the foot. Water running was really getting to me so I only got 1 hr in.

Week 3 (ending yesterday): 28 hours. Fatigue from the previous week was evident at the start of the week despite a full day off between weeks 2 and 3. All 6 days were between 4 and 5.5hrs of training and had some intensity either in the pool or in the bike. Still no intensity running and I plan to keep it that way until I am sure sure sure that it wont set me back another 2 months. Some of the highlights of this week were a 1hr ride around Stanley Park were I set substantial PBs for the lap and climb, 3.5 hrs of running with no pain and very very mild discomfort once the following morning, and a 2:40 trainer ride in which I burned 2700calories (and I ate like a pig after). Actually, surviving was kind of a highlight this week.

So, today is my first day of recovery. I am tired, sore, fatigued, and psychologically depleted, but I am also very happy with the work done, the outcome/achievements, the progress running, the consistency, the willpower. As a side note, I lost 6 pounds over the course of these 3 weeks which was carefully planned and monitored; it wasn’t like I weighed myself after 3 weeks and found out “I did not eat properly/enough”. I was very aware and careful and got lots of protein in, just cut back a bit on the carbs and cereal. When the season finished in Australia last year I let myself loose and gained a few pounds, then Christmas at the office was ridiculous and kept putting on weight, and then I went down to Mexico to all this yummy home made food and 5 days in a AYCE resort. I needed to get back into my regular weight sooner or later and this was kind of a good opportunity. During next month I will slowly fall back to my “training weight” without much effort.

Everything else is going well. This week there will be fewer hours of training and barely any intensity to recover. This combined with our “Olympic” schedule at work (6.30am-2.30pm) will leave more time in the afternoons to hang out with friends and check out some of the Olympic venues/shows/pavilions around the city! Tomorrow the Torch relay passes 150m away from my place; I don’t think many people around the world are that lucky!

Facundo

Life Update

2010-01-27T12:36:00.001-08:00

Its been now 10 days since I last posted and therefore there has been lots of training, a couple of social events, the usual work, and a couple of very nice weather days!

When I came back from Mexico 20 days ago my plantar fasciitis was still bothering me quite a bit. The initial excruciating pain felt in the mornings or after running had subsided to a mild pain before the trip, and therefore over the course of 4 weeks (part in Mexico) I was able to build to about 3.5 hrs of running. The pain was not getting any worse than a mild discomfort but was not getting any better either. The pain would let me run, but would not allow for quality, any sort of speed work, no uneven terrains, no hills. If I did any of those then the excruciating pain will come back more often than not. So, what good was it to run like that? Once again I decided to take time off when I came back from Mexico to let things heal, and I once again researched thousands of places and sites and talked to people to see what else I could do to help that I didn’t try yet. During the 10 days off running I once again started to get desperate as its been about 3 months of very very poor and inconsistent running. Plantar fasciitis was causing me excruciating physical pain, why not also put myself through excruciating psychological pain and start water running? I had done it in the past and lasted 2 sessions, but I was willing to give it another shot. The following day after the swim in the morning I put my ipod shuffle under the swim cap and I went for it, 30 min. The following day 30 min. Following day no swimming and therefore no running either, but the day after again 30min. Its been now 6 times in 8 days that I manage to do it. At the same time I started jogging again this week, and it has not hurt at all. I am stretching the heck out of my calves and Achilles tendons, doing some eccentric calf raises which seem to help lots, massaging/icing frequently, shoes with very little use, and going very very easy. I cant afford to re injure, its either no pain at all or stop. So far no pain at all, 15 min / day for 6 days, and 2.5hr of water running. Next week I will be doing 20 min / day, very easy pace, and only 2 hrs of water running. Following week…. you get the idea…

Aside from running, cycling and swimming are going well. I was very tired for a good stretch as I was loosing quite a bit of weight I put on since September. Now that I am back on track and calories in = calories out (ie, no deficit) I feel much better than before. On Saturday 16th Martina and I went for an amazing sunny ride as I mentioned on the previous blog, then the weather turned nasty and lots lots of rain. Come the following Saturday and Sunday the weather was once again very nice and we were able to ride out both days. On Saturday Martina, Ryan and I went to Horseshoe Bay after swimming and it was a good ride, with some harder pieces through the rollers. Sunday Ryan and I drilled it around Richmond and were feeling it in the afternoon and well into Monday. Swimming is going well. Although I am not swimming much “faster” than before, I do feel that technique is getting better. Once I stop lifting weights 3 times a week and being constantly sore and tired I will speed up significantly (that’s the plan anyways).

On the social side, Friday we went for AYCE sushi with the guys at work; Sunday we went for AYCE sushi with Enej, Jason, Andra and Stefan; yesterday there was a Baguel-off at work where 3 people brought bagels from their favorite places in North Van, Kits, and Montreal and we did some tasting all day long (well, more than tasting as we all ended up stuffed with bagels). On the weekend Kamal might be over to attend a power seminar at speed theory and then go for a ride with the boys.

Today is my day off and after a 25hr week I want to do nothing but watch tv and eat a delicious dinner after work (which almost included crepes at Andra and Stefans place but got cancelled due to scheduling issues, next time!)

Facundo

Mexico Part 3

2010-01-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are the best pictures from the trip (and the trip inside the trip) =P

Dad trying out the new cycling kit Santa left on his bed

Picture for the record before heading down

I really hoped that thing was safe. It was quite high and long

The shorter of 3 sections

The cabins at the resort

Dad rock climbing for the first time ever

Riding in the valley

Dad climbing at 160bpm, somehow still managed a smile

Heading to the top of the mountain while beating the truck up

I do not want you in my sock

Village at the top of the mountain

According to our tests it is still within its usable life (and probably ridden by the kids)

View of the strip where the resort was located from the top of the mountain

Back in Tampico, riding the long quiet road until there is no more road to ride

Servicing moms bike

Facundo

Ps: Today Martina and I went for a 3hr ride in the sunshine and 7C! It was as good as it gets this time of the year, so thank you "El Niño" for giving us a break =)

Mexico Part 2

2010-01-15T10:52:00.001-08:00

On Sunday January 3rd we went back home in Tampico as dad had to start a new project on Monday, and 5 days was more than enough in a town that size (with the weather conditions as they were, had it been sunny and warm then its a different story). Work hours for my dad (and many people working in offices in Mexico) are 8-2pm and 4-6pm. They are oddly split -very uneven to my liking- but at least it does allow time to go home, eat, take a nap. So Monday morning dad went off to work and I had 6 hours to smash myself. 1.5hr swim, 1.5hr gym, 1hr run and then dad was home for lunch. Napped and during his 2 hours in the afternoon I went for a 1hr ride. Smashed: check. Tuesday morning I wanted to go for a long ride, but definitely was not going to ride 1 gazillion 2.1km loops in the University so I asked dad for directions to a nice road out of the city with little traffic. It was going to be fun/kamikaze to ride 40 min each way in the city to get to the quiet road, but I like kamikaze so I went for it, well worth it. Aside from doing some mountain biking through potholes and dodging some crazy buses it was easy to get there and the road was quiet, new pavement (until there was no pavement at all), and great scenery. I rode 1:40 there and then headed back, getting there was easy but getting back I kinda got lost and had to call dad to figure out where I was. Once again, lunch, nap, and 1hr run in the afternoon.

Wednesday mom was coming back from Vancouver, so most of the training got done in the morning. Swim 1.5, gym 1.5, bike 1. We drove to the airport (5 minutes away), got mom, had dinner, bed. Thursday we woke up and the weather was getting worse and worse. Temperature was dropping, northern cold winds, rainy. Well... there goes the idea of riding again 3hrs on the nice quiet road. I switched that for 2hrs of core, weights at home and a swim. With mom around the house was not so boring when dad was working so I worked out more at home. Mom doing her yoga, pilates, me core doing core, hip, glutes strenghening with all my bands and stretch cords. On Friday we decided to watch Avatar in the afternoon and I liked it. Mom liked it as well and dad put up with "non real" stuff... He enjoyed it but I am sure he would have rather watched a movie on the History of the Mayans or something like that (not because he is boring but because fiction makes no sense to him). In the movie we (mostly I) went through a Jumbo Caramel Popcorn thing, so delicious! To cap it off we went to a restaurant for pizza afterwards.

Saturday was my second to last day in Mexico and it got colder and colder, hitting 6.9C at one point in time. Mmmmm am I in Mexico or what? Having no heaters in the house we did what most people did, wear more clothes, shut the kitchen doors and hang out there with the oven on and open. Easily 10C difference between the kitchen and anywhere else in the house. Mom slept covered with 5 blankets, I had 3 but slept with sweatpants and 2 long sleeve shirts. Weather was not good for anything but hitting the gym, running on the treadmill and going for AYCE meat for dinner. We finished just in time to have ice cream from a coffee shop inside a supermarket that has one of the best ice creams in town. Yes, cold, but never say no to ice cream. Well aparently all this eating has left some damage on my parents treadmill, a not so massive 80kg me running at 4:20min/km managed to break the board under the belt, I guess its not used to that kind of abuse. Anyways, I think has now been replaced and the bill should be getting here shortly =P

Sunday I took the day off, and came back to Vancouver. Since then its all been back to normal, swimming in the mornings, work and training in the afternoon. I am really looking forward to this weekend to get some free time and a nap. I dont really like them (naps) but dad forced me to "try" them the 2 weeks I was there. If I fall asleep quickly and wake up springy I love them, great tool. If I take 45 minutes to fall asleep and 45 minutes to engage my brain afterwards for a 1hr nap, then 2.5 hr ordeal is just not effective from a time standpoint. It also makes harder going to sleep at night so some more time wasted in there....

That is all from this trip, now I just have to dowload pictures and put them up which most likely happen during the weekend. Thanks dad and mom for everything down there, eventhough mom was not there most of the time her freezer (which is her 3rd son) was and was very very full with very delicious home made food.

Later

Facundo

Mexico Part 1

2010-01-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I updated the blog, so its time to get to it. 3 days after my birthday (last post) I was off to Mexico for 16 days returning to Vancouver this Monday at 2am. The time in Mexico was great, the weather was not what I was expecting (or for that matter anyone in Mexico), but still had a great time with dad and mom when she came back. Training was also good despite rainy and windy days not so different from what we are used to…

I flew to Mexico overnight on Christmas eve and got to Tampico by 11am on Christmas Day. The flight was good, but what I thought to be a good choice (overnight flight) turned out to be a torture as I barely slept. Needless to say I needed a massive nap when I got home. I spent the next 5 days until the 30th in Tampico, training, eating, sleeping, and hanging out with that as he worked from home most of the time.

Training involved swimming in the only decent pool in the city which is heated with solar panels. As the weather was cloudy and rainy there was not much heat available and the water temperature was at a constant 22-23C. This temperature was not so bad without a wetsuit (it was not pleasant either) and I still managed to swim 6k most days. Besides the pool there was a gym where I could do strength training anytime. Cycling in the city is a big risk, streets are not nearly as smooth with huge potholes in many places, drivers and specially taxis are in a mad rush always, not everyone obeys all traffic lights, etc. Therefore for the first 5 days cycling was done inside the university campus in a 2.1km loop with lots of turns (not a boring square). The circuit was pretty fun, there was no traffic or people as classes were finished, and there was plenty of shortcuts to allow dad to “cheat” and make me work hard -really hard sometimes- to catch him. It was good times and after I got used to the handling of dads road bike (he was using moms) I practiced lots of high speed cornering, accelerations, etc.

During this time I gave “moms freezer” a good run for the money and cleared lots of home made raviolis, pies, roasts, bread. Basically anything that she makes and I love was on jeopardy. Dad was also happy to have someone to take care of the defrosting and cooking/warming up process, but to him moms home made goodies are the usual, lucky him…

On the 30th we headed up to an Adventure Resort about 3 hours away from Tampico. The resort is on a town called Gomez Farias, which is as small as mmmm… imagine something small, like a 10-12 block strip, one pharmacy, a couple of pantries, 2 or 3 bars, no gas station for 30km, one big plaza in the middle, one police truck… get the picture? Well, kind of like that... (I forgot to mention that there was cellphone reception only within 100m of the town entrance rock arch.) The town is located about 700m above sea level and its in the middle of a forest, I will post some pictures as its kind of hard to describe it.

Anyways, so the resort was all inclusive as there were not many places to go and eat other than the other 2 hotel restaurants in town. Included in the package was zip lining (700m of lines), basic mountain bikes to ride on trails, kayak, rock climbing, and rappel. You could also rent ATVs to go around the forest, or 1hr horseback rides.
Out of the 5 days in the resort, 2 were glorious, 3 were cold, windy, overcast, foggy. I guess you can expect that 700m up in the forest with a bunch of mountains around. As far as training was concerned I was a little more relaxed and there was less structure. I would do what I could when I could. I manage to get in a couple of good runs around town and in the trails, 3 bike rides around the area including some huge rollers and a 6km 6% climb (roughly), no swims, lots of dryland strengthening with therabands, ankle weights, core exercises, etc. Aside from that we rock climbed a couple of times, played ping pong every night, went on an off road adventure in the truck (its ok mom, no damage) to a village up the mountain, ate lots and lots of food in the buffet (at least I did, dad was more “normal”). We wanted to go kayaking one day but it was not available, the following day was way too cold and then we had to leave. Despite that it was very good times, something different, spending new years between ping pong matches (not kidding).

Pictures and Part 2 to come.

Happy Birthday to me!

2009-12-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

Once again -and it seems every year a little bit faster- December 21 comes around and its time to get “officially” one year older (the day before you are still one year older but you don’t tell anyone the truth). This year everything lined up pretty nicely: a) my birthday landed on a Monday so Sunday was prefect to get together with friends, b) I am still here as usually I am gone for holidays with my parents somewhere warm, c) mom is visiting for a couple of weeks, d) I was in very good spirits. All this things combined together and after many many years I decided to have most of my closes friends over to celebrate my birthday, just like when we were 10 or so. I was telling my mom that I could not remember last time we put out a birthday party like that, but we were glad we did as I had a really great time.

Anyone that knows my mom knows that she loves cooking, especially for us and friends, and when I told her about inviting people over she was instantly into “cooking mode”. I wanted to make it simple, just because I did not want her to work like crazy, but sometimes with mom it does not work that way. She pulled out quesadillas to start, home made pizzas, and 2 cakes (yes, 1 was not enough). Needless to say I was stuffed at the end. Food was great, I love my moms cooking and I think everyone really liked it as well, THANKS MOM! And obviously thanks to all the people that came, great times!

That was Sunday, but my birthday was Monday, how could I not celebrate again Monday? To start off the day I woke up at 5:00 to have a 5:45 Monday swim, nice way to start the birthday with 2x400, 3x300, 4x200 and 5x500 with different torture instruments. Then 5x100 on 2:00, and when you see that you know its going to hurt… Swim was good and I got to work after. At work once again I had ridiculous amounts of cheesecake, banana bread, and all sort of goodies that came as a Christmas/Birthday Package Deal. I was stuffed once again and the 50 min run in the afternoon was less than pleasant, but still had to get that done. I did not give a second thought when I was eating like there was no tomorrow (weak of my part) and therefore I did not deserve a birthday “off the hook” pass either.

Aside from that everything is going well. Starting to run again after a while very slowly ~5/km to test out the waters for a week or 2. I think the plantar faciitis is very slowly going away but I am being very careful and aware of it at all times while jogging to make sure I can feel any changes, major discomfort, or whatever. Swimming is going very well and cycling as well. I am getting more and more workouts in using the power meter and I am loving them.

The next 2/3 days will be very busy and I will be heading off to Mexico on the 24th. In between now and then I have to fit 3 days of work (until Thursday), 9 hrs of training, one trip to MEC, a birthday party, 16 hrs of sleep, and packing for the trip amongst others. Basically, no time to waste… Ohh well, I think I will very much enjoy 16 days in Mexico so all the cramming will be well worth it =)

Facundo

Warm Mexico!

2009-12-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

Well, warmer than Vancouver that is for sure. The last 2 weeks (ignoring yesterday and today) have been dry dry dry and sunny, but COLD. Still not nearly as bad as last year (yet) when it was -13 and felt like -19 at 5am while riding my MTB to the pool in 10cm of snow… Yesterday we were supposed to get a big dump of snow ~15cm but did not happen. Now its 5 degrees so its probably not happening soon either and in 9 days I am off to Mexico so maybe this year I skip the whole deal.

2 weeks in Mexico will be great to recharge. Although I still feel pretty energized from my trip to Australia (I better be after 2 months of “slacking around”), its always nice to get a break. My mom is coming over here, getting into Vancouver today at 9pm, and staying over the holidays with my brother. He will get his wisdom teeth removed so mom will take care of “her little boy”. I instead leave to Mexico to take care of the not so little dad, but who would really appreciate to eat food that has not been overcooked/dried or at least was not his fault =P (I am just kidding dad, I know I know… you would manage just fine, only if you really really haddd to =)

Training is going pretty well except for running. Long story short, Plantar Fasciitis. I am slowly getting into running again and this week is the “testing” week, it took 3 weeks to go away (will see if completely gone pretty soon) and I do not want it to come back. Very very hard to get rid of, I tried everything.

So, that was the not so good part of training, biking, swimming and gym are going very very good. Last week I did a bunch of tests on the powermeter to establish some training zones, threshold power, etc and this week I have been training based on the results. Easy rides easy, hard rides close to threshold power, some intervals, big gear, everything. I really like it and being an engineer I really like to see data, graphs, numbers, understand what they mean, adjust, repeat, and so on.

Swimming is also going really good, the 2 new coaches are great and their workouts are absolutely great. This week is speed week and everyone is out there hammering, we are going to get fast, no doubt about it. They are also working with most of us on technique and that will also make a huge difference, even if we are not “stronger” than last year.

Gym is helping lots I think; I am following a 3 month strength training plan and then their “maintenance” plan will kick in February. I feel is making a big difference in swimming, even though I might be tired and sore some practices, when I am not I can really swim harder (and its only been 1 month…). Last year I did not run for 6 weeks in a row pretty much because of a weird lower leg injury. During that time I went to the gym to do leg/hip/core strengthening and everything that would not bother the injury. After that it took me a while to get my HR under control when running, but I was much much stronger and I could feel that right away. Hopefully this year the same happens with swimming and running after the strength program and I can take both to the next level.

Anyways, that is it for now. Tomorrow home made food mmmmmmmm…

Vince: I am still on stage 6... getting through them at a pace that would leave some for nasty january/february

New Toy / Acknowledgments

2009-11-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday after work I went to Speed Theory to pick up a new addition to my training/racing tools/repertoire. Hopefully the last expensive one in a while (and by a while I really mean a whillleeeee). 2009 was an expensive year: new bike, new wheels, new trainer, Australia, annnnndddd yes, a Powertap.

Most of you know me well and know that I don’t spend money easily. It takes me a year to decide if I should spend money on a racing bike or I should keep racing on my 1200$ stock bike, I have a low end wetsuit, haven’t replaced my googles in 5 years (very true), use tires until they are square (and then I keep them and destroy them happily in the trainer during winter), and so on. But this year was different… I realized that I really really enjoy the sport, I am making lots of friendships, I spend 12 hours a week on a hard piece of plastic called “saddle” and I am into this for a good while. That, combined with a great sponsorship from Speed Theory is how I ended up with all this. Murray, Jeremy, Doug, Mike and company have really helped me out a lot with advice, service, and above all friendship.

Now that the emotional section is over, let talk about POWER hehe – I wanted to say that for a while-. I have been in the sport for about 4 seasons (my very first tri was the UBC sprint in 2006 in 1:18 ooohhh yeahhhh) and have come a long way. Every year I have improved a lot making 2009 my best year so far (couple of sub 2 hour Olympic Tris) Despite all that I have never done a VO2 max, lactate threshold, any sort of power measurements. What average power am I able to hold? How hard should I go on the 40x1min intervals on the bike? How easy is easy? Am I really struggling or I think I am but I am doing just fine? How long will it take me to blow up at 400W? Actually, how do 400W feel? Up until now I have no idea about anything. If I want to make it to the next level, I think it will really help to know and be able to train better.

Over the last couple of years I have made my own workouts, training schedules, volume, intensity, you name it. It has worked pretty well so far -actually sometimes I can’t believe how far it has got me- but I am not sure for how long it will keep working. There is where good swim coaches (Dale and Dario) at VAC, Alan and the LETC squad for running and cycling, the support from the Speed Theory crew, and the Powertap all come into play. This year/season (2010) I am relying on them, as well as myself and my dedication and hard work, to take me to the next level. I would like to mention that there is lots of other people that support me as well and all contribute to my continuous improvement. Ryan and his company on long rides is key, my brother taking care of most groceries during the week amongst other things, my parents supporting me at all times, my friends for understanding when I am busy/tired/training and despite my business still being my friends.

Crap, I said no more emotions already… Lets try that again. So, I installed the Powertap yesterday and got 3 mins on it just to play with the 50.000 screens that are operated with 2 (yes, only 2) buttons. Today I will get the first decent ride, and start gathering information for future training adjustments. Needless to say, I am a happy camper right now =)

Facundo

Friday to Sunday

2009-11-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon I left work early to go to the famous Sugoi Warehouse sale. I got there around 2:30pm (started at 1pm) and there was already 100 people lined up waiting to get into the warehouse. It was not raining and it was not that cold so I did not mind the 30 min wait, the line was moving quite quickly. Once I got in the zoo -I might use zoo or warehouse but I mean the same thing- I grabbed a box and started piling up stuff for me. After a quick message to my dad I started piling up stuff for him and my mom as well. Alica also called me and ended up getting a jacket for her. 2.5 hrs after I got in I was purchasing 23 pieces of clothing for 178$ including taxes. Alica got her waterproof and windproof jacket, mom and dad got trisuits, cycling shorts, jerseys, I got shorts, a thick everything-proof vest, long sleeve cycling jersey, and so much more. Just crazy.

After that I was pretty tired, believe it or not was quite draining to go through the racks, try out lots of stuff, find your size, etc. Still I rode for 1.5 hrs and 20 minutes later I was in bed sleeping after a quick shower and food.

Saturday went for the usual swim and then run in the UBC trails with Leading Edge. We had 4 hill repeats from the last parking lot of Spanish banks. It’s the first time I do this hill in the trails, but I will remember next time the dreadful “yellow post to yellow post” under 3 minutes… It was hard but we were all pushing to the max, and suffering with someone else it’s not as bad as on your own. Ohh yeah, there was a lady that told us 1.5 minutes into the hill that we were showing off, RRiiiiigghhhttt… that’s exactly what we were all there for. I just laughed (inside my head, couldn’t really waste any oxygen).

On the way back it started raining and was ridiculously cold, which set me up for a good lunch and a 2hr powernap. When I woke up I though about riding again at night in the trails (I bought a light!) but the ride was cancelled and the weather was miserable. I ended up watching 2 hrs of 2 ½ men while pushing a heavy gear at 60-80 cadence on the trainer. Shower, stretch, computer, dinnertime, bed.

Sunday I smashed myself in the gym for 3 hrs. I did not feel like swimming, I did not want to do a long ride on the trainer (3hrs), Plantar Fasciitis is starting to really bother me (so no running), so I ended up busting my arms, core and legs in the gym. After that I still rode 1.5 hrs on the trainer watching the Tour. Squats+Theraband exercises+Intervals on the Trainer+Tough/hard saddle have all combined to cause a deep “pain in the ass”. Today it hurts, lets just leave it at that. In the afternoon Alica came over and we had fish and chips (the Spanish version with chips replaced by “pinchos de patata”) and watched Slumdog millionaire which was really good.

Today the weather was nasty and riding to the pool was an adventure: 50kph gusts, pouring rain, very sore “glutes”, plus a truck driver who sprayed me from head to toe on the Burrard Bridge. After that happened I just smiled, seriously, I felt like in a “funny movie” or something like that. What else could happen? I just smiled all the way (downhill) until I got to the pool. Then I saw the workout, remembered the 3 hours in the gym and the sore glutes and realized it was not going to be an easy one. I just got through it.

Today an ez spin at home or in the forest. The weather is nasty but it makes me want to ride outside (on the trails) even more, is that sense of adventure... (plus a bike with full suspension that will hopefully help for my quick recovery…)

Off to lunch, I am starving

Facundo

My weekly dose of crazy stuff

2009-11-11T14:27:00.001-08:00

Saturday was supposed to be a regular day: swim in the morning with a ride/run after that, food, nap, and the afternoon free to do stuff around the house, see people, etc. However, the day started as follows: swim, and ride up cypress for a run with the LETC squad in the XC trails. Half way up the mountain the unexpected: snow. The 5 of us in the car thought that was pretty, and it was, but that was not part of the plan. Once at the top the snow was about 20cm deep in the trails, hence, there was no trail. The plan was to do 4min up, 3min down ez until we got to the top (~40min total). The workout was hard, it was definitely cold, stepped into a paddle 25min into the workout (you could never know what was under the fresh snow), but we had a blast! (which includes digging for 5 minutes to find a lost shoe)

After that I was dropped off at the pool again, and rode back home with sort of wet clothes, cold and pretty hungry. Arrived home, hot shower, lunch and might 2hr nap! Me, nap? Yes, pretty tired… When I woke up I ate again (nothing out of the ordinary) and then headed to Speed Theory to chat with the guys and drop off my bike. When I arrived at the store I saw 4 downhill bikes and 1 cross bike all ready to go and the guys were playing with the very cool NiteRider lights. So first questions was: whats up with all this? The answer was cooler than I expected, they were planning to ride in the UBC Endownment Lands Trails from 6pm (when the store closes) until whenever, probably around 2 hrs. It was 5pm and they offered me to come along; I have a full suspension bike, but I don’t have a kick ass light so I turned it down. At 5:15 I left the store walking and before I made it home (3 blocks away) I was jogging back to get all ready to go.

I set up my commuter light, filled bottles, pumped the tires, checked the brakes, greased the suspension and got rolling. At 6 I showed up in the store; it was now 7 of us, awesome! We rode all the way to UBC (and in the hill the 2 cross bikes kicked the full suspension bikes). We got into the trails and quickly realized that my light was the same as walking with a match in the forest... My options at this point were to either turn around and go back home and come back another time with a better light, or literally draft one of the other 6 guys (no more than 2 meters behind) to be able to see rocks, turns and trees in real time. I went for the second option and I don’t regret it at all! I told Murray that this was 80% his fault, just to make sure he knew it… It was a blast once again, that is provided that the person ahead or behind me did not go more than 2m away. Otherwise I had to stop and wait for the following guy behind because I could not see anything at all, not 2 meters, nada (trees will cover moonlight, pitch black). Towards the end I found a pretty sweet spot with Jeremy in front and Murray on my right shoulder that made things wayyyy better, thanks guys.

After 2 hours of fun I was once again wet, hungry, and tired, but this time I was also completely covered in mud =) What a crazy/different Saturday than usual! I think I got a pretty good “outdoors” dose for the week and recharged the batteries for training by doing something very different. Looking forward to repeating both experiences in the near future, especially if I end up putting cyclocross tires to my Trek.

Here are some pictures after the ride, hopefully I can get the ones in the forest and before from Jeremy.

What a day!

Muddy face

Muddy Bike and Shoes

xcuse me, may I get an overhaul please?

Wipe it down or just hose it...

Shower or food first?

mmm... I think shower. I dont want mud in the fridge...

NiteRider 200 light (Available at Speed Theory)

NiteRider Helmet mount, way better than in the handlebars...

Facundo

Cycleops SuperMagneto Pro

2009-11-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

Its been a week since I got my new trainer and I really really like it. I am not sure how much more quiet it is than my previous trainer, but it is definitely smoother, more adjustable, stiffer and more stable.

So far I have only used 2 of the 4 settings, the road setting and intervals setting. I think I will never use the easy spin setting as the road setting is easy enough for any sort of high cadence workouts. The fourth and last setting is the hill climbing, and I probably will not use that one for a while. I think it requires something like 600W to ride at 30kph... Don’t think I have that sort of power (for now =P)

Setting the bike on the trainer is very easy and does not require to turn a knob 2 hundred 56 times until it comes in contact with the skewer. That means that I will not think twice before freeing my bike to go for a ride on the road! And setting it up when its pouring outside.

First workout => spinning at the speed of light =)

* Picture courtesy of my brother who is getting into photography. Hopefully his skills come to play next season and I end up with some awesome shots at very low cost (maybe dinner or something!)

Thanks to the guys at Speed Theory for getting a hold of one for me before they were all gone! 3 came in and went out in a day...

Facundo

Back Home

2009-11-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

I am home! Finally a bed with the springs shielded properly so they dont poke your back, a stove that actually has a range from low to high instead of being on or off, an internet connection that allows for uploading 10mb of pictures in a matter of seconds and not a matter of hours =)

I arrived in Vancouver just over a week now and I dont know how it happened but the day I got here was sunny, just like I wanted! Then well... some Vancouver weather, but Saturday and Sunday was nice and sunny again! Not so bad after all, but definitely a change from 25C weather and sunny pretty much every day.

On Tuesday afternoon I was not feeling very well, you know, this flu/H1N1 going around everywhere. In the afternoon I skipped my ride and decided to go to bed at 6pm turning off all alarms and phones around. The night was not smooth, but I got 12 hours of sleep. If you know me well enough, you know that I have not done this in years and there is probably something very very wrong with me. Needless to say, I stayed home all day watching tv, sending emails, organizing stuff in my room (still from the trip) and so on. I think yesterdays rest served its purpose and today I was feeling much better (still not 100%). Hopefully I managed to avoid going sick sick with fever and all that.

Today the weather is not looking very good and it does not look good for the weekend either.

I guess we have to put up with that so from time to time we can enjoy some of this (Pictures from Saturday Long Ride around Richmond and River Road)

Marine Drive - UBC Area

Beautiful British Columbia - University Endowment Lands

Marine Drive

Happy Halloween!! - Richmond

Fraser River - Richmond

Pumpkin Field - Richmond

Pick your Pumpkin - Richmond

River Road - Richmond

Cool Field Irrigation - Richmond

Arthur Lang Bridge - East View

Arthur Lang Bridge - West View (mmm windy?? Look at that plane landing...)

Facundo

Spontaneity

2009-10-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

After a couple of days with lots of running (60km in 4 days), swimming and gym I decided that yesterday was going to be a break for the upper body, and calves/lower legs. The plan was to ride about 4 hours...

In the morning while having breakfast (a big one) I was contemplating the map and looking where to go. 4 hrs is a long long time and I did not feel like going over the same places a bunch of times. Going west was not an option, about 40 minutes into the ride it starts getting hillier and hillier by the minute. I did not want to end up Mount Tambourine or Springbrook (again). Going east I will get about 1 block before I drown. North...mmmm... the super GP is on, streets blocked everywhere with crazy car race fans, and I have gone north many many times. Lets go south and see where 2 hours gets me.

I pack 2 powerbars, 1 super nasty concentrated gatorade (it tasted like orange powergel almost), 1 water bottle, digital camera, VISA, and my riding map. I leave the house at about 10 am and start heading south. About 1 hr into the ride I am past Tweed Heads and start thinking it looks like I will get "pretty close" to Mooball, a relatively larger "city" on my way. Maybe I can make that my destination and ride with a purpose. Half an hour later (1.5 hours into the ride) I see a sign that says Byron Bay 52km. Reaallllyy?? uuhhhmmm, everyone always talks about Byron Bay and I am leaving in 5 days. No way I am going to go there unless is a day trip with a tour that will cost about 80$ at least.

The internal debate: Well, how about if I just add 1 hr to my ride and I just get there, have lunch, and come back? Shit, should have packed more powerbars if that was the plan. Well, 1 bar 1.5hrs into the ride, lunch 3hrs, bar 1.5 hrs into the ride back, home. Yeah, that works, but I am riding at 34kph average with a tail wind. Its about 100km to get there, so to come back at 27-28kph on a nasty straight headwind its going to hurt and take 3.5hrs. Does that mean I am riding 200km? I only have one tubular spare and the most I have ever ridden its 130km. Shit, I am going to be out in the sun from 10am to 5 or 6pm. ohhh boy, this is risky and its really going to hurt no matter which way you look at it. I guess this is what I do for fun huh??? well... just keep riding just keep riding...

3 hrs later I do make it to Byron Bay, small hippy town. I make it all the way out and up the light house (the most easterly point in Australia) before I go into town looking for carbs. A large pizza sounded pretty good despite the massive amounts of unhealthy fats. At 2:30pm I was on the way out of town, and could taste the pain of the headwind (about 25kph with nasty gusts). I blocked my mind and rode for 1 hr without internal mental complaints, keeping the legs smooth and "fresh". 1hr into the way back I started complaining, after all when I left the house I was only doing 4hrs =) I had my bar and filled my water bottles at the rest area on the side of the highway. The night was coming down, I was going to make it with daylight but my face and arms could feel the burn. 30C with the sun above my head between 10 and 6 plus 170km riding was doing it, but I was only about 1 hr away.

Finally I make it home. Surprisingly my legs were not in any more pain than if I climbed up Cypress or Seymour, but I guess it was all a matter of keeping it under control at all times and not redlining or going hard at any moment. I deserved a monster size Australian Meat Pie with mashed potatoes that I had in the fridge (after I showered I was not going anywhere...)

8 Bottles of water
1 Bottle of gatorade
2 Powerbars (Protein Plus)
1 Large Hawaian Dominos Pizza
200 km on the workhorse

Here are some pictures

Made it!

Next Stop: Food

mmm thats better...

I had no problems to crush that in a matter of minutes

The workhorse - 6pm

The sore right hand - 7pm

The overall numbers from door to door

My GPS =)

Back at home on Tuesday!

Facundo

World Master Games - 3K Open Water

2009-10-17T05:47:00.000-07:00

I dont really feel like ranting about it, we had enough of that today at 9:00am (1hr before our wave "start") when the following happened:

http://www.2009worldmasters.com/Open-Water-Swim-cancelled-for-competitor-safety/default.aspx

Facundo

PS: I mean I dont feel like ranting at the fact that the water was 16 and not 18, but at the fact that there was no contingency plan even though on wednesday the water was already 15C, or the fact that they made us go and waste 1/2 day in a "remote" location even though the water was too cold all week (and there was no heads up anywhere, so today we were all fired up and very very ready to go)... CRAP, I AM RANTING AGAIN. GOODBYE.

Sydney and World Master Games

2009-10-12T01:57:00.000-07:00

Sydney is so far the best city in Australia! It is a large city with a LOT of character: The harbour, the Rocks, chinatown, Paddys Markets, the HUGE parks (Centennial and Botanical Gardens), pedestrian streets, busy Central station and Railway Square, etc... Really really like it!

All competitors of the games got a backpack and ID tag with picture and free access to all transport and games events, so it it nice and very easy to spot people all around the city that are here for the games (30,000 people!) Everyone around is pretty friendly, some come to compete, some come to have fun, some come to prove that they can (see picture above), some come on holidays and find that swimming 800m is the way to relax and get stress out (weird).

As for the Games, I am pleased to say that I have a bronze medal on the 800 free (Saturday) and today 4th in the 400 free, and bad bad bad bad on the 50 fly. The 800 was a tough race, as painful as I remembered last time I swam 800 in a swim meet (age 15), but for some reason now I seem to enjoy pain a lot more =) I beat my time from when I was 15 by 5 seconds. The time was 10:03.33, average of 1:15.4/100m. I must say that I was pretty happy.

The 400 today was not as good. I went 4:52.60 I think, which sucks as my 400m split on the 800 was 4:55.xx. I went out hard and paid the price: 1:06, 1:14, 1:17, 1:16. I was not pleased at all, I did not beat my time from where I was 15, and got 4th place. 4:47 would have got me 3rd again and in a good day (and a smarter race strategy) think that might have been possible. Anyways, now I have something to gauge myself against in the next couple of months.

Ahh, the 50 fly. mmm... let just forget about th 50 fly shall we? To be honest I was tired, sore (from being out all day yesterday + openinig ceremonies + 400 2 hours before). I knew coming into the games that I have lots of endurance and not lots speed, so longer events are the ones I had more chance. 50 fly:terrible, 400 free:4th, 800 free:3rd. Next Saturday is the 3km Open water. Hopefully I do well on that one, I will make sure I rest in Melbourne the next 3 days.

Here are some pictures. Until Melborne or back in Sydney next weekend.

Bronze Medal Back

Bronze Medal Front

Youngest and Oldest Competitor of the Games (24yr+10months and 101yr+6months = 76yr+8months different "a lifetime")

Friends from Paraguay I met at the Opening Ceremonies

Darryl works in the same building in Vancouver! (I knew he was coming, we always chat in the change room as he also rides to work every day)

Downtown Sydney

Sydney Olympic Pool

The Harbour, ohh so pretty...

Facundo

New Swimsuit

2009-10-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

Today I went for a swim in the morning and I found out that the speedo I was using for the last month in Australia is already wearing out! Chlorine levels are insane in the pools around here and have managed to go through my tri shorts and now my speedo. No wonder why the Speedo shop at the mall was all crazy about their Chlorine Resistant stuff and almost nothing of the regular old stuff...

Anyways, so today I had to make a decision as I am leaving for the World Master Games on Thursday (less than 2 days away here). I could either race with the slip I have (still in decent conditions) for the pool events, and maybe the open water or get something new (depending on what I found on the store). So I headed out to Harbour Town Outlet straight into the Speedo store. It was a relatively big store, and there was plenty of options. Jammers were about 45, drag shorts 40, speedos about 35, non chlorine resistant speedos 15! (I would almost say they are disposable...) Prices were not bad, and I was going to get a speedo with a pretty cool design, one that its not available in Canada for sure. I was about to make my decision and when I turn around I see the aisle with the Fastskins and LZR suits. Pretty cool, I had never seen the famous LZR before... Anyways, I looked at the price of the LZR and was 50% off, I guess since they are banning them starting January they just want to get rid of them ASAP. 50%off means it still costs 250$ for the full body, no way. They I turn into the FastSkin (FSII to be precise) which is the second best suit (used before the LZR came out). Surprise surprise, the price was down from 250$ to 59$ and until Saturday there was a 20% discount of the lowest marked price.

Right away I go to the sales lady and I ask:
q: aheemm, excuse me miss, is this really 59$ minus 20%?
a: yes, it works out to be 47.20 with taxes...

Result: We found the size, I squished myself into it, liked it, bought it.

The suit will be banned in January 2010 (the list has not come out yet, but pretty sure). Unlike the LZR, the material of the FSII is approved by FINA, however starting in 2010 mens suits are only allowed to be below the belly button and above the knees (ie: jammers. And yes, I asked in the store for jammers but there was nothing!) Anyways, I dont really care. I had to buy something and it was going to cost me the same as a speedo, so I got it. I am dying to try it in the water! Here is what I got:

FSII Full

This is exactly the model I got, just the male version =)

Another advantage I see is that for the open water race we are not allowed wetsuits (well, we are but then we dont qualify for medals) so I was going to have to suck it up and race in my speedo no matter what temperature Sydney water decides to be on the 18th. Now with this I will at least have a "second skin" which might (or might nor) keep me warmer and still qualify for medals. Great!

Anyways, that is it for now. Last 2 days I was on the egde of getting sick but today I am feeling much better. Taking it easy tomorrow and then off to Sydney Thursday. I will probably post from there next.

Facundo

PS: ohhh yeahh... one more advantage of the full suit, I am not shaving!!! Once again, I manage to evade the razor.

Cairns

2009-10-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth 1000 words, and at this moment I am way too tired to write something consistent so here are the pics! (maybe I will write on it later - maybe not =P )

Tour Breakfast

In the falls

Tour Bus full of Crazy Irish

Cape Tribulation - Daintree Forest (the oldest in the world - World Heritage Site)

Stefano and I (met him on the plane and ended hanging out for 4 days)

A very cheap version of Tarzan

Great Barrier Reef 1

Great Barrier Reef 2

Great Barrier Reef 3

Great Barrier Reef 4

Great Barrier Reef 5 (yes, that is me - awesome!)

Great Barrier Reef 6

Great Barrier Reef 7

Great Barrier Reef 8

Facundo

Brisbane

2009-09-27T02:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I came back to Surfers Paradise after spending 2 full days in Brisbane. I left early on Friday morning to catch the first express train at 5:20 am. It takes about 30 min by bus to get to the train station by bus and then 1:15 to get from Nerang to Brisbane downtown by train. I had a very nice map of the city that had a 20km city walk tour on it. I am not sure who it was designed for, but I believe most people will “screw that” when they see 20km on it. I went for it as it was taking me through pretty much all things to see around the city.

The walk started in Central station, then went by some typical neighborhoods were I could see the “typical house style” (see picture), then across a bridge to the West Bank area where most of the Museums, markets, etc are. In that area, there is a crazy beach/pool (see picture) in the middle of a park. You can see the river to the right, the pool and white fine sand, salt water, life guards, palm trees. I thought it was one of the coolest things I have seen in the middle of a city (with no ocean) so I decided to take lunch and watch people tan, swim, play, whatever. After that I kept walking along the river but on the cliff side. Brisbane is quite hilly and in one section they blew out some rocks to do rock climbing by the river, also pretty cool, it was a 100m drop I say.

In the afternoon I headed to downtown and walked around most of the main streets, pedestrian walks and parks. I found the area of hostels and without a reservation (there was 5 hostels all together so I thought I did not need one) there was only “expensive” rooms left. In the end the only one that had a cheaper room was kinda shitty and the room was absolutely covered in clothes and things on the floor. I did not care much as I was only going to go there at night, sleep, wake up and take off. There is a picture that shows what I am talking about. When the sun when down the streets downtown started to get busier and busier, live music and dancing going on in the streets, and outdoor bars everywhere. I walked through the city again (not the 20km, but probably another 5) to see everything at night. I really like taking night pictures…

On Sunday I woke up and went for a ferry ride in the river. The company that operates it is the same that operates the trains and the buses so it was pretty cheap (not like a tourist boat…) I got to sit and relax for 1hr while I was taken everywhere. I hit the Museums and Art Galleries from noon till 5pm as it was blazing hot. I am not sure how hot, but I say above 30 for sure. It was not so much the heat, but here the sun is pretty strong compared to Vancouver.

After a long long day I got back on the train and got home by 9pm ready for food and bed. Today the day was pretty easy with a swim in the morning and being lazy in the afternoon (which includes internet and writing this!)

Anyways, that is it for now. On Tuesday I am heading up north to Cairns for 5 days so I don’t think I will post anything from there, but there will be lots of pictures when I come back I am sure. I will be scuba diving/snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, I cant wait!

Here are some of the pictures I got from the city (and random stuff I came across during the 2 days, some of them pretty weird!) Enjoy

Anyone wants to BBQ?

Sinks at the Moder Art Museum

Paradise in the City

I still dont get it...

Parklands at night

Cool Restaurant

River and Downtown at night

Maybe I will make reservations next time =S

Queen Street

hmmm very affordable...

The city from a bridge

Facundo

Indoors

2009-09-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

The plan today was not to come to internet again; however weather changes made my plans change so here I am. It seems that pretty much all south eastern Australia (from Brisbane to Sydney at least) is going through a Red Dust Storm. It consists of very very windy conditions (up to 100kph gusts) and well, DUST. In the morning after yesterdays ride I did not feel like going swimming so instead I went for a 30 min ride to a triathlon shop to talk to the owner and see if he knew someone looking for a Cervelo bike (he is the only Cervelo dealer for a couple hundred Km). He did not but he got my info and if he knows someone he will let me know. He also told me to post it in a website and ebay Australia and I could get lucky.

Here are some pictures I got from the storm on the way here.

Facundo

Last couple of days

2009-09-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have been pretty relaxing. Last Friday I went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary which is about 45 min away from Surfers Paradise (by bus). It was pretty cool as I got to see most of the typical Australian Wildlife including Koalas, Kangaroos, Dingos (wild dogs), Eagles, Wombats and many more. There is some pictures at the end of the post!

Saturday I went for a float to the pool and after I came back home for lunch. After lunch I went surfing (well… to try surfing) and fortunately there was a group of guys about 100m from the beach entrance (which allowed me to find a good spot with good surfing waves). It is not easy to see wave patterns, rips, currents, etc but I guess people in the sport know, so when I go to the beach I usually try to get in the water wherever there is more people surfing and usually is much better than just going in anywhere.

Saturday and Sunday there is a market that is very famous where there is fruits and veggies, toys, antiques, books, clothes, leather stuff, cheap electronics, EVERYTHING! So Sunday morning I headed over there to check it out. To be honest, I was not very surprised as I have seen exactly the same thing in Mexico or Argentina. However, it was kind of cool to see it in Australia and very very funny to see Australian tourists to bargain on stuff. Some of them were terrible, some of them pretty smart I must admit. I took a nap in the afternoon and then just felt like staying home and watching tv…

Monday morning again I went for a float. I am trying to go every second day and swim about 1-1.5hr but no times, just swim and take it easy. For lunch I cooked a delicious pasta sauce with all the fresh veggies I got at the market on Sunday. It was ssoooo good I stuffed myself until I could fit no more pasta and sauce in my bottomless tummy. After that I had no choice but to head to the beach (1.5 blocks away) to behave like an Iguana and try to get a nap. In the afternoon I decided to go for a walk to downtown Surfers (about 15-20 min walk) and get some presents for people, buy bread, try macadamias with chocolate at some gift shops, and so on. On my way back I went past 3 pizza places and got really temped so when I came home I made pizza from scratch. I made 2 dough so next time I just need to pull one out of the freezer and in 15 min I have home made pizza.

Today (Tuesday) I went on a cycling trip to Mt Tamborine. It was a long day on the bike but I took it very easy, although the 15% climbs were still there and a 34-23 gear ratio was still a little punishing. I will post more on that adventure when I post the pictures.

That is it for now; here are some pictures from Currumbin Wildlide Sanctuary, they are pretty much self explanatory so I will save myself some writing =)

Facundo

Insight

2009-09-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

A week after my worst nightmare I believe I have some more insight of what could have happened last Saturday.

Initially I thought it could be dehydration the Thursday before, or maybe nutrition changes on the 10 days leading to the event (since I arrived to Australia). Nutrition I believed that changed a little in Australia, but could not possibly cause such affect on the legs (and legs only) on that Friday and Saturday. Hydration was what I leaned towards, I thought that maybe if I did dehydrate myself badly on Thursday, that Friday could have been bad, and maybe Saturday. I had about 8 liters of water on Friday since my initial symptom to Saturday morning. Likely it was not caused by dehydration… So what else changed? What did I do different from all other 16 races starting with the UBC triathlon in March? Mmm… rested?

For this race I actually tapered for about 2 weeks. For none of my other races excluding Nationals were I did a 5 day taper I rested at all. Maybe an easy long day on Friday and a shorter 2hr day on Saturdays, but that was it. After nationals I was feeling good and I put in an almost normal week (3 weeks between Nationals and Worlds). The week after the taper started, less volume, almost same intensity. I was feeling good and strong. The week after (week leading to Worlds) I decreased my volume to about ½ the usual, and kept key workouts in. Despite doing much less I did not feel I was recovering as fast as usual, but I believed that by the end of the week I would be good to go.

Thursday leading to the event I was supposed to do 1.5 hrs easy, but I decided to take it completely off (I posted about that on that day so I am not making stuff up). I felt I had many things to do that day but I also thought that I needed to recover. I was still not feeling as good as I believed I should have and doing 1.5 hrs easy was not going to be beneficial at all. Anyways, Friday came and pain. Saturday came and I had one of the biggest pains ever; mostly muscular but also to my soul/ego/whatever its called (I was sore going up and down the stairs for 3 days just from running from the water to my bike, no BS…) I took some time off, like 5 days off off (only rode my bike for <20min commuting). 2 days ago I decided to go for a 1.5 hrs self guided “tourist” bike tour of the city. I averaged 22kph, not really hard right? The following day I was quite sore again; same pain as the day of the race just not as bad. Yesterday I went for a swim and despite not having the same effect as the easy ride, it felt like I was in repair mode. Not that I could not push the pace, I just did not want to, and my body was very very happy with it.

Conclusion: I think I was wwwwaaaayyy overtrained at the end of the year. It was a tough training year; I worked hard and got faster than ever. Although through the year I did feel at some points that I was tired and sometimes fatigued, I was still able to push very hard when I wanted (either races or key workouts) and so things seemed to be coming along nicely. At nationals I tapered a few days and probably was not enough to shut my body down, but 2 weeks for Worlds did the trick.

Learning: Next training year I will make sure that this does not happen to me again (none of it: the overtraining, or the catastrophe at a key race) I will design a better plan, maybe add some easy weeks and do them as scheduled whether I feel I need them or not, maybe finally get a coach, maybe make sure that easy workouts are actually easy, maybe get a powertap to be able to use it together with a HRM and RPE to help catch any patterns before is too late (ie, fatigue).

For now I will keep resting. My body will tell me when its ready to start nice and easy again by not making me sore on a 22kph ride. Hopefully this is what happened a week ago, its theory number 3 already. Unless I come up with theory 4, and it makes even more sense, I will stick with this one (or unless I take 3 weeks off and it happens again, then there is something else wrong –fingers crossed).

Previous post has some pictures of the last couple of days including the 22kph ride!

Facundo

Random Pictures

2009-09-19T02:52:00.000-07:00

Pimp my ride (I asked today and my bike retails for 9500 aus new as is)

Surfers paradise from far far away (the end of the spit if you google map it)

Surfers paradise main avenue (pedestrians only)

I have to learn how to surf, I am giving myself 1.5 months!

The living room/exercise storage facilities

Playing at the house

Setting up for failure ehem... sorry... for a pretty good swim =)

At the parade of nations with curtis and amy

The 2 olympic medals whitfield won (and trust me, they were not copies as every 2 minutes we had to point where in the room they were!)

Finish Line (Friday before the disaster watching the U23 race)

Good Days and Bad Days

2009-09-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

I am not going to make it long, I dont really feel like it. Although I am not mad/pissed/depressed/frustrated I am not happy either about how things went today.

Wednesday (as posted before) was a good training day, everything felt right and getting ready to race. Thursday was a day off, and not much happened. Team lunch, photo, opening ceremony, athletes dinner for everyone racing, and home. Friday I woke up like any other day, things were feeling good. 20 minutes easy in each sport was all I needed to do just keep things moving...

Breakfast, cleaned a bit around the apartment and left for the 20 minutes jog. 10 minutes into it both of my legs simultaneously went rock solid in a matter of meters. I could not bend them past 90 degrees, I walked home. Weird huh? Nothing different, no training yesterday, coming from an easy week (can not be fatigue thats for sure...) Stretched and after hours it sort of went away, but deep inside I could still feel deep pain, like I just run a marathon kind of pain. In the afternoon I rode 20 minutes to drop off the bike and it seemed to be ok (not good but ok) and I stayed positive thinking that maybe there was something off. With Friday being another easy and relaxing day, Saturday I will be fine.

Today (Saturday/Race day) I woke up alright. Still a little pain deep inside the quads, but manageable (kind of felt like post race stiffness/muscle damage). I headed to transition, set everything up, went for a 15 min jog and 5 minutes after same thing happened, very very odd... At this point there was nothing I could do, but to hope that the swim and bike will loosen me up before the run. Went for swim warm up, and the race got underway.

The swim was tough, I have never ever got kicked, pushed, pulled (from the shoulder), swam over like this before, even in elite nationals which was pretty rough. Still, I managed a 19:30 swim which was up there with the main contenders. I exit the water, run 10 meters and as I am getting my wetsuit off the legs go rock solid again. I could only walk/limp to my bike, sit down and try to get my wetsuit off. Well, legs were rock solid so getting a wetsuit off without bending the legs was a 2 minute ordeal. I grabbed my bike and limped to the mount line hoping that it will go away, I could not believe this was happening. Really. I jumped on my bike and with my legs not bending past 90 degrees I could only manage to get my feet on top of my shoes and start riding slowly (~20kph), I never managed to get my shoes on in 5 minutes of riding and decided to DNF. It was a tough decision, I dont quit easily.

In many many years of swimming competitively and 5 years of triathlon (16 races this year alone) I have never quit in the middle of a race. Despite hip pain and injury this year I have run to the finish several times, I have run with shin splints, knee pain. I swam 25km in a week using a pullbuoy because of a sprained ankle last year, cycled up cypress/seymour 3 times in January (snowing at the top once), trained consistently despite road rash from 2 separate accidents at the beginning of the year, swam in kits pool at 5:45 am several times for 1.5hrs until I could not stop shivering (even after 20 minutes under the hot shower). I dont like quitting, but today I really really had no choice. Its 10 hours since my race start and I am still limping, pain had gone down from a 10 to an 8.

I said I was going to be short, but writing seems to sort of help. I am not mad, not frustrated, not dissapointed; what I am is clueless. I have no idea what happened, and most likely I never will. Maybe too much electrolytes, maybe too little, maybe I got dehydrated on Thursday, maybe nerves (although with so much racing this year including nationals I am ruling that out). I will now take some time to think and rest (well, rest for what? I have been resting for 2 weeks and only got to swim 19 minutes! kidding...)

By looking at the final times I think I had a decent shot at a medal, maybe not first but 2nd or 3rd. I still got a finishers medal, I limped after 40 minutes in the medical tent (which included 3 liters of water and 1 valium) to get one at the finish line. I will still hang it on my wall, I cant only be fueled by successes. This year was a great year, I have improved a lot, unfortunately the last triathlon of the season ended in such a low note. Regardless, every time I will come across that medal in my room it will give me something to look forward to and motivate me to work harder; probably even harder than if I got a 1st, 2nd or 3 place medal hanging.

Facundo

Ps: Dad, were you serious about Budapest 2010? I got a spot already at nationals, I just have to take it =)

Day Off

2009-09-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today I was supposed to do a 1 hr easy easy ride and a 30 minutes easy easy swim, but instead I am giving myself a full day off. At this point (the race is less than 2 days away) I dont think things are going to change much if I do them or not. I did plenty of intensity on Tuesday and an easy day yesterday. Today off, tomorrow 1hr between the 3 sports just to keep moving, and Saturday Rock n Roll!

I am getting pretty pumped/anxious already -and as my parents and brother can certify I am eating "a bit" over the normal quota-. Today I wanted to write as I dont think I will want to come to McDonalds (the only place were you can get free internet in the whole city, even starbucks has password!) for internet tomorrow. After I am done I will go back to the apartment, change to the team canada uniform for the team lunch at 1pm (oohh lucky me, all you can eat italian food...), after that we hang out with the guys until 6 for the openining ceremony and parade of nations, and then there is an Australian BBQ (more free food for athletes) from 7 to 10. I am hoping to call it a day before 11 so I can get an early start tomorrow with 1hr of training and then dropping off the bike at transition. As you can see, they are keeping us plenty busy (mostly chewing, and I dont mind it) until Saturday...

I am feeling good for the race, it should be fun. As for now, the wetsuit call is going to be really close. Yesterday it was 22.1C at 3pm, so it can go either way. I think it will depend on what happens in the next 48 hrs. If the weather is like yesterday, sunny and no wind, its going to be no wetsuit, but 2 days ago it was very very windy and poured like I havent seen since a tropical storm in Mexico for 20 minutes (thats it, no rain, pours, no rain). So, talking about the wind, it will be a key component of the race. Being an out and back for the run and bike in the north south direction, should there be wind, its going to get you going out or coming back. Hopefully there is no wind and being flat I can get over the bike in 1hr, if there is wind I rather have it against me on the way out and flush my legs on the way back... Anyways, why do I care, if there is wind there is nothing I can do, and there will be the same wind speed and direction for everyone...

Thanks to everyone that posted comments or wrote me emails on the last couple of days, I would respond to everyone but time is limited and the connection works slower than dial up (I am not kidding, I write 3 or 4 lines in between loading emails on hotmail). Thanks mom, dad, alica, enej, jeremy h, doug, Sheryl, gerrett, Tyler, Christian, Kc and Eric, Ryan and whoever else I am forgetting. I will post again after the race, most likely Sunday or Monday as I don’t think that Saturday will be an internet day. My race is at 7am and then the elites races is at 3pm, that is a must watch with Simon, Gomez, Frodeno, Brownlee and company going all head to head for a LOT of money (250,000 US plus bonuses ~500,000).

That is it from here! I will be staying home tomorrow most of the day keeping myself relaxed, stretched/loose, focused, watching a couple of races I stole from our houses DVD collection (sorry eze, I have the HyVee cd…), and obviously eating –lots-. However I do on the race I will be happy, and I am sure all the training done is going to come through for me and I going to have a great race (the swim is feeling good and that is giving back confidence after nationals). Wish me luck!

Facundo

Missing in Action – Part 3 (Gold Coast, Thursday to Monday)

2009-09-07T01:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a busy day, after arriving to the apartment I had to get things sorted out. I went to buy food, then made lunch, assembled my bike and went on the search for bike shops. Unfortunately, Australia is similar to Canada (actually a bit worse!) and all shops and stores close at 5:30pm. The only places open after 5:30 are supermarkets (and don’t get your hopes up) until 9pm and restaurants. Night time came and I convinced myself that was not even worth going for a run and I was better off to start Friday full on. Friday I went for a 1.5 hr ride to Rainbow bay (straight south), the place was awesome and you can pretty much ride along the beaches and towns the whole way! Here is a picture…

After that I went for a 30 min run close to the apartment, and a 1hr swim to Southport. Southport is about 5km north and the pool is right besides where transition will be set up. The pool is nice, 50m, outdoors, but the water is very very warm. I haven’t asked yet but closer to 29 than the 27 I am used to at VAC or the 25C at Kits pool. I finished off Saturday with a second large groceries purchase to get a good stock of things. By the way, yes, Kangaroo is available and is lean, tasty (I have already eaten quite a bit including sausages) and cheap (about 10$/Kg, same as chicken and ground beef).

On Sunday I went for a 2 hr ride to Hope Island/Helensvale/Coombabah reserve area. It was a nice ride and the first 20 km were part of the race course (out and back) so I got to confirm that is flat flat dead flat! After that I went for a 1hr run towards the Spit. This is a park that is very desert like looking, trails are with gravel, there is no shade anywhere. I truly felt empowered to be running ïn the “desert”. It was very different than trail running in Vancouver where you are in the rainforest. At night I went out to check Surfers Paradise downtown area as it was fathers day (happy fathers day dad!) and more people was out than usual. Dinner consisted of a nice Steak with mixed veggies, meat is pretty good around here and you can get a T-Bone steak for about 12/13$ per Kg when they are on sale! (yes, I already know the deals =)

Today (Monday) I went for a swim in the morning at 8am, first time with the team as it seems that most people arrived on the weekend. There was about 20 of us… I found out that not only Curtis and Kamal are here (which I knew) but also Cam and Kelly. Curtis is living about 10 blocks away from my place with his brother Neil; Cam and Kelly are living with another 7 people in a huge house about 8 blocks from my place. I am yet to find out where Kamal is staying and I will have my network of people complete =)

After the swim I biked ½ hr to get the feeling and then went for a 1/2hr run with some intervals. It might be the rest, but all 3 sports are feeling very good… Swimming is feeling easy and smooth, as opposed to how shitty it was feeling in Kits pool about 2 weeks ago (and Nationals 3 weeks ago). I have done 20x100, 10 with pullbuoy and band on 1:40 holding 1:21, and 10 swim on 1:30 holding 1:18 effortlessly… or 10x100 pullbuoy and paddles on 1:25 holding 1:15. Biking is feeling good also, speed is up, effort is down, and recovery is quick between hard rides. I am looking forward to a calm day (it can get quite windy here) to get the bike done under 1hr. Running is feeling the best all season. I am feeling smooth, quick, hip pain is gone, speed is up, shouders and back are more relaxed than ever.

I am off to buy food again, and to make thai chicken for dinner (I have been craving that for a while). Buying food and cooking are keeping me busy, happy, and relaxed during my time off. After the race I will try surfing, go out at night with Curtis (he has been going out pretty much every night!), go to some of the theme parks and so on; but until then, I am avoiding any risks and getting ready to rock. The race is in 5 days and I am really looking forward to doing well.

Until next time

Facundo

Missing in Action – Part 2 (Week before Australia and Trip)

2009-09-07T01:08:00.001-07:00

My flight for Australia was leaving on Tuesday afternoon, and therefore I had from Wednesday night to Tuesday afternoon to plan and prepare everything for Australia. Thursday and Friday I went to work and the rest of the time I was either collecting things from the house and placing them in a corner in my room, training, spending time with the family, or eating… I also went to take my triathlon suit stamped with my Last name and sponsors (I finally found a place in Vancouver!). Saturday and Sunday I trained in the morning and in the afternoon I spent time with the family, saw Enej and Jason (they were going to kill me if I left without seeing them…), and spent time with Alica who is now back from Spain after spending almost a year there.

Friday at 3pm I had the vision that working Monday was going to be a bad bad idea. I was still going to have lots of things to do, including training and preparing things for the trip, and I wanted to spend some time with the family so I asked for Monday off at work. Lucky for me, I got my request (they have been great with that and I could not be happier) and therefore packed everything. Monday I trained in the morning, then had lunch with Alica at home, picked up my tri suit (looks awesome, pictures to come), and finished packing with the clothes mom washed and had ready for me! Thanks mom! Finally Tuesday came and after getting a ride and run in I went to Speed Theory to get my bike boxed. After that was lunch time and time to get to the airport!

The check in was easy, only 50$ for my bike all the way to Australia. My other bag was 2kg over so I took some multivitamins and powders out and saved 100$ overweight fee. I had a 3 hr flight to LA with Air Canada (got the emergency row, very nice), a 3hr transfer in LAX (boy I hate that airport, is huge and very very disorganized), a 14hr flight with Quantas (did not get the emergency row as they now charge 129$ at the counter for it, crrraaazzzyy!!!!), and a 1hr minibus ride from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. From door to door: 27 hrs… Needless to say, it was long. Fortunately I the following things were very good and made the trip better:

-Quantas gives lots of food on flights. A big dinner with fish, veggies, salad, bread, cake, etc. After that they give you a night back with snacks for the 6hr “night” period with cookies, candies, cereal bars, water, mixed nuts, etc. Breakfast was sausage with omelette, muffin, fruits, etc. I was not hungry =)

-I got an aisle, so I got up and stretched 2 times about 10 minutes and slept 3 hours in between for a grand total (and record on a plane) 6 hrs or so.

-Gold Coast time is +17 hrs Vancouver time, so basically I changed the clock back 7 hrs and added a day. Jet lag was completely inexistent. I went to sleep at 11pm Gold Coast time and slept 8hrs the first day, and have been sleeping normal

-The bus from the airport was 50$ instead of 30 that the train costs, but it was door to door service. It was great, after 27hrs I did not feel like taking a train and then 2 local busses and then walking 300m with a bag and a bike box.

The apartment I rented is awesome! Its pretty big, full kitchen, pretty new appliances, washer and drier in the washroom, tv, 1 block from the beach, swimming pool, pretty quiet at night (excluding wildlife, there is a freaking bird that makes a weird noise starting at 5am, pretty damn loud. I need to ask someone what it looks like and start getting rid of some when I see them =) The only thing missing is internet, so I have to go to the mall to get free wifi. I have 2 big malls 15 blocks away, one is 15 blocks south, the other 15 north. There are big supermarkets and lots of restaurants on both of them, and now that I got most of the start up groceries done I should not be walking 20 minutes loaded like a donkey (2 times) anymore! One of them is on Cavill Ave, the heart of Surfers Paradise (the town I am in). There is lots of entertainments, street performers, shops, boutiques, restaurants, cinemas, clubs, bars, chemists (pharmacies hahaha), and so on. It is pretty good place to hang out…

I am tired of writing, but on Part 3 I will post what I have been up to since I got here (other than shopping for food)… Its 10 pm and I am absolutely exhausted, today the sun was out all day and a 2hr ride at midday and a swim at 4pm really drained me.

Until the next one (I promise, now that I got up to date I will keep it that way…)

Facundo

Missing in Action – Part 1 (Nationals Race Report and Kelowna)

2009-09-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

I know, I know… I have disappeared for quite a while. I am not going to make any excuses. I was busy and stressed getting things done before coming to Australia and when I finally got here there were also things that had to be done ASAP. Now finally I have an assembled bike, food, a routine, know where the pools are, how to get to them, know the public transit system, where the bike shops are, where to ride for 2 hrs, etc…

So… lets go back to Nationals

Nationals this year were crazzzy! Last year none of the big names showed up, they were at the Olympics, or exhausted from racing and trying to make the team, or backups, or just not up for it.... This year Simon W, Paul T, Kyle J, Brent M amongst others were in there ready to rock!

Because package pickup was on Friday at 4pm, we decided to leave in the morning when I came back from an easy swim from 6 to 7am. At 9:30 we were on the road to Kelowna, and on the way (Langley) we stopped to I could get a new pair of Adidas shoes before my race gift certificate expired at the end of the month… I am not sure what the model is, and I did not bring them here, so I will comment on that in 2 months =)

We got to Kelowna at 3pm with 1 hr until the Elite mandatory package pickup and briefing. Lucky for us (the family), our apartment was 2 blocks away from transition and therefore race briefings were only 3 minutes away (this is by far the closest I have slept to transition on a day before the race… it was awesome!) The race briefing was like any other briefing, only that 2 seats away Simon was seating with Groves and someone else I cant remember. I was sitting with Martina, Kamal and Mike Adams all doing the elite race.

Saturday was relatively relaxing. The whole family was up very early as my mom and dad were doing their first triathlon! It was very moving to see both of them back in action doing some real sport and going all out! (Not that you cant go all out in a yoga class, but…) Both of them finished the race with amazing performances, dad winning his age group and mom passing lots of people on the run and going strong! Congratulations! By they way, dad got so motivated after the race that registered for the Vancouver Sprint on Labour day (tomorrow), just great!

Sunday my race was at 1:30 pm so lots of time to get ready for it… I like and dislike having all this time before a race. Its nice to wake up a little later, get ready with time, have 2 breakfasts (wake up time and 3hrs before the race), but at the same time is also nice to get it over with. This year I have raced a lot and therefore its becoming more like a regular day than “5 times to the toilet in 2 hours race day”. I must admit that I was a little more nervous as it was one of my 2 key races in the year, but still did a good job to block out all insecurities and believe in myself.

Warm up was good and easy, went to transition, and set everything up. Transition is getting easier every time as I have less and less things every time. I used to have towel, water bottles, HRM, race belt, socks, gels and many more things when I started years ago. For this race I had my bike with shoes clipped on, helmet, and running shoes. That is it, no food, no socks, no belt, no towel, no nothing! After all formalities of the Elite race, we lined up on the beach and the race started…

Swim: First 300m I could only see bubbles and got bumped on the left and on the right (which kept me straight). After 300m I finally targeted some feet and followed for another 200m, until I decided to pass them. Once I passed I saw that there was a gap of 20m to the following pack (4 or 5 people) and unsuccessfully tried to catch them until the end of the first lap. The second lap I led my pack (3) most of the way until my zipper opened up and had to stop 1 or 2 seconds to zip it up. I was out of the water in 32^nd position or so, pretty bad... I don’t know what happened but I swam 1:25/100m, the slowest all season.

T1: Nice and easy

Bike: I was on my own for the first out of 6 laps. I caught a guy on the second lap and wanted to work together but he was happier sitting on my wheel, so I towed him a lap until we caught another guy. Good, now we are 3 to work together, right? Wrong! The other guy was on the same boat; we just caught him and did not feel like working. I towed them for laps 3 and 4. On the 5^th lap I dropped them on the hill (it was not as nasty as I thought… maybe I have been doing Cypress and Seymour way too much!) and worked very hard. On the last lap (6) I saw a group of 3 guys about 300m up on the hill, and I gave myself 8 minutes (the remainder of the lap) to catch them. I worked with an objective and literally caught them as we were taking off our shoes before the dismount line!

T2: Nice and easy. Shoe gave me a little trouble but after looking at a video I lost 2 seconds…

Run: First lap out of 4 was tough. Legs were very drained from pretty much a solo TT and did not want to let the 3 guys that I just caught get away. I managed to stay with them and second lap got easier. The 3 of us worked hard and passed a couple of people. Eventually I was able to drop them and on the last lap I was able to pass about 3 people. I was feeling strong, focused, smooth gait, and had lots of people cheering me on which kept me going hard. I had the fastest run split of the season, 35:25.

I was very happy with the results of the race, the swim was not the best, and I really need to work on that, but the bike was very good. Despite going pretty much alone the average was only 1.5kph slower than the fastest pack of 5 people. I would not have been dropped… The run as I said was the fastest of the season and first time under 36, I was smiling ear to ear (when I forgot about the swim…)

The family stayed in Kelowna until Wednesday, were we relaxed, swam in the lake, biked to Penticton (Eze and me), ate lots, and bragged about everyones accomplishments on the weekend, watched tv, and so on; Family holidays... Wednesday morning we headed back to Vancouver and I had a huge list of things to do before I left. More on that to come on Part 2…

Thanks for reading, and sorry for taking so long. Better now than never! Here are some photos

Kelowna to Penticton with Eze

Running Hard

Taking off to set up transition

The whole family and someone that clearly did not want to be in the picture after the Try a Tri

Family racing weekend!

No time

2009-08-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

No time to post last week, no time to post today. Tomorrow I will be on my way to Australia for 2 months and I will have plenty of time to post on the plane and airports (24 hr trip from door to door).

Coming up:
-Kelowna Race Report (Nationals)
-Last week / prep for the trip

Facundo

Quick Update

2009-08-17T16:04:00.001-07:00

Things are going well. I am literally smashed as I just put in the last 3 big days before a 6/7 day taper for Nationals… Today when I woke up I felt like I was hit by a truck (and the legs felt like I run a marathon) but this week is all about recovery.

Through the week I will be decreasing volume and maintaining speed by keeping intensity high. I am really looking forward to Sunday and what I can do when I am in near peak condition. Why near peak? Well, first of all because a 6 day taper is not going to be enough to repair 24hrs a week of training for the last 8 months non stop (except for those 3 days I was forced to take a couple of months ago!)

The plan is to peak for Worlds. Unfortunately Worlds are 3 weeks after nationals and therefore a balancing act had to be done. The 2 races are too close together to peak twice and have 2 good tapers, but too far apart to peak for nationals and stay in peak shape 3 weeks later… ohh well... I am doing what I think its best with the helpful insight of Alan (LETC Coach) and some other people.

My mom is getting here today, which means tomorrow I get home made food! Awesomeeeeee… Unfortunately I wont be able to go all out on her cooking as I have in the past (gaining 6lb in 3 weeks of her delicious cooking) because of both races, but I will make sure that I get most of my calories from her food and not other snacks =)

On another note, I was cleaning my bike yesterday and realized that a while ago I took a picture of my machine (I was also cleaning it then…) but never got a chance to post it. So here it is, race ready with all the help I can get =P

Facundo

HELP NEEDED

2009-08-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

I am "desperately" looking for a place to stamp / press / heat transfer my last name and sponsor logos on my Triathlon Canada Trisuit. I have tried calling Justin Stitches (Granville Island) and Thiller Shop (Main and 22nd) and no luck. They either only do large orders (20+) or do not do them because it will melt the fabric (according to them, we all know its possible!)

So, anyone knows another place I could try in the lower mainland?

There is a place in Victoria that does it for the National Team, I think its called Out of the Blue Designs, but really do not feel like going to Victoria just for that.

Thanks all!

Start List

2009-08-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Well... about a week ago I received an email from my friend Martina to check out the start list for the Canadian National Championships Elite race in Kelowna (11 days from today). Despite knowing in the back of my mind that there will be really really fast people, despite knowing that it is a big race (ITU Kelowna Pan American Premium Cup), despite knowing that there is 10,000US on the line between men and women which makes even more people show up, IT NEVER REALLY HIT ME UNTIL I SAW THIS:

...mmm lets see… how about making this first serious elite race a learning experience huh? How about if I perform the best I can given the circumstances and the quality of the field? How about if I am happy to finish even if its last? This is the approach I will take for the race. I am just happy to be there, no matter the result.

Who would have thought 8 years ago when I hanged up my googles for 2 years that I would be racing 11 days from today against Olympic athletes -something I never accomplished in 12 years of competitive swimming?-. Who would have thought 5 years ago when I bought my first road bike and did my first Sprint triathlon that today I would be an “elite” athlete racing in my first ITU race? The answer is no one, not even myself.

People ask all the time if I have long term goals, and I do, just like 5 years ago I did. The plan was to do a Sprint in my first year, then an Olympic with a bunch of Sprints in my second year, then the following year move into the Half Ironman world, and 4 years later race Ironman Canada. One step up every year for 4 years, reasonable. By the way, following that plan it would have been Ironman Canada 2008. See, things kind of change… My plans and goals have been completely refurbished; I have no plans to do Ironman in the near future (but I will at some point), and I have not done a Half and have only contemplated it as a “fun” training day. I got stuck in Olympic distance (by will) 3 years ago, and every year I like it more and more. It has become “shorter” with training and experience, definitely faster, and it is now the plan for the next couple of years! Things change.

Every day I am getting a little bit more pumped for Kelowna. Tomorrow is my ½ day off, looking forward to rejuvenate the body (or the legs I should say). Friday starts my taper, I will start feeling better, stronger, faster (and I will have plenty of time to do something else other than training and working for a week!). Next Friday morning we are leaving town with my parents and brother, I can not wait… K-town, here I comeeeee!!!!!

I can only say one thing…

2009-08-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

… I better start swimming =P

http://au.christiantoday.com/article/sydney-2009-world-masters-games-exceed-registrations-target/6803.htm

http://www.sa.baseball.com.au/default.asp?Page=56025

http://www.aapracing.com.au/sports/news/latest-sports-news/SNS-article50760

http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/masters-tally-tops-29000/2009/08/05/1249350593219.html

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/masters-tally-tops-29000-20090806-ea7u.html

Facundo

Back to normal

2009-08-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Christian from Switzerland left on Monday morning with a Swiss friend in a road trip to Edmonton (I guess stopping in most towns since they will take about 8 days to get there…). We had a lot of fun together, went out a couple of times, had many amazing meals and dinners at home and in restaurants, saw the fireworks, went to the Caribbean day, Stanley Park and many other things. All of this combined with a 40hr work week and 23hrs of training to be precise turned out to be rather taxing on the body and mind.

The plan Monday afternoon was to put in 5hrs since Saturday and Sunday were easier than normal, however once Christian left all of a sudden my energy was zapped. I went for a 2.5hr bike ride and when I came home the only thing I could do was nap. I napped for 1 hr. When I woke up I was so groggy that the only thing I could do was eat and do laundry for the following 2 hrs. I finally got myself ready and run for 1:15 on the treadmill slightly increasing speed every 5 minutes, it was a good workout despite the fact that I did not feel like doing it from minute 1.

Tuesday was rather uneventful. Swim in the morning at Kits pool for 1.5 hrs (which was not pleasant as I woke up cold after so many days of 30+ degrees and the water felt cold for the whole workout), showered, and 30 min massage before work. At lunch time I went out for a jog in which I was completely useless, either due to the previous nights run or the energy zap I mentioned before. Got 1hr done, even though was garbage. After work I did 1.5hrs on the bike with an average cadence of 99. I was not caring about speed at all, just wanted to get the legs spinning fast as I noticed on the last couple of rides that I was inclined to push harder gears with 80-85cadence. Legs felt no better but no worse after the ride, which I guess it’s good.

Today the plan was to swim in the morning again, run track at lunchtime (there is a track 15 blocks from work), and TT 1hr in the afternoon. However, once again I found myself very very tired and decided to push the bike ride to tomorrow afternoon. I was supposed to do about 3.5hrs today and 1.5 easy day tomorrow. Now they just became 2x2.5hr days, I find this better than to have a crap workout on the bike today. Anyways, swimming in the morning got replaced with track as I woke up cold again and was not in the mood to get naked and jump in a pool (it doesn’t sound that unreasonable does it?). At lunch time I did errands and the afternoon will finally involve me getting naked and jumping in the pool (but now will be 21C sunny outside and not 15C, 30mins after waking up)

For the next 10 days I will be pushing hard in training, recovering on sleep, eating right, and working on staying injury free. After that its taper time for the national championships! It will be great to mini taper (finally) for the first time this year; have a little more time, feel strong and have to hold back to save it for the race. All previous races I went in with tired legs, arms, fatigued; I want to see what I can do feeling rested.

Mom and dad are coming before Kelowna and staying until September when I leave to Australia, it will be very nice and fun to see them (like always!). Also, the 4 of us are racing in Kelowna!!! They will be doing their first tri on Saturday (the Try a Tri with our training bikes =P), my brother will be doing the sprint on Sunday morning and I will be racing in the afternoon. It should be a fun / intense weekend for me followed by 3 relaxing days in the Okanagan, I am really looking forward to it…

Some pictures to come soon, hopefully this week I have more time to post than last week.

Thanks

Facundo

Hectic Weekend

2009-07-27T13:29:00.001-07:00

Friday started off with the 4th swim in 4 days, however it was an easy 4k swim to “rest” before the 6km Open Water race on Saturday. After that I was off to work, 1hr run at lunch, and 1hr bike ride in the afternoon. Before going to sleep I prepared all my race gear (I was happy that for a swim race you need to prepare way less things than for a tri) and went to bed. I woke up 9.5 hrs later, yes, I was that tired…

The alarm went off on Saturday at 6:30, just 2 hrs before the race. I had my usual pre race breakfast, just a little toned down considering that it was 2hrs before the race (not 3) and that I was going to be swimming 99.5% of the time (the 0.5% will consist of 4x20m runs around a marker on every lap and to the finish). Definitely did not want to overeat! 1hr before the race I got to Kits beach and found Patrice, my swimming buddy, with who I constantly battle every morning workout. I knew he was racing and it was going to be fun! 5 minutes later I see a familiar face walk on the beach, wait, is that Jeff? Yup, Jeff Symonds was in town and now the race became that much more interesting! It was going to be a 3 way battle…

8:30 am the gun goes off and Ian Young (a pure swimmer) takes off in the lead, he was way too fast and from then on was a race for second place. The first lap was controlled and strong, I was “leading” the pack in second place and I could not tell who was / was not in the pack. After 1.5km we come out of the water, I look back. Its only 2 of us, a rematch of the previous weekend (well, on the swim portion only…), however this time he (Jeff) was on my feet. 2nd lap goes in cruise control, there was much more swimming to do to start burning precious fuel… 3rd lap starts, only half of the race left, Jeff still on my feet. What are my options?
A) Slow down and let him lead
B) Keep things the same as lap 1 and 2
C) Try to get rid of him and make him work alone (which will hopefully tire him a bit more than seating on my feet)

I quickly decided not to go for Option A, it was weak, slowing down? What? Also, I could not really tell where 4th place was. What if we both slowed down and then got caught? What if he was about to break down and I just helped him out? Option B was not an option either. I was in a disadvantageous position and I had to do something to revert it. Option C became the name of the game. 3rd lap consisted of about 4 or 5 100-200m attacks to drop him. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful, I redline a couple of times, and now I was out of gas for the 4th lap.

4th lap starts and this time I could only slow down, I was not towing him to the finish! We swam side by side, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow bumping each other. I could tell we were both done, but none was going to give an inch. After 6000m of swimming, approximately 1hr 26minutes we stood up in the sand with water knee high at the same time and sprinted 20 m to the finish. The result was similar to cycling, we both got the same time, but he got the Green Jersey and the Sprinter points. Jeff: 1:26:03, Facundo: 1:26:03. This was a race for the books: I suffered, was exhausted, in pain, could not feel my triceps for a couple of minutes, got out sprinted, but loved it! (Thanks Jeff for the picture, I stole it from your blog)

So yeah, it was 10am, 15 minutes to eat at the food tent, home, change, and as if I didn’t have enough already at 10:45 I was in a 3hr ride including Cypress with the Leading Edge squad. I got home at 1:55pm, at 2:05 I was on my way to the airport to pick up my friend Christian from Switzerland. Get home at 4, do some stuff around the house, head to Patrices house where he and his wife Fred put out a great bbq. I was absolutely dead, exhausted, since 6:30am I did not stop for a minute, but hey, I had a great time and I would not have changed a single thing -except for the sprint finish =P.

8hr sleep and Sunday consisted of Gym and run in the morning. Lunch, Caribbean Festival at Longsdale Quay with Enej and Christian (it was so hot and sunny that I went through 1L of yoghurt icecream: literally). In the afternoon went for a 1hr TT, then had awesome BBQ brochettes made by my brother and chef Eze, and sleep time.

I said it was a hectic weekend… nonetheless it was FUN FUN FUN!

Facundo

World Master Games – Swimming

2009-07-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I registered myself on the World Master Games. Swimming is one of the only sports where you can compete as being as “young” as 25 years old on the 25-29 age category. Most other sports, like running, start with the 30-34 age category.

The games start on October 10th, exactly one month after the World Championships. They take place in Sydney, about 800km south of the Gold Coast. It should be a fun fun event as I get to take place on the opening and closing ceremonies (same place as Sydney 2000) and will be swimming on the Olympic pool. How cool is that?

With your registration you are allowed 5 individual events + the 3K open water (the main reason I wanted to do the games). The decision was not easy, I knew I was doing the 800 and 400, but no idea what else. By process of elimination I got rid of all the backstroke and breaststroke events (which includes IM). Then I was left with 200, 100, 50 free, 200, 100, 50 fly. I went for the 100 free, I want so see if I can break a minute. 200 free was out as I will be doing 800 and 400, and in 50 free I would get my butt kicked. 50 fly I actually really like, and I am quite good at it (can almost swim 50 fly as fast as 50 free), so I went for it. Mmm… 100 fly or 200 fly…. Well, I would need to dope to last 200 fly, so I took the 100.

Goal Time and Pace:
800 free: 10:08, 1:16
400 free: 4:48, 1:12
100 free: 1:00
100 fly: 1:05
50 fly: 28
3K open water: 39:00, 1:18 (wetsuit-does not qualify for medal)/ 40:00, 1:20 (non wetsuit)

I am very excited about the games, its been a long time since I have been in a swimming competition. My start skills might be a quite a bit rusty, and the swim speed I had when I was 15-16 might not be there, but for sure I am going to take it easier and enjoy more than I did when I was younger. Good luck to me!

Hip Update: Its getting better SLOWLY, very slowly. Nationals being 4 weeks away I went to see another chiropractor today, and he seemed to have yet another different opinion. Lets try once again and see what happens... I am going back there on Tuesday and Friday next week for some adjustments. I also scrapped the Self Trascendence Tri in Victoria a week from now to be able to get 4 weeks of solid uninterrupted (injury free) training before Nationals...

Peach Classic Race Report – 19.07.09

2009-07-21T11:53:00.001-07:00

[Rant deleted]

Choppy, Jeff and I left Vancouver on Friday at noon to avoid traveling Saturday morning, the day before the race. The trip was uneventful, the Motel turned out to be quite decent (AC, swimming pool, and full kitchen with new appliances).

Saturday morning we woke up and went for a ride in the morning on the race course, and a short run right after. This turned out to be a great idea because by noon the heat was already way past pleasant levels. Thanks to the AC we took a 1hr powernap and headed to the lake in the afternoon for a 30min swim. After that we went back to the motel, took Ryan in with us for the night, had 1.2kg of pasta amongst the 4 of us, and went to bed at 8pm to get the ideal 8hrs of sleep.

The night was longer than expected, and it was not because we over slept but because I was awake at least 1/1.5 hrs courtesy of the AC noise, being hot/cold, sleeping with another men in a double bed, 4 people constantly going to the washroom (staying hydrated has some downsides), and so on. Still, I was really looking forward to racing in the Okanagan, and when all the alarms went off at the same time, I was ready to give it a go.

Breakfast was as usual, with the small exception of having the cereal and the chocolate milk combined into one (we decided against of regular milk this weekend). Bagel with PB and banana, instant coffee, get in the car, get to transition by 5am (7am race start).

Warm up: 30 min bike ride on the run course (we had not seen yet the 2km hill everyone was scaring us about), 20 min jog with some pickups, 10 min swim. The warm up was anticipating how things were going to turn out, I was feeling good, but conditions were tough. It was windy, we water was very choppy, the race buoys were getting blown all over the place, the bike was going to have a headwind on the way out (which is mostly uphill/rollers), and tailwind on the way back (rollers and downhill into transition). At least it was not going to be THAT hot.

Swim: After warm up I found Jeff Symonds, Jordan Rapp and Jason Shortis and lined up with them at the start. I knew one of them was going to be out of the water in the top places so I wanted to stick with them. The swim start was rough, lots of hitting and swimming over people for the first 300m until we started dropping people. 600m into the swim I found myself in 3rd place and 1st guy was getting away, so I bridged the gap and identified Jeff. Conditions were tough, hard to keep a straight line, sighting meant drinking gulps of lake water, and therefore stuck behind him and followed the bubbles. We exited the swim together with a 20-30 seconds lead on 3rd place.
T1: Uneventful, exited transition 20m behind Jeff.

Bike: Quickly came to the realization that despite feeling good on the warm up it was not going to be my day on the bike. I usually feel good right away but today I was loosing ground quickly. A couple of km into the ride we hit the Vancouver Hill, and run out of gears. How could that happen? I did not run out of gears the day before, hmmm, maybe I just went too hard out of T1… Now past the hill we start hitting the rollers and the wind head on. 10km into the ride I hear Jordans disc FLY by, hmmm, maybe its because he is a rocket on the bike, nothing I can do… Turnaround comes around and I have lost 4 minutes on Jeff and 2 minutes on Jordan already, hmmm… maybe I am just having a shitty day on the bike! The ride back into transition was a little better thanks to the tailwind and downhills, but still every single uphill hurt, legs were burning and power was just not there.

T2: Uneventful, exited transition 5 minutes behind Jeff, 3 behind Jordan, and 50 seconds ahead of Jason.

Run: The day before the race we went to the Bike Barn to check it out, and I got a chance to chat with Jeff about the course. He warned me to take it easy on the uphill to avoid putting myself in a hole and have a decent last 5km, so I listened. Who else better than last years winner to give you advice? Out of transition I run strong, but holding back just a little bit. I heard Steve King announcing Jason out on the run course within my first 200m so I knew I was in “danger”. Still stuck to the plan and did not look back until the turnaround point. The climb was strong, smooth and very steady, I was feeling well. Still 50 seconds ahead, and with Jeff and Jordan way out of sight, it was a matter of holding on to 3rd place. 50 seconds in 5km are a lot of time, however I am not characteristic for having strong last 5km, neither for running downhill. The next 3km downhill I focused on turnover and stride length, and surprisingly found myself running well and feeling relatively fresh legs (thanks Jeff!). Into the flats, 1.5km straight to the finish I look back, and see Jason much closer than I remembered… not good, time to step on the gas. I was caught and quickly dopped by Olly about 2 weeks ago in Squamish, and that hurt psychologically, I was not going to let that happen again. I run hard, run for my life, wishing I had a HRM on to see what ridiculous number I was putting out. 200m to go, I look back again, he is as far as he was last time: I think I am safe.

This race was tough. The bike and run are tough every year, but wind made them a bit harder this year and complicated the swim as well. It was not too hot but still hot enough that I poured 6 cups of water on me during the run, and drank to full bottles on the bike. I was not pleased with my swim (technique felt very off), not pleased with my bike split (I know I can do much better), but very very pleased with my run. After a rough day I still pulled myself together and had a very good run to hold on to 3rd place, with a run split only 2 minutes slower than Jeff.

What is next? Kits challenge on Saturday, a 40km TTT on Sunday. I might skip the Self Transcendence Tri in 2 weeks in Victoria as my hip is still not 100% and Nationals are getting closer.

Pictures from the trip to come, thanks for reading!

PS: It was very nice to hang out with all the guys at some point on the weekend: Choppy, Jeff (tall), Ryan, Anthony, Jeff S, Justine, and Mark S amongst others

Off to Penticton

2009-07-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

I knowI have not posted a race report for the race last weekend, but I am afraid it will never happen... (and somehow I knew it already Monday when I posted quickly how the race went)

This week was busy with work, training, preparing a presentation about myself and triathlons at work for sponsorhip purposes (more on that to come later), and preparing all stuff for the trip to Penticton.

I am about to leave work, in 2hrs we will be on the road. This should be a fun race however though. I hear the bike course is hard, the run is hard, and according to the canadian weather office today to monday will be between 30-34C... Looking forward to consuming lots of salt tablets hehe

Lots of people racing this weekend: Anthony, Ryan, Dave, Choppy and Jeff (tall) to name a few. Everyone have a safe trip and I shall see you in Penticton -you will find me under a tree eating peaches until I feel like exploding-.

Good luck to me!

Not much time today

2009-07-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today I do not have much time to write a full post, but here is a quick weekend update:

Friday: Work, 4hrs of easy training

Saturday: 2hrs easy in the morning, set up race gear. Playland at the PNE with work at noon; Went with my brother, Brad, Laura and Gerrett. It was lots of fun! I also ate quite a bit (like 3 double chicken burgers and 2 smokies)... oooppss... In the afternoon did the bike drop off and went home to try to cool down with the air conditioning on. It was hot and very very sunny.

Sunday: Vancouver International Sprint Triathlon. Race went very well, shaved 5 minutes and a half from last year in an identical course and pretty similar conditions. I am very pleased with my bike performance. Happy with my run performance considering my hip imbalance (that is getting better slowly but still there). Quite unhappy with my swim (and I dont mean pace, I mean how it felt...). After the race Eze, Choppy, Clarke and myself rode to Iona. Lucky for us the temperature was dropping, however it was getting windy and 40kph headwinds in Iona were not fun. In the afternoon/night we headed to Vincents place for some BBQ meat, it was really fun and there was lots of familiar faces including Curtis and Barry.

Good job to all people that raced this weekend, half or sprint =)

Thanks Andra and Stefan for coming to watch! I know 7:45 am was an amazing feat on a Sunday morning

The race report to come when I get around it... Here are some pictures, 3 of them taken by my personal photographer ENEJ who followed us around and got like 300 pics! I cant wait to get them all, thanks!

SQUAMISH TRIATHLON Race Report – Olympic Distance – 05.07.09

2009-07-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

Place Overall: 2nd
Place 25-29: 1/16
Total Time: 1:56:23

Note:
Swim: Most likely a little long, all paces/100m a few seconds above usual
Bike course: 1/3 flat, 1/3 downhill, 1/3 uphill
Run course: Trail run, minor hills

Saturday was busy busy busy, only went for 1hr on the bike, no run planned, no time for swimming, disgustingly full from AYCE sushi, and with very low expectations about Sundays race. The hip could go either way, either hold on and let me run at a decent pace, or get pissed and force me to DNF for the first time. A DNS (Did Not Start, for all people not in the sport =P) was not an option, I was fine to swim and to ride…

The weather was pretty good on Sunday, getting almost too hot at the end as race started quite late (9.30am) compared to other races.

On Sunday I woke up at 4:30am, had a bowl of cereal, grabbed bottles from fridge, pumped the tires, got ready and waited for Choppy to come and pick me up. Once he came we met up with Jeffrey Manson and left for Squamish. A couple of stops along the way for food (I had my toast with PB and chocolate milk with coffee in my bag) and powergels (Jeffreeeeyyyy ) and we were there. Setup of T1 and T2 was smooth and fast. Warmed up on the bike, 10min jog (hip little sore), and 10 min swim. For the race I really had very very low expectations. Although I knew that the fitness was there, It was going to hurt more than usual and feel a little off… The plan: Crush the swim and the bike, not save anything for the run, who knows what was going to happen.

The lake was calm, the adrenaline was already pumping, I was determined to go hard and the gun went off. Started fast, very fast, trying to get ahead and avoid getting kicked. 50m into the swim I found myself 1 body length ahead of everyone else and that got me going even harder. I swam alone the whole lap (1500m) feeling strong and relaxed, exiting the water more than 1 min ahead of 2nd and 3rd, and almost 2 minutes ahead of 4th. Mission accomplished, had a great swim...

T1: Excellent transition once again. Wetsuit came off quickly and easily, got glasses and helmet on and off I went. Getting into the shoes was a piece of cake, slipped them in as I supermaned on the bike, not sure how that happened but was great. Basically landed on my seat with both feet ½ way inside the shoes.

Bike: 4.5 laps ( T1 and T2 were in different locations) of the course, so first lap went hard and analyzed course, technical sections, max possible speed into sharp turns, etc. Following 3 laps went strong on the flats / downhills, and very hard on the Hwy 99 uphill keeping low gear and high cadence (80-90). At the top of the hill on every lap legs were absolutely shot, and needed 100m or so to get back up to speed. After 4 laps legs were crushed but I was still in the lead, mission accomplished. Last ½ lap went easier than previous laps, upped the cadence to flush legs and cruised into transition still in the lead.

T2: Very good T2. Removed shoes easily and dismounted without issues. Slipped on shoes little trouble, grabbed race belt and hat and off I went in search of the moment of truth.

Run: 2 x 5km laps on trails. Started fast, could feel the hip but the adrenaline was blocking most of the pain, also tightening the core and glutes helped barely feel it. I had no idea where the second place was, but I knew there was some fierce competition out there on the chase. As the leader I caught most marshals/volunteers distracted, so the first lap I did not get handed out any water/Gatorade and I went off course twice costing about 30 seconds in total. I was kind of pissed. About 4km into run I was caught by Olly Piggin, but had no answer. My hip was being kind enough to let me run at a high tempo pace with no pain, asking for more was asking for trouble. He dropped 200m after and I just let him go. Second lap went smoother in terms of marshalling and volunteers, I actually got handed out some water instead of being expected to grab it myself from a table with 200 glasses which most of them were empty =S. 30 min of running in 9 days finally showed up 6km into the run. I slowly started to die, it was getting quite hot as well, and the hip was being nice but not as nice as in the beginning. I was not leading anymore, but had a decent shot at 2nd place if I kept it going. Set the autopilot, let my hips dictate the fastest comfortable pace to the finish, and kept it going. 2km to go there was a small out and back section; I was still at least 2 min ahead of 3rd, relaxed and pushed to the line.

Looking at the results I don’t think I would have done any better on the swim and bike if the hip was in top shape, but the run was just awful. All tris this year I have been around 36 min 10km, yesterday was 39:15. Yes, the course might have been longer/tougher than usual, but looking at other people splits and knowing what the normally run, I should have run ~37:30 instead of 39:15. Overall, I can not complain. Yesterday and today the hip is as bad / as good as it was Saturday, so that’s sort of good I guess. This week is all about getting healthier…

After the race I chatted with the guys, had gigantic amounts of food in the food tent, waited for awards, back to Vancouver straight to Granville Island with Choppy and Jeffery for fish and chips (I did not get any as I was still disgustingly full still), laundry, dinner, and bed.

Once again, lots of friends racing this weekend (and some of them just dropping by on the way, It was an awesome suprise to see Andra and Stefan suddely appear out of the blue in Squamish) Hopefully everyone is pleased with their results.

Choppy: good job on the first Olympic! Cramps and all you made it! (and thanks for the ride)
Jeffrey: my bother told me it was also your first olympic, I did not know! Congrats!
Curtis: 2nd place in 20-24 man, nice work. (and I owe you $104, I don’t forget)
Dave: Payday! that was a good swim for you wasn’t it? Nice work!
Colin: your fitness is coming back quick after a year off... I might need a Mcarthur parachute soon ;)
Susanne: Payday! 1/3 of the espresso machine is paid =)
Rob and Ricardo: Nice work guys, Vancouver next? Come on Rob!

Its been a week (and I apologize for that)

2009-07-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Well... I ALMOST (caps, bold, italics anddd red) crushed it in Squamish. Actually, I was crushing it until T2, running for my life until 4km into the run, and in one-gear-best-average-speed autopilot until the finish line. Race Report to come in next post, but here is how the week went:

On Monday I went to the Chiropractor (Carla Cupido) and she worked on my arm and hip for about 20 minutes. The arm really felt better after, the hip felt really sore from all the digging in with the elbow and Graston tools. Tuesday I went to the sports doctor and right after to the Physio, both agreed that the arm pain seemed to be related to a nerve problem and not muscle sprain. My neck and upper back was really really tight, and the Physio (Jay) went right in there and loosened the cr..p out of everything. Clearly he got it right on, the arm was 80% better the following day. The sports doctor gave me some nerve relaxant to help with that as well, so I have been taking that for a week now. With lots of stretching (neck stretches) and some upper back work the arm is now 98%. I have to purposely work really really hard to feel the slightest remain of whatever I had. “Tricep Nerve” Case: CLOSED.

The hip is a whole different story. After Carla went in there Monday it was sore Tuesday (as expected). Tuesday afternoon I went to Physio and Jay also got in there and also told me that my hip alignment is off and glutes were weak again. I haven’t done my exercises in a while as the weather has been so nice, usually I never have problems in the winter as I spend lots of time in the gym avoiding the rain. Anyways, Wednesday I was sore to the point that I was not sure where the “injury” was hurting initially, as now that whole side of the hip felt like I got hit by a car or punched 100 times. “Hip Pain” Case: Hip alignment exercises + Glutes Strengthening.

The 3 days off (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) from everything became 4, and then the arm got better so swimming and gym were back on. Wednesday I went for a ride as the sports doctor said that it might help (and also the hip barely hurts when I ride) despite soreness. It did not make it worse so riding was back on schedule. The hip was better Thursday and Friday, but still sore. Friday was 1 week without running, and with the Squamish Triathlon in line for the weekend I decided to get in the treadmill and see how it went for 30 min. Aerobically speaking I felt surprisingly good, usually after a week I would feel a little more strained for air/uncomfortable. Leg turnover was good, technique was feeling smooth, shins 100%, but damn hip was still refusing to work properly… According to Carla my pain threshold is pretty high (and therefore I let her go in deep deep and am sore for 3 days after) so I set myself a limit. If it started hurting more than …. then I would stop. I never reached the “set” limit; the run started at 5:00/km and steadily increased speed to 3:40/km at the end. Ice ice ice after. Saturday I woke up no better but no worse. More hip alignment, therabands exercises, glutes, easy ride, AYCE sushi with Stefan and Andra (big mistake the day before a race, but we needed to prove the waiter wrong didn’t we??), prepare race package, no time for a swim, and off to bed.

Summary: The last 9 days leading to the Squamish Tri were much less than ideal … There were 4 days of rusting doing absolutely nothing. Swam 2 times after 6 days of no swimming, biked 4 times Wed to Sat, Run 30 min on Friday after a week, and spent a couple of hours working on the hip issue in the gym. Upside: Arm is 100%, I know what to do with the hip, and had a pretty decent race yesterday all things considered =)

Race report to come next post ~30min =P

Really injured

2009-06-29T10:54:00.001-07:00

Eventually things catch up to you… Left Tricep still useless, hurts when I bend my elbow all the way (pulls) or when I stretch my arm (especially above my head). Last good swim was Tuesday last week, Saturday I tried to see how it felt, no progress at all even wearing a sling for 3 days. Hip was going downhill, and Friday got worse, I know I am stupid, should have stopped my run after 3 steps, I did not. Saturday morning it was worse than ever. Can’t swim, cant run, and really, between a very sore hip and a very sore (injured I should say, I just hate that word) tricep, I really shoud not bike either…

For the first time in 4 years one of the greatest things about this sport (diversity of training/sports) is not even helping. I am completely screwed in terms of training substitutions… I can’t even try to keep doing some cardio in the gym, without moving the legs or arms I don’t think it will really work. After 25 minutes floating on Saturday I arrived to the psychologically tough, but physically wise decision to take some time completely off, nothing, 0, nada. I really need to heal, not because of upcoming local races, but because I want to be good at Kelowna and the Worlds, real good.

Saturday and Sunday I did things I did not do in many many months, like going to the beach for a full day (picnic lunch style), read more than in the previous 3 months together, watched the Giro (still haven’t finished!) stages 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 (yes, like 10hrs, I really had to “live” sports somehow), had breakfast in bed, hanged out with friends for like 6 hrs doing nothing, made a bbq, and the list goes on… I will stay off until I feel improvements, and then start slowly. The main goal is about 2 months from now, not next weekend.

This is clearly easier to write and say than to do, but if I keep saying it maybe I will end up believing it and it not going to be as hard to let go. Staying home on Sunday at 9am, 1.5 hrs before the Cypress Hill climb pretty much required a restraining order. I was proud, I think I have a long way to go on the art of patience and maturity as an athlete, but I proved myself I am moving in the right direction.

More rest, more Giro and more patience for me… I will crush it next race, whenever that is.

Much needed rest

2009-06-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

When I was writing the post before Iron Mountain I purposely omitted mentioning 2 “injuries” that were bothering me in the week leading to the race.

First:
Since Monday or Tuesday a week ago I started feeling some minor pain on the right side of the hip. The pain is kind of somewhere on the outside of the hip between the hip flexors (front) and glutes (back). Through searching online I believe it is the Tensor Faciae Latae (TFL) which is part of the very famous Illiotibial Tract (runners devil). The pain was minor but consistent all last week, and as usual, adrenaline on race day makes all minor pains vanish. Monday and Tuesday after the race the pain was still there, and Wednesday after track it got a bit worse. Best idea: Take the afternoon off on Wed and stretch 30min (was supposed to ride 2hr) and Thursday completely off from running and cycling (as usual). Today after yesterdays stretching and icing it feels wayyy better, and I am tempted to do something in the afternoon, but I must not. I should have the same discipline for rest as I have for training and today I will ice again and stretch, I hope it goes away quick. Tomorrow will be running with Dave on Stanley Park, plans have been made...

Second:
On Thursday last week I was on my usual ½ day off and while I was stretching I pulled either a muscle or nerve on my left arm. It feels like it’s the Tricep, but cant be so sure… It hurt quite a bit Friday and therefore skipped swimming practice for the first time in 8 months. Got better during the day, swam on Saturday morning 40 min w/some sprints before Sundays race no problem… Sunday went smooth as well. Monday I could barely notice it there and so swam open water, Tuesday swim practice, Wednesday I could barely move the arm again without making a wimp face. Best idea: Skip Thursday workout, harder mentally than physically, I really needed rest. Tomorrow I will probably skip swimming as well, and go back on Saturday (like running, giving myself 3 days to see how it feels).

The last couple of weeks have been hard and I have not been giving myself lots of time to recover, especially after races. Eventually this is going to catch up to me if I dont listen... This is a sign that I should rest, and as hard as it is, I am doing so. Sunday I am still on for Cypress Hill Climb depending how the hip feels, but as of now is a big yes… Dave and I hit Cypress on Tuesday and went from the Mulgrave school sign to the powerlines in 37:35, looking forward to how much harder we can go on race day =) Colin will also be doing it so it should be fun fun fun.

Last but not least, pictures from Sundays race!

Iron Mountain Triathlon Race Report

2009-06-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

Edit: There was so many people that I knew I was going to forget someone... Good work Tyler on your first Olympic Tri! Looking forward to seeing you in more races =)

First of all I would like to say: This race was fun fun fun! Lots of friends racing made it very cool, it was great to see everyone before the race setting up transition, before the swim on the beach, on the run course (2 out and back, so many chances to see people), and after the race chatting at the food tent… Congratulations for an awesome race to everyone (Anthony, David, Ryan, Rob, Elliot, and company…) Also it was nice to see Colin who was supporting his girlfriend racing on the Sprint later on.

Here is the report, pictures to come later...

Place Overall: 1/85
Place 20-29: 1/16
Total Time: 2:00:29

Note:
Swim: A little short
Bike course: Very very hilly/tough
Run course: Rolling hills

Saturday went alright, busy to say the least. Swam in the morning, then run, then speed theory to pick up the S2, then trainer, then lunch, race gear collection, race package pickup in Langley, race meeting in Maple ridge, back home to finish setting up race wheels and pads, dinner and bed (later than I wanted unfortunately). The night did not go smooth either as I was worried about the bike course. It did not seem like they had it very well marked/marshaled and my first time in Maple ridge was at the race meeting… Not very familiar with the course really…

Sunday morning I was feeling great despite sleeping only 6.5hrs. Felt very awake right from the first ring of the alarm at 4am. Small bowl of cereal, make a bagel with peanut butter and banana for the road and went downstairs to wait for Ryan. The weather was not looking very promising, it could start raining at any time, but it held off during the race and downpoured 10 minutes on the way back to Vancouver.

We got to transition only 1:15 before start which was not ideal. Got body marked and set up and there was only 50 min for warmup. I would have liked to have more time, but you know how it goes… Went for a 15 min jog and felt great, smooth and very motivated. Finished transition setup, got wetsuit on, 6 min swim, ½ min stretch and the race was underway.

Swim: Fought for the first 300m to get some clear water and get away from the pack. Got established in the lead and was feeling strong. Arms were grabbing lots of water but relaxed, a great swim. Exited the swim with about 1 minute lead.

T1: Excellent transition, best T1 ever! Wetsuit came off quickly and easily, got helmet and glasses on and off I went. Getting into the shoes was a piece of cake, practice makes perfect!

Bike: All out at the beginning. Knew that Anthony Toth is a machine on the bike and was going to be on the hunt (which it turns he was as he moved from 7th place to 2nd on the bike). Legs were not feeling great, maybe the lack of bike warmup. Also it was a little cold and calves felt like cramping for the first 20 minutes. First half of the course was downhill which was nice, however the second half was terribly hard. Average speed was at about 42kph for the first half and then total average was 36.6kph after several nasty hills on the last 10km (where my speeds were on the 12-13kph range)

T2: Rough T2. Did not know exactly when the dismount line was coming as I was not familiar with the course and the entrance to the lake was through a different place than the exit. Was only able to take 1 shoe off, and took the other one off while standing on the dismount line. Racked bike, slipped on shoes with some trouble and out into the run.

Run: 2 rolling loops out and back. Started very strong, did not know who was behind and did not want to be caught. Saw where Anthony and company were on the first turnaround 2.5km into run. Anthony was in second place about 2 min down. Kept it strong, but he was looking strong as well. Anthony is a long distance triathlete and he was not going to break down… 7.5km and lead was now about 4 minutes, awesome! Run split on exactly 27min, so it was possible to break 36. Run as hard as I could trying to relax upper body, swing arms to help and stay strong. 36:02, 2:00:29 total. Squamish is in 2 weeks and I will be hungry to go under 36 on the run and under 2hrs on the race =)

Post Race: Chatted with all the guys and ate lots after the race. Probably something like 2 large Costco muffins, 2 mini bagels with a heap of cream cheese, 3-4 small cookies, 2 bananas, lots of pretzels, grapes and watermelon. I felt stuffed but hey, last 3 times I have eaten lots after the race I have not been sore at all the day after. Today not sore either!!! Who knows, I like eating like a beast anyways…

Facundo

Ps: Also congrats to all the guys doing the Half and Sprint in Victoria this weekend (including my brother!) and congrats to Martina for an awesome 4th place in elite women at Coteau-du-Lac ITU Triathlon Premium Pan American Cup!

Physical and Mental Recovery

2009-06-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

This last training week (ending today) has been very taxing physically and mentally. Physically because of all the hard work done, mentally because there was a race involved, and several intensity sessions. And intensity gets even harder mentally when you are fatigued physically.

Monday started off with a 1.5hr run through UBC trails. Legs were still feeling tired from Friday and Saturday efforts and so I just cruised. Dont know how far I run, neither I care. In the afternoon I got 4 solid loops of the Open Water swim at kits, Patrice, Ryan, Vincent and Curtis were also there which made it more fun and a little more competitive (Patrice, thanks for whacking me in the head a couple of times, it really adds some race day feeling to it!).

Tuesday my lats and triceps woke up in pain. I guess 4.4km inside a rubber suit makes you work a bit harder to move the arms around. In the morning swim Patrice and I were both destroyed but still put out a decent effort. The afternoon involved a ride to Iona, 1st hour hammer, 2nd hour strong.

Wednesday was going to be painful with lots of intensity. I joined the leading edge crew for a track workout at 5:30 in the morning. Lots of good efforts despite not feeling warmed up until the last 30% of the workout, running speed and morning do not go together. At work I had a friends birthday and therefore I refueled myself with lots of pizza and chicken wings (my one allowed unhealthy meal of the week). In the afternoon I joined the leading edge crew for some 16k individual and team time trials. At this point, with 20 hrs in the bag and track workout in the morning, I did not know how fast I would be able to go. Surprise surprise, it was damn good... I left second to last and quickly bridged to the previous 2 people (Martina and Rob), from that point on the train got started and lasted until the end. On the second round we got put in groups of 4 according to the individual performances. I had literally given all on the ITT and had nothing left, our team average speed was slower than our ITTs.

Today I was glad it was Thursday for many reasons.
1) Yesterday I had great speed workouts and felt a confidence boost
2) After the morning swim I get the afternoon off
3) Today is the end of a tough 3 week block
4) Friday and Saturday should be easier before Sundays Race
5) Tomorrow is payday Friday

Besides training, work is going good. I have been busy for the last couple of weeks working on different things which is good, variety is good. I should get a new project soon, either today or tomorrow. At home everything is normal, the weather has cooled down a bit and so has the apartment, therefore I have been sleeping better. Yesterday Eze made pork teriyaki with broccoli and mushrooms, it was De-li-cious, the best so far (3rd time he makes it I think). He is now taking a class at UBC and still looking for work, but until he finds something he has pulled out the chefs hat and tried a couple of new things. Mom: you should have seen those empanadas...

Anyways, that is it for now. Physically I should be good and ready for the race by Sunday, but I am already feeling great mentally (odd how 1/2 day off and 2 easy days ahead play in your head). Wish me luck!

Facundo

Weekend Update

2009-06-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Friday I ended my day pretty late (for me anyways) at about midnight. At that moment it was decided that there was no way I was going to make it to my morning swim after a 10k run on 5hrs of sleep. Alarm clock was turned off. The night was a little rough, a light sleep, and some cramping in my hamstrings made for a 7hr night. At 7:30 I was up and having breakfast, not much as I was still a bit full from the insane amount of food I had at the post race party the night before. The legs were feeling alright, not fatigued, barely sore, sort of like after a very hard track workout. Missing the swim allowed me to join the Leading Edge Squad for a “long easy ride” on the mountains. In summary, I ended up with 120km ride in 4.5hrs which included going up Cypress and then Seymour. Both climbs felt very very comfortable despite the race 14hrs before, quite pleasant and a psychological boost to say the least.

After the ride, I was having lunch and getting ready for a power nap, when I called Choppy to ask him what was going on tonight. He mentioned a wedding quickly on our bike ride but was not sure if I heard correctly. Plan confirmed, 5pm, wedding up in Grouse Mountain. I was very tired, and I was not going to be able to nap, but it seemed like a great opportunity to hang out with him, have some good food, enjoy the party and the view, and so on. Summary: The wedding was great, lots of fun, terrific food, and got to know Choppy better. I really had a good time, we never really hang out but definitely we should more often. Once again I went to sleep pretty late but it was worth it! (Choppy, keep the weddings coming!)

Sunday I watched my brother race the Splash and Dash (1.1km swim, 5km run) starting at Kits pool. I wanted to do it as well, but my legs could take no more running or cycling at fast speeds whatsoever. Instead I did the swim and watched him do it (faster than last time!). Like dad says, good job boy! After that I went to the gym, lunch, easy ride with my brother to prevent my legs from solidifying forever, laundry, cooking, and bed time.

Today I went for a long run in the trails around UBC and it was super fan. I wanted to run on trail so I did not know how much I run, just wanted to go by feel rather than by pace. Tonight open water should be fun. Patrice and Ryan will be there so it will be like our morning swim team practice but in the ocean!

Tuesday, Wednesday will be hard, Thursday 1/2 day off, and then easy until Sunday for the Iron Mountain Olympic Tri. I have put 3 weeks of solid work and really need to give my legs a rest.

Facundo

Longest Day 10K Race Report

2009-06-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

First things first, the 10K on Friday afternoon (weekend update coming up later) I went home from work and had about 1 hr to relax, stretch, and have something to eat before the race. For some reason I was not feeling the race readiness I always feel, and I think it might have to do with the fact that the race was on a Friday afternoon. I like racing in the morning / noon, but not in the afternoon / night when energy levels are running low, especially after a regular day involving a swim and a regular work day.

As I was biking to UBC, perfect for getting 20 min bike warm up before the real warm up, I was trying to get myself pumped and excited about the race. I found this quite difficult, the spark was not there. I arrived to the race venue about 1 hr before race start with plenty of time to pick up my timing chip, change into racing gear, warm up and stretch. As time ticked I was getting somewhat ready psychologically as well (courtesy of the music on the background, runners warming up, and other friends racing), 10 minutes to go I was on race mode.

I had checked the results for the past 2 or 3 years, and I had seen that there was a possibility for good placing if I had a good run, so I lined myself at the very front on the inside line to the first turn. The gun went off and the switch flipped like it always does. The race was 2x5km loops around the UBC campus area, and my goal was to negative split them. Because I run a 34:20 in the Sun Run 2 months ago, I thought that under 34 minutes was a good goal for the race. The plan was to do 17 minutes in the first lap, and anything under that on the second. A few kilometers into the race and 3 of us were battling it out physically and mentally, continuously switching places and trying to get into the others head. First lap ends, the 3 of us 7 seconds apart, 16:40 my split, upppss too fast… Second lap it was getting harder, the legs started to feel the week of training, and I was not breathing as comfortably as I was on the first lap. Splits slowing down, Brad Cunningham (his blog at bradcunningham.blogspot.com) pulled away, I have no answer. 2 km to go and he is getting smaller, I was in second place, and third place guy (50m back) started to look bigger. 1km to go, Brad too far ahead, third place guy looking bigger (maybe 40m back now). 200m to go and I hear Brad finishing, looked back and 3 place guy 10m behind. Crap! I have no more reserves, nothing left in the tank, I lengthen my stride and try to hold on for dear life. 100m to go I was passed at the start of the finishing chute. No answer, nothing, let it go.

34:49, about 30 seconds off my PB 2 months ago. The final time did not please me to be honest, but there are things to be learned from the race, and that’s why I raced it in the first place (with no changes to my training week except for skipping 1.5 hr moderate ride at noon). I wanted to see what I could do on tired legs, and I did. I wanted to negative split the 5k, I did not. Maybe I went out too fast on the first 5km, maybe not. Maybe on fresh legs I can hold that pace and that will give me a 33:20 10k. The first 5km felt easy and smooth, but after that my quadriceps got 2 times heavier. Maybe I should do some longer runs, as I think I have some decent speed. There are many things I have to look back into to figure out the next steps regarding my running are. As for now, I might join coach Alan from Leading Edge for some track workouts and tips on Wednesday mornings. Overall it was a good race.

The post race food was just incredible. Burgers, European sausages, chips, fruits, yoghurt, tofu, cookies, chips, salsa, strawberry cheesecakes, iced teas, juices, and so much more. Even if I did not enjoy the race (although I did), I would be back next year for the post race party! Congrats to Graeme for the event! Thanks Patrice and Frederique for cheering me on! Congrats to Ryan for a 10k PB and to Brad for taking the race! I almost forgot, thanks to Jeremy from Speed Theory for leading us through the course on your Cervelo, it was a pleasant surprise to have someone you know out there =)

10k Pre Race Report

2009-06-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Today should be an interesting evening…

In about 4.5 hrs from now I will be racing the Longest Day 10km up at UBC. It will be a nice “progress report” on my 10km run time, previous one was at the Sun Run at the end of April. Since then training has gone well, and I have biked, swam and run lots. So much in fact that my legs are constantly tired, and my recovery day barely does the trick… Today I will run on tired legs and see what my time is like.

Yesterday was my usual ½ day off, today was a hard swim in the morning (where I did 2000m with pull and paddles to save my legs) and I skipped my usual 1.5hr ride in the afternoon. I went for a 30 min jog yesterday and it was not good; form feeling off, stiff, lethargic, just not very encouraging for today. The reason was probably that I was just tired from 6 days of hard training and racing last Sunday. Anyways, yesterday was easy, and today is a new day with legs feeling a lot better.

I am off to the kitchen now to warm up some pasta, in about 2 hrs I will have a bagel with PB and a cup of delicious Mocha, and at 7pm I will flip the switch and let the fun begin =)

Facundo

WestSide Classic Race Report and misc stuff

2009-06-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Every day that went by since my last post I was more and more undecided about doing the race or not, until Saturday afternoon. There was a constant debate in my mind if doing this race was really worth it. I was super exited about doing my first road race “Giro de Italia” style, it was going to be fun, but I was really going to put myself and my bike at risk of crashes. Not all Category 4 and 5 are particularly skilled when handling the bike at high speeds (and neither am I, but now there will be 90+ of us tightly packed in a bunch). The weather was also undecided, and I was definitely not racing in the rain.

Saturday training was planned as if I was racing Sunday. I had a hard swim in the morning with lots of speed work, and then an easy flat 2hr ride around UBC and the race course. After that I had lunch, took a 1hr nap and headed to Jericho beach for Curtis Birthday BBQ. At the BBQ I chilled out, ate way way too many cookies (about a box of assorted cookies by myself), 2 smokies and lots of chips. Definitely did not feel great afterwards. I got a change to talk to Vincent, Choppy and Enej that I had not seen in a while, so that was great as well! Talking about the race with them also got me more and more into it and my chances of doing the race the following day were increasing rapidly.

Sunday I woke up feeling alright. The night was not ideal; a little short (about 7hrs), light sleep, and a little “worried” about my first road race, but I was ready to race! My older bike (Trek 1200) was set up with my new carbon wheel on the front, and stock on the back (as the new wheelset is 10sp and the Trek is 9speed). Had usual race day breakfast (baguel w/PB and glass of chocolate milk) and was off to the race start which was conveniently 20 blocks from my house. Warmed up and lined up at the start.

The race was interesting and as dangerous as I was afraid of. Loosing concentration at any point during the 73.5km would not be a smart thing, hands on the hoods and fingers on the brakes 99% of the time, even on the big hill on Camosun. You never know if the guy in front of you blows up and then you need to slow down quickly. The average speed of the race was about 39km/h, not very fast for a pack of 90+ riders. As expected in a bike race, the speed was never constant and it was decided by the people/teams at the front (and their respective attacks!). I found myself riding at a very comfortable pace everywhere on the course with the exception of Camosun hill where I could either push hard, or get dropped to the back and make my way to the front again through the remainder of the lap.

On lap 3 of 7, I was riding on the middle of the pack on the left side. I suddenly hear hard braking, people yelling, and nasty carbon cracking sounds (lots of them). When I look to the right, also about the middle of the pack, I see a mix of 15 people, bikes, and wheels piling up/flying all over the place. At that point 3 things came to my mind: 1) Holy crap, I am so glad that this lap I went on the left of the group and not to the right, that could have been me… 2) This is why I did not want to do this 3) Well, now I am in the front of the pack, so lets stay in the top 10 riders for the rest of the race. The smaller the number of people in front of me, the smaller the chances of going down because of a crash in front of me. Sure, drafting wise is not ideal, but I couldn’t care less; I did not want to be one of those people in my snapshot. The rest of the race was much safer, staying in the lead group and every once in a while taking a turn at the front of the paceline to keep the speed high and drop people on the climb. For the last lap I found myself very close to the front, top 5 or so. 1km to go I had a chance to get away about 10 meters from the pack, but was caught with about 400m to the finish, I really wanted to TT it but that hill had taken it out of me. Last turn (200m to finish - uphill) I find myself in 5th place (another 2 or 3 people wiped out right besides me, again nasty carbon cracking sounds). After the turn it was all out for the money (first 5). I can TT with a constant power output, but these guys (cyclists, not triathletes) can definitely sprint. I finished 11th in a field of 90+, and I finished in one piece, could not be happier. Congrats to David Roulston that also finished right in there, awesome race buddy!

After the race I had a recovery drink and headed home. I was feeling fine and my legs were quite fresh, so I went out running for 1hr20 and had one of the best runs in a long time. Pace was high, cadence was good, and felt effortless! I had lunch after and took the afternoon off.

Monday was good, no post race soreness. Went out for a 2hr easy ride before work and then in the afternoon swam 4 loops of the Vowsa loop in the Ocean ~4.4K. Ryan was there as well and we swam together the whole time, which was nice and made things more fun. At home I had a delicious pizza made by my brother (100% whole wheat shell, 100% home made). It was a great end of the day, and worth going to sleep later than usual for. By the way Eze, thanks for the extra workout you gave me while eating the pizza, just genius!

Its been a long post, but there were many things to write about! Now, picture time! Enjoy…

Facundo

Start Line

Camosun Hill 1

Camosun Hill 2

Sprint Finish 1

Sprint Finish 2

Happy Friday!

2009-06-05T10:04:00.001-07:00

Payday Friday!!! Fridays are always good, but sunny warm payday Fridays are even better =) I actually even kind of forgot how miserable I was at night, when I woke up pretty much every hour lying in an oven.

Let me explain, our apartment is on the top floor, which means all day long we have the sun hitting on the roof. It is also on the south west corner of the building, which means that once the afternoon comes, and temperatures are high already, I get the sun to hit all the exterior walls for another 5 or 6 hours. By 10pm the sun is down, but because of the buildings “thermal mass”, heat is still released into the apartment for a couple more hours. By 4 or 5 in the morning, just around the time the alarm goes off, it starts getting cooler. Thanks! Last night the window fan was not even that useful, getting hot air blown is better than nothing, but I still felt I was in an oven with a fan. And lets not even get into the sweat topic, just not cool. Anyways, I got it out of me, now I feel better. I talked to other people before the swim with the same problem, so at least I know I am not the crazy one with temperature control/regulation issues.

Yesterday was my half day off, only had a swim in the morning and then the afternoon was off. There was an event/art show at work with lots of good catered food from 4.30pm to 6.30 pm. After that I headed back home, crossed out some tasks in my whiteboard and went to bed at 8pm. It was not an ideal recovery afternoon (or night for that matter) and therefore today I am still feeling a little tired. I might take it easier than planned in the afternoon.

On Sunday there is a cycling road race on the Point Grey/UBC area that I am seriously considering in doing. Its 7x10.5km laps, it should be lots of fun and quite fast, but kind of risky as well. I would be racing in Cat4/5, which will probably average about 38-40kph for the race. Being in a pack, speed seems very doable. The risky part comes from cornering / drafting at those speeds with lots of inexperienced riders (including myself). Someone hits the brakes / goes wide in a turn and then bam! 4 or 5 of us go down. My plan, if I race it, is to stay clear of trouble. Riding close to the front of the pack or on the sides seems like the best idea compared to being literally in the middle of the bunch, where you are stuck, caged, and forced to follow everyone else. I would race on my training bike, not putting my carbon at risk, but will be using my new race wheels. It seems that some other people from Speed Theory will be racing as well so we might have a “team” and work together.

Westside Cycling Classic - Lap

Westside Cycling Classic - Lap Elevation

I am still looking for a ride to Cranbrook; however I have a couple of alternatives. If I don’t get one soon, I will be doing the bike race this Sunday, a 10km run next Friday, and the Iron Mountain Olympic Tri a week later. All these race talk is making me hungry, must eat right now.

Facundo

Awesome Running

2009-06-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterdays run was marvelous... 1hr20minutes of running along Jericho Beach, UBC and SW Marine Drive. The weather was perfect, clear skies, sunny, not too hot, not too windy. My shin splints have been gone for quite a while now, mostly due to 5 months of work on my technique/form/gait than a magical miracle. Cadence is always slightly above 90, maybe 91/92/93, midfoot strike, heels high on the return… It’s hard to describe, but my last couple of runs have been effortless, fun, fast, pain free, floaty, just magical!

Training with some sort of physical injury is doable; I used to run 30km a week on shin splints and left knee pain for about 4 years. There was nothing I could do that would stop them (or I that’s what I thought at the time). I tried many different shoes, running surfaces, treadmill, strengthening the lower legs, everything! My run splits went down during that time, but mostly due to fitness gains, and little because of consistent running. I was forced to take 2 weeks off at the time, just to come back, run another month, and repeat. My running had to be spaced out with 2 to 3 days in between; otherwise my shins would not take it.

Last December I had enough; I took 4 weeks off from running, and was not going back to the same old story. Technique was the key for progress. I wanted to run better, faster, pain free. Feel that “float” that runners talk about, run effortlessly for once, feel running like I feel when biking; smooth, natural… I slowly started to work on cadence and foot strike, then moved into relaxing the lower body and straightening my upper body to the “ideal” position, keeping my heels high on the return, driving my knees high, landing my feet underneath my center of gravity. Well, it worked… I have seen huge changes in my running form, endurance and speed over the last 5 months. Running finally feels GOOD, and running splits are going down drastically.

Running this week (current training week ending tomorrow)
-Friday: 50min Track (5x2km main set)
-Saturday: 0.5hr Tempo on Treadmill at 5%
-Sunday: 1hr Treadmill increasing speed every 5 min (moderate to fast)
-Monday: Off
-Tuesday: 1hr20min Long Run
-Wednesday: 50min Track (10x1km main set) (Coming up later in the afternoon today)
-Thursday: Off

Message to take away: If your running is giving you shin/knee pain, your swimming is giving you shoulder pain, your biking is giving you low back pain; look at your technique and form and find improvements. Once you do, you will be more comfortable, smoother and faster…

Facundo

Busy Life

2009-06-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have been hard. The weather has been great for at least 10 days, which means there is no excuse not to train. After Shawnigan I took a couple of easy days, 3 to be precise. On Thursday I had my usual day off and from then on it has been lots of work.

Friday: Swim (1.5), Track (1), Bike Tempo (1.5)
Saturday: Swim (1.5), Bike HB+Cypress (3), Run Hills (0.5)
Sunday: Gym (1.5), Run (1), Bike (2)
Monday: Swim (1.5), Bike Hill Repeats (1.5)
Today: Swim (1.5). After work, Long Run (1.5), Bike (1)

That makes about 20.5 hrs of training in 5 days, and therefore I am looking forward to Thursday day off very very much. Next week will have a similar dose of training, a little less volume and more intensity before the Wasa Lake Tri in Cranbrook in about 12 days from now.

Everything else seems to be in working order. My new tubular wheelset is finally finished, all glued up and ready to roll. Thanks to the guys at Speed Theory for showing me how to properly glue them, I can tell you that even with their help it was a lot of work and many tricks. Doing it on my own would have been a disaster and many more hours until I could even slide the tubular on the rim…

My brother Eze has been back for 10 days now from a trip to Argentina, and therefore some days I get some dinner. It is not very often that this happens, but he makes it up in many other ways. Last week he cleaned most of the apartment, something that I enjoy doing (yes, I actually do love leaving everything spotless) but only when I have time. Now days I am too busy, and if I end up with 3 or 4 hours in the week that I don’t have anything to do, cleaning is not an option. So, thank you bro for cleaning! And yes, you are welcome for yesterday’s dinner!

Open water swims started yesterday. They are fun, especially when its windy and choppy, at least for me anyways. Yesterday I missed the first practice because I thought that they were going to go over all “rules” and stuff that I have heard countless times before, but I will show up either next Thursday or next Monday. These are great to practice some sighting, swim for 3/4km non stop (which is surprisingly tiring compared to doing 30x100 in the pool), and for getting used to the cold water!

That’s it for now; I should get back to work so I can leave early today. If everything is on schedule I might be able to watch the last ½ of Stage 12 of the Giro. I also heard I MUST watch the Madrid Triathlon that happened this weekend, its supposed to be an inspiring race.

Facundo

How Often?

2009-05-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

How often do we see this sort of weather up here? Let me tell you, not very often… Today at work everyone is happy and talking about the weather, and so am I.

The weekend is going to be great for training and doing nothing but enjoying the sun, relaxing and recovering for 2 weeks of hard training starting today.

18 Degrees at 8am?? Whhaatt???

Shawnigan Lake Race Pictures

2009-05-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Run

Finish

Olympic Overall Awards

Race Report – Shawnigan Lake Triathlon – Olympic Distance

2009-05-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

Place Overall: 2/119
Place 20-29: 1/14
Total Time: 2:04:53 (44km Bike Course)

As I mentioned previously, Saturday was not an ideal pre race day:
- Training felt off: Shins bothered a bit on the run, very fatigued on the bike, stiff on the swim
- Very little relaxing: Training, traveling, checking out race wheels from a guy, pre race meeting/bike drop off took most of the day. Only relaxed 2 hours in the Lake where I tried to nap unsuccessfully
- Tired: did not sleep well, and definitely not enough on the previous 2 nights
However, nutrition, a key aspect of the day, did go very well. Had my usual breakfast, a chicken sandwich with tomatoes and yam for lunch, some fruits and cereal in the afternoon, pasta dinner with tomatoes and pesto sauce, and a bagel with PB before bed.

At 4.45am Kamal and I were up. We both set the alarms for 5, but none of us got a great night of sleep and at that point there was nothing we could do. Just have breakfast, get to the race and do the best we can.

Arrived to transition only 1:20 before start which was not good at all. I would have liked to have more time, but somehow we managed to get there pretty late for my liking. Went for a 20 min bike ride on the course and had some race accelerations immediately after arriving. Needed to leave before 7am because the ½ Iron was starting. Prepared some things in transition. Went for a 10 min jog, did not have any more time, had to come back quickly to finish transition setup and get wetsuit on. No stretching whatsoever, pretty stressed and rushed. Got wetsuit on and 4/5 min swim, ½ min stretch and that’s it.

Swim: Found Simon Whitfield at the start line and lined up close to get a draft off him. Was able to do so for about 300m, after that I got into my ideal pace instead of his and swam well and strong. I exited the water with Kelly Guest on my feet.

T1: Poor transition. Second time trying to put the shoes on the go and not much smoother than the first. Elastic bands snapped while running out of T1 and therefore putting the shoes on was hard once again. Luckily I got that sorted out without wasting much time.

Bike: Kelly Guest went past me after my slow transition and did not want him to get away. Lost a little ground, about 100m over the next ¾ of the first lap. At that moment I decided to push a bit harder and caught him before the end of the first lap. Focused on staying with him on the second lap. Legs were quite tired and burning, and did not have the energy to pass him and stay in front. Pushed really hard up hills and tried to recover legs on downhills while staying strong in the flats (not many sections). Last 10-15 min were relatively easy and was able to up my cadence, and rest a bit for the run. No problems taking shoes off and dismounting.

T2: Average T2. Fast dismount, racked bike, slipped on shoes with some trouble, grabbed race belt and off I went. At this point I was about 10 seconds down on Kelly Guest.

Run: Started very strong right from the beginning, wanted to make a move to bridge the gap but legs were feeling the hard bike effort. Keeping cadence high and trying to focus on forefoot strike. Muscles were not really hurting, but were definitely fatigued. I was not breathing very hard, however I could not go any faster. He was not gaining much for the first 4 or 5 km, but after the turnaround the gap started to increase and before I knew it he was gone. Nothing I could do about it. 3rd place was quite far behind and therefore was a sure 2nd place if nothing went wrong. Increased speed for the last km just as “drill”.

Overall was a great race. I was very happy with my swim pace and bike split, somewhat happy with the run and T2, and once again quite unhappy with T1. Need to work more on that as well as leg turn over speed.

Sunday Post Race was good, got lots of food in me right after the race. Relaxed and watched friends finish the ½ Iron, bought a set of Easton EC90 TT carbon wheels, prepared backpack and took the ferry home. Great weekend!

Thanks again Kamal for letting me stay at your triathlon/bike shop (you know why…=p), it was awesome! Thanks to Engineer Enej and Engineer Jason for the rides and congratulations on your graduation!

As promised: Weekend update

2009-05-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I went to sleep pretty late to finish making my backpack for the weekend, which included all race gear and training/race food (and therefore took longer than expected and some thinking/planning involved).

Friday was a busy and tiring day. Waking up in the morning to swim was hard, but since I was going to travel to Vancouver Island in the afternoon it was going to be my only workout of the day, I had to make it and work hard! Work was short, 7:30 to 3pm. At 4pm I met with Enej at his house, and he drove me to the ferry terminal for the 6pm ferry. Without him, I would have been screwed and had to either ride to the ferry, about 35km with a backpacking backpack completely full, or take the bus and rack my race bike in there, not the safest idea. At the other end Kamal offered a ride and was waiting for me. We had some food, chatted for a bit, and went to sleep.

Saturday morning was tough. I slept on the couch, which is a very very comfortable couch for regular seating purposes, but not for sleeping. It was a 3 piece, but that is not long enough for a 183cm long body. Either my legs were up on the arm rest, or my head, or I was on the side (and on a slope) with my legs bent. The night was long, but hey, better than camping! In the morning had a 30 min jog, and 1hr ride. Lunch, and we headed to Shawnigan for bike drop off, swim in the lake and some relaxing. By 6pm we were back in Vic, pasta dinner, cereal, baguel with peanut butter, and anything else I could find. Seriously, Kamal had to stop me, I was anxious and eating helps…

Sunday morning we set the alarm at 5. Both of us were up by 4.45, none of us had a great night of sleep again. What can you do? Nothing, just eat, relax, and hope that you don’t feel the fatigue. Warm up was a little rushed as we arrived to transition about 1hr20min before the race. 20 min ride, stretch, set everything up, 10 min jog, stretch, finish setting stuff up, wetsuit on, shit! Only 8 min to the start, 5 min swim, find Simon Whitfield, and get ready. The race went well, more on that on the race report coming later. After the race I just ate, ate, and ate. Probably about 8 Recovery Powerbars, 2 Baguels with Peanut Butter, 5 or 6 large cookies, and a muffin. All of the above between 10 and 2pm (from finishing the race until end of awards). After awards we headed once again back to Vic, picked up a set of used Easton EC90 TT wheels to pimp my ride, and to the ferry. Thanks Kamal for your hospitality, rides, and so on. You are welcome to stay at my place whenever! In the ferry I found David and wife, great chatting with them as the 1.5hr seemed much much shorter… This time Jason picked me up at the terminal and gave me a lift home. Thanks for that!

Monday I was lazy and my energy was zapped. I was not sore, but energy levels were just not there and therefore took the day off from training. Instead I went to Speed Theory were I bought a new set of tubular tires, valve extenders and carbon brake pads for my new wheels. On Saturday I will go back to learn the science of gluing tubulars, it seems easy but tricky, and they will show me all the ins and outs.

Congratulations to all people racing on the weekend! Everyone seemed to have a good time =)

That is it for now, I will do the race report soon and post a couple more pictures. Bye now.

Facundo

Shawnigan Lake Olympic Triathlon

2009-05-25T15:55:00.001-07:00

I will keep it short today; a headache is not letting me focus on anything at this very moment. Tomorrow I will write about the whole weekend, and maybe I will also post the race report. “A picture is worth 1000 words”, so here is my 4000 word update.

Friends Racing(L to R): Ryan-Olympic, Kamal-Sprint, Derek-Half

Friends Racing(L to R): Vincent-Half, Choppy-Sprint, Jody-Half

Olympic Overall Podium. Congrats to David that came in 3rd!

2 Times Olympic Medallist, the one and only, Simon Whitfield. Ridiculously awesome =)

Ready to head to the Island

2009-05-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Things are going well, however I must admit I am still a little tired from the race on Monday. 6 days between the 2 races are barely enough to recover, do some intensity, have my Thursday or Friday easy day, and Saturday do the usual pre-race workouts. Everything is on track and after today I should feel ready to tackle the race on Sunday.

On that note, today I am traveling to Vancouver Island for the race. Today after work I will be aiming for the 6pm ferry, hopefully is not full and I don’t have to wait until the 7pm. I will be staying in Victoria with Kamal. He has been really kind to let me stay at his place and make a bed on his couch. It should be good times as he is very easy going. By getting to the Island today, I will be making tomorrow much less stressful. More time to go for a short bike/swim/run, as well as attend the pre race meeting, drop off bikes, and less time traveling. Today is my day off anyways and after my morning swim I was not going to do anything else anyways.

The weather is really cooperating these days and is supposed to be nice for a couple of days (including Sunday). For this very reason and because I want to be as fast as I can possibly be, I will by racing my Cervelo for the first time. I am sure the bike will save me some time and leave the legs feeling fresher for the run as it is more comfortable. Also, it will play a psychological role, and I think that is as important. The bike makes me fast, and makes me think I am fast, both are great benefits!

I will be away from a computer until Monday or Tuesday, and I am very happy about that. Next time, an update from the trip, pictures, and the race report. Good luck to me!

Facundo

North Shore Sprint Triathlon Race Report

2009-05-20T14:59:00.001-07:00

Monday morning the alarm goes off at 5:00 am. Even though my race was at 10:30am (if previous waves were on time) I was getting a ride to North Van from my friend Ryan, and he was racing at 8:30 am. I had a normal night of sleep, about 8hrs, like nothing special was going on Monday morning. After a big bowl of Vector and Mueslix I was out the door. By 6:15 we were in transition, which was still being set up by the race organizers and volunteers. With 4hrs 15min to kill before my race, I racked my bike and went into the Community centre to relax, listen to some music, stretch and have my usual breakfast about 3 hours before the race. The multigrain bagel with peanut butter and banana with half a liter of chocolate milk with instant coffee never fails.

Two hours before race time I went into transition and quickly set everything up. Things have become simpler over the last couple of races and the only things in my towel were my racing shoes, and my race belt. No socks, no extra jackets, no bottles, no socks, no cycling shoes, nothing! 1.5 hrs before the race I started the warm up with a 20 min jog on the first section of the course. After that I went out for a 20 min bike ride along the course to figure out were to push it and were to take a break. It was good practice as the bike course was rolling. At the pool I started a dry land warm up thinking that we would not be able to swim, but fortunately I was wrong and we got a 5 min warm up which was good enough. The Sugoi Velocity Tri suit I bought at Speed Theory one week ago felt very very slick, tight but comfortable. It was a great purchase, and so much more comfortable than a 2 piece.

The plan with Kamal Rae and David Roulston was to do a pace line on the swim, doing about 2 laps (out of 20) each. Then work together on the bike to drop/catch the junior elites. Probably catch them as they are all very fast swimmers. The race started and I went first, feeling strong and very smooth after my 2 laps I found I had already opened a gap on Kamal. At that moment I decided not to wait and just went for it. The swim was uneventful, strong but not all out. Came out of the water with the main pack and was feeling good.

T1 was a disaster; first time trying to put my shoes on the bike did not go smooth and I probably lost 15+ seconds standing next to the mount line. Next time I will try the rubber band technique until I get more comfortable with flipping the shoes up and getting my feet on top of them… On that incident a group of about 5 juniors that came out of the water with me flew by. Once I sorted out my shoes, I was pissed and on the hunt. 5km into the bike course I had passed 7 or 8 juniors and opened a 30 seconds gap on them. At that point I was in third place, about 1 min down on the leader, 30s down second place, 30 sec ahead of a then organized drafting line of juniors, and about 45 sec ahead of Kamal and David which were working together (the only 2 Elites I was allowed to draft). Waiting for them was not an option, so I kept working hard by myself. At the end of the 20km gaps were almost identical as after 5km, and I was glad that the juniors did not make up any ground working together.

T2 made up for T1, I was in and out like a lightning. Shoes did not give me any trouble despite having a short tongue and I probably was 10-15sec faster that second place guy. I could now see him through the forest, and I was not stopping till I caught him. 7 min into the run I did catch him, stayed with him for 20 sec to catch my breath and before he could think a strategy I dropped him fast, not allowing for any comeback. I was now in the hunt for the first guy, but I could not see him even in long flat sections. I kept pushing hard as the group of juniors working together on the bike were going to have fresh legs. Before I knew it the race was over, I was second and feeling great. My run has been a weakness in the past but I had the fastest split of the day and felt very speedy through the forest.

I had my well deserved recovery shake, about 2 bananas, 1 orange and like 6 mini multigrain bagels at the finish line. Awards ceremony, home, relax and stretch, dinner, 1hr spin on the trainer, bed. Very good day, very happy with my swim (time includes 10+ sec of running to the timing mat), and extremely happy with my run.

Me hurting? What?

Done, 56:26, where is the food?

Next stop, Shawnigan Lake Olympic Tri on Sunday

Facundo

Weekend Update

2009-05-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

Having the North Shore race on Monday meant that Saturday and Sunday were going to be a little more relaxing than normal. 3 day weekends are usually better than the normal 2 day weekend, but having the race on Monday, training was more relaxed as well...

Saturday started off with the morning swim from 6:30 to 8am. I wanted to work hard but not over do it, so the plan was to do most of it easy, relaxed, working on the stroke, and then go out hard a couple of times to get me ready for Monday. After the swim I went home and applied the same concept to running; 40 min on the treadmill with 15wu, 6x2min (1min 3:15/km, 1min 5:00/km), and then 8 min cool down. At 10am was time for a second breakfast and the famous bike repair/cleaning/tuning/check before a race. About 3 hrs later that was all done, including setting Draft legal bars on my training bike (I did not want to race on my new bike), truing the rear wheel, cleaning the whole drive train (cassette included), and so on. I kind of enjoy doing all that, but I always find it very very time consuming and tiring. After lunch I went out for a 2 hr ride to North Vancouver to pick up the race package and buy new flippers at Team Aquatic Supplies with a Race gift certificate that I HAD to use before expiry. At home I got all race stuff sorted out and packed, had dinner and went to bed early.

Sunday was awesome! Waking up with 14 degrees and sunny skies already makes it a great happy day. After a power breakfast involving 8 pancakes, bananas, strawberries, nutella, maple syrup, chocolate milk and lots of peanut butter I was ready for an easy 1hr ride with some race efforts. The ride did not feel great, I was kind of tired despite an easy day on Saturday, but it was expected after a couple of really hard weeks of training. I kept telling myself that the fitness was there, the power was there, and on Monday I was going to flip the switch and go. After the ride and lunch I headed to Kits pool, which finally opened this weekend. It was like 20 degrees and sunny, and I just wanted to get my 1hr swim over with to sleep in the sun. Said and done, 1hr nap in the grass. The swim did not feel great either, but using the same tactics I used earlier in the day I did not panic. The fitness is there, the power is there, and on Monday I will flip the switch and go… I was feeling very tired while making pasta and salmon for dinner, but was relaxed and feeling ready to race. Thanks to a day in the sun I went to bed early and had a good sleep before the race.

The race report will come later on today or tomorrow. I am tired of writing and therefore I assume you might be tired of reading. Ohh, I also watched lots of the Giro online while cooking, preparing stuff, fixing the bike, etc. Universalsports.com lets you watch the whole stage (all of them) online on demand any day anytime for free. Crazy! Nothing is free anymore, but this is… Can’t wait for Stage 10 today.

Can't even think straight

2009-05-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

I just came back from an All You Can Eat sushi lunch at one of my favorite places, Shabusen, and I am very very very ridiculously full right now. Actually, I should correct myself; it is one of my favorite places before I go in, and I can’t even think about it when I come out (at least for a day or two hehe).

Yesterday was again a hard training day. I have decreased my training hours by 10% this week, and have done some easier than normal rides and swims. However, I have increased the intensity in some key running and cycling workouts. I wanted to get a good week of intensity before the Sprint Triathlon this weekend and Shawnigan Lake Olympic next weekend. The 6 days in between will be a mix of recovery with some intensity to keep me sharp. After these 2 races I will have 3 or 4 weeks, depending on what race I do next, to put in some solid training.

The morning swim was good, then off to work. At 4:30pm I was back at home and by 5 on the treadmill. I warmed up, run 10K at 4:10/km pace, and cooled down. Right after that I went for a bike ride. The bike ride was kind of similar to the one on Tuesday, but completely the opposite, as confusing as that may sound. I went out again on the same loop as Tuesday, again not caring at all what my speed was, again after a tough run, but this time the goal was to have my cadence high, very high. On Tuesday the goal was to be low, very low. Well, after one hour I was close to home, my average speed was strangely and surprisingly EXACTLY the same as on Tuesday, 33.6kph, but my average cadence was 108 instead of 67. I have to admit, it was a really tough workout. 15 minutes into the ride I knew that I was going to be as my glutes and especially hamstrings were already feeling the work… I would be doing this kind of workouts more often to work on power and speed throughout the summer.

Today in the morning I was tired. Had an easy swim, a massive lunch, will go for an easy 2hr spin after work and will call it a day. Saturday and Sunday should be good as I have done most of what I usually have to do like cooking, buying food, etc during the week. Only training and relaxing, eating and sleeping before the race. Ohh yeah, and watching the 2 back to back NBA Playoffs game 7 on Sunday, as well as the Giro on Saturday, Sunday and maybe even Monday morning to keep me motivated! (Race is at 10.30am)

Facundo

Hard day at the “office”

2009-05-13T15:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday started off at 4:20am, about 25 minutes earlier than it normally would. I woke up feeling refreshed and quite alert, and right away I knew that trying to fall asleep in the next 25 minutes was going to be next to impossible. I went into the kitchen and switched the usual rushed bowl of cereal to a delicious baguel with peanut butter and honey, and a hot cup of Nesquik. Waking up with time makes the morning start so much better. I wish I could do this more often, but that means I have to be in bed earlier than 8:45pm; very unlikely as I barely make it everyday as it is.

The swim was good, I was feeling strong and technique was good. I usually feel strong in the pool the day after a good gym workout involving triceps, lats, shoulders and so on. Main set was 6x(400 strong on 6:00, 2x50 fast on 1:00). My arms were done at the end of the 4.9K workout.

From the pool I went to work, and then at 4pm I went back home for some intervals on the treadmill and big ring work on the bike. I wanted to run 6x1km at 3:30pace, with 1:30 recovery in between at 5:00pace. I ended up running 1 hr as planned, but only did 5 reps instead of 6. I have no problem holding this speed on the road or on the track, but on the treadmill a 3:30 pace requires a faster turnover rate or a longer stride. I was happy with the workout.

Right after the run I went upstairs, had a banana, and went out on the bike for my 1hr loop around UBC Area including 16th Ave and Chancellor Blvd. I did not care what the average speed of the ride was, as long as the cadence stayed low. Mission accomplished, 1hr, 33.6kph, 67 Av. Cadence. At the end of the ride the legs were still feeling good and strong, and only the hamstrings were feeling a little tired. I guess its also due to the fact that Jeremy at Speed Theory made some position adjustments on the bike and moved the seat forward a little bit.

Dinner time included some yam, squash, tomato soup and steak. 10 minutes of stretching, foam roller, the magic Stick, and I passed out before I remember finding a comfortable sleeping position.

Today I have a shorter training day with 1hr in the gym (core and arms) and 1.5 hrs on the trainer (yes, its raining outside) with 20x(2min hard, 1 min ez). The North Shore Sprint Tri is in 5 days and I already want to go at it =)

Facundo

Race Schedule

2009-05-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks with the racing season almost underway, lots of people have asked me what races I was doing, what distances, etc. I have also found myself asking people over and over when is their next race, only to forget their answer 5 minutes later. So, I know this is not going to prevent people from asking: When is your next race? But at least they will have a place to check when they forget 5 minutes later =)

2009 Race Schedule

The schedule is not bad at all. I wanted to race a triathlon every 2 or 3 weeks max throughout the whole race season this year, and how my body handles that kind of physical and psychological load. 2 or 3 weeks in between races will allow me to recover from a race, get a solid week of training or 2, and then go easier for 2 days or so before the next race. I also scheduled some swimming races, and it really does not matter when they are as I do not find them taxing at all on my body. I can do a 4K open water race and do a triathlon the day or 2 days after and my swim time will barely get affected.

For most races I will barely taper (ie. my weekly Thursday easy swim/recovery day followed by 2 easier days before the event). I would like to peak for the Kelowna Apple National Championships as I will be racing elite/draft legal, and peak again 3 weeks later for the World Championships in Australia. That should be very achievable, and all races leading to those events are either “B” or “C” priority. If I feel like skipping one, I will, as long as I consider it beneficial in preparation for the “A” races.

On a side note, most of you know that I don’t have a car, and therefore getting to and from races that are not close on the lower mainland is not easy and requires of either tagging along with someone, or replacing the race that I would like to do with a race that I am not so keen on doing, but it is easier to get to (ie. either Cranbrook or Maple Ridge if I don’t find a ride). With that said, if anyone is doing any of the races on my schedule, and would like someone to pay for fuel and talk on the ride, send me an email or give me a call and then we can sort something out. Trust me, I am good company…

I guess its time to work… Thanks to everyone that left comments and gave me feedback on the blog!

Facundo

New Shoes + Weekend Update

2009-05-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for a pair of racing shoes for a while, and for one reason or another, I did not like any of the 5 or 6 pairs I tried over the last 2 months. Some of them fit right, but the inside lining was definitely going to give me blisters wearing them barefoot. Some of them had a great “velvet” feeling lining, but the fit did not feel right. After reading in some blogs about the Nike Lunar Racers I decided to go on the hunt and find a shop to try them on. They were ridiculously light at 5.6oz, but seemed to have great cushioning, exactly what I was looking for. I called Sportcheck, Sportmart, The Right Shoe, and Forerunners and they did not have it. Crap, where else could I check? Right, the Nike store... Called them, only 2 pairs left size 9.5, blue sole, 100 CND instead of 150 because of the “lack of sizes and colors”. 1hr later I was out of the store with a new pair of shoes… I run on them on the weekend for about 30 min with no blisters or chafing anywhere, great cushioning, light, lightning fast, awesome!

My wallet is heavier than this, and trust me, I don't have much cash in there...

The weekend was busy, like always. Saturday started with our 6.30 swim in which we did lots of racing and sprinting. I definitely felt off, weak, powerless. After 1200m of warm up that did not change and therefore I suffered through the Timed 200, 2x100, 4x50. We finished a bit earlier than usual and I went home for a second breakfast. After that I was out the door to Safeway, the produce, the bank and cut my hair. Later on I will post a picture of my new hairstyle, but let me tell you, it’s quite short. After all that I had lunch and went to Speed Theory, picked up my new Cervelo S2 (the replacement, for the ones that know…) and off for a ride. Bike feels great, I loved it, and the weather was sunny and relatively hot (~16C). Came back from the ride at 5, showered, went for a BBQ in Jericho beach hosted by my friend Enej, and then off to Andras house to watch the game at 7:30. After 4 hours there I was ready for bed, actually, I could not wait to get to bed!

Sunday was almost as busy. Gym in the morning, run right after (on the new shoes), lunch, bike ride to Iona with lots of sprinting, shower, Whitecaps game vs Puerto Rico Islanders in Swangard Stadium, dinner and bed. Once again, by 11pm I could not wait to be asleep. Once again I did not have 1 hour on the weekend to sit on the couch and do nothing, there is always too many things to do, especially because during the week I can only afford to work, train, and eat. Each day has only 24 hrs and therefore everything else is on hold until the weekend.

Anyways, I think next weekend will be better. It is 3 days long, and on Monday I race the North Shore Sprint tri, so Sunday will be a relatively easier day. I can’t wait for the race on Monday and 6 days later the Shawnigan Lake Olympic tri. Race season is underway, yey!

Until I find myself some more time to write, goodbye…

Not so hard...

2009-05-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, that was cool and was not that hard. I was able to post, picture looks right, text has the right width and so does the side bar. I think there is still a bunch of things to add, like links to the blogs I follow the most (and that is long let me tell you), but one step a the time. If I do all at once, then I will become one of those that does not post for a long time, and that is not cool (think about the people that open your blog every 3 or 4 days to see what if up and sees nothing but a 2 week old post, it sucks!)

I guess I will post a bit about training and races coming up. On May 18th I will be doing my first Elite race at the North Shore Sprint Triathlon. I am quite exited to go out and be able to draft and play tactics, it will be interesting. 6 days later I will be racing in the Shawnigan Lake Olympic Triathlon, which is also exiting as it will be the first open water swim of the year for me.

Training has been going well, I have been really really tired lately but it is expected. Training an average of 24 hours per week and a full time job (Engineering, at least is not physically demanding) leaves little time for relaxing days, naps, etc. Next week, starting Monday or Tuesday I will decrease my training volume, and keep some race specific intensity efforts until both races are finished. Then I will start another solid block of training.

Time to eat some cereal and get ready for my Wednesdays afternoon run intervals and bike TT (short day but hard)

Facundo

Trial and Error

2009-05-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

So, here it goes my first post. I created my Blogger account quite a while ago, but like everything, it was quite exciting in the beginning and got bored/busy before I even started posting…

The main purpose of this blog will be to keep people informed of what is happening with me in general, training related or not. Like every other blog, I will have posts related to training, races, trips, friends, and all sort of other random stuff. I also decided to start my blog because I really enjoy reading other triathletes and runners blogs, and I thought: “well, if everyone is like me, then there would be nothing to read…”

I was told many times that a picture is worth 1000 words, so maybe I will just post a picture of myself (if I figure out how) as a brief “graphical” introduction

I think I am a little leaner now, but this is me a while ago =)

BTW, I think now I know why I have taken so long to write the first post. It was hard, but I know it will go easier once I get this out of the way and I can just post whatever I feel like =)

Until the next post (and hopefully I am one of those that at least posts once a week)

Facundo