The Daily Struggle

The winter season is here and I am not even going to bother mentioning fall again since we got our first snow today. The last post should have plenty of fall in it anyway. So... winter. Winter blues, the seasonal affective disorder... or should we call it the off-season affective disorder? For me it's more of the latter, but what else is new? I always struggle in the off season. I struggle with my weight, my motivation, my goals. Now add very stressful work days to the mix and not being able to run and you get a big old pile of mess that gets stinkier every day.  Maybe I should compost myself since I cannot remain composed. Ha!

But let's see if I can put a positive spin on this post before it gets too late.

First, I have a somewhat structure of a plan going on, that I have to poop out of my head every week and it hurts my brain so much, you have no idea. I do strength training, some swimming, some biking, some walking combined with geocaching and soul searching, and when I'm desperate, some ellipticalling. Being self coached is definitely not working for me. Recently, I even thought of my training being somewhat alike to Cody Beals's experience:

Back in my self-coached days prior to this season, there was a cycle that repeated again and again: several days to weeks of impressive looking training followed by an unplanned collapse. These bouts of physical and mental fatigue would derail me for a few days, blowing gaping holes in my training before the cycle would begin anew. It wasn't a very enjoyable or productive way to train.

I had a few such collapses this season, but I think that I finally started to adapt a little. It's a long process, I know.

Cody's suggestion?

As we all settle in for a long winter of training, I encourage everyone to find a training plan that they can execute like clockwork.

No kidding. I know this is exactly what I need. But since my Goal #1 is to get stronger, and NOT triathlon training, how can I get off this spinning wheel that tells me that I MUST swim/bike/run for X number of hours a week so I can just FUNCTION? Nothing else motivates me. Nothing. Maybe the glimmer of hope that one day I can run again. That's it. If it weren't for my knees, I would have quit this program a thousand times already. Prior to this goal, it was simple : keep moving!! And I'm not the only one... Just as I was writing this post, I came across Jennifer's post from Kinetic Fix. I can't believe how many people around me are affected, and the SADness just started for crying out loud!!

Speaking of which, I had way too many crying spells which got me into trouble more than once. There is no easy way out. But for me, being outside, breathing the fresh air, even for an hour or two, makes everything 1000 times better. So given that I spend 9h/day stuck in a chair at the office, going outside for a walk or a hike, is a feat well worth mentioning in my training plan as BEST WORKOUT OF THE WEEK. I don't get to do it too often, but since I picked up geocaching again, I had a few more opportunities, like the Friday nights looking for tupperware in the woods with friends. Yes, at night. My kinda fun - preceded by a meet at Tim Hortons, warm tea in hand, talking about all geeky things. Jeez, these people even have me playing Ingress now, and there is some sort portal in the middle of my office where not many people have access. What am I getting myself into?? Then we go out for a few hours, and come back for another tea, maybe even a donut. Awesome times! Look, ma, I even found Ironman.

With the winter training programs that I am signed up with the FMCT tri club, I have now added swimming twice a week and spin classes twice a week, while I keep maintaining my focus on fitting 3 strength sessions in every week. I even started counting calories again, in the hope of losing those 10 pesky pounds that have put so much more stress on my knees this year. But overall, the feeling is the same: I don't know what the fuck I am doing. I just know that I MUST keep moving. My body, my mind tells me so. As soon as I give it too much rest, it starts squeaking like a rusty toy. Strength is the first priority, yes, but my mind's health comes before everything else.

Moving helps me discover all these places, which helps me feel alive, recharge my batteries and makes the world wonderful again. To many more days like these, even if it's 30 minutes at a time. Can I get an Amen?

Biking the Caledon Trailway

And seeing the sunset setting the trees on fire

Going across the Hwy10 overpass just one more time!

Is this a geocache? Yes it is!

And this is my trusty 20yr old hybrid bike Carrie

The day my beautiful Ginkgo tree lost all its leaves at once

The day I spent a few hours by the Bay

In the office, there are magic spots like this one.

The pool building in the blues of the morning

It's the prickly plants season

When the urban trails were still dry... soon to be covered in snow.

And have you seen the green at the end of this tunnel?

This free-for-all golf course sure knows how to stay green... just one more week.

Still with me? Glad I didn't lose you in the woods. See? I feel better already. Do you? Days come and go, and at the end of each of them, I try to take the positive and throw away the negative. The last few weeks have not been so great because a lot of the negativity started in the office and was staying with me all day long, but there is a silver lining to all this struggle, I know it. I started writing this blog post a few weeks ago and I thought of deleting it 12 times already, but this is how I exorcise my demons. I get it all out and I move on. Tomorrow is a new day. This week I am going to hit all my workouts again and thank my body once more for making me stronger each day.

It can only go up from here, yes it can. Salty ball, anyone? It's that season again.

IMMT Training Weeks 29 and 30: Wait for it...

I am not a perfectionist freak for nothing! I have to get this last update out of the way before writing the IMMT race report. So you'll have to wait a little longer for this: Irina S, you are.... an IRONMAN!!! Ooops, did I just let the cat out of the bag? My bad.... :D

But technically, it was at the end of week 30, so a mention belongs here too. Now, what the hell happened in those two weeks before the Ironman? It was supposed to be taper, but my mind was racing. And I was also getting ready to race a sprint triathlon. Oh wait, does it mean another race report before THE race report?... This blog is becoming borderline evil. But it should make this update so much shorter, me thinks.

Swim

On Monday of the long weekend, my friend Carol called me and asked if I wanted to go to the quarry. Despite the high chance for thunderstorms, we took a gamble and it ended being just perfect. Two 1km loops, nice and steady.

On Saturday of the same week I swam in Bracebridge 750m (time trial swim in a river, wicked!), then the next day I swam 2 loops at Professor's Lake (1.5km). Open water swimming, all the time!!

The week after, we took residence in a cottage by the Lake Dufour in Mt Tremblant, where I could not wait to jump in the water. Only that it rained, and rained, and I didn't feel like going in right away, so I waited until Wednesday to finally get my swim in. But it was absolutely blissful! For a last swim before the Ironman, I could not have asked for a better one.

Bike

On the same Monday of the long weekend, I also went on a bike ride, the longest since I was told that my bike most likely messed my hips, knees and ITBs. Emma organized it and a few of her cheerful friends (Richard, Sam and Nicole) attended as well. For once I chose to stay at the back of the pack and enjoy the surroundings, which were absolutely stunning!! Without exaggerating, it must have been one of the most beautiful rides that I've ever done, and it made my heart sing. 55km with my lovely chatty friends and my hubbs (and a bakery stop) - the perfect way to start the week when your mind is about to get lost in lala-land.

However, this ride, while long for my achy knees, did not convince me that I still had what it takes to complete an Ironman. I had to go back on the trainer and see how many watts I could still push. I needed some numbers to believe. So I chose Citadel, a sweet dose of Tempo and Threshold work.

And my legs worked!!

With a bit of relief on my mind, I went to the race in Bracebridge on Saturday, and rode long enough to remind myself how to switch gears on hills and fly down the inclines with a grin bigger than my face.

Then in Mt Tremblant, I did 3 more bike rides to reacquaint myself with the IM bike course and the hills of the Laurentides. First, a quick but scary 10km around the cottage. Not a minute of flat and bad roads everywhere. The next day I took my wheels to Mt Tremblant village and back to the cottage by Montee Ryan. It was all fun and games until 1.5km out from the cottage, where a 15% hill was waiting for me. I was climbing it a few times a day by car, but by bike it was a different story. One that almost finished with puking. Seriously, what was I thinking? Will you talk to my ego, please? Last but not least, a 20km out and back on Hwy117 with Ironmans-to-be Amanda and her dad. I asked Zin to come with us as well and make sure that I don't climb the darn hill again.

Run

Runs? What runs?? I did 1h of elliptical on August 6th and yes, I did run in Bracebridge for 5km, and not on my hands. But that was all. I took a 1h walk on the run course in Mt. Tremblant while looking for geocaches. I also left mental notes to pick up in the dark moments of the Ironman marathon, but little did I know, I was not going to need them.

In a nutshell

What is the minimum that you can do with an injury in order to keep your fitness to finish an Ironman? This question kept me awake for many nights during these 2 weeks. I don't think there is a scientific formula for it though. I kept on going back to my experiences running marathons with less than the recommended 30km long runs in order to fall asleep. I know I can run a marathon, but can I run it after 3.8km swim and 180km bike with shredded ITBs?

I used this time to poke at my fitness and see if I could, if I tried. I think I succeeded, with minimum pain, or rather, a manageable amount of pain. I was somewhat relieved to see the training coming to an end. The last 6 weeks were like a long death march and I did not enjoy dealing with so much guilt, uncertainty and the constant feeling of inadequacy.

And now it's time to end this update as well. It feels like history all of a sudden...

Our summer fitness adventures

After the triathlon, we went camping, thus I was disconnected from the interwebs to be able to blog. We only made an hour stop by our home so I can shower and change clothes, then we drove straight up to Algonquin where we made a new attempt at living in the wilderness, that is living in a tent for 10 days. Some people told us that was rather hardcore, but we found that the time passed by rather quickly and the return to work was actually more violent. I won't go into details as how the days went by, but I will try to recap our fitness opportunities since that's the theme around here.

Hwy 60 - are we there yet?

I'm surprised that we remembered how to set up this tent

Bed head, coffee, compression socks and sandals.

But when you're in vacation, these are a bit more subtle as I am going to explain. 

Walking:

When you're in a large campground, your first exercise is walking - everywere, but especially to the washrooms. To sum it up, our tent was located 200m away from the washrooms and we counted an average of 5 bathroom trips a day, that's 2km/day... times 10, you do the math. Hurray for pee pee and poo poo to keep us in shape.

Next, trips to the beach, located at 500m from our tent, it provided us with a nice opportunity to bank a km each time we became beach bums. Over 10 days, I estimate those trips to 8.

Walks to the store - we were lucky to have one about 500m away and because we had regular needs for drinking water, ice, bread and ice cream, those trips became quite usual by the second day. Estimated 8 of them as well.

Total walking distance (just around camp) - 36km, two of them were barefoot, just because.

Hiking:

Hiking was our second source of fitness, combined with geocaching, because you have to put some extra motivation in those hikes, you know, dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, that works pretty well. Suited up with backpack, GPS, a good dose of deet, sandwiches and at times, not enough water, we went into the following adventures:

The Lookout 2.5km

Sitting on top of the world

The Secret Lookout 3km

Jungle gym

Centennial Ridges Trail 10km

The Spruce Bog Boardwalk 1.5km

Beaver Pond Trail 2.1km

Total hiking distance - 19.1km

Swimming:

Even since I knew we were going to stay at the Lake of Two Rivers Campground, I gave myself the challenge of finding the geocache placed on a little island in the middle of the lake and what best way of getting to it other than commando, aka swimming. Since I am not such a strong swimmer and the great outdoors still overwhelm me, I chose to do the swim in my wetsuit. People looked at me strange every time I put it on, but hey, I rather be comfortable and relax than drown in front of their eyes.

Commando geocaching

Finding the cache was no problem, quickly signed the log and put back in place. Happy to see an ammo box  as well, that was like the cherry on the cake. Here's me with cache GC82F0. We spent the rest of the day on the island, diving in the lake and fishing, that was an all around awesome day. Since I was still sick though, I decided to go back to the beach in the canoe with hubbs and the boys and postpone the longer swims for later in the week.

Speaking of which, the day before the last, I suited up once again and went for a swim around the island, happy and relaxed. Here is the Runkeeper activity for this epic loop.

Total swim distance: 2.2km

Biking:

We didn't bring our bikes with us, not only because we wanted to rest, but because they are both road bikes and we were mostly interested in doing the Old Railway Bike Trail, which required mountain bikes. So one day we rented mountain bikes for all of us and we went on this adventure without quite knowing what to expect. What we feared the most was BEAR. And we found bear poop right in the middle of the trail, which was as close as we got to meeting a bear. It made the bike ride even more challenging, in which we were all secretly running away from an invisible predator, without saying it out loud for fear of inducing panic in each other. The bike ride was a 12km out and back to the camp along the Lake of Two Rivers and Whitefish Lake. Just at the end of Whitefish Lake there was this bridge from which people were jumping in the lake. We were not prepared for this, but the chance was too good to pass on, so without taking our clothes off, we jumped in as well. Below is a picture of me, soaked wet and proud. The bridge was so hot it was burning my feet, the smile only lasted for a second :-)

Wet and wild

Total biking: 24km

Running:

The second day after we arrived, I was still pumped up after the tri and went on a short 30min trail run with hubbs. Alas we didn't repeat the feat as my cough got worse and worse and it was physically impossible to keep a running pace without coughing my lungs out. I even threw up once because of coughing too hard. Not fun at all. That was a reckon mission on the Old Railway Trail, before our bike ride. Looking back, after finding the bear poo, I am glad that we didn't run again on the same trail, yikes!

Total running: 5km

Kayaking:

Before leaving the camp, we had one last mission, that was to rent kayaks for the boys so they can get in some paddling action of their own. That day the current on the lake was a bit too strong though and my youngest son decided that he had enough after crossing to the island. While he spent the rest of the day diving, I took over the kayak and went in a bit of exploring with my older son and later, hubbs.

This is what my first rowing activity on Runkeeper looked like.

Below are more totals:

Wildlife sightings : moose 2, snake 1, frog 2, turtle 2, bear poo 1
Ice cream: regular scoops 3, soft serve 1
Alcohol consumed: beer 1
Fish caught: 0
Jumps from bridge in water, fully clothed: 2
Hours spent in hospital: 1
Campfires: 0
Marshmallows eaten: 4
Geocaches found: 14
Mosquito bites: 2

This has been by far the best vacation we spent as a family. So much fun, such beautiful scenery that we discovered, breathed, tasted, and touched. The only downside was my illness (which is now officially bronchitis) and the impromptu trip to the hospital that I had to make one night with an UTI. Not sure how we can top it off, we wanted to make another family trip at the end of the year to mark our 15th anniversary but all of a sudden, it feels a bit superfluous.

Until then, there will be work, work and work and another marathon for which the training started... oh wait, yesterday!

How was your vacation, if you had any? What are your autumn goals?